O U R
Whilst the front forks on the ‘97 Blade might
look like upside down units, they’re not. They’re
cleverly served up to look like inverted forks, but
legendary ‘Blade designer Tadao Baba wanted to
stick with conventional forks as they were lighter.
Whether that was part of the issue I don’t know
but me being as chubby as a ZX-9R certainly was
a bit of a problem. The standard fork springs
just weren’t up to the task for a 100kg rider (plus
gear on top) so I swapped them out for stronger
RaceTech units which made a huge difference.
That was pretty much the only upgrade I made
to it until I took the bike to the track for the first
time. That was at the very fast Eastern Creek
track in the western suburbs of Sydney, and a few
sessions around there highlighted a couple of
things that I needed to deal with.
T Y R E S FO R 16 - I N C H W H E E L S
One of the perceived limitations with the early
‘Blades is the 16-inch front wheel, which is cited
as being at the root of a lot of front end handling
issues. I’ve never had a problem with it once the
suspension was sorted, although I did find that the
front was much more sensitive to tyre pressures
than most bikes.
I’d say the real issue with the bonsai front rim is
tyre choice. The early ‘Blades are one of the few
performance sports bikes to run the smaller front
and the result is that very few tyre manufacturers
cater for it these days. Right now, one of the best
options is the Bridgestone S21,which works really
well road or track. Sadly, it doesn’t look like the
newer S22 will come in 16-inch size and the day
may come when I have to upgrade to a 17-inch
front wheel just so I can get a decent set of tyres. I
do have a 17-incher in the garage and I’m not 100%
sure of its lineage and I will have to figure that
out if I ever decide to fit it, as some of the Honda
rims from the same era are drop in replacements
for the RRV’s wheel, but others require spacers
to be made up to ensure correct alignment.
Incidentally, the rolling diameter of the 17-inch
tyre isn’t a full inch bigger than the 16-incher. This
is because the tyre for the smaller rim has a higher
36 KIWI RIDER
B I K E S
profile, so the actual diameter difference is close
to half an inch, but that’s still enough that the rear
end needs to be jacked up to maintain the bike’s
standard geometry. Personally, I’d prefer to keep
the 16-inch on as long as I can anyway because
I’m less inclined to use the ‘Blade at track these
days. Binning it would be a disaster and the S21
Bridgestones are pretty much perfect for road
use anyway.
S U S PE N S I O N & G E A R I N G
First up, the rear suspension. Whilst it hadn’t
shown any limitations on the road, at track it felt
soggy and compressed way too easily. Again,
that’s likely a function of me being on the large
side but plenty of FireBlade forums point to the
rear end as a weakness in the early ‘Blades, more
so as the rear shock has a few kilometres on it.
Fixing that hit the wallet moderately hard as the
upgrade of choice was a custom made Ohlins unit
that cost me nearly $1500 (AUD) back then, which
is around $2400 (AUD) when adjusted for inflation.
This was a straight replacement of course, no
machining required, and the difference it made
was huge, both on the road and track. It’s still on
there now and probably due another tear down
and service soon.
Having upgraded both front and back, I took
the opportunity to get everything set up for
my weight and riding style by a professional
suspension mechanic and those settings, pretty
much unchanged, are what I’ve used for the last
20 years. And everyone who rides this ‘Blade
comments on how good the suspension feels
even by today’s standards. It really is very good.
And here I have to cite the passage of time
and poor record keeping, but I always intended
to replace the damping shim-stack in the front
with RaceTech Gold Valves but, given I have no
records of such an upgrade, I suspect that I never
felt the need to do it after the other suspension
work was sorted.
Around the same time, I did drop one tooth off
the drive sprocket which made it punch out of
corners better at the expense of a little bit