I want to cover shocks I've used and my results. I'm 53 and owned motorcycles since I was 6 , I bought my first Harley in 1986. Although I never thought the ride was particularly great it never entered my thoughts to do suspension upgrades. On my last bike an Electra Glide I won a set of Progressive 940 shocks , when I installed them I bought and installed the monotubes in the forks at the same time. The bike was literally transformed and the ride was greatly improved , all I thought was I should have done this sooner. When I bought the Road Glide the suspension was now a must do on my list. After reading many articles on this forum I decided to go with Ricor shocks and Intiminators in the forks because I believed this was an improvement over Progressive. The Intiminators in the forks worked but I could never get the shocks to work , Brian at Ricor re valved them and they where better but still not as good as the 940's . Eventually I called Howard at Motorcycle Metals and ordered a set of Ohlin's #3-#3 and put Progressive monotubes in my forks . The ride has been great , much better than any of the previous set ups and I swore I was a Ohlin's rider for life. A year later and I had decided I wanted to go back to a 12" shock but not sacrifice the ride to much. This month at Biketoberfest Ohlins had a booth so I talked to them. They recommended I go to what Howard calls the #2 series , they said even though it was an Emulsion shock instead of a Separated shock it had a longer stroke than the separated and they thought I would be fine. I know the motel Howard stays at during Bikeweek/Biketoberfest so I headed over there to talk to him. Howard told me several times save my money and keep what I have. He explained to me in a Separated shock the design to separate internally takes up space so the stroke will always be less than the Emulsion shocks however on the Ohlins #3 series the sweep valve allows for fine tuning giving it a superior ride. I then asked him about the JRI Shocks he recently started carrying. They are just now getting into Touring Bikes. All their shocks come in 12" or 13" , they come in Emulsified , Emulsified with a sweep valve , Separated with a sweep valve , piggyback & single tube with hose mounted reservoir. We went over the specs and with JRI I could get an Emulsified shock in 12" so it had a longer stroke like my Ohlins Separated 13" shock and still have a sweep valve , so I had Howard build me one and install it in his motel parking lot. Howard handed me a disassembled Ohlins and JRI shock to look at. My impression after 200 miles is my JRI 12" Emulsified shock with a sweep valve rides better than my Ohlins 13" Separated shock with a sweep valve, not worlds better but slightly maybe 10% better. If I had a Ohlins the difference isn't great enough to change , if I was looking to buy and didn't own either I would buy the JRI. For reference point only in my experience if stock suspension was a 0 , the Ricor shocks were a 1 , Progressive 940's were a 5 , Ohlins #3 were a 10 and JRI B's are a 11 or 12. Ohlins are great shock and have better packaging and marketing material than JRI as they are just getting into this market but after holding both in my hand apart and looking at them I feel JRI are better built and ride slightly better.BELOW MY JRI SHOCK-2 OF MY BIKE NO SHOCKS-3 OLD OHLINS-HOWARD DOING SOME FIGURING

 

The following are my JRI being built , Howard changing my springs , Tim Godshall with JRI who brought us the spring compressor and Howard working on my bike

 

It's good to put a face to a person you have talked to several times on the phone. I never would have expected Howard to look like what he does. I expected a balding, long bearded old school biker looking dude. Sorry, Howard....LOL....

I have not ridden my bike yet with the JRI's but from what I've been reading, I'm sure I'll be impressed.

 

I am getting more and more impressed with my jri's as I ride them..

now if only they came with that bad *** spanner wrench I see sitting on the table (the red one with jri on it)

 

Howard is a real lady's man , every where we went the girls were all over him, then I realized he had taped a $100 bill to his forehead , sorry Howard LOL

 

Very interesting, I've been pondering which would be the best.

 

Greatest feature of this thread. An unkind description of Howard, but not so very far from my image of him.....

 

Good write up. Subscribed.

 

My JRI's were delivered yesterday. I don't have my calipers from Harbor Freight yet, so the install may be delayed until next week. I can say that the build quality of the shock is superior to anything I have seen. My last bike was a Road King, and I put a set of Race Tech G-2's (coil-over) shocks on it. They were nice, better than the stock shocks, but these look like high quality pieces of work. I may be cooped up here in CT for the weekend due to this freaking storm called Sandy coming up the east coast. I am planning on doing a review as soon as I get them on and some miles on them.

 

So you'll be selling your old Ohlins?