Tyres, Brakes and Suspension » New Wilbers Nivomat rear shock

This is a post about my recent change in rear suspension. It’s cover some of the run up to why I wanted to change and then the choice I made and how that has turned out.

My bike is a R1200RS SE with ESA from early 2016 and has over 54,000 miles on it, until now I have had no work or services done on the front forks or rear suspension unit. For several years, I have wanted to change the rear ride height on my bike. I regularly ride it solo with no luggage yet have the ESA set to “rider and luggage” as I found it better handled how I wanted it too, in the bends – my riding pace is best described as, making progress even when touring, but I’m not talking track days.

Very early on in ownership I dropped the front forks about 5mm through the clamps to lower the front and I’ve even had the steering damper removed for the past 3 years (~18,000miles) to try and speed the steering up and give me more feel, this helped (and I've never had a tank slapper).

Yet when I was on tour last year, along the Spanish/French border, with around 25 kilos of luggage strap to the pillion seat and rear rack and even with the ESA set to rider and pillion I was touching the rider foot pegs down and by day two I had worn the ‘blobs’ on the bottom of the foot peg down to the hex nut (yes lowering the front-end contributes to this).
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And later in the week, on the phenomenal N135 north bound from Roncesvalles (Spain) to Arnéguy (France) the centre stand started to touch down, so I had to slow down – the touch downs are taking place below 40mph and tended to be in corners of more than 90 degrees but where I could see through the exit of the corner (i.e. get on the power early).

So I wanted to raise the ride height without losing the stance of the bike. I looked into a number of options:

Looking at replacement shocks a few mm longer or adjustable length – these were expensive, may not fitted the R1200RS and also required manual adjustable preload, usually with a C-spanner – or even more expensive with a remote reservoir.

I made an adjustable length level sensor pushrod – the bar that connects level sensor to the swing arm (BMW part number 33 54 8 528 804)
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I adjusted the length from +7mm to -7mm in 1 mm increments, it made diddlysquat difference to the ride height.

So then I started looking to getting a longer paralever brace arm (purchase or fabricated)
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I bought a second-hand one and spoke with a machinist / fabricator, they thought it could be done and were willing to give it a go, they are still trying to figure it out, welding the cast material it is made out of is specialist task apparently, so he’s still working on it – I will still pay him.

In April this year I was fortunate enough to get a fair-sized annual salary bonus (but far from enough for a new bike), so went back to the new shocks route and started reading about the Wilber Nivomat, which claims to self-level regardless of the load (so no preload adjustment required) and can be made specifically for the R1200RS. After several emails to Wilbers themselves, I got to talk to Darren at MCT suspension in the UK - who had recently become Wilbers UK importer. Another feature the Nivomat has when self-levelling is that the pressure increase inside the shock then changes the compression and rebound damping to match the new loading situation.
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That conversation gave me the assurance that I didn’t need a longer than standard shock because the Nivomat would self-level within 30 meters of riding and the standard shock was notorious for (I think he said) compression binding - basically staying compressed and not running at the required ride height - when “making progress”.

Part of the ordering process for the Wilber shock involved providing them with my weight in riding gear (around 90 kilos with boot and helmet etc., so not on the heavy side) and style of riding etc., all of which mean any spring and shock would be tuned to me and my riding style.

I bit the bullet and order one, cost of £1,220 and change (but this is influenced by exchange rates on day of ordering). It arrived after a few weeks and it took me maybe 3.5 hours of steady work to remove the old one and fit the new one – at least an hour of that was figuring out where to locate and how to mount the “ESA suspension fooling resistor” – I completely forgot to take a picture of this, it is a metallic tube about 30mm in diameter and 30mm deep, with a wire coming out, that plugs into the same connector the ESA shock unplugs from and stops the bike throwing a fault. I did weigh the ESA and the Nivomat - the Nivomat is 2 kilos less mass than the original ESA shock.

Nivomat
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Nivomat top - original ESA (with two electrical leads) bottom.
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I then went for a ride, before I started moving, I was flat foot with both feet – by the first stop (about 100 meters up the road) I was on the balls of both feet, and there it stayed. I rode carefully to start with, but it was immediately obvious the spring and damping were so much more compliant, I want to say softer but that might give the wrong impression, it was just more controlled and absorbed the road surface without crashing or wallowing, or bouncing, firm and compliant at the same time.

