Buckster

Picture?

That would take @Six30 three minutes at the most.

You were the one pm’ing other guys asking for bum sex.

Try again with your glasses on.

I have never met bummer, isn’t he a friend of @Tym?

Those shiny things you avoid so you don’t scare yourself.

They better be, I spent £800 on these bad boys.

I think the technical term is "fucked".

It is due to shit soaking into the seat fabric.

Are you sure it isn't a bladder infection?

Pete was a great help during my research.

At this point I had narrowed things down to a few preferred shocks, 2win are very good on price but the specs are hard to get, Ohlins are well reviewed but at a price, YSS do what is probably the best emulsion type shock and then the wild card is the Nitron twin shock R1. I decided against the YSS as I do not want another emulsion set up. I had pretty much settled on the 2win but two factors put me off, I found it only has a 26mm piston and the resellers are twats, I never trust anyone that needs to slag off their competitors. I spoke to Brook suspension a few times, I was getting very interested in the expensive but highly rated Ohlins, they were very helpful and very honest, they even suggested having another look at the YSS which are £400 less than the Ohlins. Then I brought up the subject of Nitron, we had a long discussion on the difference between Nitron and Ohlins. The Nitrons use machined components throughout as opposed to a mix between machined and cast. It seemed that Nitron are about the best made shocks currently available and they offered the adjustability I wanted, I could also specify a 12.5 inch shock so I was very interested. After doing some additional research to verify what I had been told I have ordered Nitron shocks.

So continuing, remote reservoir or piggyback shocks are overkill in most road bikes, they give the widest range of adjustment but need to be adjusted more often. The sweet spot is a single body gas shock, a good emulsion shock is generally better than stock but still has limitations. As far as piston diameter is concerned for a 12 to 13 inch shock the sweet spot for shock travel and good damping is 35 to 36mm. This will allow just under 4 inches of travel.

The trailer only adds 8kg to the back of the bike.

So there are basically two types of shocks available readily, emulsion where the oil and gas mix, or gas shock where the oil and gas are separate. With emulsion shocks they may have nitrogen mixed with the oil or they may be air assist as my standard shocks are, with air assist the preload is altered by adding air which also alters the compression and rebound. This drastically reduces shock travel as well and generally this type of shock will have a smaller piston. Emulsion shocks with pre charged nitrogen are better but still have limitations, the general rule is that you can alter the rebound damping but the compression is fixed, spring preload is kept separate which is better. Then you have single bodied shocks where the nitrogen and oil are kept separate, with this type you generally alter the rebound and compression damping together. The only way to separate everything is with piggy back shocks or other layouts that use a completely separate gas chamber. The other thing to consider is piston diameter, a larger piston diameter will generally mean a shorter piston chamber which allows a longer shock travel, it sounds counter intuitive but it is because it occupies less space inside the spring.

That’s not correct for a number of reasons, but you will have to wait for the rest of my explanation.

Despite all of your playfulness, I know you only do it because you all feel inferior to me. I have decided out of kindness to give you a rundown on my research process and what led upto it. When I lived in the colonies and bought the bike, the standard air assist shocks were never that impressive but were fine as the roads in the USA are damn well made, I had more concerns over the front forks and addressed this with single rate springs and better dampeners. I covered well over 30k miles like that and road all over the states. When I moved back to the U.K. I actually had use of a 950 Adventure for a year while a friend was working in S.A. so I left the Harley in storage in Georgia, the second year I had a Triumph Thruxton R which I really liked but wasn’t a distance bike, so I started making plans to bring the glide over. Almost immediately I realised that the rear shocks were no match for the pock marked cart tracks of Scotland but I soldiered on and eventually I decided to drain the shock oil and put a heavier weight in. This made a big difference but it was still far from good. So this last year I started researching rear shocks. I knew just about anything would be better than the standard units but the engineer in me meant I needed to learn all the differences in construction and price versus quality. I also wanted them sprung for my weight which is something that made a huge difference when I did the front end.

Getting trolled by a human toaster is a new low, even for me,

It’s probably to tall for you anyway.

Yeah, well he is a Mexican.

Shut it wetback.