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“YOU ARE joking, no?” were the first words out of Bertrand Cadart’s mouth after he’d asked me how many kilometres I ride in a year. ”No, I’m not joking”, I replied, very amused at the big Frenchman’s reaction. You see, Bertrand had arranged a set of prototype shockies a while back for a Softail in Victoria which covers ”approximately 10,000 miles (16,200 km) in just over 12 months”. A respectable lump and a fair way to test a set of shocks – or so Bertrand thought. I explained to him that I only have one form of transport – my bike, and since both my job and my limited social life provide me with never-ending opportunities to visit exotic locations, I normally average 1000 km a week, which adds up to some 50,000 km a year, give or take a few. I saw his grip on the shiny, new Pan- Cruise shocks about to be fitted to my bike tighten visibly. ”Can’t they stand theWe had waited endlessly for them, our hopes dashed time and again by unknown Frenchmen. The foremost thought in our minds was that after waiting so long for them they’d wanna be pretty special, right? Well, have we got news for you.By Bull-Bar The Ever-Bouncingpace?” I asked, and Bertrand managed a smile. ”Zey will be fine”, he said. And he was right. The shocks he’s designed for the Softail are called ’Pan-Cruise designed by Jean-Pierre Fournales’, and due to the Softail’s need to ’extend’ its suspension under compression, it took a bit of screwing around by Jean-Pierre to get it just right.Here is the ’Final Solution’Secondly, despite what you might have heard elsewhere, the only way to improve your old Softail suspension is to throw it away. Or if you prefer, just ignore it and rubber-mount your spine instead. Now, before you all righteously declare that there are bike shops out