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Well, my old thread has gotten pretty long in the tooth, and I feel like I'm somewhat turning a corner on a number of things, so may as well start a new one. I'm gonna break this into a few different areas, because that seems to make sense. Let's start with my bikes: THE GIFT Spiffness has christened the 1290 as the deliverer of the gift, so we'll start with this picture of him falling in love with the bike:  Yeah, it's still loving rad. First valve adjustment done. Didn't gently caress it up (almost hosed it up). 12.5k and still not regretting a single dime spent on it. Metzler M7s are nice. I still dream of long travel suspension, but that'd require spending my money, which I'm not big on right now (having _or_ spending). Maybe someday soon. Italian SV650 The 999 currently sits with full track prep. The wife wants it back to streetfighter mode, and I think I'm going to pretty much only ride the Brammo at the track, so it's gonna get streetfightered again.  It'll likely get a Brammo headlight (because I have a thousand of them floating around), and will be the wife's weekend ride until I buy another SuperDuke in a year or two. (Because I have a capital P KTM Problem). It also needs the usual maintenance BS, including a valve check and the starter cleaned out, so doing my first Desmo valve check should be entertaining. CARRY ME OFF, SWEET ELECTRONS First of all - after a surprisingly short rebuild, I finishing rebuilding the Brammo. As you may recall, after a nasty encounter with a Taxi, it looked like this:  Unplug bits:  Remove bits:  Flip like bug:  Appreciate Escherian steering geometry:  Rise like Jesus:  Assemble:  It's a motorcycle again:  Ok, so with that sorted out, the housemate didn't want to commute on the thing anymore as it doesn't have ABS and ABS would have totally prevented his accident - which naturally means the thing should be used as a racebike. Unfortunately, there are some problems with that - the first of which is cornering clearance. You can spend 600 bucks on a set of woodcraft rearsets for it, or you can just apply a spinning endmill to a block of aluminum until you have a something that looks like this:  That's with ~4 inches of rise and back. I also installed clipons, lever guards, and a few other items,, and soon enough, it's going to get a Tyga RC211V replica fairing - I could only get it to about 102 down the front straight of THill at the moment, and better aero should make a difference there. It still doesn't have enough cornering clearance, so I'm going to have to knock up another set of rearsets with more rise, which is fine because I thought those ones were kinda garbo anyways. The rear shock was re-valved by Super Plush Suspension, and should be good for track use for now. Here it is as it sits:  Still need to make the fairing stay for it, and get the fairings on, hopefully I'll get that done before Laguna on the 26th. Depending on how things pan out, I will either end up racing it this year or next year. We also managed to get access through our local dealership to the engine management software and turned the engine braking to zero, which will allow it to make race distance without going into thermal cutback and making GBS threads itself because it can't scrub enough heat out of the batteries. It has potential to handle really nicely, but it desperately needs a geometry baseline. I might take it to GP Frame and Wheel to get some baselines done on the geometry and know what direction I want to move. Right now it steers really slow (due in no small part to the fact that it weighs 540 pounds, I'm sure), so figuring out a balance that I can work with is the goal. As it is, it'll be really good practice for me to actually ride a bike quickly, vs. the silly "pin it, win it" mode that I get with the SuperDuke. This bike will be all cornerspeed and no power, as it's basically a Ninja 250 as far as track performance is concerned. Six Sweet...Sylinders After too many hours of Craigslist chicken, there was finally a collision with a CBX. I'm building this one for a friend. It's been sitting for about 10 years, but it's got decent compression, oil light goes off when it cranks, and it's a cosmetically rough CBX that I won't feel guilty about molesting with modern suspension.  Carbs are currently off with OldSchoolCarbs, getting a full refresh and rebuild, as well as a jet kit. There's a number of potential options for exhausts, but I have a feeling for the moment we're going to build with a loud as gently caress 6 into 1, because you really only buy one of these things for the noise it makes. This build is going to be a restomod, so I'm buying a ZRX 1200 to pull the swingarm and forks off of. That will give us modern tires, modern suspension, and will allow me to maintain some semblance of reasonable geometry. We'll see how difficult doing this build is going to be, I'm reasonably optimistic that it's not going to be a complete nightmare, as it's been done a few times before. It'll likely also get some other new odds and ends, like an upgraded alternator, heavy duty starter, and some other odds and ends. I'm waiting on a leakdown tester and a new compression tester to make sure the engine is in decent shape, but the old compression test of jamming your finger over the cylinder and thumbing the starter indicates that it's fine. The oil pressure light also goes out when it cranks, so that's good too. Oh, and it sparks on all 3 coils, but one of them has a hilarious, massive crack down the middle of it. That'll need to be fixed too. Tires are toast, brakes are gone, it's getting all modern stuff for a reason. This one is also dedicated to Sir Cornelius, who would have lambasted me for being a fool for taking on a CBX, and then told me the secrets of working on it, transferring to me the blood debt that is CBX ownership. RIP buddy. I hope you're ripping sweet wheelies on 6 cylinder 2 strokes in whatever afterlife there is. Give me your tired engines, your poor electrical systems, your inert bikes yearning for freedom I've also got the usual rack of guest projects in the garage right now, including a goon's CB400, a buddy's S1000RR, and another friend's 84 Shovelhead,. All of those should be turned around relatively soon, allowing mostly unimpeded build of the CBX. Maybe I'll actually be able to maintain working on the bikes plus keeping the thread updated! I am an optimist, after all!
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Jun 13, 2015 03:20
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M42 posted:Whoooa, what taxi incident? Must have missed that post. Ya, taxi made an illegal U-turn, stopped blocking the middle of the road, so he mashed on the brakes and everything was ok until the taxi let off the brakes, blocking the path he was on, and he tried to turn right as he hit one of those construction plates. Bike went nose first into the curb, and as you can see, totally hosed the suspension and the frame. Hermsgervørden posted:My formerly very sad bike has left Z3n's Halfway Home for Crazy Motorcycles with an enormous grin on it (me). Thanks entirely to your help, my 40 months in the desert of not riding motorcycles is over and it really is a religious experience to be twisting the throttle again. I know I can probably never repay my indebtedness entirely, because watching you wreck your forearms and sanity changing my stupid narrow tires isn't really repayable. It was however fun for me! No worries, glad you made it home safe and sound! GriszledMelkaba posted:Oh good I thought you were gonna be full on crazy Nah, I'm perfectly comfortable with taking a reasonably well set up set of carbs and adjusting them, but I don't want to do a complete rebuild. Too many little bullshit parts that can gently caress up the entire system. Paying 400 bucks to a guy (+225 for all new bolts/parts/etc) to have him deal with literally everything is totally worth it. I'll make sure the engine is in good shape for the carbs and exhaust, but besides that, don't wanna deal with fiddly rebuilds. Carb maintenance is fine, it's the rebuild that is sketchy. Spiffness posted:I love the CBX and will be back down when she's ready.  Shelvocke posted:I actually love the paintjob on the 999 fairings. No decals, just solid lines of colour, like it's cell shaded. Kinda like you're squinting at it. monsterzero posted:Awesome stuff. Can't wait to see what the Brammo looks like with the 211 fairing and what you do with the CBX.  Progress: Checked the cylinders myself on the CBX, looking at around 150 PSI per cylinder, which is great. Need to do a valve check, tighten the cam chains, and verify everything is ok. I ordered the next round of parts for the bike from Tim's CBX today, so that is: 6 into 1 (for fit of modern suspension). K&N filters Jet Kit Coils/Wires Heavy Duty Starter New battery wires Jet kit is going straight to Old School Carbs, with instructions to install and tune for the 6 into 1. Carbs should be done in about a month, other parts will ship next week. Sometime this weekend, I'll be picking up the ZRX that we'll be robbing the suspension from. Final set of reliability upgrades will be a heavy duty alternator, and a new ignition system, as apparently the spark units on these things are starting to fail pretty much across the board (not really a surprise after 35 years). Once that's done, all the vintage parts that are likely to fail will be gone, and then it's paint. In the really long run, hopefully it'll end up with a full set of right side up Ohlins forks/piggyback shocks for ultimate black/red/gold bling. Laguna on the 26th, so I need to get off my rear end and get the Brammo fairings installed as soon as I'm home. Motorcycles!
