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As a few people might know, the wife has a nice DL650 but it was a bit “Tall” for her.

I figured a few rides she would just “Grow” into the bike. But the reality was the riding on tip toes was not making it fun for her. Since it was not fun, she got freaked out at anything more than just riding and really created some issues.

The issues were that I tried to come up with routes that avoided traffic and other “Hazards”. This ended up leading us off the main roads in Phoenix and finding ourselves on roads that were being worked on. In Phoenix every major and minor road is being upgraded, repaired or replaced. At one point I got to see Julie do a 1mph high side though some gravel. No big deal, but her pride was hurt along with her ankle.

So I decided to lower the DL650 as many people do. Looking around, it seemed the best choice was the lower the rear shock mount by replacing the “Links” that connect the swing arm to the shock. I used my favorite DL650 resources motorcycleinfo.calsci.com and www.stromtrooper.com. The suggestions were for a few lowering links, and I liked the KoubaLink from Kientech Engineering . The price was a bit higher than the other options, but the quality was their. The aluminum links were gold anodized and had pockets to receive the bolt and nut heads nicely. I whipped out the CC and bought a set that same day.

The change over of the parts was rather easy. I needed a cheater bar to help break the nuts off the suspension with Julie holding the other end with a cheater bar as well. I went to put everything together and realized that I did not have any locktite blue on hand. We went over to our local auto parts store and I was about to pick up a little tube of locktite blue when I noticed a larger tube that looked like a glue stick. I shelled out $10 for the “New” locktite blue stick and was back home in a few minutes to finish the job.
I really like the new stick type locktite, as it is easy to just get it on the threads. At $10 it’s a bit expensive compared to $2.50 for a little tube of liquid. But hay, I am worth the stick so I am happy [BTW you can get the blue (#248-medium strength), red (#268-high strength), Gray (#562 – Thread sealing), Copper (#8065 – Copper Anti-seize) and Silver (#8060 – Aluminum Anti-seize) in stick form]

Once the new links where installed and torqued down with my lovely harbor freight $2.99 torque wrench, I moved to the front forks. I dropped the front forks 15mm on the triple clamps and set the pre-load to 3 lines from the top.

Since we did this mod, Julie has felt more comfortable on the bike. While she did not at first feel it was a big improvement, she has decided in the long run she is just less “Scared” of the bike falling over.

The only downside is the side stand does not let the bike go over as far. I need to grind/file the stopper a bit to let the stand move forward and let the bike lean over a bit more. Most of the time, I just pop the bike on the center stand to keep it safe and sound.