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All rain-repellent coatings have always made visibility worse for me. Just a continual, slight blur, even when dry. Rain is fine on its own, way better than repellents. It's mist/light drizzle that truly sucks because it doesn't run off of the visor on its own.
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Aug 14, 2021 03:23
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I hate checking my tire pressures by hand. It's an annoying task that takes some contortion in a tight spot in my garage. I do a bad job keeping on top of it and usually just check with my thumb. Are aftermarket TPMS (either internal or external, something like bluetooth to a phone app) worth looking into?
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Aug 14, 2021 04:12
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Get an angled valve stem instead.
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Aug 14, 2021 08:10
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Ulf posted:I hate checking my tire pressures by hand. It's an annoying task that takes some contortion in a tight spot in my garage. I do a bad job keeping on top of it and usually just check with my thumb. No Sagebrush posted:Get an angled valve stem instead.
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Aug 14, 2021 08:26
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Those TPMS valve caps are a good way to lose pressure and die.
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Aug 14, 2021 08:47
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I used to think regular 90 degree valve stems were cool, until I saw how extra BMW went with the concept. Yup, the valve is part of the spoke casting.
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Aug 14, 2021 13:45
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Finger Prince posted:I used to think regular 90 degree valve stems were cool, until I saw how extra BMW went with the concept. I like that.
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Aug 14, 2021 14:32
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Ulf posted:Are aftermarket TPMS (either internal or external, something like bluetooth to a phone app) worth looking into?
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Aug 14, 2021 15:29
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Ulf posted:I hate checking my tire pressures by hand. It's an annoying task that takes some contortion in a tight spot in my garage. I do a bad job keeping on top of it and usually just check with my thumb. Are you using something like this to check? https://www.amazon.com/Topeak-60100005-D2-SmartGauge/dp/B0051LQ0X4/
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Aug 14, 2021 17:23
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Thanks everyone. Was kind of getting that sense from the lack of options on mainstream sites.Russian Bear posted:Are you using something like this to check? No, using something better than that, it’s an oil filled dial gauge with a 90deg fitting. The problem isn’t the gauge clearance it’s the getting my body down next to the bike. I should just pull the bike out of the garage before suiting up I guess, it’s just a hassle.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:47
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Ulf posted:I hate checking my tire pressures by hand. It's an annoying task that takes some contortion in a tight spot in my garage. I do a bad job keeping on top of it and usually just check with my thumb. If you are already using a Garmin GPS there are Garmin tpms sensors you can pair to the GPS. Though why the hell would you buy a stand alone GPS for motorcycles today. A throwaway rugged android phone with a gps app can do so much more. I have my TomTom GPS still because I can still fix it and want to have it roll over 100k miles for fun.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:34
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I've found that Fat Bob maintains tyre pressure really well, i.e. even after 2 months it's barely 1 or 2 psi out of spec, if that. So I've slowed down my intervals of tyre pressure checks/refills.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:35
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Tube tires + temp fluctuations can lead to high/ low situations. It depends on your tyre type And environment really. this is the best type of gauge, digital, can get to any stem, and hose fits into itself 
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Aug 14, 2021 18:45
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I have never seen a 'good' digital gauge but I'm open to the possiblity that they exist and nobody sells one. I don't know that much about electronics, but if I were manufacturing one today I would try to make it as visually appealing to an IT guy as possible while having north korean built internals. I have never seen two digital gauges agree with each other. A high quality oil filled analogue gauge will last literally forever and has no electronics or batteries, so that's my pick.
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Aug 14, 2021 20:13
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The only air pressure gauge I've been using lately is the lovely dial built into my bicycle hand pump. The only real foible it has is that is reads 10psi high after a couple of pumps, so to get a true(ish) read you have to unscrew it and then screw it back in. I do have a proper stick gauge somewhere in the house but 
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Aug 14, 2021 20:22
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Well turns out my bike will arrive literally at the end of the month. Placed my order July 5th and won't get it until Aug 28th. That was from Reno NV to Pittsburgh region, if anyone is thinking about shipping a bike double check the terms and timelines. It's sitting in Harrisburg, I'm debating renting a trailer to go get it early. Not sure if you guys will love it or shun me 
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Aug 14, 2021 22:47
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BrownieVK posted:It's sitting in Harrisburg, I'm debating renting a trailer to go get it early. Not sure if you guys will love it or shun me Who cares what we think. How badly do you want to be reunited with your motorcycle?? 
