Well, after some back and forth on either selling the Tiger and getting something new, or just dropping the $$$ I would spend on a new bike into the Tiger, I decided on the later...
Mine is a 2000, with 28,000 miles on it, and a lot of those miles were long rides with a lot of gear piled on, in addition to my (sometimes) large self weighing it down.
A lot of the rest of the miles were rough riding on the fire roads and gravel up in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
This might not seem like a lot of miles for a bike of this age, but I bought it as a year old leftover in '01, and took 3 years off from riding for various reasons, but I am now back with a vengance...
So the first order of business for me was to re-work the front and rear suspension. Last year I had Tim down at Millerbuilt rebuild the shocks with new seals and such, and put in heavier weight oil, but that didn't do enough for me.
After searching these forums for a while I came across some posts by the fellow that took his Tiger on a trip from Turkey to China, and before doing so he had the folks down at GMD Computrack set up his bike; change out the rear shock for a Penske, and add in the Race Tech Emulators and new springs in the front, with apparently very good results. (Sorry to not remember his name, and for not having enough coffee in me yet to be motivated enough to search him out and give him proper credit, but you can find him on these pages, and he knows who he is! Thanks Man!)
Well, that was a good enough recommendation for me- if it could get him through that ride I figured it was going to be a good enough fix for me as well.
So a month ago or so I made the appointment with Kent and the crew down at Computrack (down in Jasper, Ga.) for the whole deal.
Last week I rode down and spent a day hanging out with them, and in a hotel room across the street, while they put the bike up on their Computrack machine and measured the frame and dimensions and angles, checked everything out, and replaced the rear shock and re-worked the front forks. They also raised the forks back to their original position. (They had been dropped down ever since I had gotten the bike)
The whole process took from about 4:00 in the afternoon untill about 3:00 the next day. Kent and Todd really take great care in their work, run a serious shop, and are fantastic guys to boot. Nothing but an absolute pleasure to be around from start to finish.
The work that they did is nothing short of a revelation. I cannot even say that the bike rides like it did when new, because in reality, it has never ridden this well! Totally and completly transformed.
Very little dive to the front forks, and what is left is completly controlled and completly linear. I can now feel every little thing that the front tire is doing, and steering inputs are instant. At first it felt as if the bike was less stable, but then I realized that it was actually more stable, it was just that there was no longer any lag time from the wallow-y front forks, and the front tire was actually doing exactly what I was asking it to do, inastantly.
The rear is totaly tranformed as well. What an amazing difference.
I really was not prepared for how amazing the bike would handle once this work was done.
And with over 500 miles between Computrack and my home in Charlottesville, Va. I had plenty of time to test it out. Especially since I took a bit of the long way home and stopped off at Deals Gap to check out the Tail of the Dragon and Cherehola Skyway, and the roads around that area. (I'll post a separate note on that in the General section).
Anyway,
If you are at all thinking of doing this kind of work, and do not do it yourself, I cannot reccommend Computrack, and the work that they do enough. Not Cheap, (Well, if you think about the fact that you are actually having serious race-team set up guys - that is how they make the lion's share of their living - work on and set up your bike, perhaps it IS Cheap!) but well worth it. They can be found here
(
http://www.gmd-computrack.com/contact.php)
and Kent's email and phone should be at the bottom of this page...
Great Guys, Great work, Great parts, and remarkable results.
Next year... New Brakes! Whooo!!!
TjB
good info, thanks!
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