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TWEAK YOURSELF: 5 DIY Motorcycle Maintenance Tasks
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Gary856Participant
http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/ae188/deg856/ArroyoSeco.jpg Anyone knows how to imbed image directly in the post?
Gary856ParticipantDue to it’s riding position, a sportbike is harder to balance and maneuver at low speed, so that makes learning more difficult for a new rider. Beyond that, it depends on what kind of riding you intend to do.
If you ride on open roads and freeways, with high speed and sweeping turns, a sportbike is in it’s elements. I love the look of sportbikes, and love the exciting feeling of the in-line four revving up.
If you end up riding on steep and twisty roads, where slower speed balance and maneuverability is more critical, a sportbike does not work as well due to its ergonomics. The tighter the road, the more so. You’ll feel much more in control on a standard bike with the upright riding position.
To me, riding a sprotbike is more of a challenge, which is a part of the fun of riding it. But I’m glad that I learned to ride on a standard – GS500.
Gary856Participant“God, I’ve not laughed so hard in ages. I think I would have cussed that person out after I’d stopped laughing. What a retard.”
That’s what I thought when I read the lamest excuse Halo guy gave SCRider. That was absurd! How does someone make up stupid things like that? Next time he would say your headlight should go out when speeding so you’re in the “stealth mode” from LEOs… Halo should post this brilliant information on their web site.
My Halo band is only about 3 months old, and it’s stayed in place so far. I’ve gone up to over 100 mph on my naked bike and it hasn’t moved. I was worried that exposure to rain might break down it’s elasticity, so it’s interesting to learn from SCRider that soaking it in water actually improves it’s elasticity. Regardless, I’m itchy to play with some reflective tapes, so when the Halo band falls off it’ll be time to play with reflective tapes.
3M SOLAS tape looks interesting. Before eon mentioned that I only knew about 3M Diamond Grade, which they use on traffic cones, and is very bright.
Gary856ParticipantThanks, eon, on the glove info. The BMG Thermosport looks nice; I just ordered a pair. I thought they look a lot like the Cortech Scarab winter gloves at first, before I did the side-by-side comparison. Can’t wait to get them to get the all-weather capability. Too bad they’re not available in local stores for instant gratification. If they can handle temp down to 45 deg or so, that’s plenty good for riding here in San Jose. I think any colder than that the gloves will become too bulky, or need to go the heated route which I don’t want to deal with.
Earlier today I went to a local motorcycle gear store to look at some winter gloves. I like the Cortech Scarab – looked good, felt good, well armored, but the insulation felt a little light, and seemed not warm enough for days in the low 50s. I also tried on the Tourmaster Winter Elites and liked them – soft and warm, with an integrated 3-finger rain cover, armor seemed adequate; except I just saw an online review from a user saying it’s water proof level is not good in heavy rains.
Gary856ParticipantWhat kind of winter gloves do you use for cold and rainy days? I was think ing of getting Aerostitch’s rain covers ($47) for my leather gloves, but now I’m thinking maybe I should just buy a pair of cold weather water proof gloves. Fieldsheer’s Eskimo gloves look pretty good at $59.95 close out price.
Gary856ParticipantPut it simply, the transmission is the gear box, and the clutch is the part that engages/disengages the transmission to/from the engine. There’s also the shifting mechanisms that selects the gear in the transmission. The problem no longer sounds like the clutch or the oil. Sounds like the problem is in the shifting mechanism (spring, barrel, etc.) or the transmission.
Aren’t you in the SF Bay Area? For technical questions and suggestion on mechanics, BARF (bayarearidersforum.com) has many very experienced motorcyclists and home mechanics. For a bike mechanic in San Jose, I’ve used Sporttech Cycles. For even more specific technical question and service history of a specific bike, you should find the model specific user forum and ask there.
I woudln’t ride a bike that’s stuck between 2nd and 3rd gear other than to get it off the road. First off, starting on 2nd would be pretty hard on the clutch because you’d have to slip that clutch a lot at high revs to not stall the engine. Second, you may aggrivate the existing problem. Most importantly, it’s not safe to ride on public roads when the bike is not fully functional. You’ve got plenty of warning signs, so get that bike off the road and get it serviced. Don’t tempt fate and risk a major mechanical failure in the middle of a ride.
Gary856ParticipantI’m almost afraid to respond because I’m NOT that mechanically minded, but have you at least checked the oil level? If oil level is low, the shifting action gets messed up. Fill up to the correct level and see what happens.
Haven’t changed oil in 7000 miles? Are you at least using full synthetic oil? But as long as the oil is still oil and not all turned into thick gunk, I don’t think the shifting problem is from how old the oil is.
Gary856ParticipantDraining old gas (4 years sure is old) is the normal advice. Go to http://www.gstwin.com and do a word search “draining gas tank” and you’ll find all the technical info you ever need on a GS500.
Gary856ParticipantOn a blind right turn, especially when the road is narrower, consider hugging the right shoulder throughout the turn, because oncoming cars have a tendency to get “lazy” with the turn and cut into your lane, so you’d want to stay as far right as possible throughout the turn. I know – this is not the “racing line” nor the “performance riding line”. I read about this strategy in a motorcycle forum and, of course, there were different opinions. First I argued against it – there’s more likely to be debris on the right shoulder, there is less sight distance when you hug the right shoulder, blah blah blah. Then, when I went into the hills on a twisty and narrow road with many blind corners (at speed down to 10-15 mph or so), I found myself hugging the right shoulders in those blind turns to avoid unexpected oncoming cars. Call this the “blind corner survival line”.
Gary856Participant“running wide in a right means you MIGHT wreck, running wide in a left means you WILL wreck.”
