RETIRED CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER 4 DAVID MUEHLEISEN
Dothan, Alabama

I hadn’t been on a motorcycle in about 10 years, but I was getting the itch to ride again. I kept checking out the Lemon Lot on post, looking for something that would catch my eye and fit my wallet. Persistence paid off when my wife and I went by one day and I spotted a yellow and black Honda CBR 600 F4 at a fair price. I told her that was what I wanted, so I pulled out my cellphone and tried to call the owner. Unfortunately, no one answered. A few days later, I came home early to get ready for school that night. When I opened the garage door, there the bike was, sitting with the keys in the ignition. My wife had bought it for me as a surprise. I was thrilled!

I hopped on the bike and just cruised around the neighborhood a few times. I noticed the bike sat really low — so low, in fact, that my toes would drag when I took slow, tight turns. I also noticed the torque seemed really excessive on the low end of the throttle.

I found out the previous owner, a young guy I had never met, modified the bike. For example, he’d lowered the front forks about 2 inches. This almost eliminated the gap between the front fender and the headlight fairing and shortened the fork travel to where I felt they’d bottom out under normal riding conditions. There was no question I needed to return the bike’s front forks to their stock condition.

The rear shock was the really scary part. The previous owner had replaced the original dog bones with fabricated steel slats that he drilled and bolted in place. The replacement dog bones were about two inches shorter and a sixteenth of an inch thinner than stock ones. I took off these replacement dog bones and looked at them. I noticed they were bending at the middle hole and the metal was stretching and slightly bent. To me, it looked like they were in the process of failing. I can just imagine the catastrophic failure that would have happened if that weak metal snapped at 65 mph!

It wasn’t just the suspension the former owner had altered; he’d also changed the sprockets to make the bike look cool and produce more low-end torque. That’s why the throttle response didn’t seem to feel right when I rode the bike.

Those changes completely altered the bike’s stock handling and performance. I read some blogs and spoke to some experienced riders about the changes. They told me lowering the bike’s suspension changed its handling characteristics. If you didn’t know what you’re doing, you could be in for a big surprise the next time you went into a corner. The stock CBR 600 already looked cool enough to me. I didn’t need these dangerous alterations. I decided to return the bike back to its original configuration, so back inside the garage it went.

Restoring the bike to the original configuration was, for the most part, an easy task. I returned the front forks back to their stock condition and torqued them down to factory specs. I replaced the rear shock dog bones and sprockets with original equipment manufacturer parts. Going back to the OEM sprockets made the speedometer read accurately again. It also corrected the excessive low-speed torque and the over-revving at highway speed. When I put the suspension back to stock, I realized the kickstand was 2 inches too short, so I ordered a used one and replaced that as well. While I had the bike torn down, I replaced all the brake pads for good measure. Now the bike was ready to ride just like Honda intended.

After returning the bike to its stock configuration, I could tell a big difference in every aspect of riding. Compared to the way it cornered before, it now turned less aggressively. When I took off, the transition when shifting from gear to gear was smoother and much less punishing on the chain and sprockets. Even when parking on the kickstand, the bike now sat properly.

The bottom line is I know the bike is configured exactly the way it was engineered to be. I don’t have to worry about parts snapping and falling off or dragging my toes in the corners. And that makes me feel a lot more confident — and safe — as a rider.