You've Decided, Then What?
Once you've decided on the direction you'll take with your suspension upgrades, it's important for us to stress continuing forward with proper setup. Even the greatest brands can be bolted on and actually perform worse than your stock suspension without proper setup. For starters, be truthful about your riding style, ability and weight when you place your order because mathematical calculations and a database of information are used to build your shocks. Second, it's imperative you spend the proper time testing and setting up the ride height, sag, compression and rebound. If not, there is a good chance you just dropped some significant coin on aesthetics alone, rather than dialing in the perfect-handling machine for your needs.
What you do with your hard-earned money is ultimately your decision. My hopes were to educate our readers on this complicated and controversial subject in order to help you become a better and faster rider. There is no doubt that investing money into engine modifications will make your machine faster, but is your stock suspension capable of handling the higher speeds you will be riding at? If you choose to upgrade your suspension through rebuilds or going complete aftermarket, we certainly hope we've helped you to be a bit more educated on what you should look for so you can get the best return on your investment.