Max Kool
Well-known member
As some may know I've been using a Mupo rear shock for a while, and recently upgraded to Mupo LCRR fork cartridges.
It's not that I didn't like the stock "S" suspension, it's actually pretty good for an average 170-220lbs rider imho. But not perfect. It can be harsh on ruts and cracks, while at the same time it wallows every now and then on bigger dips and undulations. Making the rear sway a bit while banked over. My biggest gripe though, my FTR lacked ground clearance in long right handers. I was scraping the headers more often than I liked.
So last year I bought a Mupo AB1 Evo to fix the rear end. Apart from the usual preload, rebound, and hi/lo speed compression, it also offers ride height adjustment. The shock can be made shorter and longer with a separate adjuster. Don't expect you can use this to lower the bike, the adjustment range is from 1mm shorter to nearly 10mm taller, which translates to nearly 20mm extra ride height in the rear. Just what the doctor ordered! At the same time I slid the forks down in the triples to the first ring on the forks. That's close to 8mm extra front right height. So now my bike was a bit taller, and with the rear raised more than the front, steers a tad quicker. I really, really liked my bike like this.
Until I ran into a pair of near new black, non-adjustable FTR base forks. I never liked the look of the gold forks in the Race Replica, and this was a great opportunity. My initial plan was to swap the internals of my RR forks to the Base forks, and vice versa. Removing the internals from the Base forks wasn't as easy I hoped, the cartridges are installed with threadlocker through the bottom of the forks. This wouldn't be a problem if the bottom of the cartridge didn't have a pressed-in base that rotates with the bolt....
I had to drill one out, which left me with this.
Nothing was lost at this point, I didn't need the Base cartridges anyway, but it was an omen for things to come if I were to take apart the adjustable "S" forks. If these come apart just as bad as the Base forks.... I scratched my head a few times and decided to leave the "S" forks as is. They're good, they work, and may come handy at a later time. Heck, I may even sell them off.
I called my suspension guru to explore options. I had a Mupo shock already but was open to other options too. Andreani, Bitubo, GP Suspension for example.
Andreani are generally considered a bit harsh for street riding.
Bitubo use pressurized closed cartridges, and tbh, I feel being pressurized they may be harder to service in the future, and more prone to failure (leaking).
It was a tie for me between GP Suspension and Mupo. I ended up choosing Mupo LCRR cartridges for two reasons. My suspension dude rates Mupo as having one of the best bump absorption, and the simple fact that I already had a shock from them, which I really like. Money was transferred, the wait began.... In the meantime I prepared the forks by thoroughly cleaning the inside and polishing the chrome legs to reduce stiction between the inside legs and the bushings/seals as much as possible. 5-6 weeks later this showed up in the mail.
(ignore the shock eyelet, that's another experiment)
Install of the new cartrdiges is pretty straight forward if you know what you're doing and have the right tools. Remove the threadlocker from the new bottom bolts, you don't need that (at least, according to the suspension guy). Some day you may want to remove the cartridges to service or revalve them. The cartridge holder tool for the Sachs cartridges is the same as for Mupo. Race Tech TFCH 04A Fork Cartridge Holding Tool.
Fork oil level set at 150mm, bolted everything together making sure the clickers can make the full 50 clicks, and done.
Before I went out I set the sag/preload. 15mm of static sag gave me 45mm of rider sag, which seems spot on for 150mm total suspension travel, 30%. Btw, if you ever want to measure the sag on your bike, the stock forks have a total of 176mm exposed lower leg when fully extended. It never uses the last 26mm of "travel". So if you run a tiewrap around your forks make sure there's always at least an inch between the tiewrap and the bottom of the chrome fork leg. Preferably a bit more, you really don't want forks to bottom out.
My first ride was just an hour or in city traffic to get the feel for it and double check if everything works as expected (that's me, sorry). Our roads here are sometimes pretty bad, and it gives a good opportunity to test braking behavior. All good, but you can't really judge suspension like this.
Sunday was D-day, canyon time, and oh I'm in love. First of all, the stock FTR spring are progressive, they firm up as you use suspension travel. Which may be nice to cater for any loads between a solo 150lbs rider and 400lbs rider plus passenger, I think they suck. They firm up the suspension unnecessarily in the second part of the stroke. They also make your forks spend most of their time in the lower half of the stroke, the softer part of the spring is easily "consumed".
The Mupo carts come with linear springs, which feels firmer in the first part of the travel, but a tad soft in the second part of the stroke. Gone is the woolly feeling while coasting or mildly accelerating, gone is the harsh feeling while braking (into a turn especially). Bump damping is top notch. On the brakes these are like a dream. Steering is a little slower than with the stock forks, which makes sense as the spring are different. A geometry thing. I'm dialing that out by reducing a few mm's front preload, and adding a little ride height in the rear.
Should you buy it too? No, not definitely. The stock suspension on an S or RR is pretty adequate, and can be tuned with different springs and or fork oil viscosity. Remember this journey started as a simpel fork and internals swap. For cosmetic reasons. Was it worth it? Yesss! If you regularly ride canyons or other twisty, bad roads, good (and well adjusted) suspension is surely worth it. It's hard to describe, but good suspension is firm without being harsh. Don't suddenly expect Goldwing levels of comfort, it doesn't work like that, but the bike does feel better balanced for me. I feel I got more than I wanted.
