WRR suspension work and who is the best to do it.

Hi all,
2012 WRR. Works great, in basically mint condition w sub 4k km's on it. a few small farkles added. rear cog. acerbis bark busters, Seat Concepts seat, and such.
I"m 170lbs w/o gear on. bike has a fairly full tail bag on w tools/tube/levers/1L fuel/1L water) most of the time.
It was a vastly better bike suspension wise than my previous DRZ400s that had been though the wars. But I got a demo day on a 2015 Beta 480RR and suddenly my WRR was a bit of disappointment overall (well except in reliability) but most obvious to me was the quality of the ride.

I'm a 48 yr old moderate rider in the dirt, but have 25yrs MTB race experience. will be exploring/touring/occasional hare scramble/single tracking and just generally riding.

Go Race seems to be all the rage but w exchange and duties its quite a kick in the wallet..
On this side of the border it seems to be between $800-$1000 Canadian from what i can see from online prices.

Alternatively i could put a slip on on it and some other bells and whistles but honestly the bike is great as is (well low end could have more punch...).
or i could put the money in the bank and bank on yamaha coming out w a WR450R next year...


So my question is: Will getting a pro to re do my suspension make it THAT much better? a thousand bucks difference?
and if so...who has first hand knowledge of a suspension tuner in Canada (preferably east coast).

thanks in advance,
Don

I'm 51 years old 205 lbs without gear and ride mostly dirt here in Idaho.  Most of that dirt is mountain trail riding with just enough pavement to hook everything together.  Frankly I could have gotten by with a plated dirt bike, like a WR450F, but was attracted to the engine, transmission, durability, and long maintenance intervals for the WR250R.  That and I'm a one-bike kind of guy, so I thought the WR250r was a great dual-sport compromise.  But since I picked it up a year ago I've been surprised how much I love to ride mostly trails with it, and with that I've been running into suspension limitations more and more.

At first I found some relief from tweaking the stock suspension settings, but it's still not enough for me.  If interested you can read about the adjustments that worked for me in this previous post.

Easterntide wrote:

I got a demo day on a 2015 Beta 480RR and suddenly my WRR was a bit of disappointment overall (well except in reliability) but most obvious to me was the quality of the ride.

I came to a similar realization after swapping bikes back and forth on the trail with buddies that had dedicated dirt bikes with suspensions set up for trail riding.  My immediate reaction was "Damn... I gotta get me some of this!"  Especially because I'm no spring chicken anymore.

Easterntide wrote:

Go Race seems to be all the rage but w exchange and duties its quite a kick in the wallet..
On this side of the border it seems to be between $800-$1000 Canadian from what i can see from online prices.

Go Race actually seems pretty reasonable for what they provide.  Most of it is parts.  For comparison you can work your way through Race Tech's page for our bikes.  Regardless of which pro does the actual work you can save some money by starting with just the rear shock, or by opting for just re-valving and reusing the stock springs etc.  Of course each of those money-saving choices comes with some sort of compromise in the end result.

Easterntide wrote:

Alternatively i could put a slip on on it and some other bells and whistles but honestly the bike is great as is (well low end could have more punch...).
or i could put the money in the bank and bank on yamaha coming out w a WR450R next year...

Yeah you could do that.  But what's the point of adding a few horsepower to a bike that's already challenging to ride in the dirt?  Seems like that's adding fuel to the proverbial fire.  I remain puzzled that so many new WRR owners invest in exhaust, intake, and fuel mapping mods before addressing bike armour, gearing, suspension, and controls.  (I guess it must be because they're expecting different things from the bike than me.)

Wishing for a WR450R seems to be a popular pastime for some WR250R owners.  But there's currently no reason to believe one is coming, so I'd be cautious in holding out for one.

Easterntide wrote:

So my question is: Will getting a pro to re do my suspension make it THAT much better? a thousand bucks difference?
and if so...who has first hand knowledge of a suspension tuner in Canada (preferably east coast).

I don't know for sure, but I'm betting on it.  My entire suspension is currently at my local Race Tech service center getting new springs, valves, oil, seals, and bushings.  I'll be paying more than if I went with Go Race, but my local guy has a good reputation and I wanted to be able to have it adjusted locally if necessary.  (We have a lot of dirt bike riders in my area.)  I'll be sure to post a report in this forum after I've had a chance to ride it a bit.

Here's a great video that explains why the aftermarket valves make such a difference.  The rider launch at 2:15 in this video is a great example of what's wrong with the stock shock in the dirt.



And here's a video, just for fun, that shows the kind of riding I aspire to do with this bike.  The stock suspension really wears me out on these kind of trails and my buddies are getting tired of laughing at me while waiting for me to catch up or pick my bike up. (This isn't my video but I've ridden portions of this trail.)



Sorry for the long post... I promise they will get much shorter as soon as the snow melts!

Ehr....regarding the "before video with the crash...His ass is on the seat, or just about, any bike would launch him that way....

Bad rider, not bike...

Jens Eskildsen wrote:

Bad rider, not bike...

Perhaps.  But that doesn't change the underlying problem with the suspension.  Google "wr250r pogo" and see how many matching results you get.

