Purpose of Fork Protection Ring on road cycle?

O

OblivionLord

fast rider
Joined
May 23, 2023
Messages
81
Location
Florida
I own a Svartpilen 401 2023 and have no desire to ride offroad. I can't seem to find any firm answers to how this piece functions except that some people
say it is supposed to protect the fork but to me it appears to do absolutely nothing on this bike even if you were to bottom out. If the shocks had the rubber
fork guards then perhaps this could prove useful to make sure they dont come out of place. However this bike doesn't have fork guards.

Could someone provide clarification please?


Orange.jpg
Could
 
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If you mean the red rubber ring on the bottom of the fork stanchion, that's a travel indicator. It's used to guage how much fork travel you are using.
Slide it up to the top, go for a ride, and the position of the ring displays the travel you used.
Can be usefull when setting up the forks.
 
He means the boy racer red plastic above the shock seal. It does nothing as far as I can tell, it flops around loosely, I removed it on day 1.
 
Yea I figured that it does nothing. I can only imagine that they are saving cost by not designing a fork for this bike but instead carrying over an already in stock fork from their dirt bike lineup.

How exactly does this plastic ring protect the form?
 
I've taken them off and still wonder what the purpose was for them being on since they aren't sealing anything. They were loose but had clips that rested in a groove that prevented them from raising and lowering. I don't see these things being beneficial for even the rubber boot protectors.

Someone has to know
 
If asked locally and no one seems to know either. They are familiar with the neoprene socks and rubber boots but not this plastic piece.

So after I took it off I looked at the bottom of the fork on my 390 duke and it also has a little groove to use for the teeth that's on these plastic protectors yet the 390 duke does not come with them on. However surprisingly the new 2024 duke 390 has them. Absolutely weird.

The 2013 duke all the way to 2023 duke 390s don't have it but the 2024 does. Makes no sense.
 
If the "sliding lower leg covers" are those yellow pieces in the pics then it would appear that the red plastic rings would be a good solution to prevent the yellow sliders from rubbing against the upper fork. I can now understand this however if there is no intention of riding off road then why fit these onto marketed road bikes such as the 401 vitpillen and 390 duke where neither have no intended off-road use for their 'stock' configuration.

The new 2024 401 vitpillen is a road bike with street tires and it has the red ring protectors meanwhile all of the existing vitpillens from it's debut never had the plastic rings. The 390 dukes which are all road bikes with street tires from debut in 2013 have not had these plastic ring protectors but now the 2024 does.

Still confused.
 
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I believe the entry level WP apex ( without compression and rebound adjusters ) had no red plastic rings ( like the duke 390 ones ) but the fully adjustable Apex ( like on the newest duke 390 ) does have them.
I would not worry if you have removed them already.
Mine are now in the bin, along with most of the other unnecessary bits and stickers I did not like the look of.
 
I think the forks came with the rings standard out of the box and when assembling the bike Baja motors in India just never took the rings off.
 
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