UPDATE: As usual we always anticipate the arrival of current issue of Motocross Action magazine! The February issue pretty much has us stalking the mailman.

500 AF Developments:

Many of our Facebook followers have noted the attention that our recent testing of the Service Honda CR500AF captured. It was a fun project and by the end several younger generation testers who had never ridden a 500 got to experience it. Some vets, myself included, got reacquainted with why the 500’s are so awesome.

We quickly got a fresh perspective! Here’s what we noticed: The latest Honda geometry combined with the 500 engine configuration made the bikes’ natural bias was very front heavy, particularity the cranks center-line relative to the front wheel and swing arm pivot

Our modifications focused on bringing about a change in bias, changing the TAC forks to an easy to manage and reliable spring set up using our TAC Conversion with Huck Valve.

For the rear end the same basic goals continued with a Merge Knuckle to drop the bike and modify the motion ratio shape. This lowered the rear, improving corner entry, but keeping enough stiffness in the valving via motion ratio for good center out steering and bottoming control.

We added in our Enzo Racing inspired compression adjuster to improve adjustability and traction.

The last piece of the puzzle came from X-trig. We felt that moving the offset, decreasing the trail, and stretching the bike forward from the center-line would benefit the heavy steering feel. We used the ROCS (a work of art) system that not only allows an adjustable offset but also improves the feel of the bike through optimized flex characteristics.

The Bullet points look like this.

• Change in chassis bias, via springs, motion ratio and triple clamp offset.
• TAC air fork converted to MXT TAC Conversion with spring and Huck Valve.
• MXT High and low speed compression adjuster for improved traction, feel and tuning.
• X-trig ROCS clamps for improved feel and precise control.

You can purchase the products mentioned in this article by following these links!

Merge Racing Knuckle

X-Trig ROCS Triple Clamps

MX-Tech High and low Speed Compression Adjuster 

MX-Tech TAC Conversion

Motocross Action Magazine