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5 Common Wear and Tear Items on Motorcycles
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RedFireBirdParticipant
welcome, i’m surprised you haven’t joined long before now!
RedFireBirdParticipantcaptain crash never fails to make entertaining videos
that being said, i don’t approve of teaching riders to brake with 4 fingers. maybe if you have a really heavy bike with a single front brake, but anything with two front rotors should be braked with two fingers.
but if you don’t agree, just don’t grab a handful.
RedFireBirdParticipanti don’t know about you, but there’s been times when i’ve had to ride in double lane traffic, in rain so heavy i could barely see the car ahead of me, visor fogged up and glasses fogged up as well. pulling over isn’t exactly the best idea at that point if you can still follow lights in front of you. you’re more at risk of being HIT on the side of the road than you are if you keep following those lights.
that being said, there’s no need to run your flashers while going down the highway. though i find it even more ridiculous to enforce such laws.
RedFireBirdParticipantso we can generalize that beginner bikes should have inherent limitations because they shouldn’t be able to evolve as the rider progresses, eh?
417 dry, 490 wet. i find it hard to believe that 3.x quarts of oil, water in the radiator/resivoir, and 5 gallons of gas adds up to 73 lbs. gasoline is around 6.2 lb/s gallon, so that’s only ~32 lbs. where’s the other 40 coming from?
i said ASSUMING YOU’RE READY FOR A 600. nobody should bother paying 7,000 dollars for a bike that makes as much torque as a used 600R that only costs half as much.
don’t want the extra ~20 HP? DON’T GET INTO THE HIGH REVS. simple as that. how can you recommend a beginner a 70 HP 40+ lb/ft motorcycle, but not recommend a bike that makes the same amount of torque with extra revs? if you can’t control how far you go into the revs, GET A SLOWER MOTORCYCLE.
how can you say that power/weight ratio means a damn thing? power is simply a function of torque, and more low end torque is going to lead to more rear wheel spin with a new rider that doesn’t know what he’s doing. why is that hard to understand? horsepower is a theoretical unit of being able to get X amount of mass up to Y amount of speed. 70 hp can get a 400 lb bike up to 120+. where is the ‘beginner’ logic in that? oh, right, THESE ARE NOT ‘BEGINNER’ MOTORCYCLES.
adjustable suspension is, in my opinion, absolutely necessary for making a bike beginner friendly. a 300 lb rider won’t enjoy the same settings as a 140 lb rider, nor will the 200 lb 6 foot guy in between them. in this day an age, there is NO excuse for a sportbike not having fully adjustable suspension.
“say it before say it again’ blah blah blah, could you be any more ignorant than bringing up something like this? it’s descriptive writing, they teach that in most highschools……
one thing you may have called me out on: i DID say that be FZ6R makes a good beginner bike WITH THE EXCEPTION THAT I SAID ‘IF YOU ARE READY FOR A 600’ BIKE. how did you overlook that?
all yamaha did was make a cheap framed, downtuned out of the box R6 motor, handlebar’s version of a R6 and said it was ‘great for beginners and even girls!’ as if that doesn’t sound rude enough in it’s own right.
you want to defend this downgraded piece that sells for about the same price that a NEW ’07 600R sold for? great. the only upgrade i see is fuel injection.
sorry, but this bike never should have came into being. the 650 class had already been established, and that’s where yamaha should have went, instead of creating this ugly monstrosity.
RedFireBirdParticipantgravel isn’t so bad, try getting down my dirt road since they pushed all the sand into one 1/8 mile strip. 1-3 mph and feet dragging the whole way.
but when it rains and the georgia red clay comes into play….THAT makes it interesting
remember, when going over 5 mph or so, the only way to be fully in control is to keep your feet on the pegs, as taking them off makes it easier to throw around your weight balance. don’t drag your feet unless you’re being pushed around by very loose terrain and very slow speeds.
RedFireBirdParticipantquote: “The lean is what turns the bike. Counter steering gets you there faster”
no. if you believe that body lean and weighting the pegs is any proper way to turn a motorcycle, kieth code has a ninja 600 with welded handlebars for you to prove your point with.
http://www.superbikeschool.com/machinery/no-bs-machine.php
the no BS bike, properly named.
this is a common misconception that all riders should be made aware of. steer with the bars, lean to keep your center of gravity low, and weighting pegs is not proper riding technique outside of low speed counterleaning a bike with an upright riding position, as it’s nowhere near as easy to do with bent legs on a sport bike.
