Low and Mean Shock, Initials Part I:

7914 Views 69 Replies 22 Participants Last post by macxpert, Apr 19, 2010

RedspawnSilver

Discussion Starter · Apr 15, 2010 (Edited)

Part I:

Okay, as some of you know, just got my new lowered shock back from Low and Mean, the whole assembly was sent off to them and a completely new one was sent back to me. This is a record of visual shots and initial feeling, so that you can see a comparison of just base visuals and how it felt to be lower to the ground. I will give an updated report on the feel of the shock here in a couple of days after I tweak the feel of it for a couple of times to make sure this is a good shock to go with, before giving my final "thumbs up" on the design (For the review of just the spring from Clueless, http://www.furyforums.com/forum/fury-suspension-setup-tires-wheels/2785-l-m-spring.html).

Initial feeling from this shock is as follows:

Bike "feels" lower once I got on it. I.E. I sat down on it and I definitely noticed it was lower than before.
Kick Stand, once lowered hit's the ground sooner, giving it more of an upright feel and look to it and definitely has less of a lean to it than before.
When I pull up to a light or a stop sign and put my foot down, I noticed the difference in clearance. It definitely was lower than before as I had to get used to how quick my foot hit the ground, compared to the stock shock. I almost dragged my foot the first couple of times and had to get used to the height difference.
I can feel the air on the highway hit my chest a tad bit higher than it did before. The wind hit me mid/mid-high in the chest before and now hit's me mid-high/bottom of neck line now.
Turning radius is lower now on slow turns, as in I definitely felt myself leaning a lot less in the turn as to not scrap my peg. I scrapped it once right off the bat and had to get used to the lowered profile of the bike.
I felt as though I was going faster on this bike than I was before, I associated it with the feeling of being in a lowered race car or rice burner, compared to a regular car or truck. The higher up you are, the slower you feel like you're going, even at 70 mph, where when you are lower, closer to the ground, it makes you feel like you are going slightly faster. I know, only an 1 1/2 closer to the ground, but after 12.6k miles I can definitely feel the difference, even if it's just a visual illusion.
Bike felt more stable, even up to 90 mph, but there was no kind of head wind or cross wind at the time, will have to wait till the winds blow a little more.
Lower speeds, it felt more responsive in the small, quick turns associated with a slower speed "swerve" or "butt lean", where I leaned back to put more weight on the back tire for the turn. It actually felt more smooth, but this could just be my initial reaction after not riding my bike for a week and being happy to have it back.
Bumps, oh those bumps. When I drove up onto my drive-way before, I would get a light bump, followed by a rocking motion with the shock, kind of like being on a water bed, now when I hit the drive-way, it was more like a thump, I could definitely feel the drive-way now. It was rather harsh on some of the other hard bumps that I find on my road, not bone jarring, just more like a surprise in my gut when I hit them. The smaller bumps were fine though, but they did make me feel like I was in a low rider hitting a bump, it was really abrupt and immediate the feeling. (this is the part that might need to be fixed, but I am going to adjust the pre-shock adjustment first, before I give my final conclusion to Chris on this shock, he does have a softer one available...)

Initial before and after pics (luckily I have taken lots of pics, yes, this is my bike in the first month):

Before, you can see the gap here in the back side of the tire and how it is further away from the rim:

Gap isn't as pronounced as it was before:

Sitting on it before the install, you can see the gap and it is further away from the rim:

Last night after install, you can see it is closer to the rim, and the "gap" is less prominent.

The settings before I sent it off to Low and Mean for height adjustment:

After I got it back, they had adjusted it all the way down, so I would get the full lowering affect of the new shock:

The new blue shock looks better than the stock shock set up, in my opinion:

This is how to get the new shock into the shock area, without having to remove the tire. The bike is on a motorcycle jack, in order to let the tire fall all the way down as far as possible, come in from by the tire in this exact position:

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