Forum Replies Created
Kymco Vitality 50
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JirikiParticipant
ask any engineer, riding hard does not seal the valves… especially if the engine is cold…
the break in period is basically allowing metal from the pistons to transfer to the bore and vice versa, which removes any play and leaking in the system and greatly reduces the friction of these parts moving against each other… this is actually very similar to breaking in brake pads, you start off slow with moderate braking and slowly step it up…
at the risk of sounding sexist, pretend your bike is a woman… if you want her to stick around for a while, buy her flowers first
JirikiParticipantI have actually been on that road before! I was heading north in the winter to have fun on some logging roads (in my car)… not sure I would have taken my bike out there though, nice commitment…
st. jean baptist day?? pffft… happy early canada day…
JirikiParticipantget a subaru as your car and you’ll see the same thing… especially if it has a hoodscoop… I have been to tons of meetups and raced in rallies on weekends…
JirikiParticipantEverything is relative. The 0-100 km/h time of the 07 ninja is 5.75 seconds… i think the 08 is supposed to be better… i have never timed myself… this is almost as fast as my wrx cage…
If you are leaning hard in a turn, the 250 has enough power to lose the back wheel if you really goose the throttle. The highway is a slightly different story, going from 80-90mph can feel like you are driving a prius… However, if you don’t sit in blind spots, I would argue that deceleration is more important than rapid acceleration on highways…
Rather than lack of power, I am more annoyed with the narrow tires. You can’t push the 250 as hard as the 650 because you don’t have the tire curvature or contact patch… this is really only a problem if you want to take turns really quickly…
All in all, I am glad I went with the 250 because I have done some stupid stuff (like dropping the clutch) which could have been much more interesting in a 650R. I will probably upgrade to a larger bike after about a year, but the 250 does what I need and gets significantly better mileage (my commute to work for 1 week = 1 gallon )
for reference, I am 6 feet and 200 lbs…
JirikiParticipantthere is also an idle screw that can be adjusted that will change the idle rpm…
slushy shocks were a problem for pre 08 250Rs… if you read the review of the 08 250R on this site, you’ll see that he talks about bottoming out the old bikes…
JirikiParticipantproblem with kawi green is that I didn’t see options for gear that matches the bike that isn’t black…. unless you want to buy the official stuff…
and the blue matches my wrx… so I was partial to that…
JirikiParticipanta lot of people do slow speed maneuvering in second gear, as this tends to be less ‘bucky’… also, you can feather the clutch so that you can keep the gas up and slip the clutch…
JirikiParticipantI might go to a bigger bike within the next year, depending on how many miles I can rack up.
I would expect that there would probably be quite a few used 08s for sale at around the 1 year anniversary. However, if the owners were like me, these bikes would probably have high mileage.
JirikiParticipanthonestly, the hardest thing for me is to come to a stop and gently place my foot down… i have zero balance and have to really concentrate when doing this.. I think this is mainly because I come in fast for stops and have all my weight on the front tire… ah well
the other thing that took some getting used to was how to decipher incredibly blurry mirrors at highway speeds. Basically, I make a mental map of the cars around me as I pass them or by shoulder checking and I update this map based on the blurry blobs… seems to work so far.
one more item to add to Ben’s list:
4. Always have an escape route. This is incredibly important because we seriously are invisible out there. I constantly make up scenarios where the cars around me will crash/swerve and come up with how I would try to get around ’em. The added benefit is that you get an imaginary ang lee movie every time you rideJirikiParticipanti have a leather jacket and textile over pants… I might get leather pants eventually, but cordura holds up pretty well in a crash (against road rash).
Textile = 1 use, leather = crash & keep riding… so that might offset your cost if you are going to be pushing really hard.
I haven’t seen any leather overpants, so if you plan on wearing other clothes underneath, you may be forced to use textile.In the 90mph range, you should come to a stop before both leather or cordura burn through. As such, I’d say that you should be more concerned with with armour than with material. My pants have a somewhat dinky knee protector and nothing else. A lot of leather pants have knee, shin, hip, etc protection.
Oh yeah, I got a really nice Shift jacket that fit great, but their pants sucked. Since I have a mismatch in gear manufacturer, I can’t zip my jacket to my pants which can be annoying if you are tucking aggressively. So yeah, I’d say forget about leather/textile and look more at:
1. does it have good armour?
2. is there a good jacket/pant combination from the same manufactuer?
3. Do I need to wear real clothes underneath these pants?JirikiParticipantif i remember correctly, the weight limit is closer to 350+… I will check my manual tonight and edit this post…
JirikiParticipanthad a ton of fun (added 15% to my total riding distance )
thanks for organizing, ben, and for the leading, ray.
pics look great… let me know when we’re doing it again!
JirikiParticipantbrand new 08 250R, i am 100 miles away from finishing the break in period…
recommendation was 500 miles < 4K then another 500 miles < 6K... I added 1K to each of these limits and did all of my first 500 miles riding in streets that were 35 mph or less. I also made sure there were a ton of stop signs and such so that I was walking through the revs instead of just pinging at the max for that break in part... i will probably upgrade in a year or two to a bigger bike, so my 250R will last at least as long as I need it
btw, this took a LOT of time and effort… and it also means that your first experiences riding will be out in traffic with soccer moms… but you will also get good a shifting and avoiding things
JirikiParticipantlol… i am actually a member of BBM where I am just a lurker for BARF… but there is free swag tomorrow from BARF
JirikiParticipantOkay, lets just meet at sbux then. Thanks for the offer!
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