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Jun 15, 2015 20:46
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SaNChEzZ posted:Just buy my 690 already and give it the supermoto treatment, I'll give you a screamin deal! I would love to but see earlier griping about money I had a whole thing about JIS screws vs American screws and it being an interesting relationship to the cultures, with Japanese training the workers and the Americans addressing the fasteners but eh effort and you've had enough of my navel gazing for one day. So this came to the wrecking yard:  1800 bucks, 68k miles, 3rd gear is shot. Pretty good overall though, especially considering I'm going to steal the suspension off of it and sell the rest. It's been generally decided that we'll make sure the CBX runs, before we tear it down for a full rebuild, now including cosmetics - frame and swing arm will be powder coated, fresh paint in an OEM Honda color, and a full refresh of everything across the board. Also, I now have to soda blast the engine because the PPO was a spray bombing jackfuck who should be put down. Also, I'm supposed to take the Brammo to Laguna on Friday. I sorta forgot about that when I was getting work and poo poo dealt with so now I'm scrambling to get the Brammo faired in time as the fairing will really help down the straights there and I'd like to do reasonably well on the time trial if I can.
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Jun 23, 2015 07:06
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Well it's not...revolting! Got the Brammo fairing on today - pretty pleased with out it's turned out:   I still need to make a couple of extra mounts, but this will work nicely with both this fairing and a version of this fairing that I have with lights for street use. Pretty much all set for Laguna on Friday! Will try and get some gopro footage, I've never been there before, but being on the Brammo should be the perfect way to learn the track, as it's slow and as a result has very simple braking markers (often no marker at all, just pitch it in and go). There's also a time trial, and I'm hoping I can take home some plastic. Been a long time since I've gone out on a bike in anger, so that will be fun Still waiting for CBX parts, they should show up in a few days.
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Jun 25, 2015 05:33
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nsaP posted:Hey so I got a question I just thought of, you might not know but you can guess at least. What do you gotta worry about in a crash with that kind of bike? Better or worse than crashing an ICE money wise and what you can break wise? Obviously you probably aren't going to have a fire but I was just picturing batteries scraping across the track. Talking to the Brammo guys, they have had minimal issues with crashing in the crashes their racers have had. I actually saw Shelina Moreda yard her Brammo in T3 at Thunderhill (figure about 50ish MPH) and it came out with some minor damage to the frame sliders/bar ends/rearsets and that was about it. The batteries are narrow and very well protected by the frame, and the electric engine is wide but not wide enough to be a slide point. Between swingarm sliders, frame sliders, rearsets, and the bar ends, it's basically impossible to drag critical parts until you wear through those bits. The batteries are a custom built set of cells that have to pass all kinds of crazy international drop standards/etc for shipping as Brammo sells the bikes overseas, so they're very, very shockproof as well. Your chances of doing significant damage to the batteries or motor in a crash are basically zero. The residual damage on my friend's bike is a very bent (but still usable) radiator and some bent mounting brackets. Everything else survived fine. (obviously, minus the frame and the front end). That you can even have an accident where the frame snaps and the front forks are that bent and still reuse basically everything else goes to show how nicely they crash. All in all, I'd much rather crash an electric bike than a gas bike. Hopefully I won't do that at Laguna. 
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Jun 25, 2015 05:56
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Laguna! First time out here, Das Volk is out with his Viper, so gonna try and get some video, turn some fast laps, and do a ride along! Should be fun!
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Jun 26, 2015 17:04
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I'm getting about 4 laps a session so here's my track map to try and improve consistency as quickly as possible. 
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Jun 26, 2015 20:49
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Yeah track was definitely memorized, but gear choice and braking markers/turn in markers needed to be figured out. No issues on the corkscrew though! Also the elevation changes and blindness of T7 entry isn't really something you realized. Pictures, video, and report to come tomorrow
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Jun 28, 2015 07:03
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Jim Silly-Balls posted:How many laps does a charge last at track day pace? How long do you have to wait before you have enough juice to go back out? A single lap uses about 8-10% charge - a full recharge off a 220 outlet is about 3 hours, so if you're careful you can run 6 out of 7 sessions at a normal trackday with proper charging and cooling setups (when the batteries get hot enough, they don't charge as quickly as charging dumps a pile of heat into the batteries). Ok, so, first day at Laguna! It was a beautiful day out there, perfect conditions with a very warm track. This trackday is more of an electric exhibition day than an actual formal trackday, so it had some unique considerations to take into account. First of all, you don't get much track time - I had about 13 laps total during the day. (3 sessions with ~4 laps each, plus the single lap of the time trial). The bike's setup is stock-ish, with clipons, rearsets, a Tyga RC211V fairing, and the rear shock revalved by SuperPlush. I've also got 2 different power modes, one is full power with full engine braking/regen, and the other is full power with no engine braking, as turning off the engine braking makes it much easier to set entry speed (no changes due to coming into the corner in a different gear, and no transition from engine braking to no engine braking). I'd recently adjusted the suspension as I wasn't happy with how the bike steered at the last Thunderhill day, probably because I hadn't even checked the settings and it was still running not enough preload and could use a little more rebound damping. I could probably use to go up a spring rate front and rear, but it's on the soft side of race setup at the moment, which I'm fine with, given that the bike doesn't have a crazy amount of power or anything, so a little more compliance at speed is fine. When I'm going faster, I'm only adding a few mph at the apex. Went out for the first session, and tried to get accustomed to the track. I don't find the corkscrew all that much different than T5 at Thunderhill - the line is relatively similar, it's a slow, blind left hander off a crest where you pile a lot of lean angle in early in the corner and by the time you're approaching the apex you're already thinking about standing the bike up to fire it down the hill. The first time I went down it I stood the bike up too early and took the Marquez line, but after that I could pretty consistently hit within a few feet of the curbing as I crossed over. My fastest time of that session was a 2:02, and I could see I was leaving plenty of time on the table. My max speed down the front straight was just touching 100mph.  After my first session, I reviewed the footage from the session, tried to commit my braking and lap times to memory, jotted down some notes on that session, and had a brief chat with Brian from Brammo about gearing and engine choices. It became quite clear that I was geared too short for the track, as I never really went below 3rd gear, and down the straights I was getting well past peak power and losing drive as a result. Despite the fact that the shift lights don't come on until around 6.5k, you never really want to be over 6k unless you're in an over-rev situation, with peak torque coming at 5k. I committed to running a gear higher everywhere, leading me to exit most corners in 4th gear, with the exception being T11. Second session I was seeing about +5mph down the front straight by short shifting the bike, and dropped down to the 1:59s. They do the time trial between the 2nd and 3rd sessions, which is great for track temp, but didn't exactly give me a lot of time to figure out how to consistently go faster without introducing a pile of risk to the equation. Unfortunately, Speed Ventures doesn't run motorcycle trackdays very often, so they have us enter the track at T10, and after 2 corners you're heading down the front straight for your flying lap. Definitely didn't have the same confidence as I was trying to manage the cold tires plus put in a fast lap, but we all had to deal with the same handicap. The Zeros also have a bit of an advantage in a single lap time trial as they make more power but get into an overheat situation faster, which is a non-issue on a single lap race. Here's video of the TT lap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H6FRplenUg After the TT race, I decided to put in a last session and just cruise around, and had a great time not focusing at all on lap times and just enjoying riding around. Amusingly, I put in the same times just having a good time that I did on the TT lap, with plenty of early braking and a much more relaxed approach to the lap. Clearly, there's plenty of time left in the bike if the rider could get his stuff together. A single lap of Laguna on the Brammo looked something like this: Come over the top of the T1 hill on whatever line I felt like, still pinned, as the bike is only doing ~95mph and you can pretty much be anywhere