Progressive Suspension Fork Springs

[julien_d]

julien_d,
most dual sports are made to carry a passenger. if the shock was sprung lightly as soon as you put there two persons the shock would bottom out. have you do\seen someone carry a passenger on a MX bike?

sorry but i don´t agree that the kawasaki engineers don´t know what they do. they have to make choises, they are compromised and i believe the maketing departement is who build current bikes :(
the engineers are great, they make the KDX work great in anything with minor adjustements... all of that at an acessible price...

I like your "dual sport" theory. The only problem with it is that the US version of the KDX is NOT a dual sport bike, and is NOT spec'd for carrying a passenger on the back. Never was, never will be. It's sold as a single rider machine. No if's, and's or but's about it.

I never intended to say the engineers don't know what they are doing. I made the comment you are referring to as HUMOR. Fact remains the KDX suspension is set up piss poor from the factory. No amount of "minor adjustment" is going to compensate for the difference in spring rates from front to rear, sorry. I realize that manufacturers are forced to settle on a setup that they feel will meet the needs of a majority of riders. If you think that is good enough for you with just some "minor adjustment", then great. Good for you! I personally think the single most important aspect of setting up a bike for a specific rider, is installing springs appropriate to the riders weight and riding style. For the KDX in particular, there's very little you can do to the front that wouldn't be an improvement over stock, lol.

 

[Tom68]

At least with a soft front and hard rear you only need to change one end for the average rider.

 

[julien_d]

Exactly. I find the rear to be perfect for me. To be fair to kawasaki, the super soft front end can actually be quite an advantage for a novice trail rider. It soaks up the bumpy stuff very very well and makes for a much smoother ride at low speed when the trails are really rough. If you ride aggressively at all though the front suspension will bottom out constantly.

 

[exbee]

Well I got a couple of good rides in on the KDX now with the RT fork springs. Keep in mind that I never got to ride it off road before I changed springs so I have nothing to compare it to. My first ride was on some fairly rocky woods roads at slow to medium speeds. Where I was still getting comfortable with the bike my immediate thoughts were that the front was far too stiff. The front seemed a bit nervous and deflected off of the rocks. I rode my friends KLX 300 with stock fork springs (essentially the same as the KDX250 front end) the same day and it was so much more plush and easy to control on the trails. That was the first day.
The next day we went to another spot which is an old unfinished golf course with a lot of make-shift MX tracks on it.
The ground here was a lot smoother and there were jumps and berms and flowing sections. By this time I was starting to get more comfortable on the bike and bringing my speeds up. The heavier springs felt much better once I began to push the bike harder and I started to appreciate them for this type of riding. It seems I'm going to have to compromise on the slow woods riding in order to be able to push it hard on the fast sections or jumps. Overall I'm quite happy with how the bike works. If I want a better front end down the road I'll go for the KX swap.

 

[Tom68]

Thanks for follow up did you take some shims out of the compression stack?

 

[exbee]

Yes, I removed one of the 4 shims in the stack when I had the forks apart.
To put things in perspective a bit, I rode a friends 07 CRF 450 the same day expecting the suspension to be light years ahead...it was definitely better but not the huge difference I was expecting...maybe mine's not so bad. I don't know dirt bikes so I can't really tell bad from good so well yet.
I do know from road racing that a bike set up to work well flat out feels like **** when you ride it slow, that's pretty much how I have the KDX set up with the too-heavy-for-my-weight springs. Oh well, guess I better keep it pinned!

 

[Tom68]

Mine probably has the standard shim stack (it's an SR model and may be valved differently) and feels fine to me but I've also only had a squirt on one late model bike.
Agree with what you say about set up there's a speed that you set up for, mines at home on the MX track for the three laps my unfit body allows.

 

[exbee]

I didn't intend to set it up for MX, if anything I'll be doing mostly woods riding but the MX tracks I rode last weekend sure were fun...even if I can't jump or corner for ****! If I enter some hare scrambles this summer I may have to change back to the stock springs so I don't beat myself up too bad. What do you guys think?

 

[Tom68]

I think stock will be too soft but if you do use them just run the oil at max' height.