…Ohlins and Penske make outstanding suspension parts, but are overkill on an otherwise stock Zephyr.
You would be completely wasting your money going to an Ohlins front end, these are high end, high dollar race parts that probably 2 % of the riding population would ever need, or use to their potential, and probably only on the track.
I gotta say, I don’t quite understand comments like these. I mean I get that riding street, especially at my skill level, is not the same thing as a pro riding track. But better suspension is still better suspension for anyone right? Why wouldn’t it be worth it to improve the ride? Confidence on a bike is challenging enough as it is, wouldn’t quality suspension aid in that?
Besides, $250 for the cartridge kit (if it even fits my bike, tbd) is not that much money really. Maybe to some sure, I’ve spent most of my life poor, I was even homeless for a year, so I get it. But I’m in a good place now, and I have a little savings specifically for throwing at my bike. It is mostly stock, sure, but it’s also been rebuilt post-accident. Plus it’s 31 years old. Some amount of money is gonna have to be spent to keep it going. Might as well be spent on good quality.
"better suspension is better suspension right?"
Yes, BUT, the Ohlins suspension is meant for fine tuning at the limits of the bike and suspension overall, something you'll never do on the street, so unless you want to throw money away just to look good , the Ohlins is overkill for the street, it's the same as building the engine up to get maximum horsepower, just to ride around at the speed limit and never go to the track. By all means, if you want to throw money at something you'll never fully utilise, go right ahead, it's your money, but you can use what you already have, save a shitload of money and still have a great handling bike . Read DOHC,s first paragraph above, he gets it, the other point was that it cost me $100 dollars to get a great suspension for my bike.
There is ample scope for you to tune the suspension you have, with different spring rates and the cartridge type kits, in saying that, my other point was that those parts will achieve nothing if you don't know what your doing with them, you still have to set the suspension up with the new parts and understand how it all works together or, get someone else to set it up for you,costing more money. Spending money on the parts doesn't magically transform the suspension.
Another example, I had a late 1980's GPX750 Kawasaki, it would bottom out the forks under brakes if you hit a pot hole, or were entering the driveway while braking hard, as happened in my instance, it jarred my wrists badly, If you've ever had a fork bottom out you'll know what I mean, it hurts. I'd only had this bike for a week or so. I made up a couple of spacers using washers so I could tune it, more washers to stiffen {add preload} , less to soften , I think I only used 4 or 5 washers per fork, problem solved, it tightened up the front end a touch and stopped it bottoming out under brakes, I later changed the fork oil out for a slightly heavier oil {rebound damping} , and never touched the forks again, virtually no cost and problem solved. It helps if you have some understanding of how the suspension is supposed to work,and what you can do to solve small issues. Talk to someone that knows how to tune motorcycle suspensions before throwing money at it....
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