| I replied to this post on Sunday, but problems with the message board seem to have wiped out my reply. People have mostly covered what I put in my reply, but there are a couple of things I said that aren't there.
Firstly, raising the rear ride height is essential (these bikes are very low as standard) and raising the rear does indeed raise the ground clearance and sharpen the steering considerably - you'll have even more confidence in the front after doing it. However, remember that because of the cantilever arrangement of the rear suspension any increase in the ride height adjuster is effectively doubled at the tyre, so don't go too mad. The law of diminishing returns also comes into it and you'll find the benefits of raising the ride height decrease exponentially. If you raise the rear by 20mm the effect on the steering will be very noticeably better. If you raise it further, it will still sharpen the steering but much less noticeably than the first 20mm (take it from me, I once had mine set so high that it wouldn't sit on the centre stand).
I'm with Monty on this one, the rear tyre just kissing the floor is my preference. I haven't noticed the rear getting loose with this arrangement (although my ST2 has 40 less bhp than Monty's 4S so it doesn't spin the rear as easily), but the bike will shake it's head more when accelerating over bumps - personally I like this as it's a more involving ride, but you may not.
Next 'free' mod is getting your suspension set up right in terms of pre-load, compression, rebound on both front and rear. Don't take these things for granted on a secondhand bike, check it all out and make sure it's set to factory settings for a kick-off and tweak it from there. Suspension settings are a very personal taste depending on whether you want the bike set up more on the sporting end or the touring end of the sport/tourer equation and, as well as your riding style, are highly dependent on your weight (and the weight of a pillion and luggage if you're a tourer). There are loads of threads about this on the site if you do a search, but you can also take the bike to a suspension specialist to do it for you for about £40.
Another 'free' mod is to take a drill to the back of your airbox and cut some holes in it. Some people cut 'letterboxes', but I've drilled 8 x 22mm holes in mine. The airbox volume on ST's is very restrictive and opening the airbox lid up a bit increases the effective volume (the Ducati Performance 'airbox' isn't even a lid it's just a frame to hold the airfilter so it's completely open)
I personally disagree with Rockhopper about the Scottoiler. My bike has one and I've stopped using it because it's a pain, the only thing it seems to do effectively is cover the LHS of the rear wheel of the bike with thrown-off oil. Getting the flow rate of the thing right is a never ending battle - you get it regulated so that it's metering out one drip every minute, then it gets hotter or colder and the viscosity of the oil changes and you start all over again. With modern X ring chains the lube is sealed in, so all you need is a thin coating of oil on the outside of the chain to stop rust. I used the scottoiler exclusively on my first chain and got about 12K miles out of it. Stopped using it on the replacement chain and just give this one a once over with WD40 before each ride (and sometimes even forget to do this). So far, I'm on about 10K miles with no visible need to change the chain yet.
[Edited on 16-8-2005 by Jools]  |