on the track and make the kink. On an aggressive lap, I'd brake at the 3 marker coming into T2, down to 4th gear hit the first apex and then sweep out wide, scrubbing speed, before you tuck back in for the second apex in T2. Push wide out to the right, then move back over to the left to set up for T3. T3: Holding 4th gear, scrub some speed, turn in at the end of the curbing, and try and keep the line tight enough that you don't run wide, as too much speed into T3 will throw you right off the edge of the curbing. This is one of the more hairy corners as it is tighter than you expect on exit. Upshift to 5th on exit. T4: No need to brake here, although I was doing it, as the corner seems tight but opens up and has plenty of space on exit. T5; Brake aggressively, downshift to 4th, scrub some speed, and then realize that you came through too slowly as you're still not using all track on exit. Another corner that you can enter faster than you expect. Upshift to 5th on exit. T6: You don't need to brake for this corner and can hold 5th, but the hill you climb on corner entrance makes the corner seem like it comes at you really quickly. It's another corner that you can enter faster than you expect. Grab 6th halfway up the hill on exit. T7: You're basically banking the bike over and braking as you come through this corner, setting up for the Corkscrew. T8: Downshift to 4th, enter wide to the right, and try and get the corner over before you hit the crest so you're pinned driving down the hill and sweeping to the right as you enter Rainey. Shortshifting into on exit of the corkscrew would likely be faster than holding 4th like I did. T9: It's fast, and you don't want to take a sharp inside line as is tempting. You stay way right for what seems like way too long, building piles of speed, and then bank the bike over more to make the apex at Rainey. T10: Scrub a little speed and pitch it in - heavily on camber, so you can carry a lot of speed through here. If you get good drive out you'll need 6th before you get to T11. T11: Slow all the way down, drop the bike into 3rd gear, and power out down the front straight, running up through the gears. I was making it into 6th before the start/finish on a good drive, indicating I needed taller gearing. All in all, had a great time. Ended up 5th in the production class out of 13, which I was pretty happy with considering I'd never actually ridden Laguna before. Planned mods to the Brammo are now: Move down to a 160 rear, because the 180 is just excessive and I could use the reduced rotating mass, strip one of the front brake rotors for the same reason because I don't brake enough to need the dual setup, and swap out master cylinder for the appropriate one for a single front rotor. For club racing, I'll need to remake the belly pan to not be split down the middle to accommodate the motor controller, and safety wire/etc. All in all, really happy with the bike. It handles really nicely, responds well to being pushed to go faster, and is a blast all around. Looking forward to picking my race license up again and getting out there next year in AFM, and shooting for a podium spot next year on the Brammo at the TT.
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Jun 28, 2015 20:37
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Ola posted:Very cool! Could the gearing experience also suggest that a simpler gearbox would do? You could easily get away with a 3 or 4 speed for track use but first gear launches on the street are a giggle and a half, so it makes sense to keep the 6 speed.
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Jun 29, 2015 17:42
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With the 6 speed they can use a smaller engine that puts out power in a tighter range, which keeps weight, power consumption (heat) and size small. They have a few other options they've used on prototypes and they've changed the windings over the years and now they make a version that puts out peak power around 7k vs the 5k of the engine that's in that model bike. There's also their high voltage version that puts out max power at 9k, but revs with roughly the same torque to 11k.
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Jun 29, 2015 23:57
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Err, sorry, that should be "revs with the same hp". Torque drops off over 9k but rpm are still rising so it "maintains power" - one of those cases where HP doesn't really reflect well that you're getting less out of the engine.
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Jun 30, 2015 01:50
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ReelBigLizard posted:There is also the problem of gearing that down to the correct final drive for the wheel. More RPM means a bigger or more complex reduction drive. Yeah - what project are you working on? Start a thread or post it somewhere Updates: So the Brammo is still hanging out in the back of the truck, waiting for me to unload it. I dropped off the S1000RR with it's owner, it made me want a S1000XR for commuting and longer distance rides, but in time that passed. I had a few free hours yesterday, so I began the breakdown of the ZRX.  It's in pretty nice shape all around for a bike with 68k on it. Some minor cosmetic dings and little bits of rash here and there, but overall, it's in decent shape. I found one busted bolt in the airbox that just spun, but some application of impact driver and eventually it heated the poo poo out of the bolt and nut and spun the retaining sleeve out of the airbox. Works, won't fix. Forgot to snag a picture last night, but I got this far in about 2 hours. I'm gonna try and get away with just swinging the radiator out of the way, pulling the exhaust, and leaving the engine in the frame while pulling everything else off.  I guess i never laid out the plans for the CBX, so here they are: Phase 0 - Fire it again Phase 0 is just making sure everything runs and works and I don't have a rebuild in my future. Once the first round of parts show up, I'll have a 6 into 1, carbs freshly rebuilt with K&N pod filters, new coils, a new starter, some new wires that are needed, etc. After an oil change, valve check, cam chain tensioning, and making sure there's no parts that could wreck the engine if they fail (I've heard something about tachometer drivers, need to do some more research on that). I'll temporarily install everything, fire the bike up off a slave tank for gas, and then make sure it runs and burn out a little of my hearing listening to that sweet 6 into 1. I'd ride it on the old suspension at this point but all the brake systems are totally blown out, so it's not gonna really be rideable unless I'm not big on stopping. Phase 1 - Make it handle Phase 1 is getting the suspension swapped from the ZRX. I'll probably farm out most of the machine work to a local machine shop for the steering stem, although I might just be able to sleeve the steering stem from the ZRX and keep everything OEM otherwise. The swingarm is going to need an internal spacer to sleeve the swingarm bearings down to the appropriate size for the CBX swingarm pivot bolt, and I'll probably have to machine out the back end of the swingarm a little bit to get it to clear the back of the CBX engine. Probably going to also need to machine up some spacers for the shock mounts, which will have the added advantage of allowing me some ride height adjustability to try and keep the carb angle reasonable. I'll also be addressing the old charging system and ignition system at this point with replacement parts from Tim's CBX. Phase 2 - Not just reliable, but a looker Phase 2 is getting it looking fly as poo poo. Strip everything down to the frame, frame/swingarm/triples/wheels/etc go in for powercoating. Plastics and tank go to an old Honda paint wizard to get a replica of an OEM paintjob (colors TBD, although likely to be some form of subtle gently caress you to OEM restoration purists). Engine will get mediablasted to undo the lovely spraybombing by the PO. It'll probably be about 2 months of having the bike off the road to get it sorted out but these are the prices that must be paid. I'll also use that time to verify that all of the suspension swap components are ok, inspecting for excessive wear on the swingarm pivot parts, steering stem, etc. Phase 3 - Let's get stupid Phase 3 is what I hope we do one day, which is throwing 3.5k of Ohlins forks and shocks at it, plus some Marchesini wheels off a ducati. I ordered the parts/dropped off the carbs for phase 0 a few weeks ago, but they finally shipped, so I should have them soon. In a few weeks when the carbs are done, it'll be game on for completing Phase 0. I'm probably gonna get impatient and try and get phase 1 started while phase 0 is still in process, but I don't want to commit to piles of custom suspension work if the engine isn't a runner (it should be, it has 150 compression on all cylinders with a little oil down the bores, even with a crappy starter). Have to travel for another few days for work, but I'm hoping to have the bike running in the next 2 weeks (depends on when I can get the carbs...), with a plan of completing Phase 1 within the next 2 months. Phase 2 will depend on how much fun is being had riding the bike and if we're using it regularly or not. Might end up waiting until the end of the summer to do that just because a good CBX deserves to be ridden during the CA summer. Z3n fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jun 30, 2015 |
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Jun 30, 2015 20:29
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ReelBigLizard posted:Pretty much a bicycle with the power of a small motorcycle. I've got a fair bit done but the motor and primary drive are still on the way from the guys who built it in the states. As soon as the drive unit is here the build thread will commence Awesome - that sounds like a blast. That ZRX idea is awesome, I think we're going to go with something even a bit more subtle - a Honda FE50 green and black paint job. Smallest displacement honda paint on one of the largest displacement bikes.
