Hello everyone, Boo here.
Today's story: after I replaced the spokes on my XR250, the front end felt more planted.
After replacing the front spokes with DACHI stainless steel spokes and riding the bike, the front felt more planted and the bike was much easier to ride.
In fact, DACHI stainless spokes are heavier than the stock ones.
I weighed them to see how much heavier, but I've lost the photo...
So my understanding was that the front felt more planted because the wheel, a rotating part, had become heavier.
The BAJA has two headlights and a big tank, so there should be plenty of weight on the front.
Even so, I'd always felt that the front lacked feel and wasn't very confidence-inspiring.
Changing the spokes solved this without my really intending it to.
But thinking about it more, I believe the real reason was that the rear had become heavy.
My BAJA has a 43-litre top box, which holds my on-board tools, puncture repair kit, a spare regulator and so on.
That made the rear heavier, and I concluded that, relatively speaking, the front had lost its feel.
In that case I should really adjust the rear shock preload, but adjusting preload is a bit of a hassle, so I hadn't done it.
So if you ride an XR with a big top box on the back, switching to DACHI stainless front spokes might make the bike feel more stable (it did for me).
That's the story.