Today I had a full Ohlins suspension fitted to the Ten. I intend to write a full report on the changes this has brought to the handling, both on and off road, over the next weeks. To start, the part numbers and fitting details are here. Thanks to all the guys on the forum who have helped me to select the Ohlins setup, I know that others here have fitted the Ohlins rear shock. I don't want to detract from their reviews, which were a valuable resource to me in choosing my set-up, but I don't think anyone's done the whole lot yet.

Like most bikes, my Ten has to perform many different duties, a weekday commuter, an evening bus taking my girlfriend and I to the movies or restaurant, off-piste riding on the weekends and the planned longer distance trips to Africa. Forcing one bike to do all this is asking a lot, yet the Ten copes very well with all these demands. Whilst never excelling in any one area, the Ten admirably copes with all. One of the benefits of this great bike is it's jack-of-all-trades abilities. I should add that I have newer and faster bikes in my garage, but I find that I ride these less and less, as they just aren't as much fun as the Ten. I digress, my point is that the Ten needs to cope with a vastly different weight setup for each role I expect it to perform. My initial concern with the suspension is that although good, the rear would sag to much under load, so rider (and luggage) sag took up nearly half the suspension travel. In addition, when loaded up, the rear wallows over bumps making the bike feel unresponsive and twitchy. I don't load heavily, I weigh 84kg and my luggage (including the weight of my touratech zega-pro panniers is an additional 35kg. Even at these weights the OEM Sachs shock felt tired and wallowy. I never had a problem with the front forks, other than the excessive dive under braking, this I could live with, but if I was going to open them up and service them anyway, I decided to fit the Ohlins springs too. These aren't very expensive (compared to the rear). The shortlist for a new suspension setup was either the Wilbers setup, Hyperpro, or the Ohlins set. I spoke to a guy at Off The Road in Germany who was very helpful, suggested that the Wilbers shock was no good for off road use, as it has less travel than the original. Found it very difficult to get hold of the info for the Hyperpro suspension, all I could find was an uprated spring, and although this would solve the sag problem, I didn't think it would stop the wallowing back end. One of the issues with suspension is that its very expensive to upgrade. The ohlins were expensive, but were only 20% more than the Wilbers setup.


I had all of the stuff fitted by Motostion in Madrid, who are the local Ohlins agent. They were great, and I was able to watch, take pictures and help the guy who fitted them so next time I can service them myself. The parts needed are;


Rear Shock Ohlins part no. YA817
Front Fork Springs Ohlins part no. 08716-50
Fork Seals
Dust Caps
2l of 15W fork oil


Took us three hours to fit this lot, I reckon it would have taken me days if I had done it on my own!


First impressions of the bike were that it was much stiffer than with the OEM shock, but on the ride home from the dealer, I found the shock seemed to have more usable travel than the OEM shock.. So stiffer yet more compliant if that makes sense? Also the bike doesn't rear-up as much under hard acceleration, nor does it seem to dive as much under braking. After I test it some, I'll update this thread.


Taking the front forks out


Fork components laid out in the order they need to be replaced


Forks out


Rear shock fitted