My Poor Neglected Blog!

My poor blog has suffered from neglect! Oh, well, I guess it's time to make it suffer from my quirks and eccentricities again.

I moved to NorCal from SoCal since my last blog (that is a story for another blog). The transition has had several unexpected complications that the wifey and I never really considered. One of the complications was the fact that my lovely motorcycle, the R1, broke a pretty major part since I left it in storage due to the sorting out all of the other complications of the move.

Well, let me back up a litte. The R1 part didn't just break because of storage. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the R1 is an 11 year-old bike running on still mostly stock parts. Plus, the fact that I rode out in the canyons on the fast side of slow for the majority of the time I owned the bike (6 years now, I think) with parts best suited for a, let's see, 160 pounder while I weighed at least 50 to 60 pounds more. The storage just exacerbated/accelerated matters.

I took the R1 out of storage about a month ago after over 6 months of storage to ride it to work since a squiddy diva newbie rider co-worker of mine kept bugging me to see it. Everything was fine until I realized a mile from home that the pogo stick action I was experiencing with the rear suspension wasn't a figment of my imagination or the bike still not having warmed up yet. On top of that, there was enough smoke coming off the bottom portion of the exhaust in the undertray to signal war.

I work a little over three miles of home so by the time I settled on the fact that the bike was indeed somehow broken, I was closer to work than I was to home so I just rode it. I rode it because I figured the problem really was a broken rear shock with broken seals that was leaking fluid onto the hot exhaust. Once I got to work, I got off the bike, looked at the shock, and sure enough it was slowly bleeding. That, along with the pogo stick thing going, spelled the death of my rear shock.

That complication lead to a whole other set of questions. Where do I bring my bike for repairs? I brought my bike to Lee's Cycle in San Diego for so long but I was in NorCal now and I didn't know where to go. Do I just get the rear shock fixed back to stock or do I have finally modified to suit my weight and riding preferences? Stock would be cheapest but I've been dreaming of a suspension upgrade since I first started to ride the canyons on the R1 and on my SV650 (Jojo and Marissa, are you guys still taking care of the SV?).

After some research and investigation (which consisted of googling, trolling forums, bugging my friends for recommendations, hitting up the local parts store folks, and talking to anybody at bike shops that didn't seem to squiddis), I came up with a short list of folks to hit up: Lindemann Engineering, Dan Kyle, and Catalyst Suspension. These three places all had impeccable reputation. There was no clear cut recommendation between the three as each had there die-hard fan base who swore by each of them.

As someone smarter than I figured, it always comes down to two things when you're shopping for any service provider, whether it be a doctor, dentist, mechanic, or whatever: price and personality. I called Dan Kyle's shop first as he was the closest. His shop used an Ohlin's shock and propietary front springs and valves and the price was right about where I expected it to be. In terms of personality, Dan was very knowledgeable and had the air of authority you would expect from someone with his experience. I called Catalyst but I don't I actually talked to Dave Moss. Catalyst had some choices for shock and fork parts and the price was actually what I expected. People at the shop were nice enough. I called Lindemann Engineering. First, the price was nearly half what people quoted and then Jim Lindemann was incredibly down to earth and pleasant to talk with.

The whole scenario with Lindemann just couldn't be right. More affordable than the rest and the dude had the personality that fit mine. It's not that people at the other shop weren't nice. Lindemann was just a fit for what I wanted in someone to work with. Again, it couldn't be right. Turns out, the situation was right. Lindemann ends up working some suspension magic with stock internals and new springs for both the forks and shock instead of putting in all new parts. Some people poo-poo this but people swear by his work. And, Lindemann really is a nice guy even after I bugged him a couple of million times with questions.

I dropped off the bike at Lindemann Engineering and I actually have it back. There is a whole story (more like ordeal) related to picking up the bike but it had nothing to do with Lindemann. Jim and his staff remained as nice as they were since the first time I called and the bike's suspension, so far, has really improved. I'll get to those later. For now, my point I guess is that the old adage holds true. Any service always boils down to price and personality.