I am a little clueless when it comes to suspension mods. I know I can have the front end reworked for my weight, 215lbs, but can I upgrade my forks to an adjustable suspension? Thinking about this if I shed some pounds or sell the bike in the future.
If so could you point me in the right direction on where to purchase or a rough idea on cost. My dealer is still a fairly new ducati dealer, but been a mc dealer for a longtime. They take great care of me but I am a little afraid of having them work on the suspension. They took apart my bike trying to reset the maintainence light one time since the didn't have the Ducati cable yet, and let me ride of with a wailing rear brake after they said they fixed it. Everything has been fixed since. Do you think it would be an issue to have them install?
Right now, you'd probably be looking at sourcing forks from an 1100 if you want adjustable. They would be the most direct bolt up parts available. Other forks would require a larger amount of fiddling to get set for you bike.
Another option is to replace the internals with an aftermarket cartridge set. Matris and Bitubo make such items - though I don't know if there's something for the 696 specifically yet - or the 696 can share with some of the previous gen monsters - like the 620, 695 and S2R 800 all use the same matric cartridge part #
Cost.. probably around $800 for the parts.
If you're not sure of the competence of your shop to do relatively minor work - I don;t think you;d want the gutting a critical component like your forks...