Will the RS see a surge in sales and if so will there be enough supply?

[Grumpy Goat]

Agree - you have the right to feel left out in the resumption of this old practice of putting a duckbill valve at the low point on your swingarm - just in case you find some high water to run through.

So they used to put the duckbill valve on swingarms as a matter of course before? This being my first shaft drive I was not aware of that. I wonder why they stopped given it is a low-tech solution. 

I note that the service procedure includes some testing of the integrity of the drive train - this might simply be for data collection among the bikes of GS riders, who seem to be (at least on their fora) at high risk for final drive failure. 

Could be that because there are much greater numbers of them it seems that the risk may seem higher, although the GS is likely to see more rugged use than ours. Either way there should be more failures on the GSs I suppose.

You are right - why include the RT and not the RS. The most recent models sport front/rear travel of 4.7/5.4 inch for the RT and 5.5/5.5 inch for the RS (always one of my arguments for the RS as a good bike for varied terrain). (GS comes in at 7.5/7.9 inch and GSA at 8.3/8.7 inch.)

Yes with that degree of vertical travel the horizontal component of the travel will naturally be greater than with our bikes, but one could also think that with more movement there is less chance of rust welding these surfaces together. Also, the failures I have seen appear to be twisting shear at the yoke and that has nothing to do with rust at the spline toothed interfaces (I would not think).

That said, here's Ben Purvis' take on this isssue as found on the Bennetts site (UK) as to why RTs were included....

Thanks for including that. For people who don't ford streams etc. I am a skeptic that significant water will accumulate due to condensation etc, at least where the heat won't burn it off. I do expect some surface rust at these spline surfaces unless they are disassembled and lubed more often than the maintenance schedule specifies.

Like you I am in no rush to get the duckbill valve retrofitted. My issue is more the principle of the thing.