All done, the front lower shock bolt was a complete bastard and pretty buggered by the time it came out, Keith at MCT kindly donated the one from his bike which was in much better fettle by then.
I will post more (including pics) later, after I have ridden it a bit more but first impressions are:
Firstly MCT were brilliant, tea on tap, and a sofa to sit on whilst watching them work, and I do like companies with nothing to hide.
One thing I will say about the stock bike is it is much less affected by passenger and luggage than any other bike I have ridden, although I reckoned it needed improving it was actually quite reasonable two-up until the pace got up a bit.
After Darren doing a test / setup ride I went for a quick spin, but as it takes me a while to get a feel for any changes I was not too bothered about doing much fiddling, although they would happily help you set the bike up both solo / two up whilst there, and they offer ongoing telephone support if you have any issues.
The ride home was two-up with full luggage, I started at a recomended setting, but soon decided I wanted the bike higher at the back (probably after years of sportsbikes I need to ween myself off bum-up / head-down riding) so I added a load more pre-load and some more rebound damping as it had a bit of wallow going on.
A couple of stops on the way home provided further tweaking and by the end I was as happy chucking the bike about two-up with luggage as I would have been solo without luggage.
The OE shock was on max damping for me solo and was prone to wallow a little two up, after all the fiddling I was still only half way in on pre-load adjustment and still had ten turns remianing for both Low Speed Compression and Rebound Damping at the rear, not yet touched the front, Darren had set it relatively stiff to begin with for my preferences for still trying to ride it like a sportsbike (and to account for road tyres) and so far I have found the front brilliant.
Can't wait to get out and play solo, but the main goal has already been achieved, which is the ability to enjoy the bike in the twisties even when fully loaded.
Biggest observed difference is the lack of "fuss" when changing direction, the stock suspension always felt a bit odd during quick direction changes (like the bike had a hinge in the middle) whereas now it flicks from side to side much nicer, it also feels a shade less harsh over bumps and just generally "nicer" (could be the placebo effect of spending £1200) and the kit certainly looks most excellent - you can see the quility with an untrained eye.
