It's that time again.

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I guess we are all planing and getting ready for this year trips. So I thought a good post would be peoples bike and kit preparation's and why.

I'll start us off with suspension. It can make or break a trip, and of course getting a proper beating. What with extra load and pot holed roads, and off road. I service my own forks and have done for years and once you have done it once it straight forward. Simply removing the spring is not really enough, there are all sorts of things inside that can and do go wrong. So fully strip them, one of the problems I have found on big ADV bikes is that the compression shim stack can be damaged, closer inspection will some times reveal that the one or more of the shims can be bent backwards even broken. this will mean the forks will drive and probably bottom out punching through the stoke. It won't be that obvious unless the bike is loaded or ridden hard off road. They should obviously be replaced. these days you can get service kits for forks from most manufacturers. If your forks are soft and you are intending to load the bike up then this is the opportunity to up the weight of oil your using to stiffen the forks up in one easy move. I quite often mix two different weights (maybe 5 and 10 ) to get a better feel. This is also an opportunity to adjust your spring preload. If as std the bike is soft and riding low even with your adjusters full wound in then it's going to be a lot worse when loaded. So pop a spacer on top of the spring, this could be anything from 2mm to 50 mm after that you should be checking spring lengths and weights and weather the coils will bottom out or become spring bound. So with everything clean assemble. Now the most important part TEST them loaded.
Another little tip on forks is if your stansions are pitted then get some 1000 grit wet and dry paper and give them a dam good rubbing, and they carry on for years. You can also use the same wet and dry to hone the entire stansion ........what I here you say? Yes this is a trick the Cloggies (Dutch people) taught me, give them a good going over and it almost eliminates sticksion (wrong spelling) completely. Why? Because now there is a very light oil film covering the entire fork stansion stopping it sticking. Lastly replace the forks remembering to not over tighten the triple claps you be surprised how low the torque setting is. As for the shock, well unless you have a re gas er then that ha to be done by a suspension specialist. But obviously the linkage and mounts need check and re greasing. This is also the opportunity to change that spring for the correct one. My only advice here is if you go for a heavier spring because of the extra load then remember to tell the shock guy so he can increase the damping all round. But a good shock will sort all this for you. You wont go far wrong with Justin Gibbs http://www.gibbsperformance.co.uk/ tell him I sent yuh. Of course if you don't know what your doing or don't want to then leave it to the experts. But you have to be very honest with them, about riding style, personal weight, and how much you intend to carry.