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Jul 2, 2015 21:03
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Ola posted:Have you considered vinyl wrap + stickers? The options you have these days and the quality of the result really makes it worth looking into. Plus of course it's undoable. It's an option, especially before all the stuff goes out for paint. loving swingarm nut on the ZRX is seized to poo poo. Heat, penetrating oil, snapped adapters, still loving stuck in there. Might have to sawzall the loving thing out once I have the engine out.
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Jul 3, 2015 06:51
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 The Update It's been over a year since I've bought my dear SuperDuke, and I think I've had enough miles on it now to actually offer some realistic long term ownership feedback. The bike now probably has somewhere in the range of 15k miles on it, hard to tell due to the time I was running it without a functional speedometer. Odometer says ~13.5k. I've done the usual set of mods:
Mechanical Stuff Standard maintenance items have been:
The chain was an early failure - it tightspotted for some reason. Not sure if it was a factory defect, but I have replaced it with another one, which is starting to show the same behavior. I think this might just be a reality of the bike - that much torque does a number on chains. I got some minor brake pulsing showing up, which is common with the OEM Brembo rotors, and KTM goodwilled me a set of replacement pads and installation of the Powerparts rotors, which I'd already bought. I almost fragged the engine reinstalling the cam chain tensioner after doing the valve adjustment, I thought it had deployed, but it hadn't. Saved by my habit of turning the engine over by hand to double check timing before firing the bike up. It jumped time and I fixed it before starting it up. KTM also goodwilled me a new rear shock after the mudguard gouged out a little divot in the rear shock. Rear wheel wobble is still exactly the same as it was when I got the bike. The bike is great to work on, everything goes on and comes off really easily, and most everything about it is designed with maintenance in mind. The chain tension check is the best I've ever seen (2 marks on the top run of the chain, lift chain to those marks to see if it's in spec), the tension adjustment takes 30 seconds (undo 17mm bolt, adjust hub eccentric, tighten 17mm bolt). The transmission has broken in really nicely, doesn't miss shifts or have any such issues. The ergos were adjusted slightly by the different handlebar mount kit, bringing the bars up and a bit closer to me, but that's not a huge change. A rear tire seems to last around 5-6k, depending on compound and pressures maintained, fronts are getting replaced with rears because that keeps the bike handling sweetly. Performance Well, the sad truth is that the human brain is a many wondered thing, and the bike is starting to feel pretty slow as I've adjusted to the power of the bike. Wouldn't have thought a bike that pulls the front wheel off the ground off a crest in 6th would ever feel slow, but that's the reality. It doesn't help that you pretty much immediately get comfortable with the bike and it builds speed with such calm ease that a ~3 second 0-60 feels sorta mundane. I had SPS revalve the shock after they got one in and decided it had a bit too much high speed compression. I've given up a very small amount of track performance (less than 5%) for significantly better compliance on the street, which is great. I've done a number of long days on the bike, and it's been awesome, as well as some 2 up on the track, which the bike handled with minimal issues, easily reaching 140 down the front straight of Thill for a few laps before starting to cook the braking system and the rear shock. I've started to come to terms with the idiosyncrasies of the traction control, so management of small wheelies and spinning up the rear tire is less of a big deal now - I've figured out how to stop the TC from immediately slamming the wheel back into the ground after it lifts, which basically involves more throttle modulation at a lower level of wheelie than I'm used to doing. At the last trackday I took it to, I did some 2 up on rides on it, and it easily does 140 down the front straight of THill 2 up, and lasts 3 or so laps before the shock is overheating and the brakes are cooking, not bad for hauling another person around at track pace. Best gas mileage thus far is 56mpg - freeway, doing almost exactly the speed limit. I average about 38-42 under mixed commuting, and around 34-36 under exclusive twisty use. Long Term Ownership Thoughts I still absolutely love the poo poo out of this bike. In fact, it's made an honest man out of me - this is the only bike I own now, and I'm super happy with that. I spend more time riding my 1290 now than I do working on bikes, which was the historical baseline for me. I'm still making payments on it, but that hasn't bothered me any, insurance is reasonable, maintenance is easy, and I plan to ride the thing into the ground. The biggest issue I have is that basically all other bikes are ruined for me. I want a Superduke for street and one for track, and I can't bring myself to want anything else. The S1000XR looks interesting, but the reality is that I can't imagine a bike that suits me better that the 1290. I'd still like to do a little more modifying - customize the accents on the bike to blue from orange, do blue/black wheels in the style of the prototype, maybe extend the suspension a little, but the bike is so good I'm loath to mess with it when I could be riding it instead. I'll have SPS redo the front forks as well to match the rear shock. I've also considered throwing a slipon at it, as it wouldn't make any difference to the relatively stealth nature of the bike, but I can't bring myself to spend money on something like that just yet. I should also really make a new gauge cluster mount in carbon rather than with bent metal, and re-foam the seat again, but I'd rather be riding. And to me, that's been the best part about owning the bike - it's there for riding, and I'm gonna be riding it for a long time. All hail the King! ReelBigLizard posted:Is the axle solid? If so how about a Nut Splitter? Might have worked, just sawalled through the frame and swingarm pivot, don't give a gently caress. Z3n fucked around with this message at 06:46 on Jul 23, 2015 |
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Jul 23, 2015 06:42
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You should - KTM often forces dealers to have demo bikes for a period of time so it's not like it should be a big deal.
