As I mentioned before my trip out to California in May I had gotten an Ohlin shock put on right before leaving. I kid you not, when the shock was first put on I could no longer look down into my top case — I needed a step stool to do that. That’s how much higher the tail end of the motorcycle was. Leaving for California was delayed because I could barely touch the ground with my toes on the ground so I postponed departure and the shock was rebuilt, shims added, and made as low as it could go.
It was still problematic. I could only get my toes on the ground (which I don’t like). It was a little better when the motorcycle was fully loaded, but not much. The motorcycle leaned so much that I couldn’t get it off the side stand when it was loaded. I left town with an inch thick block of wood on a string to put under the side stand. I found this embarrassing right up until I stopped for coffee in Albuquerque and could not get the bike off the side stand and had to go back into the coffee shop to ask someone for help. Great way to meet people, but more embarrassing than using the block of wood.
I ended up talking to Ohlin the last couple weeks and since they don’t make a shock specifically for the lowered F650 GS, the best they could offer was to take the shock back and give me a full refund. They cheerfully offered to take their shock off, but another shock on, and give me my money back. I was pretty impressed with their customer service, but this would leave me with the only option of an OEM BMW shock, which I feel is of lesser quality and $300 more in price. I wanted to find a way to keep the Ohlin.
I posted on F650 forum and got several suggestions. I didn’t think a $300 lower seat would help enough, I wasn’t about to spend another $400 to get boots that are 3/4″ higher, but several people mentioned Kouba Links.
I checked koubalink.com for a phone number and found there was only an email address. I suspected this didn’t bode well for getting information, but I was wrong. I sent an email and got a response from Norm Kouba within a couple hours. Norm was informative, he was helpful, and I could have hugged him. I didn’t know what the “factory lowered” consisted of and had no idea if my links were a different length from the standard F650 GS. Norm knew my links were the same as the standard.
Norm suggested I put 2 x 4 boards down on either side of the motorcycle to get a feel for what the 2″ links would do since the boards would be 1 3/4″ of added height. I felt strongly that I only needed 1″ so he allowed me to order both the 1″ and 2″ links with the understanding the ones that didn’t work would be shipped back for refund.
This Sunday I put the 1″ links on my motorcycle. I still don’t understand the geometry since the links were only a 1/2″ longer than the OEM links, but I was on tip toe before the Kouba Links and I have most of my foot on the ground after. While I greased the heck out of them before installing, Kouba links come with zerks so in the future the bearings can be greased with a grease gun while installed on the motorcycle. How cool is that?
I mailed the unused 2″ links back to Norm on Tuesday (priority mail) and had my refund by Thursday. I can’t say enough good things about my experience with Norm Kouba. It was such a pleasure to deal with someone who still values the concept of customer service. He has lowering links for a lot of different motorcycles so I suggest you check out his web site if you’d like your motorcycle a little lower.
I think I was very lucky with both companies, since they were both so helpful. Hopefully the new links will allow me to have the best of both worlds — great Ohlin suspension and my feet almost flat on the ground. I’ll report back on what I think when I get back from Vermont.
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