Front fork handling

[veeger]

I realize this is a cruiser-styled touring bike but would like to know if/how the front end handling can be improved. The front end wallows in higher speed (40+mph) sweepers with road irregularities. I'm 150#; rear shock is set up with 30# and damping on 4. Rear end feels planted and handles most road conditions well. Would a fork brace; higher weight oil; or different springs help stabilize the front end somewhat? BTW, I'm not deploying the front brake during cornering. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!

[biggersm]

We're more experienced with the XII so we can't help too much with the set up for the 1700 but I guess you could experiment with the fork brace. I would make certain the the fork is not under any load when you put the fork brace on (do you have a bike lift?).

If it was an XII I could talk you through how to tighten the steering stem lock nut. Hopefully someone will help but the rake on a cruiser should allow hands free riding (not that I or Kawasaki recommends it, just saying it should be that stable).

I would recommend using the front brakes in most situations except low traction situations (sand, wet oil, etc.) or extremely tight slow parking lot turns (like during the MSF course). A couple bikes ago we used to have a layout similar to the 1700 (it was a Suzuki Intruder 1500). I used to use front brake only on it and on our XII about 90% of the time. Front brakes are the real secret to stopping power.

[1st one]

I have damping set on 3 and have 22lbs in shocks air pressure in rear tire 43lbs and front 29-30 lbs I weight 220 lbs and my 2009 voyager handles perfect, with less air in the front we have a tendency too wobble and more air in the front and it starts to take bumps hard

[David (N. Alabama)]

If you are only 150 lbs and do not carry gear the recommended rear shock pressure for you is 0 PSI. So, by adding the extra air you are raising the rear of the bike which is changing the geometry slightly. The only time my Voyager 1700 felt bad was a high speed merge onto a highway where there was a bad transition to the new pavement.

What air pressure are you running in your tires?

If you want to improve the front end I would recommend Gold Valve Cartridge Emulators. Race Tech and Traxxion are well known for their suspension components.

If you really want to change the handling of the bike Traxxion makes a full Cartridge conversion kit for the Voyager.