RedFireBirdParticipantthe 600R weighs in at 415 dry, 465 wet. 78 crank hp = around 68 rwhp compared to 85 whp on the 600R (two bro’s racing site shows 68.8 rwhp stock). both make similar torque figures.
not to mention not having fully adjustable suspension……that in itself is ridiculous. and a tube frame….why? the steel deltabox has been ideal for a LONG time.
i’ll say it before and i’ll say it again, the R6, R6S, 600R, FZ6, and FZ6R are none better or worse than the other for a ‘beginner’ bike, none of them are beginner bikes as they all make similar torque numbers. yet a bike that makes LESS LOW RPM TORQUE would be a better bike for a beginner. the last thing beginner riders need is more low rpm torque.
RedFireBirdParticipanti had a kid in a Spec V Sentra blow past me a while back. now i wouldn’t normally engage in such squidly behavior, but the sorry bastard came within a couple feet of me, so i felt inclined to put him in his place, thinking he looked so cool with his hat cocked to the side, thinking he can overtake a bike in a two lane 25 mph zone college campus road.
as much respect for the law as i have, if you come that close to me, i will chase your ass down, yell scream and flip you off. you. do. not. endanger. my. life. simple as that.
so i waited until we were in a 55 zone on the local bypass, got right next to him, flipped him off right next to his car and blasted past him.
never do this. in hindsight, i shouldn’t have, and it wouldn’t have been worth the ticket or worth him slamming into me. whenever i have issues like this nowadays i usually just let it go. if possible, i may follow them and have a nice conversation while not at speed, but i don’t exactly enjoy cussing out random people that wrong me on the road.
RedFireBirdParticipanti’ll never understand how having 40+ lb/ft down low is ‘more beginner friendly’ than a bike that doesn’t make 40+ lb/ft until nearly 5 digit RPM’s.
low rpm torque isn’t exactly what beginners need. that being said, bikes like the R6 aren’t exactly beginner bikes, but niether are SV650’s.
RedFireBirdParticipantfirst of all, your bike does not need anything above 87 octane, and paying for higher octane is a waste of money. even my bike recommends 87.
keep hydrated, my local walmart sells 32 OZ powerades for 80 cents, i go through two a day plus all the water i drink as well.
rear brake is a great thing to use in low speed cornering, but it isn’t absolutely necessary. proper balance, countersteering, and practice are the main things you need for low speed stability. rear brake will help, but don’t RELY upon it for stability.
outside – inside – outside is a RACING LINE. it is the theoretical fastest line through a corner. on public roads, if you apex every corner you will be hanging into the other lane, hit an oncoming car, and likely die. DO NOT DO THIS. while cornering, always leave PLENTY of room between your head and the car that will be coming in the opposite lane.
WEIGHTING THE PEGS DOES NOT STEER A MOTORCYCLE. countersteer is the principle method of steering past 15-20 mph. weighting the pegs and leaning off obviously will throw off weight balance, but weight balance is a very, VERY slow method of steering a bike, and if you don’t understand this, you will likely understeer into something and crash eventually. STEER WITH THE HANDLEBARS, LEAN IN THE DIRECTION YOU WANT TO TURN, AND WEIGHTING THE PEGS BE DAMNED.
as far as riding posture goes, you shoud be supporting your weight with your back muscles, not your arms. a full race tuck is not proper street riding technique. i can understand doing it in long distance interstate riding, as i’ve done it before when doing 80-85 mph for extended periods of time, but you should be staying rather upright during normal street riding. you should NEVER rely on wind resistance for slowing your bike. front brake is what you should be using, as well as drag from your motor’s compression.
it’s funny you should talk about about ‘poor sidways aerodynamics’, seriously, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. you won’t ever have any issue of head shake at legal speeds, much less 100 mph range speeds, with a normal full face helmet.
sorry to be rude, but i hope you’ve learned something here. be safe and ride smart.
RedFireBirdParticipantpatches are great for what they are, but plugs are the way to go for a quick fix. i rode 4K miles on a plugged dunlop qualifier until it was completely shot.
RedFireBirdParticipantwith a decent pair of riding boots, you can increase your riding height. my seat height is at least an inch higher than my inseam, but with boots on, i’m good to go.
with cruisers i don’t think you’ll have much of a problem, especially with some good boots.
RedFireBirdParticipantas much as i like what the FZ6R is, a great beginner bike, it CERTAINLY isn’t the YZF600R replacement that yamaha said that it would be.
the R6S is about as close to filling the 600R’s void as yamaha will get.
that being said, if you feel you’re ready for a 600 class bike, check into the 600R. there’s a good reason it went relatively unchanged from ’95 to ’07
RedFireBirdParticipantare you wearing tennis shoes? boots will give you extra height for flatfooting a bike.
RedFireBirdParticipantmy teknic jacket has a lot of white leather on it. as long as you clean it daily, you’re fine. but bug guts will be very noticeable.
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