Motorcycle and Scooter appreciation

Feel like printing me some headset shims fam?

Also, anyone's insurance gone up? SV is up for renewal and it's gone up by a fair bit. The fuck is going on?

I did notice this when using the comparison sites, but strangley the price went down when going straight to Bennetts. Do have 7yrs NCD though.

Bitterly cold out, but a quick 40-ish miles through some country roads to get out the house. With earplugs in I barely hear the bike, and with cold painful hands I can barely feel the vibrations too! Toward the end of the ride it was difficult to gauge my clutch hand position and feel the revs because of the cold, but the bike performed admirably. No mis-shifts, nothing felt too clunky, no weird false neutrals, slowly learning the bike’s behaviours.

Early on in town traffic, at 30-35mph I managed to lock the rear and do a little wiggle while stopping quickly. A car turning right across my path on a mini roundabout approached very fast and didn’t slow at all or check to his right. I’d anticipated this particular mini roundabout but he really fly out of the street, and appeared to slow to a near dead stop as soon as he was in front of me.

Progressive front braking had me slow and stop on the line but what I thought was smooth rear braking had the back slide a bit side to side. Absolutely fine, stopped with well enough room and on the line.

Definitely need a new rear tyre, though: it’s quite old so I assume it is just too hard. At least there was no panic involved. This has happened on a couple occasions. I don’t mind being able to lock up the rear but I’d like to rule out tyre age/condition as a cause of concern asap.

Need to get some small bolts to permanently fix the box to the bike. Quite happy with its size. I can’t see it in my mirrors or when shoulder-checking, so it isn’t impacting on my view at all, and no feeling of contents rattling around either.

Bike needs some pink accents. It’s just too black and orange at the moment.

I found a Troll at home, so that will be attached to the bike in due course.

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Still dicking around with this and haven't done any lessons yet but I'm intent on getting on it this summer as we're moving to a new place which will mean a optional lovely commute across mountains to the office...
Finally fitted my Wishimura (exhaust and Yoshimura decal from wishdotcom) exhaust, first time I've welded in about 25 years and it was an interesting combination of stainless steel and steel... that exhaust wrap is hiding a multitude of sins😅
Actually looks pretty great and sounds mean! I ran out of exhaust wrap so need to get a longer roll and redo it and then do some wiring on the new headlight and maybe swap in some mini indicators but it's coming together, it runs like shit though so need to disassemble and clean the carb and then see how it is but I suspect it'll need a bigger jet in the carb.

Kind of thinking a Yoshimura inspired red/ black paintjob could look pretty cool and paint the rims and engine black too maybe?

Will also most likely do a battery-less conversion and stick some slightly more adventure type tyres on if anyone has a tyre recommendation for something that'll do about 75 - 25 road - off-road?

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Highly recommend hand/knuckle guards, for wind protection.

Yea I am in two minds about what kind of bashguards to fit. I have the bar ends fitted that I can remove, and I believe a whole set of cheaper guards that I can make do with... just not sure if I want that, or go full-courier with some Hippo Hands.

I like these Grasstrackers. Looking good.

Personally I’d find any ‘loud’ exhaust a little annoying, but only because I fitted a stubby ebay special to the GN125. It was so deafening on a test ride that I was too embarrassed to rev the bike, and sheepishly bimbled past police on my way home. Immediately removed it and never refitted.

The grasstracker itself looks great. I’d have loved one instead of the GN - basically what I was turning the GN into anyway.

Did you read up on stripping and rebuilding the RFY shocks? Apparently they can benefit from doing the QC the factory doesn’t.

Probably going battery-less isn’t as beneficial as you think. No massive weight saving for example. You can get pretty small batteries anyway, and if you’re already messing with the loom you can replace the reg-rec for one that is suitable for lithium and could then fit a little lithium battery instead.

These are about as mini as you can get for indicators. I have them fitted to the DR. Don’t forget the no-load led flasher relay in lieu of the original, and if there’s a telltale light on the dash then you need a diode kit to get it working properly.

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Good tips there!

I haven't actually gotten around to servicing the shocks yet but it's on the to do list!

I'm sort of harbouring a notion of upgrading the carb with a proper Yoshimura one and getting an actual Yoshimura end can and redoing the exhaust to suit at some stage which will probably cost about €1,000 in parts which is a bit silly but sounds like an awful lot of fun so I'll suffer the noisy boy for a little while I reckon!

I'm almost certain I have bought some of those very indicators! Size wise they're great little things but I might get some of that orange tint spray and give them a coat... I've never liked clear lenses on anything :)

I had a little outing to the track yesterday! Adams motor sports go kart track in fact. 0.8miles of sinuous, well surfaced ‘Mac. 50 bucks for the day and barely anyone else there. Genuinely hilarious. I can confirm that 85cc of throbbing two stroke power and Moto3 slicks are a fab combo. The most fun I’ve had in ages and so much cheaper and more chilled than big track days.

