Does yours honk?

[solidback]

Sorry if this post is a bit lengthy...
Went out for a quck run about seeing as the sun has managed to escape today.
Now that the bike (1200GS) has a few miles on it, I've been riding it a bit faster and harder than during the first 600 miles.
Got to a road which is always fun due to being a bit like a rollercoaster, waited for a safe moment to overtake the 4x4 in front, and zipped by him. Following the overtake I thought I heard a car horn and my first thought was 'what's his problem?' A couple of seconds later, same noise, then again.
At this point I realised that the noise was coming from the back of the bike, and was happening when the bike was in the dips of the road which cause the suspension to compress quite a lot. My previous 2 bikes (Harleys) only ever made crashing noises on this road as the shocks bottomed out so I stopped to have a look.
I thought that I may have been having trouble with the tyre making contact with the hugger, but there was no indication of this.
Turned round, went back down the same road and the noise was still there. Decided to head home for a thorough check, but can find no sign of tyre/hugger contact, there is a good 20mm clearance between the two all round the hugger surface.
So does anyone have any idea what may be making the noise? (there were no ducks trapped in there either before anyone starts!) Could it be the shock making noises when working hard?
I could remove the hugger and try again, but I'd rather not.

 

[bigchris]

Cant say i've ever had any honking sounds from my bike except when im prodding the horn button.

I would be bloody surprised if you were bottoming out the bike!

Maybe it could be the hugger? Its not uncommon for the lip to make contact with the tyre..

 

[solidback]

Thanks for the reply, the shock certainly isn't bottoming out, it's on the settings it left the dealers with and I'm only about 10 stone sopping wet (as I frequently am here)
I may have to run it up the same road without the hugger fitted as I cannot get the same noise on the roads local to me. I just thought that someone may have saved me the job of taking the hugger off if they had heard the same thing.

 

[mikepg]

Don't know m8 - but be interesting to find out and hope you manage to sort it.

 

[bigchris]

before you take the hugger off, why dont you stick some masking tape to the underside of it and then razz it up and down a few times on that stretch of road where you can make the bike sing?

if it is rubbing, you'll see the marks on the tape, and it'll be a quick and easy way of checking!

 

[solidback]

Turned out to be the trailing edge of the hugger (better than the leading edge) contacting the tyre.
I asume that this is because it's mounted to the torque arm and does not stay in the same position relative to the tyre when it moves up and down, but someone out there may know better (I'm not hanging off the side of the bike to find out!!)
Got my destroy it yourself kit out and remodelled the offending section which seems to sit low enough to be altered witout compromising the cack stopping capabilities... fingers crossed.
For the record, it's a Skidmarx hugger, which looks like the same one on Nippy Normans site.