Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Fork Me, Fork You

I'd booked the R1 in to have the front suspension serviced, re-valved and re-sprung on Monday when I was off on my RDO as my track day is only 3 weeks away now and I wanted to have the suspension in top working order before I hit the track.

I dropped the bike in at Teknik in Penrith as they did a fantastic job fixing up the rear shock. They offered their workshop scooter for me to get around on but I had to decline and decided to walk and look at the nearby bike shop and do some other shopping.

I got a phone call from Nick just before lunch. Yeah it was some bad news. The front fork sliders were forked. They had some major pitting and he didn't want to put it back together the way it was as it would leak oil everywhere. F*ck it. Just what I wanted to hear. Options were to buy new fork tube sliders from Yamaha for a bomb or send them to Melbourne to be re-chromed with a 2 week turn around. Double F*ck. That would be awful close to when I need to head down for my track day. And there's no guarantee that it would be back in time. Shit shit shit shit. Pardon the photo quality it was taken on my crappy old phone.





I have to give a big shout out to Nick and the boys from Teknik Motorsports. These guys are fucking fantastic. They went out of their way to get my bike back up and going again on the same day. Nick found a set of R1 forks at a wreckers nearby in St Marys and one of his guys went and picked them up. Yep they were in good condition too. They had the new(second hand) sliders put in, in no time at all and it was all back together and ready to go. Thanks guys that was great work. You really went above and beyond. Do you know how hard it is to find a set of 15 year old R1 forks?

I got the guys to set up the bike static sag and rider sag whilst I was there so at least that part is now correctly set. I had the rear shock set a bit too hard. The factory setting means nothing now its been re-sprung.



The new second hand fork tubes now newly installed I noticed there were no stone chips on them. My original ones were peppered with stone chips. Looks a lot better now.

If your looking to get your suspension upgraded give Nick a call on 02 4732 2626.