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Damn, super jealous. Would absolutely love to do some midi/mini track days.

Not the same track but these smaller tracks (and displacements) look a barrel of laughs!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzMqe9QaHJA

I think it’s the way forward. Tyres last forever, cheap, chill, friendly people and just as directly transferable to big bike.

Only fly in my ointment is I’ve got to pull the sodding engine and split it to fix 6th gear jumping out.

These things look rad. They’re selling them for four grand new here at the moment - trying to persuade a mate to buy one...perfect mini.

https://tiandaracing.com/

I hope that once everything with lockdown settles again, I can ask nearby go-kart places whether they have any way of facilitating it.

For the last year I’ve tried to get my instructor to get some cheap minimotos and set us up a little cone track in his training area. But then again I was also trying to get him to extend his fences into the little area of trees and build a tiny trials track too!

On the topic of direct transfer of race skills, the XJ and I had a relatively good ride today. I’m learning what it needs to run properly, and that I’m just too snappy with the controls and need to put a moment of pause between clutch/throttle blip-or-chop/gear shift, and to be sure that I’ve been resting a foot on the lever to get a preload. Very few clunks today and mostly just positive clicks. The main bad shifts were lacking finesse and attention, such as not moving the throttle as far as I had assumed.

Only 60 miles or thereabouts, but the roads were so dry I started playing with my body position. Cars were certainly giving more room behind me as I began hanging off the side on sweeping turns!

Definitely getting more comfortable with its personality as a bike, that I’m moving my body more.

A lot of creaks and clunks emanating from my body today after moving it around on that little bike yesterday. Not sure if it's the age or the mileage!

Would absolutely rip one of those around town if they were road legal-able
In full race leathers, sliding a knee on every turn

You are living my dream biking life. Looks like a lot of fun.

Agreed.

They look like incredible fun.

£6k new though. Still plenty of money for one.

That Tianda is way cheaper and is a full(ish) sized bike. You could totally have a blast around Brands or Mallory as well as Kart tracks. I shall report back if I can persuade my chum to lift one....

Old swing arm out. Only damage was near new r. Brake switch, ah well.

Finishing up strip, rust fix and paint of rear end and new swing arm (was powder coated bmw blue which wasn't a fan of, so now it's all silver again), lacquer going down today.

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Went for an explore and did a whole load of lanes I’ve not touched before. Mostly because my gps had run out of battery so I went the complete wrong way to the lane I knew! Ended up trying all sorts of great little routes including a couple rutted steep climbs (in both directions) and a singletrack too.

Along a very rutted byway I came across a puddle with a track running wide of it. One rut puddle was double the length of the other. Photos are after my return journey through the deep side. Pretty much totally submerged the bike and found myself in a cloud of muddy steam!

Great fun.

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This is the exact correct use of this bike. Good job!
Just wipe off lights + plate and wear the mud with pride the rest of summer.

Wish there was more/ ANY legal offroad in Scotland. Got a few offroad centres then some proper dirt bike circuits (only folk who like spending more time airborne than possibly in hospital with an exploded pair of collar bones need apply), in the northern reach's of England (reachable with a dualsport) theres some good lanes and rural roads/boats across the moors, not so much mud as miles of baby head sized rocks akin to riding in a riverbed, where your dualsport then does a good job of trying to crush you at every opportunity. Van or trailer with a 2s 250 or similarly light and forgiving bike is whats needed up here.

Once took my Funduro down a lane, been on them all day and was feeling confident, mostly just about managed, then ended up in a deep ravine, 2' deep ruts becoming worse ruts and then undercut where a land drain had burst and basically cut the bottom of the trail off, a nice steep cliff.
Someone without the fear might have just gone for it. Spent an hour breaking away the edge of the cliff so could roll down it without toppling over. Couldn't go any further, back up the over side of the stream crossing was trials bike/enduro terratory, ZERO chance for me.
Turned bike around by basically rolling it totally over then levering it around with an old fence post, got back on and then immediately grounded on frame on way back up, not enough commitment. Got it back up top with help of many branchs and progressively faster more reckless run ups.
Defo should have got off and walked out the next 100m before committing to those deep ruts, lesson learnt for next time! Think that part was put on the 1st version of the UK TET, messaged them in that maybe wasn't suitable with photos of the state of it, they took it out after that, otherwise they'd be a clutch of 1200GSA down there permanently.

https://youtu.be/RDYeFvCnh5w