I do need a taller sidestand now...
It's not that I didn't like the stock "S" suspension, it's actually pretty good for an average 170-220lbs rider imho. But not perfect. It can be harsh on ruts and cracks, while at the same time it wallows every now and then on bigger dips and undulations. Making the rear sway a bit while banked over. My biggest gripe though, my FTR lacked ground clearance in long right handers. I was scraping the headers more often than I liked.
So last year I bought a Mupo AB1 Evo to fix the rear end. Apart from the usual preload, rebound, and hi/lo speed compression, it also offers ride height adjustment. The shock can be made shorter and longer with a separate adjuster. Don't expect you can use this to lower the bike, the adjustment range is from 1mm shorter to nearly 10mm taller, which translates to nearly 20mm extra ride height in the rear. Just what the doctor ordered! At the same time I slid the forks down in the triples to the first ring on the forks. That's close to 8mm extra front right height. So now my bike was a bit taller, and with the rear raised more than the front, steers a tad quicker. I really, really liked my bike like this.
Until I ran into a pair of near new black, non-adjustable FTR base forks. I never liked the look of the gold forks in the Race Replica, and this was a great opportunity. My initial plan was to swap the internals of my RR forks to the Base forks, and vice versa. Removing the internals from the Base forks wasn't as easy I hoped, the cartridges are installed with threadlocker through the bottom of the forks. This wouldn't be a problem if the bottom of the cartridge didn't have a pressed-in base that rotates with the bolt....
I had to drill one out, which left me with this.
Nothing was lost at this point, I didn't need the Base cartridges anyway, but it was an omen for things to come if I were to take apart the adjustable "S" forks. If these come apart just as bad as the Base forks.... I scratched my head a few times and decided to leave the "S" forks as is. They're good, they work, and may come handy at a later time. Heck, I may even sell them off.
I called my suspension guru to explore options. I had a Mupo shock already but was open to other options too. Andreani, Bitubo, GP Suspension for example.
Andreani are generally considered a bit harsh for street riding.
Bitubo use pressurized closed cartridges, and tbh, I feel being pressurized they may be harder to service in the future, and more prone to failure (leaking).
It was a tie for me between GP Suspension and Mupo. I ended up choosing Mupo LCRR cartridges for two reasons. My suspension dude rates Mupo as having one of the best bump absorption, and the simple fact that I already had a shock from them, which I really like. Money was transferred, the wait began.... In the meantime I prepared the forks by thoroughly cleaning the inside and polishing the chrome legs to reduce stiction between the inside legs and the bushings/seals as much as possible. 5-6 weeks later this showed up in the mail.
(ignore the shock eyelet, that's another experiment)
Install of the new cartrdiges is pretty straight forward if you know what you're doing and have the right tools. Remove the threadlocker from the new bottom bolts, you don't need that (at least, according to the suspension guy). Some day you may want to remove the cartridges to service or revalve them. The cartridge holder tool for the Sachs cartridges is the same as for Mupo. Race Tech TFCH 04A Fork Cartridge Holding Tool.
Fork oil level set at 150mm, bolted everything together making sure the clickers can make the full 50 clicks, and done.
Before I went out I set the sag/preload. 15mm of static sag gave me 45mm of rider sag, which seems spot on for 150mm total suspension travel, 30%. Btw, if you ever want to measure the sag on your bike, the stock forks have a total of 176mm exposed lower leg when fully extended. It never uses the last 26mm of "travel". So if you run a tiewrap around your forks make sure there's always at least an inch between the tiewrap and the bottom of the chrome fork leg. Preferably a bit more, you really don't want forks to bottom out.
My first ride was just an hour or in city traffic to get the feel for it and double check if everything works as expected (that's me, sorry). Our roads here are sometimes pretty bad, and it gives a good opportunity to test braking behavior. All good, but you can't really judge suspension like this.
Sunday was D-day, canyon time, and oh I'm in love. First of all, the stock FTR spring are progressive, they firm up as you use suspension travel. Which may be nice to cater for any loads between a solo 150lbs rider and 400lbs rider plus passenger, I think they suck. They firm up the suspension unnecessarily in the second part of the stroke. They also make your forks spend most of their time in the lower half of the stroke, the softer part of the spring is easily "consumed".
The Mupo carts come with linear springs, which feels firmer in the first part of the travel, but a tad soft in the second part of the stroke. Gone is the woolly feeling while coasting or mildly accelerating, gone is the harsh feeling while braking (into a turn especially). Bump damping is top notch. On the brakes these are like a dream. Steering is a little slower than with the stock forks, which makes sense as the spring are different. A geometry thing. I'm dialing that out by reducing a few mm's front preload, and adding a little ride height in the rear.
Should you buy it too? No, not definitely. The stock suspension on an S or RR is pretty adequate, and can be tuned with different springs and or fork oil viscosity. Remember this journey started as a simpel fork and internals swap. For cosmetic reasons. Was it worth it? Yesss! If you regularly ride canyons or other twisty, bad roads, good (and well adjusted) suspension is surely worth it. It's hard to describe, but good suspension is firm without being harsh. Don't suddenly expect Goldwing levels of comfort, it doesn't work like that, but the bike does feel better balanced for me. I feel I got more than I wanted.
I do need a taller sidestand now...
