Scarfail, take no notice of them, you’ll find a willing and knowledgeable posse here in the 1250 WC section to rally round and assist you.
Suspension, like which gloves and helmet go best to complete the look, is very much a personal thing. One biker’s “That’s way too soft” is another biker’s sweet spot. Put you large top box (it sounds excellent, what do you plan to carry in it? I bet your off for some cool adventures) on and set the suspension to ‘normal’, one helmet, no luggage. Go for a decent ride around, prereably on the sort of roads you mostly ride. Ask yourself, how does it feel? Then set it to the most extreme other end of the spectrum, two helmets and luggage. Don’t worry, it won’t break. How does it feel now? You’ll then have both ends. Now go for, one helmet, with luggage, which is sort of in the middle’ish. How does that feel? If it’s good, leave it. If it’s not, where was best? You don’t have to stick with the same setting and can change your mind. Who knows, you might find that two helmets, with luggage, is best when you are scratching through the twisties. Or you might prefer a softer more relaxed setting. Do though be sure to check your tyre pressures, as having them spot-on will take one key element out of the equation.
Do report back, as I’m sure your findings will be of interest to lots of, equally unsure, members of the forum.
Stay safe and enjoy your riding.
Thanks for your input.
I got the top box to commute. Almost always I'm carrying something, but I didn't know if the added weight, even if just empty, would push the suspension to the point I should change the preload settings.
I read somewhere on this forum that having excessive preload can wear out the drive shaft due to it being at an angle..
With '1 helmet + luggage', the ride height feels just right for my 6'2ft long legs frame. But when I sit on the bike, it doesn't sag the recommended 1/3rd. I can't really notice any difference in handling. On my previous F800GS, changing the preload produced a great difference in how the bike tipped in to corners.
My 1200GS has got some 60k miles, which from what I read around here, means my suspension is probably shot to shit already, so I was wondering if it is working as intended. I don't have access to another 1200GS to compare. The bike feels very sensitive to bumps. When I go over cat's eyes, the whole bike shakes, any minimal bump on the road sends knocks through my handlebars and foot pegs. Recently I had the bike services and rode a nine-T as a loan bike - riding on the same roads over the same bumps, and I couldn't feel them at all. I found that it was very odd that the nine-T had much better damping than the big adventure bike.
On damping, Soft definitely feels better when going over bumps, and also when I throttle up or brake, there's less of a jolt, kind of like it has better fueling if you know what I mean. This sounds counter intuitive for me, because I thought that softer suspension would make the bike bounce back and forward more. The bike feels overdamped. On all forums I look, everyone says they feel the bike is underdamped.
What I also find odd is that when cornering, I cannot feel any difference between damping modes unless I'm riding on washboards roads. I thought that damping settings would be more noticable on cornering. I cannot feel any difference between Normal and Hard damping whatsoever.
This makes me wonder:
-Is my ESA working properly?
-I read that if you increase preload, you must harden damping to make the bike stable, is this true?
-Riding in Soft feels better, am I exchanging comfort for anything? Are there no trade-offs between settings?
-Does riding with an incorrect preload for my weight damage the drive shaft after all?
