Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums General Tech Hardtail

Hey guys

Who was it that removed their rear shockers and made their ride into a hardtail?

Saw the pic recently but didn't note who it was.

Tried searching but I think it was just mentioned during the course of something else.

Cheers

That's BonnyBeemer's bike. See this thread.

I see he just replaced the shocks with struts. If you were going to make the sacrifice in ride and handling by going to a hardtail, wouldn't it make sense to do it so the struts follow the line from the headstock through the tank to the rear axle. This would mean attaching the struts to the frame somewhere closer to the rear of the seat.

My $0.02

Chris

Well he did have this to say in the thread;

"Just playing with my toys. I would NEVER attempt to ride this thing on a trip!! The struts are for "looks" and a little more traction "between the lights". Am also putting on a 16-tooth counter. Then....... after a couple of weekend, pull it all off."

He also said he only has $30 in the struts. Sounds like to me he's just messing around to see what a hardtail ride would be like on our bikes, and doing it on the cheap before throwing a lot of money into a true hardtail conversion that wouldn't be easy to reverse if he didn't like the ride.

Yes. I wasn't meaning to criticize the fellow who had already done it. Just a thought for the person who might be considering a hardtail in future.

I would love the hard tail look myself, but it seems like you would sacrifice a lot. Maybe black stock-length shocks on Brents shock relocator blocks would do until someone comes up with a hidden-shock "softail" solution.

Chris

A sprung seat might be the way to go with a hardtail, and it can look good too in a retro early 1950's Triumph Thunderbird kind of way. Wouldn't be a great ride, but if all you're doing is local street riding it wouldn't be too bad of a ride. I don't care much for softails...kind of false advertising that bugs me. Just a stupid pet peeve/personal taste of mine.

Thanks guys.

My America is a hardtail. Have the chrome struts on, lowers the rear fender rather nicely as well. Can put the shocks back on for long trips when I need to.

Hey Mike
C'mon man, you can't come here tempting me chrome strutts and not have pics to back it up with!!

Do you have any?

Yup, have pics just not real sure about how to go about posting them. Read in the FAQ that I have to have them on my own website which I do not. I will mess around here and see if I can figure something out so I can let ya see them.

Okay, here you go, this should work. This link will take you to a pic of the bike. Its not a real big pic but it should give you the idea. I will try to get a better pic posted one of these days for ya.

http://www.rockdog.net/pics/3a_1_b.jpg

Mike,
Love the pic, the chrome struts look great but I ride too much and too far to do something like that. I did notice that you relocated the license and tail light, did you have to do anything to the rear fender to smooth it out. I really want to do this but don’t want it to turn into a really expensive endeavor.

Sebastian

Sebastian,
Actually the ride is not that bad. I put on about 100 miles yesterday on PA roads and am actually thinking maybe I wont ever put the shocks on. I encountered several rail road crossings and they werent to bad either. As far as what needs to be done with the rear fender, I am not really sure, I did not do the work. I know there are some holes that had to be covered and it had to be repainted.