I suspect some of the HL's I've seen in print and photos would be a bit of a handfull to ride. With the rear jacked up high the swingarm has a tendancy to try and climb under the bike under acceleration. Add in some sharp bumps and the rear starts to kick quite hard.
I've heard that, like the Husky they are based on, HL's are not the best turning bikes around and they like something to bounce off to stop the front washing out.
Cloggy, my shocks are long because I moved the top mounts higher on the frame, I've actually shortened them now to reduce the swingarm angle. I'm starting to think that the frame does not need to be deraked but there is a much bigger handling improvement to be found in reducing the offset in the triple clamps. This came to light in the last lot of playing we did. see recent post on triple clamps
http://ozvmx.com/community/index.php?topic=17891.0I need to get a spare frame, forks swingarm etc out and put it all together and find out what shock length I think works in the standard postion.
Having said all that I'd still like to own an HL simply for they are!