I'm going to put an Ohlins suspension on the bike - what do I need to know?

[The Mountain]

Have you looked at Tractiv? I believe they manufacture of the Touratech shocks, but I don’t know what their dealer network is like. Might be worth exploring. As for getting crap from others, I wouldn’t worry about it. You should do whatever you want and tell anyone that disagrees to piss off!

Thanks. It looks like you're right about TracTive supplying Touratech. TracTive only has one motorcycle dealer in the US, a BMW guy out in California. They do have a decent network internationally, though nothing in India. Outside of Europe, their locations look like they'd be a tolerable alternative to Touratech, with some centers in places Touratech didn't cover.

At least now I know that the Touratech shock is actually a legitimate unit, and not something they tried to develop in-house. TracTive isn't exactly a household name here in the US, but they look fairly substantial.

 

[gv550]

I wouldn't be overly concerned about a worldwide dealer network to service a specific brand of aftermarket shock. I think any suspension shop will be able to service all brands, most companies use common sizes for seals, shafts, pistons, etc.

 

[The Mountain]

I wouldn't be overly concerned about a worldwide dealer network to service a specific brand of aftermarket shock. I think any suspension shop will be able to service all brands, most companies use common sizes for seals, shafts, pistons, etc.

Understood, but >95% of the "suspension" shops in India are going to be set up to repair the primitive and tiny shocks on Indian bikes. Big import bikes are a tiny fraction of the motorcycle population there, and custom add-on companies for those (that do anything other than cosmetic stuff) are still very rare. Even if they end up having to ship the shock off to somewhere else for the actual work, there is a real Touratech retailer in Bangalore, so they'll actually know how to handle it properly. I'm not really worried about what I would do if I needed repair here in the States. It's what I would have to do once I get overseas that is important.

 

[The Mountain]

Well, an update:

Ohlins is now saying that the fork set I want won't be available until September even if ordered direct from Ohlins. I just placed the order for the Touratech shock for the rear yesterday, which is also backordered, and am waiting to hear from them on what the delivery time will be for that.

I do like the design of the Ohlins forks, but am not thrilled with the delivery time. The shop hasn't ordered it yet, so if someone has a suggestion for either an alternate source, or a *good* alternative I'm open to suggestions. The Ohlins cartridges are 30mm pistons with a much freer-flowing design than stock, so I at least want to try for something equivalent to that.

 

[The Mountain]

Another update: I can't get the forks anywhere else, so I decided to go with Tractive forks, and since I am, I will be getting a shock from them too since it's the same as the Touratech unit for $350 less. The one caveat is that they swear that the rear spring only needs to be a 160N for my weight and which they say will be stiff at that rate. They have apparently confirmed this by bringing a Super10 into their shop and measuring sag for different rider weights after numerous customer complaints of a too-stiff spring going by the original TracTive spring chart that called for a 170N spring. I guess we'll have to see. Now I have to cancel my Touratech order.

Edited to add: The TracTive forks have 35mm pistons, so they flow WAY more than the puny 20mm stock cartridges, and should also flow a bit more than the 30mm Ohlins units. The Ohlins piston has an area of about 706sq mm, whereas the Tractive piston has an area of 962sq mm. According to the US TracTive rep, Ohlins isn't really an "adventure" company, so their stuff isn't truly geared to that application. TracTive, on the other hand, is. So when it all arrives in about ~4 weeks, I'll do a review and let you all know how it went.