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Jul 23, 2015 17:31
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Brutale 800 Engine Service Manual posted:Rotate the drive shaft until completely unwinding the springs relative to the valves on which intervening (TDC). ITALY 
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Aug 23, 2015 21:06
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I've been meaning to make this post for some time, and finally have the time to sit down and do it. It's going to get into much more of the theory around safe riding as opposed to the hands on practical skills. That said, I think there's stuff of value here for riders of all skill levels. This model is a simplification of reality in pursuit of a way to better help folks avoid getting in accidents, and to hopefully help the conversation along when it comes to discussing what makes more experienced riders safer vs. newer riders. Risk In this post, I'm using the word risk to refer to our chances of ending up on the ground. Easiest to conceptualize as "If I were put into a bad situation 100 times, how many times would I make it out upright?". It's worth noting that risk can never be taken to zero except by not riding a motorcycle. It's also worth noting that someone can ride in a very risky fashion and be lucky for an extended period, and not crash. However, regardless of your skill level, you ride in a high risk fashion for long enough and it will eventually catch up to you, regardless of skill level. I generally categorize risks into two categories: Environmental and individual. Environmental risks are the broader risks that are present in the world out there, everything from pavement quality, the weather, the density of traffic, the chances of road debris, etc. These are the things that determine my "baseline pace". If I'm on a back road in the middle of nowhere with no cross streets, on a sunny day, with good pavement, and I haven't seen a car in 20 minutes, my pace will likely be higher as the environmental risk is relatively low. If it's raining, I'm in SF with city traffic, pedestrians, etc, my pace is going to be much slower. The amount of environmental risk determines my baseline pace. If you're riding at a pace where nothing that you come across surprises you, chances are you have established an appropriate baseline pace. If you're riding at a pace where a completely unexpected hazard comes up, you should re-evaluate if that hazard was completely unexpected or if your pace was too fast to allow you to identify that risk. Individual risks are individual, tangible things that are increasing risk right now. That can be a pothole, gravel, bonzai pedestrians, an erratic car, and other things that directly increase my risk by potentially knocking me off my bike. Individual risks are also things that contribute to higher risk by robbing me of situational awareness and visibility or otherwise reducing my chances of identifying a hazard. Individual risk is a thing that determines if I'm going to be going faster or slower than my baseline pace on a per situation basis. If I've got good sight lines, excellent situational awareness and visibility, I might go significantly faster than my baseline pace through a corner, despite high environmental risk. If I can see a couple of potholes on approach to a blind corner, I'm going to be going significantly slower than my baseline pace. There is also a dedicated skill of identification of risks in the environment. I'm going to just leave that out for the moment, as that's a complete conversation unto itself, and I want to focus this post more on risks and mitigations than I do identification. Risk Mitigations So now we've got a baseline for our mental risk model - environmental risk as a broad, large scale thing, and individual risk as situations that expose us to additional risk. With that baseline, we can move on to the important thing: Risk mitigation. The first form of risk mitigation is "reactive mitigation". Reactive mitigations are when you have to do something or you will have an accident. It's the additional lean angle to avoid running off the road, it's panic braking to avoid colliding with a car, or swerving into the gap to avoid a car doing a sudden lane change while you're splitting. This is the last ditch effort that relies on reaction time and individual skill and motorcycle performance to prevent an accident. The next way you avoid risk is by what I will call "predictive mitigation". Predictive mitigation is when you have identified the situation in advance, and you have taken the appropriate action to reduce the chances of that situation requiring a reactive mitigation or causing an accident. These sort of reactions are things like pre-emptively hugging the white line on a blind right hander in case a car comes around the corner, slowing when you see gravel signs, slowing when the vanishing point is closing down, and other actions you take in anticipation of risks, as opposed in reaction to them. The final forms form of avoiding risk is to not ride at all. This is strong risk avoidance - choosing not to ride because you are sick, tired, or under the influence. It's an important tool when you don't feel like you are capable or your bike isn't in a functional, safe state. For some people, this is the only acceptable way to deal with the risk of motorcycling, and as a result they do not ride at all. For me, it's a decision I make when I'm not confident I can effectively avoid risks by predictive mitigation. Putting It All Together The reason that I categorize risks this way is because it simplifies safe, quick, and fun riding. Thinking through the environmental risk before I even swing a leg over the bike helps me get my baseline pace right. Once I'm riding, that baseline pace gets modified based on the encounters with individual risks I have. If I'm on a long ride and encountering minimal individual risks, chances are good I can turn up the pace a little bit and be just fine. If I'm on a ride and encountering many individual risks, I can back the pace down to reduce the chances of any of those individual risks knocking me off the bike. Furthermore, as a new rider progresses in experience, their risk mitigations should be moving from more reactive mitigations to more predictive mitigations. Reactive mitigations are easy to mess up, rely on the performance and skill of the rider to be performed successfully, and if you fail to perform a reactive mitigation, you are highly likely to crash. Predictive mitigations are low risk, low skill maneuvers that are taken in advance of a hazard becoming highly risky. Obviously, this relies on predictive thinking and anticipation of situations in advance, such as predicting the conditions that are going to show up around a corner, or the actions of a car in front of you, and using techniques that allow you to maximize your space cushion and awareness. The goal is to put you and your motorcycle in such a position on the road that you have pre-emptively taken any needed actions to avoid an accident. Performing predictive mitigations is a continual process that will be constantly changing as you move through traffic or up a road, as you take into account new information, discard old information, and identify new hazards. It's a very good idea to think through your history of reactive risk mitigations, and consider how those could have been pre-emptive mitigations instead. The other thing that I would strongly encourage riders to consider is to look at each encounter they have not on an individual basis, but as an average for the number of miles they ride, and the number of years they expect to ride. I expect to be riding for at least another 40 years, so that means that if I have a single high skill required reactive event while commuting every 2 months, I will have to successfully navigate 240 high skill events over the next 40 years to avoid crashing while commuting alone. That isn't a particularly acceptable risk level for me, so I have adjusted my riding, speed, and approach to lane splitting and traffic to keep the number of reactive events down. As it is, I've managed to successfully move the vast majority of my risk mitigations from reactive to predictive, and as a result, have a much lower chance of being involved in an accident. I hope my perspective helps other riders have a new tool for approaching the risks of riding a motorcycle safely - as always, remember, all models are wrong but some models are useful, and I've found this one very useful over the years. I hope others find it useful as well. More to come on actual project stuff at some point soon
Z3n fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Sep 6, 2015 |
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Sep 6, 2015 20:28
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Keepin' it simple.
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Sep 8, 2015 14:56
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 New job, new commute, new bike. Life is pretty good.
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Sep 27, 2015 02:14
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HotCanadianChick posted:Wait, did this replace the Superduke? Nah, Superduke will serve double duty as wife's bike, trackbike, and something to tinker on when I'm bored. I've actually got a S1000R in the garage right now on loan from a buddy in exchange for the SD - I wanted to commute on it for awhile to see how the engine was, what kind of mileage I could get out of it, and if I liked the chassis and platform. Obviously, the answer ended up being yes - the primary thing I didn't like about the R is that it still has the standard seat to footpeg ratio for a sportbike, which is murder on my knees. I picked this one up along with the tall seat, radiator guards, engine guards, and some other random odds and ends. I might strip the windshield to get cleaner air on to my chest, but my neck muscles might also just need to harden the gently caress up. Besides that, the dual direction quickshifter is awesome although not quite perfect (sometimes it's a little chunky, although that could also just be the transmission breaking in), I hope I never have to use the cornering ABS, TC seems solid, need to put 600 miles on it to get the dealership to turn off the 9k rev limiter and let me start doing my own work on it. They only deliver the fully spec'd out one to the US, so I've got every option under the sun. Interestingly, the one sorta weak area on the S1000XR is the brakes - despite using what seem like the same calipers as the S1000R/RR, it uses an axial mount master cylinder. With a completely fresh system, it's fine, but the system was a little thrashed on the demo bike and the brakes were kind of disappointing. My brand new one is good but not great, so there's a Brembo MC somewhere in my future. Slavvy posted:
Yeah that's pretty much exactly it, it's perfect - going to pile on all the commute miles on this thing. Plus did some 2 up with the wife, just flip the buttans to 2 passengers, dial up or down the damping a bit, and go have fun. Also, actually owning one, listening to people whine about the vibrations is loving hilarious. Like, yes, the bike has vibrations, it's a liter supersport based bike. There's a place where the bike vibes noticiably, but with how people were treating it, you'd think it was vibrating enough to gently caress with the quantum reality of the universe. If you're crusing at a fixed speed, just set the cruise control and pull your hands off the bars. If you're not cruising at speed, you're not going to notice it. If you wouldn't buy the bike because of the vibrations, I hope you never ride a dirtbike because you'll just swear off all motorcycles forever. I'd imagine all the BMW engineer eyeballs are all over the floor after they rolled out of their heads from reading the reviews. For example: quote:But its in the real-world where the XR starts to annoy. Like, how do you write those words and not thing "wait, maybe the problem is that I don't actually know what the gently caress I'm doing, and I should go buy a GS1200 for my LWR cosplay". Riding the bike back to back with the S1000R, the vibes are maybe 10-20% worse, roughly on par with a S1000RR. They're easy to fix by filling a bar with shot, heavier bar ends (the GS uses 15 oz ones, the XR uses 2.5 ounce ones), or shortening the bar slightly so that it's not so drat wide - but I probably won't do any of this because they're a non-issue in the first place. If you death grip the bars, you're probably going to have a really bad time with the vibrations, because they do exist. But if you ride like you should, with your hands gently resting on the bars, it's a non-issue. These are really basic supermoto/dualsport type lessons to learn, so pretty absurd to see someone slagging off a completely phenomenal bike because they can't relax their hands enough to ride properly. "If you want to spend more money for the bike that is a slightly worse S1000XR left in rain mode, buy that Ducati!" http://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/reviews/bike-reviews/group-tests/ducati-multistrada-v-bmw-s1000xr/ posted:
Also doubling down for the irony of the Ducati losing the "dating a supermodel" crown to a (cheaper) German bike. Never mind that the new ducs have a bunch of weird electrical glitches and the BMW has been perfectly reliable. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised, motorcycle journalists are just a subsection of motorcyclists, who are majority terrible.
