Modern Vespa

adjusting spring preload on factory front shock

Hard to believe what a difference a 1/4" spacer makes. When the factory front shock is not constantly on the bump stop actually works pretty well.

Occurred to me that this would be an ideal application for 3d printing. I've got a coworker who is a total 3d printing geek. He agreed and volunteered to help. The idea is to put the model on thingiverse or similar site so anyone could make one. Any interest, worth the effort?

most people on this forum who don't like the oem shocks choose to spend money on aftermarket shocks which so many then don't adjust suitably (several have even admitted they use with out any adjustments at all) and then swear that it's better than oem ignoring in the process the vast amount of confirmation bias springing from love of brand names, money spent and expectations placed in their head from this forum. I've even seen some people ask others what adjustments they use not understanding that correct settings are and based on rider weight plus target usage - different for everyone.

so the idea of adjusting the preload like you did is sadly I suspect is something very few others would not be interested in (although I think it's a great hack that you did - stick with the attitude).

PS not trying to upset anyone here or pick a fight. if any feel they're offended then consider yourself not targeted.

an interesting extra observation (not so fighty):

the rubber bump stop on the oem is softer than on the aftermarkets that I installed (SIP) so bottoming the out oem although it sucks was not painful to the bike, whereas bottoming out my aftermarket is very savage and I think contributed to the death of my steering bearings. note, I abuse my bike on a lot of rough rocky roads. this is where getting the preload and compression set perfect for the conditions is of course critical and there's no great setting for this as the very short 6-7cm travel (slightly different across front vs rear and oem vs aftermarket) leaves me in a damned if I do damned if I don't - do I want smoother and bottoming out constantly or bouncier but not bottoming out, do I care more about dropping into a deep pothole or hitting rock too fast - it's all trade offs.