It also becomes a bit confusing when there are several things that have been changed and you are trying to pin point a certain issue. Because the Thornton shock absorber up front is not adjustable ( ordinarily) It was easy to eliminate this as a potential problem, because I figure that the shocker is light years better in function than an original Vincent shocker and it has a good amount of overall travel. I thought that by going weaker in the front spring rates that the front would end up nice and soft (comfortable) but that was not to be the case, as it basically got to the stage where it would near bottom out of travel just doing a decent stop by hauling on the front brakes. The front did feel softer, but the effect of the all up weight still seemed to feel quite heavy. This is quite a contrast to a Comet, where the lower machine weight feels much lighter in the front end ........This was how it felt to me after I had ridden Neal's Comet last year. That is not to say that the ride quality of my bike has not improved, it is definitely way better than with the original front spring set up.