bandytales wrote:
Hi J-T-L, keep us posted as to what you think of the shock changes. I know when you pay a lot of money for something you may feel obliged to say it's good, but please try to be honest!
For me, it shouldn't take much to improve the stock items as they are pretty poor in terms of suppleness on choppy surfaces.
Just a little bit later than intended but here goes:
The very short version is: "Yes, a definite and noticeable improvement. With caveats."
I'm not a good writer when it comes to describing how shocks feel, but I'll do my best.
They are immediately more compliant, more supple, and the bike feels more planted. The handling feels better but I want to qualify that by saying that I've only written a relatively short distance (~60 miles). I did notice when I made the same changes on a GSA that the shocks had a short break-in period which was a bit of a surprise, but given that they felt a little different it may have been me that needed the break-in.
For this to be a worthwhile investment, I think you'll have to be scrupulously honest when you state your battle-dressed weight, and give the guy working on your shocks all possible information to get it right. Also, be scrupulously honest about how you intend to ride. If you are actually not going to be very aggressive, don't say you are - there's no point in setting the bike up for maximum sport capability if that isn't how you're going to ride. This reminds me of something someone said about BMW magnificent sports car marketing: they are persuading you that you are buying what you think you want, when you are really buying what you actually want.
More cruelly, many think they want true sports, but what they really want is sporting pretensions. The subtext of that is that we really want comfort rather than sport otherwise we be on some wildly aggressive Ducati or Kawasaki or whatever.
is it worth the money? That's up to you, but read on after considering the obvious question as to how much money you want to spend on things like this.
To me, it was worth the money, but not to the degree that I would consider it a total game changer for the bike although that might change with time. I don't quite understand why, but despite having it now for a couple of years, I have failed to fall in love with the RT. On the one hand, it is quite possibly one of the best A to B machines I've ever owned - and that's now been quite few, two and four wheels - but the bike never hit that emotional spot driven by the ever-elusive character of a bike.
Although supremely efficient as it does virtually everything very well, I don't look back over my shoulder at it as I leave the garage. So the changes made the bike better, but didn't make it more fun, more desirable. This was an effort and an expense intended to confirm whether the bike is a very long-term keeper why not. The jury is still out, and probably will be until COVID-19 settles down and I can head off for a few days riding.
If you are a dyed-in-the-wool RT man to the core, I'd say this is an excellent upgrade for you. And to be fair, if I lived in a place where the riding generally was more interesting, I'd probably be a lot more enthused.
The slightly longer short version: If you really love your RT, this is a worthwhile upgrade. If you're kind of on the fence, you'll still be on the fence but with a better handling, more comfortable bike;)
Hopefully this will make some sense to someone. Fire away if you have any questions...