For any of you guys who trailer your motorbike you might find this useful.
Was doing a practice load on my trailer ready for the off next month to hopefully sunny Spain,and as I have not tied down this particular bike wanted to work out best way to do it.Anyway have always found a problem when tying down the front end that no matter what I did seemed to end up compressing the front forks right down in order to stop any movement,not good for the seals! especially as they could be like that for up to a week.This was my solution.buy a length of plastic 41mm x 1.9mm waste pipe from B&Q or the like (about £1.50 for 2 meters).measure the distance between the top and bottom yoke where the forks slide up and down and cut a piece of the pipe about 1mm shorter than this,cut a slot the length of this piece,pull the cut pipe apart and place over the other uncut end of the bit you havn't used (by using both ENDS of the pipe you know both bits will have at least one square end)now cut through both bits of pipe keeping the cut as square as possible,by cutting them together both pipes will end up exactly the same length.Now separate the pipes open up and force over the fork tubes.When you now lash down the front of the bike it will only compress around 2 mm,making the whole thing more secure.
Was doing a practice load on my trailer ready for the off next month to hopefully sunny Spain,and as I have not tied down this particular bike wanted to work out best way to do it.Anyway have always found a problem when tying down the front end that no matter what I did seemed to end up compressing the front forks right down in order to stop any movement,not good for the seals! especially as they could be like that for up to a week.This was my solution.buy a length of plastic 41mm x 1.9mm waste pipe from B&Q or the like (about £1.50 for 2 meters).measure the distance between the top and bottom yoke where the forks slide up and down and cut a piece of the pipe about 1mm shorter than this,cut a slot the length of this piece,pull the cut pipe apart and place over the other uncut end of the bit you havn't used (by using both ENDS of the pipe you know both bits will have at least one square end)now cut through both bits of pipe keeping the cut as square as possible,by cutting them together both pipes will end up exactly the same length.Now separate the pipes open up and force over the fork tubes.When you now lash down the front of the bike it will only compress around 2 mm,making the whole thing more secure.