2011 bike, non ABS model, standard rubber.

I'm 20st and take a pillion regularly. She's not small either so all in it's quite weighty and I presume the COG is even more rear-based than normal.

So i've wound the damping both ends to fully hard to help with the see-saw acceleration/braking.

What i've found is that the handling is shocking, especially the front end, when riding solo. Having a blow out didn't help confidence but I had to save a wash out yesterday morning when moderately cornering through town. It was barely damp, quite cold but not overly doing about 20mph on a steady throttle on smooth tarmac.

It seems the pillion weight actually makes the thing go around corners better when I thought it would help having hard(ish) suspension on flat corners.

If it's this bad on the road (and it's all over the place on the motorway too - anyone else suffer with excessive wind? ) god knows what it's like in the ruts and mud.

At the moment i'm very edgy cornering - hope there's an easy fix.