Why the focus on performance riding?

Originally Posted by Lozzo

Tracks? You are having a laugh. If you dont want to live in the novice group forever you'll need to upgrade the suspension. First time you try to do anything resembling proper fast you'll tie the bike in knots.

The SV is a perfect first bike, and on standard suspension it is good enough to learn and improve your basic riding skills on the road, but it can be improved quite cheaply to make a good bike even better.

If it is a first bike then not going to be in the fast group are you?

I just meant it is perfectly capable at handling tracks with the pace of a new rider.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Don't see what modifications have to do with road and rider safety TBH, not like you could make the suspension much worse...
You trying to tell me better brakes are going to kill me?

Mods could be unsafe if you don't know what you are doing, or fit parts that are not better in the belief (or ignorance) that they will be. For instance, somebody on here warned me not to use a standard bolt for the rear shock, but I needed the original sleeved high tensile one and I had to ensure I got it with the shock, I'm not an engineer and wouldn't have known that otherwise.

When I changed my rear sprocket and found the threads stripped, I had to ask on here what bolts I should be using and whether or not I needed to use threadlock.

If you do a mod, don't take chances, if you don't know, ask! Then remember you're on a forum so the guy who replies might not really know either! Be cautious.

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

Agreed, but better springs and oil is a good mod, lets not have all the newbies thinking they MUST have cartridge emulators in order to improve it.

Agreed, new springs and oil is a definite improvement and not fitting emulators won't kill you.

My two penneth...
Im not known for fast riding ability, but when i rode my sv quickly, it always felt like it wasnt liking what i was asking it to do, im sure it was better than me, but it felt like it wasnt.
That feeling made me not enjoy the bike too much, i test rode other bikes and the difference was chalk and cheese, i was cornering faster than i had before, so it made up my mind for me.
So the verdict for me was the sv could handle way better than i could but didnt make me feel like it could.
I will more than likely have a sv again in later years with sorted suspension and probably love it again.


Phil