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Aug 15, 2021 01:49
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Has anyone here ever done a bike trip in Vietnam? I've been wanting to do the Saigon to Hanoi route for years and may pull the trigger this winter. I've riden in SE Asia before so I'm not scared of that kind of craziness but was hoping for suggestions on places to stay along the east coast as well as suggestions for rental agencies. I'm old now so I'm hoping to keep it to less than 5-6 hours a day on the road and I'm willing to pay for a big bike. If anyone knows of a place I can get a Sportster or other HD that would be a plus otherwise I'll probably go for a mid sized scrambler. I have a few friends that have done this ride and they say it's some of the most beautiful country you'll ever see.
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Aug 15, 2021 02:11
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Slavvy posted:I have never seen a 'good' digital gauge but I'm open to the possiblity that they exist and nobody sells one. I don't know that much about electronics, but if I were manufacturing one today I would try to make it as visually appealing to an IT guy as possible while having north korean built internals. I have never seen two digital gauges agree with each other.
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Aug 15, 2021 03:35
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My quick benchmark for a tyre gauge being poo poo or not is whether it has a bleed button. There is only one right way to set tyre pressures and that is by overfilling slightly, then releasing it bit by bit until it's right. If the thing hasn't got a deflate button on it, it means the maker is unaware/doesn't care about this reality, which means it's poo poo. What I use fwiw. I have a low pressure one like that and another one that goes to iirc 80psi.
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Aug 15, 2021 05:45
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So I got my new tires mounted and went for a ride, and the front one is not mounted straight. There is a very obvious visual wobble (it looks like right next to the valve stem one sidewall is sticking out of the rim more than the other) that turns into a noticeable vibration in the bars above about 40 mph. I know it's not the wheel because I spent two days truing both the wheels to 0.015". Plus I can see that the wheel is running true and the tire is wobbling on it. This pisses me off. Should I be able to fix this myself by letting the air out of the tire, massaging/knocking it back into true with a mallet, and pumping it up with some care, or should I go back to the shop and make them do it again? E: these are 1970s tube-type rims with a set of Avon Roadriders Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Aug 15, 2021 |
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Aug 15, 2021 05:55
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Deflate, rotate the tyre 180° on the rim, reinflate and see what happens. Often tube tyres sit in stacks that deform them and make the sidewall reluctant to come up. Also it pays to lube the poo poo out of everything after fitting the tyre, as the act of spooning it on tends to rub the soap off. You want the whole sidewall soaking so it can slide up. Using baby powder on the tube can ease things too.
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Aug 15, 2021 06:03
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James Woods posted:Has anyone here ever done a bike trip in Vietnam? I've been wanting to do the Saigon to Hanoi route for years and may pull the trigger this winter. I've riden in SE Asia before so I'm not scared of that kind of craziness but was hoping for suggestions on places to stay along the east coast as well as suggestions for rental agencies. I'm old now so I'm hoping to keep it to less than 5-6 hours a day on the road and I'm willing to pay for a big bike. If anyone knows of a place I can get a Sportster or other HD that would be a plus otherwise I'll probably go for a mid sized scrambler. I have a few friends that have done this ride and they say it's some of the most beautiful country you'll ever see. I have a friend who lives in Saigon who has ridden around the country. I'll ask him and see what he says.
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Aug 15, 2021 12:51
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Is the DR650 just a bigger DRZ400 or are they fundamentally different bikes?
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Aug 15, 2021 13:28
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epswing posted:Is the DR650 just a bigger DRZ400 or are they fundamentally different bikes? Fundamentally different. Frame, engine... I can flat-foot a DR650. I don't even think the DR650 is water-cooled. It has an oil cooler instead.
