Quote:
Originally Posted by ejohnh
Seems to me that most of the 'upgrades' bikers do are more or less cosmetic. What I found made a world of real difference to my curvey was fitting Hagon progressives and 15w oil - and then good quality tyres. Turned a ornery p' awful mule into a smooth arabian. Borrow a headstock lift to support the front  and it so so easy.. BTW I am 13 stone. |
Yup. In fact, springs and oil isn't an upgrade at all, it's an adjustment- the SV's suspension is very basic but the real problem isn't that, it's just that it's specced for very light people. So you have basic suspension working badly. Replacing the springs and oil can at least make it work better for you- if you weigh over, say, 11 stone it's a huge benefit. I've got very good suspension on mine now but I could have been perfectly happy with just the Ohlins springs and oil tbh.
If you actually want to upgrade, then there's a world of options and you can get big benefits without breaking the bank. Personally I'm very much of the opinion that it's a false economy not to spend some time and effort here if you're out of the working weight range of the forks- a ?4000 bike working badly isn't better value than a ?4150 bike working well. And another ?150 on top gets you emulators or a Matris kit or similiar for a very solid performing front end. The SV's only let down by its suspension, and most obviously by its forks.
(or of course, there's the more drastic options like a GSXR swap, which I only mention here on economy grounds- do it cheap, and right, and it can actually cost less than you get selling the parts. But get unlucky and it can be a money pit. My original fork replacement would have almost broken even if I'd not deliberately gone over budget on luxuries. But if you're a big'un, or even a very small'un, you might still have to pay to modify the forks- GSXR swaps don't work for everyone out of the box.)