Hi, I use Mosko Moto soft bags mounted on Hepco ( sorry not Holan as mentioned before) racks, I can't stand hard cases. They do take a lot of punishment and it's a set up I used on my 990 for years without any ill effects. Re the rear shock Nitron are working on one so I might have a look at that, the standard one isn't bad it's just a bit of a compromise and massively under sprung ( for me at least). Re the tyres they where new when I left Newbury so have only done about 500 miles. I think what kills them is fast motorway work, I had to get a wriggle on there and back but not crazy fast by any means. A lot of the riding on the Taffy is dirt over hard rock and I guess when you are spinning the tyre it just chews it up. I must say though that they are not bad at all on the road, they don't seem to bugger up the steering/turn in like TKC 80's do and once you drop the pressures they aren't bad off road, I would say they don't have the same bite on the edges as TKC 80's, you notice it trying to climb out of ruts or when riding on steeply cambered tracks. One other thing I noticed is that the bike feels much much more planted off road when you are standing up, on my 990R there wasn't such a marked difference, on the AT it feels much more secure as it seems to move the weight forward a bit more which again makes me think the rear shock/spring is the weak link.
. The tyres where pretty good but you have to drop the pressures a lot to get any front end bite and then they are pretty horrible on the road. I also think the rear will be done in 1000 miles. The suspension was pretty good and I only bottomed the front once, the rear I softened off to get a bit more grip on the rocks and that was bottoming all over the place, the centre stand also bangs around. I managed to go through some water that splashed over the top of the screen and through the vents in the front and it didn't stop ( thank Christ) but then neither did the old AT that was with me. All in all I was really really pleased with it and save for a better rear shock and belly pan ( on order) there isn't much I would change. Loads and loads of people came over to chat about the bike and most the comments where very positive, the only downer was another new AT owner who had a bit of a go saying it was too nice to take off road and how could I get it dirty and risk damaging it?. I guess he should have bought a GS, I really don't understand why you would buy an off road bike and not ride it off road unless you just want to pose.