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Aug 15, 2021 13:35
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James Woods posted:Has anyone here ever done a bike trip in Vietnam? I've been wanting to do the Saigon to Hanoi route for years and may pull the trigger this winter. I've riden in SE Asia before so I'm not scared of that kind of craziness but was hoping for suggestions on places to stay along the east coast as well as suggestions for rental agencies. I'm old now so I'm hoping to keep it to less than 5-6 hours a day on the road and I'm willing to pay for a big bike. If anyone knows of a place I can get a Sportster or other HD that would be a plus otherwise I'll probably go for a mid sized scrambler. I have a few friends that have done this ride and they say it's some of the most beautiful country you'll ever see. You should do whatever Gorson’s friend says, but when we went a few years ago (backpacking not biking) Da Nang was one of my favorite spots, especially because it felt a little overlooked in our guidebooks. Had a really awesome vegetarian food scene, which I know is a niche interest.
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Aug 15, 2021 14:43
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Slide Hammer posted:Fundamentally different. Frame, engine... I can flat-foot a DR650. I don't even think the DR650 is water-cooled. It has an oil cooler instead. Yeah it's an oil boiler. I think they share some tiny percentage of parts, things like brake caliper and switchgear.
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Aug 15, 2021 19:46
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Functionally they are two different bikes and I wouldn’t expect much if anything to crossover between them
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Aug 15, 2021 21:38
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:Functionally they are two different bikes and I wouldn’t expect much if anything to crossover between them I guess another way of looking at it is they share the same amount of parts as any two random Suzukis.
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Aug 15, 2021 21:44
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Was entertained when i was tracking down fork guards for the DRZ conversion project and found out that WR250 guards are available and an exact match
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Aug 15, 2021 21:48
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Ok, so very little parts overlap. But I meant in terms of what the bikes are for, the problem they solve, and what you can do with them!
epswing fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 15, 2021 21:57
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Jonny 290 posted:Was entertained when i was tracking down fork guards for the DRZ conversion project and found out that WR250 guards are available and an exact match Probably because the forks are made from the same blanks in the same factory, idk specifics but I'd assume they both have very similar kayabas. epswing posted:Ok, so very little parts overlap. But I meant I n terms of what the bikes are for, the problem they solve, and what you can do with them! The DR is explicitly an enduro, that's what it's for, they don't really make bikes like that anymore but the new t7 is reversing the trend. It is a perfectly 50/50 dirt/road bike and that is it's intended purpose. It is very similar to the xr600 and the TTR 600 - big heavy air cooled steel sled with long travel suspension and a low seat. The drz at release was a high tech, high performance enduro race bike/motard. Remember that in the early nineties, MX bikes were all firebreathing two strokes, enduros were all lazy air cooled four strokes, so a mid displacement high performance water cooled 4t was a relatively novel idea. Suzuki effectively predicted the 400/450 transition a decade early, but by the time the transition happened, technology had improved and the drz was too heavy and primitive to be competitive. So it effectively became another redundant enduro and I suspect would've been dropped from the lineup if it weren't for the SM, which was the entirety of the motard market for a good decade plus, and the ultra stripped kickstart only base bike which was bought by a lot of people who just wanted a decent trail bike with no road gear and no MX bullshit, basically what a klx350 is now. Afaik there is no dirt-only dr650, the road genetics are baked in. Slavvy fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 00:53
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What are the practical implications of air cooled vs liquid cooled engines for daily commuter or casual use? I’m not super mechanically inclined so I don’t know what overheating would actually do to an engine (beyond what an average person could reasonably imagine), or how long it could be sustained before it becomes a concern. Anecdotally, when I’m riding my N650 around it often feels like the temperature sensor is pegged at 95% with the fan on, unless the temperature is below 20c. My riding is mostly streets with only some stretches of unbroken 80+kph where the engine can get a chance to really feel a good sustained airflow, not sitting at lights or slowing around traffic. At what point is liquid cooling a necessity for an all-around bike? Obviously you still find air cooled lower displacement bikes so it’s a factor of a number of things. Like I’m just imagining an air cooled Monster sitting in traffic and the engine block just slowly sagging under the heat with big cartoony sweat drops like looney toons.
