The Bilsteins are mounted on my syncro westy and they passed the initial test ride with high marks. My test course was the skateboard louge route from last week's CNN Xtreme games...down Ocean beach along the great hgighway and back...up past the legion of honor..past robin willam's house up along the bluffs overlooking the bay and golden gate bridge ...into the rough dirt parkinglots on top of the bluffs overlooking the bay and then to some really steep hills SF is famous for. The results: The shocks are superb on the rougth dirt poarkijng lot with huge potholes...the shocks absorb the huge holes like nothing...i can take the super steep hills at high speed that would bottom the stock suspension twice using the stock shocks....upon hitting the bottom of the hill....that is. the bilsteins absorb the shock and just bottom out with great rebound. On a street where they cut 3 foot wide trenches every 20 feet and then filled the holes with concrete but did not yet repave...and thus there's a 1.5 inch lip at each trench...i flew over them and the shocks responded great. the suspension corners great...progressive give as you make the turn, but firm. the only complaint is that they are a little stiff on some types of high spped road...where there's mild waves in the road....but generally they're very good on the road and excellent on the rough stuff. Some increase in ride height...about 1/2 inch. They seem like they will be perfect off road with a camping load and a passenger or two. steve |
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