I'm a first-time poster here, but I have been lurking for a little while. I'm a road rider (not a racer) who enjoys "spirited" riding on twisty country roads; my goal is to take each corner in a smooth, controlled manner with a minimum of slowing down, and with a reasonable margin for the unexpected, whilst utilising the available ground clearance and avoiding the attention of the police. I've been riding for 32 years, and have dabbled in suspension modifications  over that time, having fitted Fox and Ohlins shocks to previous bikes, and installed Cartridge Emulators, and Gold Valves and stiffer fork springs at different times as well. I'm currently riding and tinkering with a 1999 VFR800.

Where I live the roads vary enormously in quality, but usually include lots of lumps and bumps where re-surfaced sections join, and our road builders really like using fairly coarse chip embedded in tar as the main ingredient. I'm not a commuter, so the bike gets used solely for such riding, where I place a high priority on reliable handling at relatively low speeds (generally no more than 130km/hr).

I want a bike that refuses to get bounced off-line by imperfections and does not tank-slap and yet is reasonably comfortable at the same time. I'd say Ive got pretty close on the handling side, it takes a truly heinous bump to get off line and I really trust the bike to cope with everything without getting upset, yet the comfort part of the equation seems to elude me, or maybe I just want something that can't be had?

I've gone down the path of upgraded springs front and rear, have a rebuilt 3-way adjustable shock, and have spent a fair amount of time with a high-flow comp valve and modified shims, along with the original rebound piston and modified shims. I've paid attention to the basics too and the forks (41mm, RWU) have been rebuilt with new seals and bushes, and the swingarm and linkage bearings are all well-greased.

On the forks I have tried various combinations of oil weight and shims, but I still seem to get more "jolt" out of the forks than I'd like when striking sudden imperfections. There's no bottoming occurring under these circumstances, and the bike is using very close to maximum travel overall.

My thought is that the scenario I'm unhappy with relates to high speed compression damping; I think I need more "blow-off" ability than I currently have, so that the forks can move faster and follow the bump without transferring so much force to the chassis. At the same time I am aware that there is more at play here than just springs and damping; stiction and unsprung weight must play their part too, so it could be that the set-up is as good as I can hope for with the equipment I have, and that I am mis-diagnosing the "fault".

I'm not looking for any specific guidance here on what I should try next, this is more of a philosophical question around what I should be targeting as the optimum, and what the trade-offs are. I'd welcome your thoughts and will sit back in the hope of bathing in your collected wisdom.