Motorcycle and Scooter appreciation

Limited 33bhp?

Not the average Joe...a former amateur racer friend who does track days in Spain with some very quick people. They mostly have S1000 or Panigale and they all switch off the electronics.

I've ridden quite a few sports bikes on the track (used to race endurance with the above friend) but my road bikes have mostly been BMs with ABS2. I've had Aprilias and a KTM as road bikes, but never had problems with their ABS, so I don't know anything about it!

Your mate does not count as an average Joe.

Know that the race schools like Ron haslam and Cali all teach braking first on non abs bikes. But that was a while ago, so things have changed.

Does the panigale have the ECU that can tell which race track it is on. Hence set the engine up for the track? Or is that just the desmo or was it publicity rubbish?

Oh and wasn't there some contraversy about some super race bikes having ECU traction control.... remember that was the bikes sounded like they were misfiring coming out of bends.

Am just nattering.

Well I got my R1150GS Adventure yesterday at about 5.30pm in Forest Gate. A "lovely" ride back on the North Circular the M4 west to Bracknell. Those bloody panniers do not assist with filtering during rush hour. The owner died a few months back and I was buying it from his widow via the owner of Bermondsey Motorcycles who was at her house to meet me. All went swimmingly as he showed me the way to the A406 then the problems started once I weas on my own. A bit of a misfire at low revs, an intermittent tacho and after two hours of shitty traffic and an oily left boot and pannier once I pulled up at home. I dumped it on the drive and went out for the rest of the evening. The Faceache group said it was likely to be the oil filler cap on the left cylinder head and once started up this morning was correct, phew. I think the oil leak may have got to the left plug and cap causing the misfire, we'll see.
Seller's ebay photo.

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The Moto GP people seem to be in the habit of sliding at both ends, so presumably their ABS is switched off! Maybe they switch it on in the rain? I have no idea. Hopelessly out of touch. But learning at the track without ABS is a must, otherwise you'll never know what the tyres can do. There used to be a course at the Nurburgring for road bikes where they'd make you switch off your ABS and brake until your front tyre slid. Only 20 mph or so....nobody dropped their bike.

No idea about Panigales. Never ridden one and not likely to. Am not rich or fit enough for the track day in Spain! They book the track and hotel for a long weekend. Bikes are trucked there, riders fly. Professional technicians and tyre fitters. People with two bikes and loads of wheels. Everyone doing 190 on the straight. Lapping until they've had enough. Then they go to the hotel pool for beers. Not like a British track day where you only ride for one session in three, then somebody crashes so your session is cut short and you only do 10 laps all day. Then you ride home and it rains.

Hope it's not the hall sensor.

Brilliant! I still miss mine. I cut 6" off the bars to improve filtering. If you want road tyres you can sometimes find a cheap set of wheels from the RS/RT. Lose the barkbusters and the scaffolding and bash plate. Have fun!

Misfire at low revs could be the single O2 sensor issue that I mentioned when you said you were getting an 1150. It bothered me as it would sometimes stumble in turns.

As has been said, don’t bother with a 125 just do direct access and get a bigger bike after. Perversely a bigger bike is easier to ride than a 125.

If you’re in North or East London then try Camrider in Enfield. They use the Enfield test centre which is one of the easiest centres in London as most of the roads they use are north of Waltham cross and lack the difficulty of busy London roads.

If you do get a 125 get a cb125f, big enough to be worth practicing on and will hold its value. Lots with more owners than they are years old, this means they have been bought and used by people who got them just while they were learning so unlikely to have been mistreated.

Thanks all. I thought a 125 was a sensible start, but it doesn’t seem to be so I won’t bother. Didn’t book my theory tonight @hugo7 but I will do this week!

I'll do what I have planned and if it persists I'll check the O2 sensor. Thanks. It was running nicely when we started out but deteriorated.

It's not so much a failing sensor. More that they only fitted one so it reads the fuelling from one cylinder. Then when it sets the fuelling for both cylinders from that reading it can cause stumbling at low revs.

Would probably be worth checking the valve clearances as it might be closing up when it's hot.

At least the valve clearances are easy to check, just lean the bike over.

Finally, blue skies.

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You could have blue skies every day if you had the correct Gixxer blue screen

Loving the use of the word 'correct'.

And the screen must match the dust caps. Otherwise you'll never achieve market value when selling the bike on Gumtree.

Anodised so the caps will never come off again.

Pow! Back in the game with a fresh MOT.
Five or six years out of the saddle, feels like I was never away.

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Looks good, seems to have the sort of extras someone who knows about bikes would’ve added.

It's ex police so there's a bunch of non functioning controls I might get rid of, but it seems very functional.
Torque for days as well.

Just moved house today so any changes will be on the back burner!

Sintered brake pads fitted ~50 miles ago, they have just started to make a constant noise which is really annoying especially around town. Do I need to just get the miles in or potential issue?

Finding it hard to get any time these days but can take the brake calliper off and clean pistons (again). I'd quite like to bleed the brakes too but I read I need to reset the ABS module with an OBD reader (to get totally rid of old fluid) and I CBA.

Thanks for the details! Insurance is being a nightmare with the CRF300, as my garage is not at my address. It's so much cheaper for me to insure a KTM 300 exc, which makes no sense as that bike is a chav magnet. So no CRF for me at the moment.

What bike is next?

Ha, no worries. Doesn't make any sense that the CRF is less to insure than an EXC, but what do we know?

Looking like a 690 SMC will replace it. Been deliberating hard, yoyoing between keeping the CRF and the SMC.

When you fitted the pads did you clean the disc holes out as well using a ceratec grease on the pad edges? Is it a sliding caliper?

Also slowly drawing the fluid out with a big syringe (50ml) out of the bleed nipple should draw the fluid through the abs system.