No,not really....it's still performing poorly but I do have an idea about changing the brake lever for better leverage or rather the pivot position but that's a winter job...
OK,so I've put a few miles on the bike now and I already have changes to make.It was always an unknown when I first started building the bike so it's no surprise really.The main changes are the back and front
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The current forks are OK in the way they perform,but just OK...not great but you could live with them,but I'd rather have a good front end.I love the look of them but they cannot cope with rougher roads in that the compression and rebound do not work in harmony with each other.They are fine on dips and smooth rises but that's because they are soft which has its own problem when it comes to braking.I am using almost all of my travel and I've not had to brake in an emergency situation which could prove problematic.Stronger springs and pre-load spacers of various sizes haven't help and oil is either giving me some dampening or rock hard stiffness...I think I've tried almost every trick to get them to work....
This means I'm now looking at the go to R6 fork set-up or possibly Sv650....my only concern is how they would work with the bike seeing as its much lighter than a stock R6,hence the Sv650 idea,....although I could get some lighter springs for either,but they will definitely be more suited to the roads unlike the current Paoli forks I'm using now.
Then there's the back end....
The whole idea of using a linked monoshock was the exercise some engineering into the bike,to think outside the box as it were..but this too has its own issues..not that it doesn't work you see,it does.It is a little firm at the moment but simply having a couple of different linkage plates with different hole spacings would solve that..simple..however the main issue is the wheelbase..now I know its a road bike and not an all out racer but when I mocked the whole thing up during its early days I tried to keep the wheelbase no different that that of a standard XS,at least not longer that is...but once the wheels are in,chain tensioned and complete it has actually turned out to be 50mm longer than standard...
This may not be a big issue but flat track bikes are normally short and squat and the monoshock uses a lot of space..in fact the more I look at it the more I see length.....
I have two options..1 I lose the shock reservoir and use a simpler monoshock shrink the arm by 50mm or go all out and go traditional twin shock and gain a whole load of space in which to shrink the length...twin appeals to me in classic look and simplicity but goes against the original 'outside the box' mentality however we do know it would work and still look cool...
I have some decisions to make