[dcJohn]

Did a good two hours of riding in this morning. I spent the first 30 minutes working on slow-speed maneuvers in a nearby parking lot, and then I got a bit more adventuresome and took it out of the neighborhood, driving on 40mph back-roads and sharing the road with some traffic.

It was… awesome! Riding is even more fun than I’d hoped it would be. The little Ninja sure has to row through gears quickly to get up to speed, particularly with trying to keep the RPM’s modest during the break-in period, so there was plenty of practice with shifting. There’s a nice series of S turns not far from my house that I dove through a couple of times. Counter-steering is a lot more intuitive than I thought it would be, and I’m getting in the habit of rolling on the throttle as soon as possible through the turn.

I passed four other motorcyclists during the ride, and everyone waved. I gave a low wave back to everyone…. is there a “proper” motorcycle wave?

[Budd]

You need to wind the gears out a bit more. You will accelerate faster. Don’t rush it though, it will come. I would look up the motoman break in method. It breaks it in more quickly and some say better.

“I am the best there is at what I do, and what I do ain’t nice.”-Wolverine

[dcJohn]

Thanks for the advice. I read over the article, and it makes sense. So, if going with the plan of working the bike (high rpm acceleration and then deceleration) in lower gears (2nd-5th), what do you think are good target RPM’s for reving up to on the Ninja when breaking it in this way? All the way to redline, or more like 9-10,000 rpm and back?

Fortunately, I’ve got plenty of good roads to do this on, and the Ninja’s smaller engine should make it manageable. I revved it up a few times today to 8,000 rpm because I’ve followed similar recommendation for breaking in performance car engines, and figured that at least a few RPM flexes probably wouldn’t hurt, might help, and certainly were all kinds of fun.

Also, forgetting breaking in the engine for a moment, what’s a common RPM to bring the engine up to when accelerating?

[Budd]

Your powerband is going to start at around 8k RPM. I was riding this weekend with a guy on a v-star 1100. When he got on the freeway, he cranked it down to get up to speed. I was going about 11k in 4th and didn’t drop off of him. I find that it likes to ride at about 7k though. Anything lower and it feels slow to respond. I do have the classic version and I have heard that they messed with it some, so you may have to feel it out for yourself. I really seldom go over 9k.

“I am the best there is at what I do, and what I do ain’t nice.”-Wolverine

[Author]

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