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Sep 27, 2015 09:09
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Installed cbx carbs. Forgot to install choke and throttle cables first. WHELP, IT WAS A GOOD RUN GUYS
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Sep 27, 2015 20:41
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Yeah I'm all in on dentist. I only bought the BMW because of the longer commute - full review to come
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Sep 29, 2015 06:52
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Ha, that's Gogo's SuperDuke from like 5 years ago. Crashed minimizing the injury to another rider who went down in front of him - according to the doctors, saved the other guy from paralysis. Snapped the bike in half though. He just also just blew his 1290 engine by using a quick shifter on it during a race, it ejected a shim
Z3n fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Sep 29, 2015 |
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Sep 29, 2015 15:20
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BlackLaser posted:Nice bike! I want to trade my C14 in for one of these pretty bad. Love my C14, but it's just so goddamn heavy. It's pretty fantastic. Break in service was finished today, hello dynamic pro mode and all the rpms!
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Oct 3, 2015 23:16
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NitroSpazzz posted:Saw one of those the other day by the hotel, wasn't sure wtf it was until I saw this post. You weren't in Emeryville last week were you? It could have been me, I'm not far from there. Was there a Givi top box on it with no side bags? Are you out this way permanently or just in the area for work or something?
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Oct 5, 2015 04:08
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NitroSpazzz posted:Yup top box and no side bags so it definitely could have been you. I was out for two weeks to babysit a couple systems, back in TN now. I may be headed back out later and will get in touch if I do. Great looking bike. Ahh, yes, system babysitting. Definitely let me know if you end up out here again, would be great to grab a drink and hang out. In other news, I've been delaying on getting more stuff done on the bikes, but soon the KTM will get a complete tear down for the 18k service, including lubing all the suspension linkages and such, plus another valve check, and replacement. The CBX wouldn't fire up, only backfire and afterfires, so I think I need to check the ignition timing. Who knows what terrible things the PO did to it.
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Oct 5, 2015 15:42
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If you've been following my bike history (why wouldn't you?), you'd know I bought in to our electronic future about a year and a half ago, with a 1290 SuperDuke. As of 2014, there was nothing that could compete with that bike in the arena of top shelf suspension, brakes, electronics, horsepower and an upright seating position. But while the SuperDuke is exceptional at a short haul through tight traffic, or ripping up a twisty road, it's not in its strongest suit when you start riding the undulating slab of the 580. As I'm nothing if not a purist for the type I like, the SuperDuke still fits my ideal motorcycle nearly perfectly. But it was time for a change: rather than being focused on street hooliganism and track performance, it was time to revamp for for dominating a commute, interchanges, merges, and carrying me to work with speed and efficiency. The range to do at least 160 miles before hitting reserve was a requirement as well, which the Superduke does neatly by virtue of getting 45+mpg on a casual commute. But getting a SuperDuke to push towards 50mpg is the ultimate pyhrric victory, like beating diabetes by replacing your blood with HFCS, and gives no satisfaction. This surprise ruined by the title. Although the world doesn't need another case study on the Faustian bargains you can make with highly paid marketing consultants to build a Brand Experience, I'm still going to drag you through the sordid details. After all, you can't talk about an S1000XR without talking about the rise of the ADV scene. The ADV scene contains wonderful mainstays of Long Way Around R1200GS cosplay, and riders who lovingly order stickers from around the world to affix to their dentist's thrones, while talking about how one day they're just gonna take off and ride, man. But the best marketing always contains a drop of truth, and that truth homeopathicically distributed through this bucket of marketing indiscretions is that in dirt riding you find clean, solid design principles. Horsepower is available in spades because you're only riding dirt to roost your buddies, refined long travel travel suspension to handle your poor life and line choices, an upright seating position that helps you target fixate off the shortest cliff, and light weight so that you spend less time begging your buddies to help you drag your bike back to the trail. And indeed, all of these things hold similar virtues on the street. Horsepower brings danger closer, faster. Light weight increases confidence and maneuverability, while refined suspension carries you through corners you never should have made, and an upright seating position lets you rise above the human concerns of traffic and dream of freedom. There's also the continuing drive towards electronic aids on the street, which overpriced ADV bikes wallow in as essential bullets in their marketing fluff, and is another entire debate I'll sidestep entirely by pointing out that those that disparage modern rider aids are moronic neo-luddites and those that welcome and spend money on them are the golden heralds of the new age. After all, there's something to be said for an electronic package that allows a terrible rider to maximize the speed at which they fling themselves off the shortest cliff their ADV inspired bike allows them to find, regardless of its impact on the secondary market. And this is the point where someone chimes in and says something about how the sport touring community has been doing this for years and the VFR750 was the pinnacle of the gentleman's sport touring ride and - well, they'd continue, but they need to take a break to check that they took today's medication, and by the time they get back from doing that, had a quick detour to the bathroom, they've forgotten what they were saying, the name of the person they were talking to, and are primarily preoccupied with if their suspenders are going to hold their pants up for the remainder of the trip home. And indeed, that's actually a pretty good reason to ignore the sport touring market entirely. The bikes are over weight, under suspended, slow to react, and most of the motorcycle manufacturers have realized that the entire marketplace is rapidly expiring, and have discontinued the bikes with no plans to continue onward. As the stock and trade of a modern Renaissance motorcyclist is subtlety and wit, I have left only the barest implications that there might be a relationship between sport touring bikes and their riders - consider this a puzzle for the reader to explore. And while there is a value in the knowledge that occasionally bubbles to the surface in the sport touring scene, this is often akin to the dilemma that those of us who are friends with KLR riders face. While Kawasaki may have built a perfectly functional motorcycle out of pot metal, polyurethane, and the design principles of the Roman empire, these are probably not the staidly functional choices we should build a lifestyle around. After all, this sort of reasonable, responsible thought isn't going to Make America Great Again, and we can't allow the usefulness of a cheap sport tourer or a KLR to detract from the dream of propping up a failing American ideology via a last ditch set of poor decisions on financing, balloon payments, and wealth transfers to those that replaced their sense of decency, worth, and social responsibility with a bank account balance. Ahem, where was I? Oh, yes, the S1000XR. Let's have a picture:  A BMW in it's natural habitat: The garage. Well, I mean, you can read a thousand reviews that say things about the motorcycle. It goes fast! It has suspension bits that bounce both up and down at both ends! More buttons than a hipster's wardrobe! But I think that a refined reader of my words deserves better than that. So in the time honored tradition of terrible management across the board, I'm gonna poo poo sandwich this bike and we're gonna see what it's like to actually live with. The bike itself is a wonderfully aural experience - firing it up, it emits a raspy, lumpy idle, and if you put it in most powerful modes, it emits a burble coming off the throttle that reminds you of an F1 car blowing a gout of fire from its tailpipe. Slam up the gears without touching the clutch, and be rewarded by the flat static burst of the quickshifter, slam it down the gears without the clutch and appreciate rev-matched downshifts and the burble and pop of race bred DNA. At low RPM, the engine pulls smoothly and without drama, gathering itself to spring, and at 5k it begins to wail with a distinctly un-gentlemanly howl before loving straight off into the territory of an ex-AMA racebike. If any government agencies besides the NSA are reading this, I'm happy to be the brave anonymous tipster on the clear violation of sound emissions in exchange for buyback rights to all motorcycles found in violation. Just send me an email, I'm sure you already have my information. And much like the effortless shifts of government direction in the interests of