I'm very glad to have stumbled upon this site to find that there is such in depth discussion and community surrounding the bike I chose!
I'm a Canadian from the Pacific Northwest. There is a lot of very technical woods riding here which i do like, but my favorite will always be heading north a bit to where my family is for some high speed, low obstacle riding in the ranch lands along cow track and logging roads. Riding up there is great, its nice to be able to take it easy and enjoy the powerband but also head to the side of the road and climb over some little logs if I feel like it. My 200 suits me perfectly and I'm beyond pleased with my decision to hunt one down and bring it home.
This site has already helped me so much in the 2 days since I found it, with little things like the direction to build a cylinder holding tool while I redo my forks. As I'm sure we are all aware, we have a lot of time at home on our hands these days and I decided to use mine going through the KDX who i nicknamed Uncle Kal, and getting him ready for some spring action with my family. I've started from front to back and as of friday hes got a new front tire and currently the forks are apart on my bench and waiting for a new bushing to arrive before I can continue. Everything else looks good minus the coating on one of the small bushings, so ill just sit tight for a bit and wait for the mail man so I can continue.
Many thanks to all of you, I got them apart fairly easily using a $4 27mm brass hose plug that i drilled a hole into and mounted to a scrap piece of pipe. Probably would have sat around wasting a lot of time if I wasn't able to see this sizing information so easily, so thank you. I look forward to the many other tricks to discover in the topics here.
I'm currently reading about all of the different fork mods people are talking about on here. Ill take suggestions to do some research if anyone has any for a 155lbs rider. I'm not overly aggressive or anything, but I'm also not in a rookie class either. I'm just gettin old which to me seems to mean i like keeping both wheels on the ground, yet I'm willing to bet over 85% of my riding is top end of 3rd gear and into 4th without having to worry about too many surface inconsistencies. I never found the forks too flexible but I also haven't put them in an area where their limits are tested.
Im not set on making any changes as they actually felt pretty good to me beforehand, but I took them apart last night before realizing what a lot of you are doing to the forks so i didn't know yet what to look for so I could give you some better information. The only thing that looks out of place to me as not being factory (potentially) is the spacer up near the top plug is a 1" mild steel tube and its not cut completely square makin me wonder if a previous owner has already customized the shim size. It measures 1.480 at its smallest and 1.505 biggest so my guess is whoever cut it was aiming for 1.5" (38mm). For now, my intention is to just keep using it when my new bushing arrives and i reassemble with the bel ray 5w. I could be persuaded to try otherwise, though and have all the capability to make the parts.
anyways. Thats plenty of an introduction, I'm happy to be here, happy to see all of your discussions, and happy that I can now log in and use the search function
. I tried to upload a photo of my bike and the trails I like to ride but it didnt work, I imagine ill figure it out someday.
Take care,
Katie