Within 5 miles, with the rear tyre warmed up, I could feel what the bike was doing like never before, it gave me so much confidence – to the point on exiting a roundabout I knew I could induce a small rear wheel slide and did so (the Traction Control then cut in) - the point I making here is my level of confidence was huge very quickly.

I had the following Saturday free, so rode to Wales (90 miles along the M4) and 300miles near the Brecons and up to and back to Newtown (A483), and in those 300 miles it was obvious what the problem with the old shock had been – or at least what the new shock does instead – and that is reduces greatly amount of understeer the bike had. Most noticeable (at first) was at slow manoeuvring speed < 15mph, like turning right at a mini-roundabout – I have always felt the rear of the bike was ‘push’ the front straight on – so I would put some rear brake to help control the turn – no more, the front now more willingly goes where I want it, no need for rear brake and now less feeling like the rear is pushing it – how a rear shock does this, because it is not just the ride height, I cannot explain, but I love the change.

Previously in faster corners, I would put the power on, and the bike would ‘stand up’ and run wide, so I’d lean over further or steer harder to keep it on the same line, as I applied throttle – this had become muscle memory, I wasn’t consciously doing it. With the new shock I found I was having to stand the bike up on exit to avoid turning too tightly, then it twigged, I wasn’t having to stand the bike up, I need to stop leaning it in as I applied the throttle, relearn riding it.

It is a very expensive outlay, but if you look at the cost of having a rear shock serviced, or re-sprung and valved, then it starts to look less expensive – I was in the fortunate position to take a gamble on this, was it worth it? For me yes, I could have had the ESA serviced and re-valved to get a similar improvement BUT now I have the added advantage that when I do put on luggage or a pillion it will retain that ride height and self-adjust the damping too (not just have 3 preset levels) :-)

Excellent write up as always Jason, been looking at suspension upgrades myself recently and you've given me food for thought.
Hope you're keeping well.

Wasn't Nivomat rear suspension an option or accessory on much older BMW's? As I remember it had that same self levelling thing.

https://www.wilbers.de/pdf_files/datenbl...utsch_214_3.pdf
https://www.zf.com/products/en/cars/products_65846.html

And yes, I remember Nivomat as something car related ages ago. The Nivomat trademark is owned by ZF apparently, but they are also the owner of Sachs (Suspension), who seem to be the real inventors.

Edit: amazingly, that it took so much time to use it for motorbikes.

My 1984 R100RT had Nivomat self leveling rear shocks. They were standard that year.
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Minor update. Fitted the panniers last night and put 12Kgs of water in each (don't know mass of standard cases, doesn't really matter), put 6Kgs kilos in a tail pack on rear rack and strapped 10Kgs of other stuff to pillion seat, for a total of 40Kgs+ extra mass on the bike. With this I was feet flat on ground and a bend in my knees, the bike felt like a racked-out chopper when I first started moving the rear was so low.

Within 50 meters it felt better, at first stop (after 100 meters) it had jacked itself up to standard running height, i.e. I was on the balls of my feet. Very impressive. This is heavier than I would normally run, I did about 15minutes through local bends at pace and other than the additional inertia of all that mass, the bike still handled reasonably well in terms of compression and rebound, and given the spring rate is set for me and 15Kgs of luggage (i.e. the normal riding I do).

Jay.

Zitat von JasonQ im Beitrag #6

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Minor update. Fitted the panniers last night and put 12Kgs of water in each (don't know mass of standard cases, doesn't really matter), put 6Kgs kilos in a tail pack on rear rack and strapped 10Kgs of other stuff to pillion seat, for a total of 40Kgs+ extra mass on the bike. With this I was feet flat on ground and a bend in my knees, the bike felt like a racked-out chopper when I first started moving the rear was so low.

Within 50 meters it felt better, at first stop (after 100 meters) it had jacked itself up to standard running height, i.e. I was on the balls of my feet. Very impressive. This is heavier than I would normally run, I did about 15minutes through local bends at pace and other than the additional inertia of all that mass, the bike still handled reasonably well in terms of compression and rebound, and given the spring rate is set for me and 15Kgs of luggage (i.e. the normal riding I do).

Jay.

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There was a time when much US beer was close to water.
Since resolved methinks.