its controllers, the engine jumps to respond to any input change with the frictionless synchronization of a backroom deal. It's quite clear that there has been minimal change during the theft of the dark heart of the S1000RR to jam it into this new chassis. The dual direction quickshifter is also equally interesting, it works in a wide variety of configurations from seamless changes that are too good to be believed to the occasional misstep as you fail to shift strongly and positively enough and instead simply bounce your foot off the shift lever ineffectively. But it works well enough, often enough, that it will handle the majority of your downshifts, with only occasional reaches for the clutch when it's actually needed. And despite the size and wheelbase of the motorcycle, it steers into a corner with wild abandon, tempered only slightly by a clinical team of engineers debating the exact speed at which the human brain can handle a change in direction with some form of accuracy. With the amount of leverage courtesy of the wide bar, I found it somewhat over-sensitive. I fixed this by applying a bandsaw to the last few inches of the bars, reducing leverage to a more useful ratio, while also slimming the bike for lane splitting. In the ergonomic space, as I am a man who also once dabbled in the black tar heroin that is supermoto riding, I also appreciate that a high seat is offered, expanding the seating position out to more dirt bike inspired dimensions. There's a low seat, too, for the inseam challenged. The suspension is useful, but clearly a compromise point for BMW, as they are trying to reconcile the yin and yang of sport riding against the history they have build on cushioning the backsides of rich urban bikers to and from the local artisan coffee joint. As such, while road mode is nicely damped and supple, it lacks the appropriate rebound damping, meaning each bump is a novel exploration of the rebound waveform collapsing. Dynamic mode, on the other hand, fails to handle potholes with grace, but is beautiful up a twisty road, with excellent sport riding settings. The single rider mode lacks enough preload in the back, but cheating it with the rider and luggage mode fixes the problem. Ironically, the right settings are all available, they're just mushed up in the wrong places. Rider plus luggage road mode on the front with rider only dynamic mode on the rear shock would probably be a great commuting setting, and rider plus luggage front and rear in dynamic mode with the compression settings from road mode would be a nearly perfect sane street pace ride. As it is, rider plus luggage in dynamic mode comes into it's own up a relatively smooth twisty road, and the 2 up preload setting makes you think your pillion has disappeared entirely. So all of those things are standouts about the bike - but there are a number of things that are marginal as well. The dark side of the frictionless, quick reving engine is essentially zero rotating mass, which means pulling away from a stop requires a significant fistful of revs, or the RPMs drop alarmingly as you let the clutch out. Expect to burn the clutch a bit. Also, the gear ratios are nearly unchanged if changed at all from the S1000RR, so you've got a frankly moronic 6 speed that's so tight ratio, the difference between the gears is marginal. It would be great to have a first gear that topped out at lower speed, and an overdrive 6th that dropped you into the nice spread of torque available at 4k. Of course, this is how BMW has been winning all the top gear roll-on competitions, so fair play to them for trouncing the competition there, just a pity it comes at the cost of real world usability. Essentially, I find myself operating the motorcycle like a 4 speed: First, 2nd, 4th, and 6th. The difference between 5th and 6th is about 400RPM at 60mph, which makes the top gear feel pointless. It would have been wonderful if they had shortened first gear significantly, spread 2nd through 5th lightly, and then made 6th a very tall, true overdrive gear. And while we're talking about the clutch, you spend $19,250 on a bike, and BMW gifts you with a non-adjustable clutch lever. That, paired with the axial mount master cylinder, makes me wonder if they started developing the bike from the ground up, made it to the top, and just phoned it in for the levers, brake MC, and windshield, all of which are marginal at best. The windshield does a wonderful job of taking an otherwise smooth, reasonably quiet riding experience and throwing dirty air straight into your helmet, increasing buffeting and noise dramatically. If you stand up on the pegs and get into clean air the noise level drops approximately 60%, which is just staggering. As such, I'm removing the windscreen and the windscreen mounts, which I anticipate will completely fix the problem. As I'm 5'11 with the legs of someone who's 5'5 and the torso of someone who's 6'5, I think my physical construction here is as much to blame as the bike's, but hey, I bought the drat thing, you have to listen to my gripes about it. That's just how the deal works. There is also the little point of the bike actually having linked brakes, which is a feature most reviewers don't even bother to mention. I first noticed it when the rear brake lever felt very inconsistent - well, as it turns out, that's because it uses the ABS pump to engage the rear brake when you apply the front brake. I think this actually contributes a large degree to the stability of the bike on the brakes in the corners and while upright, as a computer based engagement means when you apply the front brake, the bike can actually apply the rear brake very effectively based on speed, lean angle, front brake application, etc, to establish and exploit available rear traction to help control dive and smooth brake application. The system is so transparent that you wouldn't notice it unless you're riding the rear brake as you apply the front brake, where you'll notice the rear lever becomes oddly firm. It's nothing like the linked brake systems of the past, and I believe it contributes in a huge way to confidence applying brakes in a corner, especially when paired with the cornering ABS. Interestingly, despite this excellent functionality, the power of the brakes is somewhat disappointing, as I feel like it takes a significant amount of force to get the bike to really engage the front brakes. The braking power is there, it just requires more force than I would like. I'll probably fit a Brembo master cylinder to address this particular issue - I'd imagine this is a place where they skimped a little, because it's acceptable to reduce front braking power when you're building an "ADV" bike. There's also the obvious other caveats, that this bike simply doesn't work in real offroad riding. You can absolutely fire-trail it, double track, it'll handle dirt roads just fine, but it's not going to handle true singletrack. But no one's buying it for that, either. It'll go to Alaska and back no problem, but you're an idiot or a glutton for punishment if you want to ride this thing anywhere serious offroad. I purchased the OEM engine crash bars for it, which amusingly, require taking a dremel to at least one fairing to fit. You can get away without dremeling the left fairing, but the right one it is a necessity - I'm assuming this is some sort of "you're going to drop it, you rear end in a top hat" indoctrination. But it's time for the last slice of bread: This bike is legitimately amazing. The complaints that I raise are almost entirely nitpicks, and easily fixed by throwing a few hundred extra dollars at the bike. Some might balk at spending another thousand bucks or so to fix these sort of problems, but everyone's gonna have a different opinion on most of the things here, with the exception of the non-adjustable clutch lever, which is a very odd oversight in a premium bike like this. As it is, I'll probably just make something that fits and uses a Brembo lever to match the master cylinder I'll end up buying. The bike as a whole package is exactly what I wanted: A ballistically quick, well suspended, upright steed with top shelf electronics, that is equally at home lane splitting home at 8PM, tearing up a twisty mountain road solo or 2 up, or strapping a pile of luggage on to go out camping for the weekend. It nets 40mpg under casual use, pushing range to an easy 160 miles, the TC lets you slide enough to have a good time, and you can click it off the fly to perform wheelies for the kids or impressionable middle aged men. Throw a topbox on it, enjoy the invisible luxury of aping the responsibility of the sport touring crowd while riding a bike that will do 0-100 in the time it takes the officer to figure out you're not over the hill. It's the perfect bike to rack up thousands of guilt free, fast, safe miles on. It'll also probably make fools of arrogant sportbike riders when I take it to the track. It's a very worthy companion to the SuperDuke for those who, like me, are willing to support the American way of life on a financing plan. As they say, if you can pretend to have the means, I highly recommend it.  PS: Someone's gonna say something about vibrations or some poo poo, and to that I have to say: There's your proof that BMW riders are all dentists, and also, they mostly seem to go away after you break the bike in. Between break in, fitting the engine bars, and shortening the handlebars, the vibration profile changed enough that I don't notice them. Also, cruise control means you can take your hands off the bars on demand. PPS: Also, thanks to SF BMW for being awesome and getting me a bike really quickly once I decided I wanted one. Buy all your bikes and stuff from them. I'm off to ride my bike around, ciao!
