How Good Are OEM Ohlins Forks?

[Bibio]

slight derail. i have often wanted to get my forks re-stacked to suit my riding preferance which is b roads and single track roads where i find the fast compression has not got fast enough blow threw to soak up the bumps and instead tends to ride them. my problem is that most if not all places that do fork work tend to cater for the track guy/girl which is of no use to me as i want mine set up for rough road use. its not bad but i think it could be better.

btw, my forks are gsxr 600/750 k3-4 showas and my rear shock is a custom nitron.

I re-valved my RC51 forks, and I got to tell the people who provided the valves and springs not only what I weighed with gear, but that I wanted to ride back roads, some very bumpy, that I liked to ride them at a fast pace, and that I prefer suspension on the firm side of normal. They provided me with valving and set up suggestions that made me very happy. Race Tech. In the U.S., but there must be comparable services in the U.K.?

[squirrel_hunter]

Originally Posted by NTECUK

Not sure if the opening poster is racing or for track days .

Road use is what I'm looking at.

Which makes the following quite interesting:

Originally Posted by SV650Racer

OEM Ohlins are sprung and valved for road use..TBH not much between the OEM and R&T forks purchased direct off Ohlins other than that.

Now...

Originally Posted by NTECUK

For mortals like my self is it worth the extra ?

That is essentially my question. A set of OEM Ohlins is roughly double the price of a comparable non Ohlins OEM sports bike fork. But is there any real benefit?

Originally Posted by SV650Racer

Doesnt matter if your a steady road rider..when it comes to suspension most people always say its surely not worth it..until you have ridden on the fork or shock that is the best you can get for your own riding then its hard to get across that yes even a mere mortal will benefit.

Now this I would agree with. My current SV runs Ohlins springs at the front and an Ohlins shock at the rear that I've set up. The difference between my bike and a standard SV is night and day.

But then I come back to my original question, would correctly set up OEM Ohlins be better or more worthwhile then correctly set up OEM other?

[Bibio]

i doubt it, but then i think it would depend on what bike the forks are originally off. i dont think ohlins use different technology to any other unless that is they are gas piston. each maker use their own style of piston which control the flow threw the shims. aftermarket companies like K-Tech or racetech have their own versions to better the OEM forks. so depending on what type of riding you do i think the aftermarket bunch would stack the shims for their pistons how you want it.

as a side note one of the reasons i got the k3-4 GSXR ones is that the pistons are supposed to be pretty good and just need the shim stack arranged different to make them better.

Originally Posted by squirrel_hunter

My current SV runs Ohlins springs at the front and an Ohlins shock at the rear that I've set up. The difference between my bike and a standard SV is night and day.

I re-valved the stock shock on my RC51, and the difference is night and day too.
If you really just want to be sure you have the best, you'd better get big piston forks, I've heard they're better. Just kidding.
Since I want to live to keep riding, my street pace is well below what I will do on a race track, so I really am not using even the stock components anywhere near their capabilities, most of the time anyway.
Perhaps it helps me that I learned to ride in the early '70s on bikes that not only had horrible suspensions, but their frames were flexible and the brakes were often feeble.

[NTECUK]

I kinda look at it this way.
Every time I arrive at a corner the thing that's governing my speed is the loss of view.
Same roads that the RSV and ohlins its would get a flap on the bummy exit of a set of bends the KYB's cope fine.
So its good enough as a road bike

Originally Posted by wideguy

YOU can feel the difference, but, aren't you a top club racer? Multi-time champion?
I was a mid-pack expert level club racer, and I CAN'T feel the difference, other than between a fork that's set up the way I like it, and one that isn't.

Jeez you americans are very sensitive and very quick to jib at others just because their experiences are different


Just because you cant feel the difference doesnt mean i cant either. From spending the past five years as a race coach I have found there are plenty of people who couldnt even tell me the difference between an under inflated tyre or over inflated..let alone feel anything on the suspension between settings. I ride with alot of feel..my tech at a meeting put 30 psi in my front tyre same as what my husband runs and I came in after feeling the bike walk more on the tyre..my prefered pressure is 33psi..he hadnt told me he had set it lower but I could feel it.

