Forum Replies Created
Piaggio Fly 50 / 150
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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
Everything 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…
honestly, 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 ridehad 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!
brand 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
lol… i am actually a member of BBM where I am just a lurker for BARF… but there is free swag tomorrow from BARF
)