Ducati Sporting Club UK > Model Specific - Discussion, Technical Problems and Help > General Motorcycles only > Suspension......

[smilo006]

I was talking to a suspension techie the other day. Very knowledgable bloke indeed. He was saying that basically although Ohlins have a great name, even the forks and rear suspension they do for the past and current superbike family are pretty shoddy. Better though now that OH are no longer owned by Yamahahahaha.
For example on the new 1198, the black coating goes no further up the fork leg than just above the cartridge. That OH forks are still built for the road and not track use and for people between 70 and 120 kgs.
However he did say that putting a track spring and valve kit in the forks was a really good and relatively cheap modification.
Rear springs ar also often to blame for problems beacuse the spring is not rated correctly for your own weight.

Suspension seems to play such an important part in a bikes performance, any other view or experiences?

[Dementor]

Love Ohlins I do

[skidlids]

I agree that standard production Ohlins forks offer little over a good set of Showas, my reworked Showas are better than the standard 748R Ohlins, but my R&T Ohlins in my 998Hybrid are an improvement again, but still not as good as the Ohlins Superbike forks that came in the 998R. as for the GP500 Ohlins forks I have I can't pass comment yet but suspect they're very good even though they are now a few years behind the times

So in order
Std Showas, Production Ohlins, Reworked showas, R&T Ohlins, SBK Ohlins, GP Ohlins

as for the rear Ohlins I have always found them very good especialy if they arefitted with the correct spring for your weight and useage and can be improved further with a revalve to suit yor needs.
The 1999 Yam R6 we took to the TT in 2003 had a Hi/low speed Ohlins rear shock all revalved and sprung for racing and the standard forks had been fitted with Ohlins springs and shim kits and handled the TT circuit really well with 114mph average lap times