I read through this entire thread before posting my observations over the last few days and 500 miles of Texas Hill Country riding on an '05. I've put very few miles on this bike since i bought it in in '05 due to health problems, but am now back on track. The bike was bought new and I've ridden with the stock front and rear suspension settings for the last 12,000 miles. Not having found this thread before this past weekend's Hill Country riding, I was talking to one of the salesmen at Destination Cyclesports in Kerrville, Texas about my riding style and just generally kicking tires in the showroom. He mentioned that they had a tech who had been to a session on this at a Yamaha school, and had since set up a number of FJRs, and that suspension adjustments/setup was something they recommended and offered at the 600 mile checkup so that the rider would be able to better help them to make "before" and "after" comparisons and fine tune the adjustments. I'd just spend the whole day riding over a wide variety of roads; everything from straight line runs to switchbacks, and planned similar riding the next day. I signed up for the adjustment, and answered a number of questions the tech had about my riding style, weight, how I kept my bags loaded, tire pressures, etc. After about an hour, I got the bike back with changes to settings similar to those that have been listed in this thread and had about 4mm of the fork tubes showing above the clamps. The tech told me to take it easy for a while and gradually work my way up to riding the same types of roads I had the day before and to bring it back for any fine tuning I felt it needed later in the day.
I'm not as savvy as many of you are about describing the symptoms of poor suspension setup but since new, my '05 seemed to require a lot of effort to keep it on a set line in sweepers from 40-80 mph, and a lot of trouble in making transitions from one corner to the next. I found myself worn out after more than a few houurs of wrestling the bike around corners. I found myself being uneasy entering corners at what I thought were reasonable entry speeds when following the lines of experienced riders in front of me. I also had a lot of trouble keeping the bike from wandering on the freeway and attributed this to either handling abnormalities caused by tires or my crappy riding skills.
The adjustments made by the tech in Kerrville made such a profound difference that I felt as if I were riding a completely different bike. And after a few hours I felt all of the problems I recounted above were completely eliminated. To summarize; the bike now fell into corners wherever I pointed my head, and tracked through through both sweepers and tight corners with no corrections needed. If I did need to change my line in mid-corner, it was easily accomplished. I was able to increase my entry speed by at least 10 mph and feel completely comfortable in comparison to the previous day's corner speeds. Even straight line tracking at all speeds was vastly improved. I felt much less fatigued after a day's riding, because I wasn't having to wrestle the bike in corners. My perception is that the bike feels about 100# lighter in corners after the adjustments than before. BIG difference in every way.
So, I'd mirror the comments of all the posters in this long and interesting thread. First, if you are unsatisfied with the compliance, handling or "feel" of the bike, don't be afraid to either ask for help or tackle suspension ajustments yourself. Second, based on the comments of all of the posters in this thread, one size doesn't fit all. Even what seem like minor changes have the possibility of making major improvements in your enjoyment of this or any other bike.
With less than 15,000 miles on this '05, I'm going to stick with the stock suspension for a while until I my skill level exceeds the equipment or the existing stock suspenders wear out as many of you have reported. Just wanted to let the world know how thrilled I am that I have a bike that responds to me as this one does now. I washed off the accumulated collection of 1000 miles of bugs this evening with new found admiration for this fine piece of equipment. Just wish I had had the adjustments done 12,000 miles ago!
As usual, I have no connection with the dealer mentioned above other than having been a satisifed customer of their service department on several occasions.
