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Rider’s former editor-in-chief, Mark Tuttle, offers us the lowdown on Touratech suspension service for the Touratech Excessive alternative rear shock for his BMW R 1200 GS.
One of many causes I purchased a frivolously used 2007 BMW R 1200 GS was for its beneficiant load capability of 441 lb – a weight restrict that’s fairly straightforward to hit whenever you’re two-up touring, even earlier than breakfast.
Though my spouse and I have been cautious to not exceed that restrict on our first lengthy journey, it turned out that the bike’s inventory rear shock merely wasn’t as much as the duty of carrying the loaded laborious baggage, two of us in full driving gear, and 5 gallons of gasoline. Even with the spring preload maxed out, the again finish sagged like an overloaded pickup truck, drastically slowing the GS’s usually responsive steering. The shock additionally bottomed out means too simply over huge bumps.
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As quickly as we received house, I gave the oldsters at Touratech USA a name. Again then as now, Touratech gives high-end Excessive entrance and rear shocks developed in Germany and constructed within the Netherlands by TracTive for 2007-2013 BMW oil-cooled R 1200 GS fashions. Though there’s extra emphasis on the corporate’s alternative shocks with digital suspension adjustment (ESA) today, Touratech nonetheless sells and providers TracTive Excessive elements for a lot of ADV bikes. These elements are in style amongst riders who prefer to “geek out” on manually set suspension settings and get extra in contact with their bike.
As soon as I mounted up the Excessive shocks on my Beemer, I couldn’t have been extra happy. I wrote a full Touratech motorbike suspension assessment for Rider in 2013, together with an entire rundown of the shocks’ specs and options.
Suffice it to say that the rear Excessive shock solved all my load carrying and dealing with issues and gave the bike a significantly better journey besides. For that 2013 assessment, nonetheless, I wasn’t conscious that Touratech specifies “common” service intervals for its Excessive shocks. That is sensible; not like the inventory shock, as standard a poor compromise between efficiency and longevity, higher efficiency means utilizing components which will put on. For comparability, rock-hard inventory tires (a.ok.a. rim protectors) versus premium alternative rubber with good grip however much less longevity come to thoughts.
Touratech says that whether or not it’s time for shock service at 10,000 miles or 30,000 miles actually relies upon upon how laborious the shock is used and the way involved the proprietor could also be about stopping issues on a protracted distant journey. Over time, shock oil breaks down and will get contaminated, seals put on, and nitrogen strain decreases, all resulting in lowered efficiency and longevity points, and also you don’t need to injury one thing just like the shock shaft, for instance, by ready too lengthy. When you’re the kind who’d slightly not make the decision, Touratech recommends two years or 20,000 miles on its Suspension Service Heart web site.
In my case, the primary interval turned out to be nearly precisely 10,000 miles once I seen that the decrease shock seal was weeping oil – the primary stage within the “weeping, seeping, leaking” development from dangerous to worse. An hour later, I had the shock boxed up and able to ship to Touratech in Seattle. As soon as service is full, return delivery is included within the $150 payment ($200 for ESA shocks). In my case, it was Touratech’s slower season, so the turnaround time was solely about two weeks, however it might probably take as much as 5 at busier occasions.
For this standard shock service, Nick at Touratech disassembled, cleaned, and inspected the shock physique and shaft, preload adjuster, damping piston, and shims. Changing the damping piston ring is included. If every other worn or broken components want changing (just like the bump cease and seal head on my shock), Touratech solely costs the price of the components – all labor is included. The distant reservoir didn’t want servicing, however oddly, the retainer ring for the decrease clevis had come partially adrift, so Nick changed the decrease clevis, retainer ring, and circlip for good measure. The gang at Touratech had by no means seen this occur earlier than; should have been that huge leap…
As soon as the shock was reassembled with recent oil and nitrogen, Nick fastidiously boxed it up and shipped it again, and I used to be driving the BMW once more inside three weeks. Though I hadn’t seen any degradation in efficiency earlier than it was serviced, the rear suspension felt agency, supple, and managed, pretty much as good as the primary day I put in the Excessive shock again in 2013.
Touratech additionally modifications shock springs and providers its digital shocks and fork cartridges, all at an affordable price with free return delivery – all good causes to think about placing its suspension merchandise in your ADV bike within the first place.
For extra data, go to the Touratech web site.
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