I dont see what championships have to do with it..as an aside to the above Ive been out with novice racers which have a huge amount of feel for whats happening..

horses for courses isnt it..maybe not relevent to what the OP was on about strictly but race or road..there is a cross over.

[jambo]

Here's where I'd go with this:

Some bikes have higher quality forks than others. If a manufacturer does an "R" version and throws Ohlins at the bike front & rear, I'd expect those components to be better than the ones on the standard bike. Each manufacturer, however, has a range of products to suit your budget and as others have said, some Ohlins components have been built to a tighter budget than others (the XJR SP versions have already been given as an example).

Showa make the standard SV forks, and were responsible for the front forks of the Honda RCV up until the last couple of seasons. What price point, springs, shims and other settings the manufacturer has decided on probably make a significantly bigger difference than who made the fork.

To some extent there's a bling factor. Yamaha, Triumph or anyone else could make an R version with KYB components, but they tend to choose a big name manufacturer like Showa or Ohlins to underline that this model has different components, and is worth a premium.

Those are my thoughts, I'm no kind of guru but I'd say for most of us if you had decent cartridge forks, setup would be more important than brand. A good suspension company should be able to set forks up to suit with conditions other than smooth anyway

Jambo

Originally Posted by SV650Racer

Jeez you americans are very sensitive and very quick to jib at others just because their experiences are different


Just because you cant feel the difference doesnt mean i cant either. From spending the past five years as a race coach I have found there are plenty of people who couldnt even tell me the difference between an under inflated tyre or over inflated..let alone feel anything on the suspension between settings. I ride with alot of feel..my tech at a meeting put 30 psi in my front tyre same as what my husband runs and I came in after feeling the bike walk more on the tyre..my prefered pressure is 33psi..he hadnt told me he had set it lower but I could feel it.

I dont see what championships have to do with it..as an aside to the above Ive been out with novice racers which have a huge amount of feel for whats happening..

horses for courses isnt it..maybe not relevent to what the OP was on about strictly but race or road..there is a cross over.

I meant to compliment you on your racing success, and I tend to believe that, for the most part, top racers DO have good feel for what's happening with their front end. As you said, so too do some riders who are brand new to the track. And some who've never been on a track.
From my racing experience, front end feel is only important if you are entering corners fast enough to be very close to the limit of traction. I wasn't good at saving front end slides, so I tried hard to avoid even pushing the front. (I was old when I raced 46-51) Besides my brain, this was my big limiting factor.
Anyway, I think, if you are going to enter corners at the limit of your front tires traction, you better have good feel for the front. If you have that necessary feel, you will probably be well served by having the very best forks.
If you don't corner like that, or can't feel what's going on anyway, top quality forks aren't likely to help you at all.

Originally Posted by wideguy

I meant to compliment you on your racing success, and I tend to believe that, for the most part, top racers DO have good feel for what's happening with their front end. As you said, so too do some riders who are brand new to the track. And some who've never been on a track.
From my racing experience, front end feel is only important if you are entering corners fast enough to be very close to the limit of traction. I wasn't good at saving front end slides, so I tried hard to avoid even pushing the front. (I was old when I raced 46-51) Besides my brain, this was my big limiting factor.
Anyway, I think, if you are going to enter corners at the limit of your front tires traction, you better have good feel for the front. If you have that necessary feel, you will probably be well served by having the very best forks.
If you don't corner like that, or can't feel what's going on anyway, top quality forks aren't likely to help you at all.

No worries..

I do ride very front bias...seeing front grip as first priority and then sorting out the rear end grip once im pointing the way i want to go..I wish i was less sensitive as i can end up concentrating too much on it rather than just riding. I love those guys that can just get on anything..literally..with a proper nasty setup and still go as fast