fluid , clean meticulously , replace fork seals , replace the internals with YSS cartridges , pour in fluid and re-fit . I expected the bike to be in the shop for at least a week , but , to my surprise , I got a call on the Thursday afternoon to say everything was ready to go . Not only was the KSS componentry installed , but Robert had also managed to find time to remove a snapped bolt from the frame of the bike that had been vexing me .
AND ... THE RESULT Excited to get my bike back , I went into RS Motorcycles on the Friday morning . Robert had already completed setting up the damping . The only thing left to do was to get me on the bike to set the sag / preload . All up , around 15 minutes later I was loading the bike back on the trailer
and heading home . So , now the Tenere 700 has ( I am told ), bang for buck , one of the best suspension packages available . It certainly feels like a completely different bike . I am yet to fully test out this new package , but I will and I ’ ll report back in a future edition of KR . I did manage a quick road ride out the back of my place in Upper Hutt , and the initial feeling is the rear doesn ’ t squat nearly as much when I get on . Under motion , the bike is very stable , both when rolling on and off the throttle and in the corners , and the front-end dive when braking is much reduced . So far , I feel like this is onto a winner , but I ’ m looking forward to getting properly offroad to see what the results are . I ’ ll let you know once I ’ ve got it dirty again !
46 KIWI RIDER