Opinions on a new 26 350sxf

Don't go the stark, everyone I know including myself that had one as a main bike has eventually gone back to real bikes. Yes they may be ok as a second bike but as your main bike definitely stick with a real bike.

I used REP for my 6500's and revalve on my 350, which is a 2022. Mark got the 6500's very close to the kyb feel and they offer a lot of in house parts to help the 6500's. All i did to the shock was a revalve and bladder kit. Ive been very happy with my setup from REP. I had it done 3 years ago. Great bottoming resistance and great front end feel. A little pricey, but well worth it. Mark and Chelsey were great to work with. Mark is very confident in his revalve work with the stock AER fork and will offer that as an option first. I did think about it, but im in NY and didnt want to send the forks across the country a few times.

One aspect I really like about the 6500's was the idea of being able to just drop in the 6500's to the stock tubes vs having to change the for lugs if i did kyb inserts. In the future when i replace my 350 with a newer one, i can just put the 6500's w/springs into the new forks and just have to revalve the shock.

The new air forks are great to me 🤷‍♂️ learned a good trick on here of adding oil to the forks instead of more air to get additional bottoming and keeping the insane plushness.

Mark is hands down one of the best if not the best in the suspension business. 

This!!! ☝️

In NJ you can easily drive your stuff to FC in Ephrata PA or Solid Performance in PA. They are both top notch with WP stuff and it's nice to actually talk to them in person.

My bill was about that same cost 3 years ago, but that included return shipping as well. Yes its not cheap and im not saying its the right choice. At the time I got my work done, most didnt have much research done on the 6500's. I was skeptical going with the smaller tuners who were just going to do a basic revalve and them not making the 6500's as good as they could be. All it takes is a phone call or email with the tuner to get a feel for what they are offering and/or the knowledge they have. Sometimes we forget that we are paying for the knowledge and time invested to produce the work they are offering. You do get what you pay for.

This spring I used FC for a full revalve w/springs on my new crf450r. I wanted to keep it local and I trusted what they had to offer as they test and tune in the same general region that im riding in. That bill was still about $1700 and only because I used a local dealer who sells their services. I had gotten other revalve quotes and they were all in this range... even from REP.

My 6500s from JBI work very well. Certainly less than that shown above. Revalved, springs, etc. for under 2k. That was a year and half ago.  I've ridden 25-26 YZ450 with stock and revalved KYB and I honestly think the 6500s are every bit as good. And that's on one of those harsh '24s!

I need to ride a '25+ 350 to see of that's even better.