I used to think like that (that I could always drift to the opposite lane when running wide on a right turn), until I read and realized that running wide on right and cross the centerline can get you KILLED from a head on collision. That seems worse than running off the road from going wide on a left.
What am I saying? Either one is BAD!
Gary856ParticipantThe high-dollar braking systems (like those carbon ceramic brakes and huge brake discs on exotic and race cars/bikes) buy you the ability for “extended and heavy” braking, such as under racing conditoins, when the repeated and heavy braking would cause a lesser braking system to overheat and “fade”. It’s not about increasing the stopping power (shorter stopping distance), but about better efficiency (less lever pressure), better modulation, and the ability to handle extended high temp operation through out a race.
In other words, a cruiser may be able to brake just as hard as a sportbike for normal street riding where the brakes get a chance to cool down between applications, but put it in a racing situation with repeated hard braking, in a couple of laps its brakes may overheat and fade to the point of being useless. The flip side of that is most sportbikes with race-ready hardware are totally overkill for normal street use.
Gary856Participant“As far as what Mr. Hough says about sportbikes being slower to stop, I think he may be referring to anecdotal evidence seen on the road, because a GOOD sportbike rider SHOULD be able to outbreak just about anything in the dry or on clean wet pavement (let’s forget paint and debris for the moment).”
eternal, have you read Total Control by Lee Parks?
In Chapter 11 on Braking, Lee Parks states in item 6):
“Modern sport and race bikes are all limited by their wheelbase or center of gravity. Improving items like the calipers, pads, and tires will not affect the bike’s minimum distance potential.”
“In fact, if cruisers had stickier tires, they would crush sportbikes on the brakes. Right now, the best cruisers stop just as well, and more consistently, than sportbikes.” (Cruisers tend to have less sticky, longer lasting tires by choice for long distance cruising.)
Motorcycle Consumer News did a 60-0 braking comparison test on various types of bikes, including sportbikes. Most of the top-10 performers were cruisers. I think the test was done in 2006. Most of bikes listed in the test seemed to be older models, but the test results illustrated the same idea stated in books from Lee Parks and David Hough, etc.
Gary856Participanteon and eternal, are you advocating no front/rear braking bias adjustment when riding in the dry vs. wet? That controdicts all the professional opinions I read in various books and websites about wet riding. Tracking riding is about exploring the limits, where as street riding is about maximizing the margin of safety. On the MP3 w/ 2 front wheels that eon has, I’d imagine the margin of safety of front lock-up in the wet is higher than a normal motorcycle w/ just 1 front wheel.
At the risk of over simplification but to illustrate there is a different between dry and wet braking:
– On “clean” wet pavement, going straight, normal street riding, not much adjustment is needed compared to dry. The front brake can and will provide most of the stopping power.
– On “special” surfaces (painted lines, rail road crossing, man hole cover, mud, wet leaves, etc.) that may have decent traction when dry, but have very low traction when wet, avoid touching the brakes in the wet, and certainly not the front brake.
– Wet traction is a continuous variable between the above two extremes, so you need to adjust your front/rear braking bias according to the condition, speed, deceleration needed, your experience, etc. Since you can’t tell with 100% certainty where you are in that traction continuum, the strategy from expert advice is to be more conservative – a) slow down, so you don’t need that much braking force in the first place; b) since you’re going slower, you can afford to give up some front braking power and rely more on rear braking power, in exchange for the lower chance of locking up the front.
Off-road (low traction) riders heavily “bias” their braking toward the rear to reduce the risk of front lock up. The point is not to say that you don’t use the front brake in the wet, but that the front/rear bias should to be adjusted based on the traction available to you.
Gary856Participant“I honestly believe Gary would have stopped before the red light if he had used more front brake.”
I agree with that. I even said that I could have used more front brake (if I really needed to), but there’s more to it. In that specific stop, it was in the beginning of the ride, I was going a little too fast (going about 50 mph with a 40 mph speed limit), got surprised by the light turning yellow, became indecisive whether to go or stop, so I eneded up needing to brake more heavily than I normally do, wet or dry. I knew the painted area (arrows, cross-walk, etc.) was coming up in the intersection, didn’t want to risk a slide out with heavy front braking on the painted surfaces, so I started with both brakes but reduced the front braking pressure as I got close to the intersection, knowing if I overshot the cross-walk it wouldn’t be by that much, given that there was no pedestrian, I had a clear view of the wide open intersection and cars on the cross-street have not started moving yet. So I overshot the intersection by about 6 feet, used that extra distance to buy some braking margin, but still in a (kind of) controlled manner. I’m not disputing that this wasn’t a rider error, started with going too fast.
By the way, about 2 hours later toward the end of the ride, almost the same situation occured again (I was still going too fast and I just continued thru the intersection.
To me, the whole business of riding the street safely is not about having the ultimate skills or squeezing the last ounce of physical performance out of the equiment. I work on improving my skills continuously to increase my safety margin, but safety is more about judgment, knowing what I can get away with, and knowing where I got to slow the hell down and not take any chances even if I had the skills to.
Gary856ParticipantWhile traction on “clean” wet pavement is surprisingly good (up to 80% of dry from what I read) to most people and the front brake remains to be the dominate stopper on “clean” wet pavement, that traction disappears on slick materials such painted surfaces, metal surfaces, mud, wet leaves, etc. When you lock up the front on those slippery surfaces, the bike tends to go down in an instant, faster than most people could react. With the rear, you’d fishtail but still have steering control. The unpredictability of traction is why most people advocate biasing the braking force toward the rear when riding in the wet, and slowing down in general to reduce the need for heavy braking. And you certainly want to be extra smooth, less abrupt, to avoid locking up either brake.
Eternal is right that threshold braking practices would be invaluable for everyone. I’m guilty for not doing more of that.
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