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Oct 11, 2015 21:43
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Happy to see folks are enjoying the review So glad those stickers are still out there kicking around  I actually think the ADV segment is the modern standard. It's a bike that has most of the tech of the modern world, but is designed for real world use. Never minding the marketing side of the equation, they're bikes that are all around good at everything, much like the standards of back in the day.
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Oct 12, 2015 20:26
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Apologies for sideways viewing, wasn't exactly expecting it to start: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhPqDcAfP1M Reason I wasn't expecting it to start:  PO installed the primary shaft 180 degrees out of alignment, so the ignition was completely loving out. Need to split the cases to fix it - or just mill some fresh alignment holes in the ignitor...
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Oct 19, 2015 06:24
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Sorry, fixed!
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Nov 7, 2015 04:16
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Whelp. Got the KTM torn down for it's 18k service, made it most of the way through the work, and all of the sudden:  A wild superduke appears! The valves are slowly closing up on my 1290, about .01 every 10k miles, so I'll knock them all to the very loose end of the spec in 10k miles, and that'll keep them good for a good and long time. The other SuperDuke is a buddy's, who bought it to go racing, had a season destroyed by bad luck, and ended with a spark cut quickshifter knocking a valve shim out and doing in the top end on the bike. So now it has a fresh top end, and he's looking for something that he can just race and not thing about. I'll be stripping it down, taking it back to street trim, and putting it up on the chopping block. Anyone interested in a 10k superduke? Not cosmetically perfect, but hey, it's a Superduke for cheap!
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Dec 30, 2015 01:08
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Barnsy posted:If you were in Aus I'd sell my bike and take up your offer... Fly and....boat? Kastivich posted:How about an update on the XR. Have you been racking up the miles on it like you intended? Pushing close to 6k on it now. Gearing up to do the first mods, a carbon fiber replacement for the dash (as I pulled the windscreen off because it caused terrible buffeting, but the mounts for it are still there and causing more moderate buffeting) and machining this block of metal into some lower foot pegs:  prukinski posted:Honestly, you could buy it unseen, get it shipped here and complianced and you'd still come out ahead at $10K. I hope I am never so degraded as to have to accept Bitcoin.
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Dec 30, 2015 08:03
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Kastivich posted:I'd like to see pics of this when you are done. Im so terrible about taking pictures but will try and get some of the process. Doing my first vacuum bagging for this carbon so that'd be a good thing to record Otherwise you'll just have to settle for post fab pictures, haha.
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Dec 31, 2015 04:23
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Did this today:  1290 SuperDuke exhaust fits basically perfectly on the 1190. Sounds great, especially with a renegade airbox. Also have an Akra exhaust that was damaged that I need to repair and will go on the track 1290! Yay!
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Jan 18, 2016 03:56
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Yes it is. It's staggering.
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Jan 18, 2016 04:30
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Nope, just a massive muffler. They hid it all under the bike on the SuperDuke, the cat box there is insanely heavy.
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Jan 18, 2016 06:33
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Sagebrush posted:Well, on the plus side, it looks like you could smuggle a LOT of drugs in there. We can't stop here, this is Adventure country. builds character posted:Run exhaust somewhere else with a regular muffler, use that for fuel. Go 2500miles on a tank. Bonus, you can prop up your savings portfolio because oil is cheap. Ola posted:Or decorate the interior and put it up on AirBnB. Look, man, I'm not a believer in actively contributing to the downfall of the Bay Area, ok? Rude!
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Jan 19, 2016 00:07
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velocross posted:You have any thoughts (pros/cons) on the 1190? I've ridden one, but just wondering what you've heard more long term. I've heard about the heat under the seat and a few fuel pumps here and there. I wouldn't mind picking one up next year and do some ~adventure touring~ to the local starbucks on it. Let's see...The 1190s are great bikes. Only some years come with the dynamic lean sensitive ABS, if that's important to you, make sure you get one of those years (2014+, I think). There was supposed to be a backwards patch for it, I don't think it'll happen. There's the always on heated seat, and the airbox sealant issues - those are the 2 big ones. They seem to have fixed most of the rest of it. I have a buddy who bought one as his 2nd bike - CB400F as his first, and then the 1190. He's put about 12k on it and still loves the poo poo out of it, it's big and he's giant and so it fits him really well. He got the R model. The reason I didn't buy an 1190 is the seat heater (yes, seriously), and that it didn't come with 17s and that the suspension was just a touch iffy for me. I've split the difference with the S1000XR, which has the big and tall setup, and the SuperDuke, which has the engine and KTM-ness down pat. The TC is solid, I haven't played in offroad mode, ABS is great in supermoto mode, gets good gas mileage and has crazy range as a result. Starts to do a weave if you wheelie it at over 100mph. All in all, a wonderful bike, and if it fits your use case, highly recommended. I suppose I owe y'all an update here too. Since you saw me last I've nearly finished burning out the OEM tires on the S1000XR (8k miles out of a set of Bridgestone T30s, pretty good!). I bought a stupid autoluber which I haven't installed yet, stole a Fuzeblock from Motomind and installed that so my wife can have her heated vest while I run mine, and lubed the chain, wiped the bike down with WD40, and took it to drop off the busted up exhaust for the 1290. I still love the absolute poo poo out of the bike, it's all around wonderful. Only downside is the 1290 hasn't seen much use since I bought it because it's just so much more practical and usable. However, I anticipate doing some trackdays this year, and that'll be where the SD shines again. If all goes will this year, I'll probably end up customizing the SD to fit the wife through and through, and picking up a used RSV4 as a trackbike for giggles. Maybe a Tuono V4 if I feel particularly dumb. The CBX has had no progress made due to work being busy, and me spending most of my time getting this other SuperDuke sorted out. But I should be finishing that up shortly, and then we're off to the races, loudly and obnoxiously.
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Feb 15, 2016 22:17
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