Well, now we have a suspension. We have wheels, too. The bike can roll around, I don’t have to drag it any more. But, the fairings need to be reinstalled, along with the tank vent lines, and then the windshield. That didn’t take too long and now the bike is completely reassembled. And the best part – no parts left over. Usually, it’s a good sign when there aren’t any parts left over when you’re done. I taking this as a positive sign.
There is a problem, however, that has to be fixed and fixed fairly quickly. Since the bike is about 2 inches lower than it was before the suspension work, the sidestand is too long now. The bike actually leans away from the sidestand rather than toward it. That’s not too stable. Well, if you let it fall onto the right side, then it’s extremely stable, but not too useful. I logged onto the advrider.com forums and found someone that was raising a KTM from standard to “S” height, the exact opposite of what I did. We emailed and agreed to trade side and center stands. Great! Now the issue is just removing the sidestand and shipping it to him. He’s having his suspension raised at Trailtricks, so he currently has no wheels on his bike while that is happening. Trading sidestands can be done now, but he can’t safely remove the centerstand until he has some wheels under his bike. No problem we can do that later. When I have a sidestand of the proper length, the centerstand won’t be used much anyway – just for maintenance and I hope I’ve wrapped that up for the immediate future.
I received his sidestand and it was simple to install it. It’s the correct length and works great. The bike is actually rideable and doesn’t have to be leaned against something while it’s not moving. Just need to swap centerstands and the transformation will be complete.
I got out on the bike for a few miles and it is very nice. The throttle is very smooth at just above idle, no sudden bursts or surging like some FI systems do just off-idle. A smooth throttle at low speeds will help riding in challenging off-road sections. So far, with no real off-road riding to speak of, I like the bike a lot. Hopefully I will be able to do that this weekend.