I'm on board with Sivan's question. In my case, I just did a track day on the Monster for the first time. I deliberately ran the bike with stock non-adjustable Showas with fresh 10W Belray and the rear spring preloaded to get my sag within Ducati's recommendations. Rear rebound is two clicks stiffer than Duc's recommended baseline. Sag at the front was also within Duc specs, although about 10-15 mm too much for "sport bike" nominal settings. I did this to get a good baseline feel for the stock stuff in case I get all out of whack when I swap in some adjustable Showas and start fooling with dialing in both ends.
I was pleasantly surprised at how well the bike felt. No wallowing, chattering, or anything. No feeling like it was going wide unless I let it go wide. Only twice coming out of the last turn onto the Start/Finish straight did I get a very slight wobble - not quite enough to call headshake, even.
So in the absence of any bad manners with this set up, what do I look for in setting up everything properly when I start changing forks and rear spring/shock or whatever? The same behavior, only better maybe? I've read a lot of stuff on setting up bikes, and it seems like I'm starting from a better than average beginning point. And since I don't have any obvious problems to correct - I'm curious as to indicators that I'm actually making positive changes. So throw some advice at us.
I'm planning to use the track for dialing in new suspension work so I can take it to the (my) limits, have a consistent test surface, and of course be safe ;D
Oh, one other question - since Monsters have been known to have a few tank slappers. Has anyone, other than the case reported recently where the damper was set to nil, had a tank slapper with a functional damper installed on their Monster?
Personally, I'm the kind of guy who doesn't like to add things like dampers when they are perceived as a cover up for bad set up or look like poser fluff because they are not needed for my circumstances. However, if even the best set up, or 80% of the best when I don't know it's off a little still leaves me open to disaster, I may want to add one.
