► Seats (too high, too hard, pillion...) and suspension

or get a low factory seat and stick the airhawk on it (non neoprene one) which is around £45 from my failing memory. I'm a short arse at 5' 7" and I did Garmisch to Calais in one hit without any bottom bother :D
 
Slowdown said:
Well on the BMW off road course I was on that was the general opinion. Personally, I found it a real handful off road. Perhaps there's been an update to the software in the intervening 9 months ???
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a tooth less on the front sprocket will apparently give you the control and traction you need and compensate for the snatch-iness. I'm giving that a whirl soon in any case.
 
sijohnston said:
a tooth less on the front sprocket will apparently give you the control and traction you need and compensate for the snatch-iness. I'm giving that a whirl soon in any case.
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Never understand how dropping a tooth would do this. Would it not mean you have more torque on opening the throttle in every gear making the problem worse. I tried it on my 990, I felt it made the pickup even more abrupt ...:eek
 
lowering kit 800 anyone?

Please direct me if i've missed it on the site, I'm looking for a lowering kit. So I can get my feet down and consider riding 'off road', gravel roads and stuff where I need to manoeuvre at low speed, I just can't reach at the mo and it makes me terribly nervous.
Anyone seen a thread where anyone has tried them?
Thanks.
Catherine.
 
Hi Catherine

I was going to be unkind and suggest you should have bought the F650GS twin...

IIRC you already have the low seat. Can you bring the forks through the yokes on the F800GS?

Have a look through the Seats (too high, too hard, pillion...), wheel sizes and suspension thread. I seem to remember there's a link somewhere to a company that specialised in F800GS solutions. Also check out post #118 in that thread.

Tim
 
Thanks Tim

I know but they didn't do it in yellow! It does help to keep cars at bay.
I bought the 800 for the road riding bit. Sometimes I have to keep up with people who ride very fast indeed, and it does very well.
I also bought it for motorway riding which it also does very well, I found my 650 wasn't up to it, and I liked the way the 1200 ate up the miles even in dreadful weather.
I will check out that post again, I didn't see that link.
I have dropped it through the forks a bit. I need to be heavier, it expects me to be 85 kg and I'm about 63.
Catherine.
 
Jackie lowered hers by the use of HyperPro shortened springs. Dropped it by about 25 mm ( an inch of your old money ), and she has gone from insecure leg dangling to a sure foot hold on the ground when needed. The cost of the springs was about £160.00 for both front and rear.
Cheaper than a Kahedo seat or complete shock replacement, and more balanced than replacing just the rear.
She did have the shocks lowered through the forks by about 25mm, and the rear shock adjuster wound fully out before the spring replacement. That did obviously improve from the stock height, but with the HyperPro springs we have put the forks back to their original place.

I believe HyperPro can lower it even more of required ...
 
Mrs Berin had the same problem, even after lowering a lowered seat.

We fitted the Hyperpro kit.

You can buy from Calsport

Been fitted about 8 months, doesn't seem to affect handling on the road and it's been OK off road too, although it's obviously lost ground clearance.

But since the modus operandi for stopping before the kit was to drop the bike on the ground overall it's an improvement.
 
rin_sun said:
I was going to try dropping through the forks a bit more and some platform boots!

Catherine.
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Just noticed you're from Oxford - oddly, NOG were unable to fit the kit (even more odd as they would supply it:nenau).

But, the guys at the back of MPS express (Fox's Diner) - can't remember the name - did it and did a very good job.
Mrs Berin is about 5'6" and with the 50mm kit fitted and dropped (i think) 10mm through the forks she can get both feet down, although not flat.

It means whenever I ride it my knees are by my ears though
 
Patsy Quick cant touch the ground at all on her KTM Dakar bike :augie

I'm 5'7" and I fitted some handlebar risers yesterday so that I can get even further away from the ground. No doubt I will pay for such flippant comments when I next do a face plant when off roading :tears
 
Like Berin's experience with NOG, our local HyperPro Specialist fitting Centre could not fit the spring they supplied to the rear shock. Something to do with their spring compressor not fitting the 800GS shock. They sent it to Calsport, who turned it round in a couple of days.
 
Front Shocks Adjustment

Let me begin with...I am a knob when it comes to working on motorbikes.
In short, when I bought my F800GS the salesman said I could probably lower the bike by 1/2 inch if I losened the forks and dropped them down in the triple clamp. I did loosen all 4 bolts on the fork head and nothing happened. I hit the top of the 3-clamp with a rubber mallet and nothing happened. I immediately went into the house grabbed a cold beer:aidan and wrote this query! Any help or thoughts would be much appreciated.
 
Mate, try taking the weight of them and then sliding them up through the triple clamps. Having said that its not something I recommend as it can alter the steering drastically.....it can even be dangerous. If you want to lower the bike I strongly suggest you spend a few hundred $$$ and see a suspension specialist as both the front and rear will need to be matched.
 
taking the front down doesnt do a lot exept quicken the steering,it can get dangerouse, lower the rear at the same time, the salesman was a d*ck, if you do it, be carefull 1st time you go out, the 800 has quite a bit of rake, it may be ok, but it will hardly lower anything
 
+1

The salesman is worse than a knobhead - he's a dangerous knobhead.

Ferkin' about with rake is not something you want to do unless you're absolutely 100% sure of the consequences. As well as quickening up the steering (on a Trailie?:eek) it will definitely affect your chances of getting an insurance settlement if you have an 'off' and the adjustment is spotted. Leave it well alone, mate.

If your aim is to just lower the bike, get yourself a lower seat...your knobhead salesman should have told you they were available.

Ride safe.
 
BM_donator said:
If it's so important that the settings are right (as this thread suggests) then I hope every bike that left the factory had exactly the correct setting.

....might be worth checking :augie
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Good point, BM.

I don't know how they build these bikes - but if it's a rolling production line I would assume that the forks would be assembled to the headstock/yokes on a jig to avoid discrepancies - and speed up assembly....dunno, though.:nenau

It's worth bearing in mind that to lower the bike by half an inch will mean dropping the yokes by a larger amount to achieve 1/2" overall height drop:rob
 
Thank you for the input. My original goal was to lower the bike by about 1/2 inch. I already have the low seat and at least from what I have read, people have had mixed results with the various lowering kits. Again, I would not have thought of this procedure on my own....however the salesman I spoke to seemed quite adamant that lowering the forks was simple and safe. (Key learning point here was don't listen to the dude in sales.) I am just going to leave well enough alone...
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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