Lowering the front...

Hi all,
what about lowering, just a bit (5mm), the front of the NC700X in order to make it little bit "racing"?
I've read that 3 to 7mm is a little adjustament that doesn't impact really on the stability and it would make the front wheel just little bit quick/spor while inserting the corner...

This is an eample on what I'm talking about in term of modification; just lose the bolts and make the fork appears for 5mm:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/80/07062009251.jpg/?sa=0

I personally think the NC turns-in quite nicely and doesn't need any help. My thinking is this...Why turn the bike into something its not? Just My humble opinion.

Give it a shot, you can always put it back if you don't like it.

Motorcycle physics will actually make the lowered "racy" bike less racy in reality. The NC already has a very low center of gravity. Motorcycles with low centers of gravity need to lean more for a given turn radius at a given speed. I can readily feel just how much more I have to lean the bike compared to my sport bikes I've previously owned. In fact many sport bikes have actually somewhat raised their CG's from where they were a few years ago. You'll remember underbody exhausts were all the rage now they've gone back to side or undertail exhausts. The new rage being mass centralization rather than just plain lowering CG. The reason is lower CG increases lean angle for turns but increases traction, higher CG allows for less lean for turns at the cost of reduction in grip. So now it's become a balancing act for sport bikes.

So when you lower the NC, this dings you twice in the turns. First you lower the ground clearance which means hard parts scrape sooner. And you lower the CG which means you'll be leaning more in the turns. So while it may look "racy" it certainly won't perform racy. Plus this is an NC. If you wanted racy you'd do much better to get a CBR500R, heck it costs less too.

They were talking about lowering it 3-7mm not inches. I would say there will be no difference felt.

The NCX has a 27 degree of rake. For the size, the NCX is very stable with good turn in. By dropping the front forks 7mm (1/4 inch), you would decrease the rake by about 0.2 degrees (by my rough rough geometry calculation). It would improve the bike's ability to change direction but unless you are pushing the bike hard, you may not notice it at all.

If you were to go thru with it, drop it by an inch and see how that would change the NCX's handling characteristics. So you can really feel it. Then you can dial it back a bit or back to normal to fit your liking.