Greetings, just brought back my newest addition. A 2011 Road Glide Ultra CVO. Beautiful ride with lots of add ons but it takes bumps horrible. Found stock HD shocks were replaced with 400 series Progressive shocks. obviously these are not air shocks so I'm new to trying to get the smoothest ride. any suggestions how to ease the Mrs flying out of her seat when we hit a bump or pothole ? tks for any advice.

 

The 400 are progressives low priced shocks. from what I know of them.
The 940's with adjustable preload would work much better for you
Adjust the preload on them what exact 400's are they?

 

Go to you tube and search on Progressive 400 series shocks. Plenty of HOW TO videos.

Chuck

 

the springs say 1340 90/130 and the sticker by the top adjustment says 440-406. Are these some cheapo shocks without much room to adjust? Or are they decent? my 94 Ultra classic has air shocks and put 25 lb. in and rides 2 up great. the original HD air shocks on the 2011 call for 50lbs fully loaded. Wonder why previous owner opted for the gas filled. thoughts ????

 

The very fact that Mrs mpc rides along changes the rules, where shocks are concerned! The passenger gets a quite different riding experience than you do up front, so my first comment is to recommend you only pay attention to owners who say their wife or significant other rides along. It is much easier to get happy when solo than when duo.

It's quite possible the PO only rode solo or not very far. You could consider asking Progressive for their advice on setting your shocks up. To be honest to get a CVO ride out of your bike I suggest you consider upmarket replacements, for your very upmarket bike!

 

My 2011 Road Glide road terrible with the factory shocks, I got with howard from motorcycle metal and spec'd out the Ohlins. 39,000 miles on the 2011, 12,000 on the 2014 Limited and 10,000 on the CVO Limited, Best ever, if you do miles and want Mama happy , call Howard, best money ever spent. They are also rebuildable, so upgrade is not needed.
Nobody is happy til Mama's happy.

 

I have a 2012 RGU that I bought three years ago. I am about 200 lbs and ride 80+ of the time with my 110 lb wife, and 50% of that time with luggage. I put the Progressive mono tubes in the front which helped with the dive on braking and the ride on the front forks in general. I also replaced the stock 13" air shocks with a set of 13" Progressive 440's that I had on my 2001 RKC. I really like them on the RKC but on the RGU they bottomed out far to often, even when I had the preset as high as it would go, and then the ride was quite stiff/rough. I went back to the OEM air shocks but my wife complained that they bottomed out to much. I then tried thicker oil in the shocks, which helped some, but still had bottoming out. I tried increasing the air pressure to 30 - 40+ lbs, and they were still bottoming out over any real sized bumps. My wife was hating the ride and the new bike.

A month ago I worked with Howard and bought a set of the Ohlins 2.5's.
The difference is night and day. We took a 1,500 mile the day after I installed them. Had not even adjusted the pre-load and we did not bottom out once. The general ride was also much smoother, it is like the smaller bumps and ridges are gone, and less wobble I the high speed corners. So I am a big advocate of the Ohlins through Howard as he sets them up with the springs, valving, etc. based on your weight(s), riding style, etc. I did not want to spend the $1,300 or so for the 6's so I went with the the 2.5's that he has. They were about $750 with the the Roadglide.org discount, which is about what the progressive 940's run, although you can get these a bit cheaper if you shop around.

So my advice is to forgot the Progressives and go straight to Howard for some Ohlins.

 

Consider giving Progressive a call. My experience with their tech folks was very positive while dialing in the 944's on my Limited. They will be able to tell you what you have and your options. If you go with the 944's I'd recommend the standard, vs HD, spring unless you two are especially large folks. IIRC I spent about $550 for these and am very happy with the improvement over original air shocks. Got a little lower seat height out of the deal, too.

 

got to get em set up right,if u run out of prelaod adjustment, then replacement springs may be in your future.thats with any shock ohlins, jri or progressive. go to progressive site and do set the sag.

 

Thanks, I did call progressive & adjusted them accordingly. Both of us are fairly larger in weight. (putting it nicely). About 480 lbs (2 up). Unfortunately on these 400 series shocks I had to adjust as far as they could go and still bottoming out. On the full weight measurement I put the Mrs & 200 lb. Grandson on it to get a good approximation. Pittsburgh uses a ton of soft patch in the springtime so every 10 feet is a speed bump. probably going to look into a set of Ohlins and try to find the best springs to settle the ride. Ive always had great luck with a decent air shock but I know the RGU is a completely different animal. for now we'll probably keep the 94 Ultra for city & the RGU for longer trips. We ride almost everyday possible (barring our 4pm thunderstorms ). Planning a 6000 mile cross country trip in August so I really appreciate all the input.