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Aug 16, 2021 12:56
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Gorson posted:I have a friend who lives in Saigon who has ridden around the country. I'll ask him and see what he says. Got a (brutally honest and absolutely correct, reasons given) reply! Emphasis mine. Are those fancy bikes I googled it. OMG What a bad idea Terrible idea I can’t think of a worse choice XR for hills Or dirt roads or over land These Hondas are good on pavement long distance Honda Wave for the cities You can agile for the city And in the countryside, when your bike breaks or pops a tire, the peasant dude on the side of the road with a wrench and oil grease and used parts can only fix Hondas everyone else has BMWs or HD are poo poo coz when it breaks you wait 6 weeks for parts from Germany to arrive In the middle of bumble funk These places get super remote Harleys are a piece of poo poo. Good for nothing as far as i can tell
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Aug 16, 2021 13:01
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Martytoof posted:
Practically never, it's not necessarily more resistant to heat. I've ridden an air-cooled UJM in 40+ C slow moving traffic, never saw the oil temp go above its normal range. The hotter it gets, the more heat it sheds. The hotter places of the world are filled with air-cooled bikes. Liquid cooled is more maintenance and more parts but it also allows for finer tolerances and lower emissions which is why fewer and fewer new bikes are air-cooled.
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Aug 16, 2021 13:22
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Interesting tidbit. Yeah, I figured it MUST be fine since air cooled has been a thing since forever. I'm also pretty sure that my liquid cooled engine could help shed heat more efficiently itself if it wasn't a solid block but milled with fins and such.
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Aug 16, 2021 13:58
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The necessity for liquid cooling comes more from a performance standpoint than a practical one. Once you start to extract big horsepower numbers from a motor, you have a lot of heat to lose, more than you can do with air cooling. It’s also about even cooling. Older performance bikes struggled with hotspots on the cylinders and inline 3 and 4 engines suffered from the middle cylinders running hotter because air flow wasn’t even over all of the cylinders. With liquid cooling you can just point the coolant where you want it to go basically. It was to the point where some air cooled bikes needed the middle cylinders jetted differently. There was a transition period in the 70’s and 80’s where all of the high performance bikes both two and four stroke moved from air to liquid cooling, because they had hit the end of the road for air cooling capacity. It’s also why you only see air cooling on relatively low HP bikes these days. Beve Stuscemi fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Aug 16, 2021 |
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Aug 16, 2021 14:42
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James Woods posted:Has anyone here ever done a bike trip in Vietnam? I've been wanting to do the Saigon to Hanoi route for years and may pull the trigger this winter. I've riden in SE Asia before so I'm not scared of that kind of craziness but was hoping for suggestions on places to stay along the east coast as well as suggestions for rental agencies. I'm old now so I'm hoping to keep it to less than 5-6 hours a day on the road and I'm willing to pay for a big bike. If anyone knows of a place I can get a Sportster or other HD that would be a plus otherwise I'll probably go for a mid sized scrambler. I have a few friends that have done this ride and they say it's some of the most beautiful country you'll ever see. I did it in 2017, it's awesome, go for it. You don't need a big bike, unless you plan to sit on highways (and there aren't that many). The biggest bikes you tend to see are crf250/450 for the mountains but really a Honda scoot is all you need. As Gorson's friend says, dudes on the roadside can fix little old cb125s and so on but have no interest in big exotics. Besides you'll miss all the fun on a fast bike. Go slow, talk to people, avoid chickens, eat food. There's a guy who buys and sells scooters in Hanoi/Saigon so you own it for the duration of your trip, but I forgot his name (Mr Scooter?). Stay in the old quarter in Hanoi (it's awesome) and go north to Pai if you like beautiful mountains.
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Aug 16, 2021 16:50
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Shelvocke posted:I did it in 2017, it's awesome, go for it. Yup and to be clear my friend is specifically recommending bikes for the backroads trips where you're limited by weather, traffic, and varying road conditions to 35-40mph. He says to carry a couple spare tubes.
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Aug 16, 2021 17:05
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My CB750 will get its oil up to 140C after an hour and a half of summer city traffic, that’s usually where I pull over and let it cool. Maybe I’m just babying the thing.
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Aug 16, 2021 18:37
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