AFRICA TWIN
of a 230kg adventure bike . It ’ s illadvisable , because the repercussions can be painful and expensive . However , for me , I like my bikes to be able to cope with about metre off the ground impacts and still be pretty compliant on the small stuff . This is what the Ohlins has delivered . I wouldn ’ t say the feel is much different to standard in the first half of the travel , but from there on it does have better progression and control - and that ’ s the same with a pillion too .
MODIFICATIONS A simple and very effective modification I did was chop 50mm from the top of the screen with the hacksaw . I am the perfect height for optimum buffeting with the screen at standard height , but the chop works awesome for me and it was a
cheap hack ! About five minutes in the shed is all you need ... I went up three teeth on the rear sprocket to gear it down a little , and give that bit more punch out of the turns . I did this rather than go a tooth down on the front sprocket solely to maintain front sprocket life . It was actually a costly mission in hindsight , because I couldn ’ t get a chain long enough , so had to buy two chains and join them together . I couldn ’ t get a new chain with the standard pin size to just add a few links to . Other than that , I added Givi crash bars , hard luggage , spotlights , and then some Barkbusters with plastic guards to keep the rain and cold off . I ’ m not a huge fan of the standard bars , but they ’ re nice and wide . I find they ’ ve got too much
KIWI RIDER 59