When I spoke to Dave, Unless I misunderstood him, He asked me my Un-geared body weight.
Dave if you need it with bike ladden - We need to Talk again.
He may have, but given that I have a remote preload on my Wilbers I will want to pay particular attention to this weight differential on the shock rebuild given my LD and rallying requirements. It doesn't necessarily apply if you're going new shocks.....just if you have an undersprung Wilbers.
Matt, A quick mental stab at your numbers, I'm guessing that your replacement spring is going to be in the 13.0-13.5 range.(I could be way off here, its early) 2 things will be important for you when trying to achieve balance between full rally setup and torn down.
Since I don't know where your at now, and not knowing how big a change we're talking about here, you may also need your shock re-valved for any significant changes?
Also, when the spring size is finally selected, depending on which Wilbers shock you have, (mine had all options including ride height adjustment) you may have a maximum range of only 8mm in which to adjust remote preload.
So your additional cargo weight required for rallying will be 156lbs, IMO you will not be able to successfully adjust for that much weight difference with only 8mm of remote preload and achieve perfect sag numbers on both ends of the weight scale. However, since you know you have to be able to carry this much extra weight, the priority must be for this first, and the lower weight has to become secondary.
With this in mind, I personally would request the following setup for my rear shock:
Ask that the replacement spring (whatever this is) is setup in such a way that with maximum remote preload (8mm?) added, gives you your required rally weight setup.
Request that whatever spring required to do this, is installed on your shock with the minimum amount of initial preload to achieve this. (very important for when it comes time to ride with the bike stripped down again) This will give you the best balance between performance and comfort.
Also, if you have the hi/low speed compression adjustment, request that the hi speed setting for rally weight be in the upper range of adjustment clicks. Then when you switch back to regular riding, you will have the entire range of hi speed compression to adjust out as much of the harsh bumpy feeling that you will encounter over potholes etc, due to the increased spring rate required for 156lb weight increase.
