Stelvio NTX rear shock remains a great option

A few years ago I was playing around with Matris K springs & impulse bought cheap used Stelvio shock just to try as well. For various reasons (mainly laziness and being pissed off with swapping shocks every 5 minutes) I only tested the Stelvio shock with a 100 N/mm = 575 lbs/in for imperialists spring....it was too bouncy even with my 75 kgs, so I stuck in storage.

After a couple of years running OKish Matris K on the back (with 115 n/mm spring) I decided 3 days ago to go back to a combination I haven't tried before - second hand Stelvio NTX with stock spring & changing shock gave me a chance to re-grease my dog-bone (sounds dodgy, but I mean the one on the GRiSO!).

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Suspension links were still good but definitely benefited from regrease; shock swap (bottom up) went easy with rear wheel & LHS passenger footpeg off (exhaust stayed on); Stelvio shock just fits with lots of jiggling; found out hugger bracket had fatiqued and was flapping around - TBH had heard it a bit recently - so ordered up a new bracket....2 hours well spent

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Result is fantastic:
1. Not a revelation as it's been quoted here & elsewhere loads of times BUT Stelvio stock is significantly higher than the Matris adjusted to it's maximum, so bike looks better IMHO. Suspension is now better than the Matris at all speeds and all crap roads around here & especially high speed bumpy motorway
2. I now have an easy pre-load knob rather than impossible C spanner shuffle
3. Stelvio shock gives loads of space to get at the elusive 13 mm top bolt holding shock that Matris reservoir blocks access to, so much faster to remove/fit.
4. Dog bone is greased for few more years & Hugger bracket on it's way.

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Hi Paul. Just to clarify, what was the technical difference between the 'first' Stelvio shock that you tried (and stuck into storage), and the one that you now have that you are happy with? Is it just the spring rate difference, or something else?

Just the spring rate.....the first time I tried Stelvio shock I put a 100n/mm spring on (following some comments from Sidrat) before I fitted the shock. With that spring rate it was too wallowy, so I went back to playing with the Matris & Matris spring rate and never tested the Stelvio at higher rates (sadly the Matris springs are too short to swap across). The stock Stelvio is 110n/mm and much better.

Could you just remove the old one and pop it in or did you have to play with washers/adapters to make it fit on the screw sides?

It fits exactly with no mods - same bolts as stock and lower attachment (like the original Sachs) has one threaded side so doesn't need a nut (unlike the Matris). I'm loving it as extra height suits 6'3" and the handling is better.

Nice!
There is one on ebay  and I'm tempted to pull the trigger. I'm just unsure about two thing:
- the spring rate: I'm 80kg with all gear on and I fear that the original spring is too stiff.
- 2nd hand: I never bough parts 2nd hand and I'm weary that this shock might be in a bad state.  Is that something I should be worried about?


Edit:I missed the part about your weight. Since we are close and you said that the stock spring fits you well, issue 1 should be ok

Second hand one I bought wasn't 'sparkling' but cleaned off road dirt & removed tar with lighter fuel. I also took it apart to change spring so was easy to clean inside (used sealey spring compressor).....no guarantee with 2nd hand but can usually return ebay stuff if it's not good

Was there a change in the rear shock of the stelvio over the production years? The one I found only list the 08 and 09 production year as compatible bikes.

Not sure - I can only find this ..may be more info in forum

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Found an other one closer to my place. It's from a Stelvio V8 from 2014. Would that fit? Its a Sachs [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Yes

Nice. I'm gonna contact the dealer! Looking forward to fitting it in

Evilgarfield wrote:

Nice!
There is one on ebay  and I'm tempted to pull the trigger. I'm just unsure about two thing:
- the spring rate: I'm 80kg with all gear on and I fear that the original spring is too stiff.

Will be firmer but I doubt it will be too stiff. Unlike the stock GRiSO spring, you won't have to wind half a mile of preload onto the Stelvio spring, and you can also back-off the compression damping a bit without risk of bottoming given that the Stelvio shock has extra travel. Its the shock travel that always has (and still does) bug me about the GRiSO. I'm a very similar riding weight to you, and some years ago I bought a brand new Wilbers rear spring/shock. For reasons that still escape me, Wilbers fitted a 95nm spring (same as stock). Sure, the Wilbers has significantly better valving "feel" than the OEM unit, but the shock travel is stupidly short. My gut feel is that a 105-110nm spring would be about right.

Let us know how it goes when you get the Stelvio unit fitted.

Brent.

Currently have the swingarm removed to grease the bearings ( they had none but are in good state) and I'll use the occasion to swap the shock. Would you have settings starting points in terms of preload and dampening since we are the same weight?

Here are standard settings from stelvio manual...not sure I applied any of them though, as I only found this recently.

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Yeah that's what I found as well and I ended up setting that as my stating point but I thought that since the bikes' geometry is different the set-up might not transfer well. Now I need time to ride to optimize this but so far it looks good. I will post more once I have had time to experiment a bit

Ok I just had the occaison of riding 80Km on small twisty roads with very variable tarmac quality.

The bike is currently set-up as follows:
- Front fork showing 2 rings above the clamp, stock set-up
- Stelvio shock at the rear, 15 clicks for fully open preload, 24 clicks from fully wound up compression screw.

The bike handling is night and day compared to before. It flicks into turns much more easily and feels very nimble. It holds the line very well and feels posed. The compression of the rear is not perfect yet, it sometimes feels a bit wobbly and I will have to try some clicks left or right on the dampening but it's close to the good settings I think. I did not bottom out a single time even with veeery bumpy roads. I'm 75kg with gear and today I had 5kg Kriega 20L on the pillow seat.

Best 100.- bucks I could have invested into the bike! To anyone hesitating, if you find a 2nd hand stelvio shock in good conditions, go for it!

Hi

I did this on my 1200 Sport 2V.

I had to open the damping screw completely to get rebound right. Since then I have for the first time some riding comfort on this bike.

Check brake line/ABS cable on bottom front of the swing arm - they can be squeezed by the footpeg bracket. Swing arm moves down further.

I obtained an older Stelvio shock that had over 120K km on it.
Got a local Canberra group, Suspension Smith (same mob Pete Roper uses), to recondition it.
Cost AUD$200 and they said that it was a straight forward job.

Put it on the bike today.
Still have to tweak it a bit, but it's an immediate improvement (I'm 75Kg in my birthday suit).
Like the others, I also changed the forks to 2 rings showing.
I was comfortable with the steering at 5 rings, but I didn't enjoy the forward lean.
I'm well under 6' tall ( I think I'm around 5'8") and the foot reach is manageable, but I wouldn't want the bike any taller.

Today I had to do quite a bit of off-roading to reach our climbing spot. The fire road was not in a very good state but the added ground clearance of the Stelvio upgraded GRiSO made all the difference. 
Like other have said, the bike should have been fitted with that shock from the very beginning.

I don't feel the preload clicks on the low mileage (2932 miles) shock I got. Also the rebound screw is not accessible after mounting.