I know English isn't your native language, so I'm not sure if you know the word "pogo".  I think the Danish word is kængurustylte?

Can you check with the NB dualsport (nbds maybe I forget) site for someone to do the suspension work for you?

I had a local guy whos done suspension work before install race tech gold valves in mine.
It was worth every penny IMO. I can ride through rough stuff in control at speeds that would send me over the bars on a bike with a stock shock. Stock the back end is all over the place with a revalve the rear tire stays hooked up, the front works better than stock but it wasn't near as bad stock so its not night and day better like the shock is.

You can get it pretty close to the beta suspension wise with a gold valve kit or gorace setup. It will never be as versatile tho as most off road bikes have 1-2 inches more travel so they can be softer without bottoming easily, the WRR is either soft and cushy but bottoms out easy or hard to bottom but a bit stiff. Mines on the stiff side so I can slam into stuff racing scrambles, I don't do those much anymore so im valving it softer this spring so its smoother just cruising down rough trails.

I'm in Southwest Idaho also, and quickly figured out the stock suspension wasn't going to do it for me the first time the bike kicked me in the butt in the woops. The rebound on mine was awful for anything other than poking around on the trails. The front wasn't great, and was undersprung and damped, but I played with the adjustments and at least improved it quite a bit. I went with the Go-Race setup, since Travis had a good reputation, was personable on the phone, and CALLED ME BACK when I left a message. This is a major customer service issue that I can't stress enough. I don't want to chase people and beg them to take my money, I want them to be interested in having me as a customer.

The difference was night and day, and I went from poking around in the Owyhees at 30-40 MPH, to running the old stage coach road at 75-80. This is a fun desert road that has all sorts of neat sections like gravel creek crossings, loose stuff, hard pack, flour dust and dips, cattle guards, slow speed turns and high speed straights. Totally floats my boat. The suspension is up to hitting things and getting airborne at high speed, which just flat out does it for me. Turned a fun machine into a REALLY fun machine, that meets my needs to do just about anything with the bike. They should just offer a better suspension option directly from Yamaha for a few hundred bucks more for the people that want to push harder offroad. The on road handling is more solid also, and it won't wallow in dips and bumps while cornering. The stock stuff did that if you were hustling a little. It's planted no matter what now, and it really didn't hurt road comfort much.

Race Tech offers valve kits if you feel up to trying it yourself. There are videos online showing how to install the valves and set up the shim stacks. I'm sure there's a good suspension tuner in Canada also.

If the springs are close to the right rate for you, then you only have to pay for valving which drops a 2-3 hundred off the price. If you use the stock style fork seals, it's less expensive also.

It was one of the first mods on my bike, and if I had it to do over again, it would still be about the first thing I would recommend after getting the gearing into a more happy place. Suspension, gearing and tires make a neat bike into a much more capable bike. After that it's all about making it fit you better and fit your mission profile better.

Fast Bike Industries. David. He's good & very reasonable priced but busy with road race bikes most of the time so I don't know if he still messes with WR's. He used to personally have a WRX & developed the rebuild work for it.

Thanks for all the comments...seems i'll be hunting for a tuner today :-)


Cheers,
Don

wwguy wrote:

Jens Eskildsen wrote:

Bad rider, not bike...

Perhaps.  But that doesn't change the underlying problem with the suspension.

Agree, just wanted to tell that what happened on the video would happen on every other bike out there, and that it was a bad example.

My bike seems fine tho', I know the PO had it refilled with gas, but I don't think any other actions was taken.
It seems to handle MX tracks ect just fine. I made my fork a lot less harsher by softenening it up, and adding "real" (the vary a lot in weight) 2,5w oil.

But I'm very well aware of the problem, from reading varioust posts all over the internet.

Most riders never play with the suspention, theres lot to gain just by setting it up to your specific needs.

Do your own. With racetech. Once you i did it now I can change oil and valving in one hour each peace. Ask question and watch videos. First you need to setup with the right sag front and back to see if you need springs. You need 3.8-4" rear and 1.5-2.75 front. I'm running 3.9 rear and 2 front

I'm 215 ish right now and have Go Race on mine front and rear.  Just pay the man and get it done. It's a plush ride that honestly is pretty much as good as a high end mx or enduro set up.  More than just one good setting, his stack lets the adjustments offer you a huge set of options and not just fine tuning.  I can go from lazy boy on the highway to hard enough, while still working like suspension, on the soft pounded out sand mx track with simple adjustment and the tracking is so much better than it should be on a 275lbs bike.  That all said is Travis is well above top notch to deal with and he'll work with you to make the shipping work or maybe offer you a "cheaper" solution :)  Shipping was a little expensive and the dollar was terrible but i regretted it only until i was toping 2-3 foot sand whoops wound out in 3rd gear with only my sense of well being preventing a shift to 4th

I went through this same process in october.

I ended up having Racetech valves and new springs installed in my wrr by the local yamaha shop. I can't comment on how Racetech compares to Gorace, but I will say that compared to the stock forks and shock, the difference is dramatic. It feels like a completely new bike. My issue is that as soon as I had it done, the snow started to fly and I haven't been able to ride since november.. come on spring!!

I don't think you can get hurt with either setup.

Good luck and please let us know how it goes