Motorcycles

Same guy who owns the matchless g50 I took some pics of last month, brought this over to the shed to improve the brakes.

That's my dad myself and my office gut getting the italian master to work with the british caliper.

I was so geeked out about all the details, I only took a pic of the gear change lever, quaife six speed box behind it well.

Bike did 147mph at it's last race.

Swapped to white walls for this round. They kind of feel like chuck taylor shoes.

Bike: 2018 Triumph Bobber.

Mine is a Bell Vortex

My girl wanted a more comfortable seat than the Yamaha Vstar we currently have. It's heavy but all in all a great bike. First one I've ever had with a stereo and I'm loving it.

I posted a couple days ago https://lemmy.ca/post/48328336 complaining about losing 2-5 psi per day and always having to top up air.

This was because all the tire pressure gauges I was using were utter GARBAGE. It seems this is the norm. Not only are the gauges on air pumps wrong, the air pumps are even wrong about how much air they put out.

This led me to believe I had leaks in my tires. Because every time I test them with the built in gauge, they would show up as random-ass numbers. And when I pumped air into them, it gave me more garbage about how much went in.

I was sure I had pumped too much air into the tires. Turns out they never had enough air to begin with since I received it off the delivery truck. I’ve been riding 2300km a fair bit deflated.

Now to relearn how my bike handles (because for some reason, every time I inflated it the bike handled better 🙄😒). Just noob things.

My bike has held a constant exact pressure for 24h and is finally at recommended psi. Moral of the story, research accurate and calibrated digital tire gauges and don’t trust air compressors either.

new swingarm, trapped the engine breather, popped out the kickstart seal, lost an alarming amount of oil, unfortunately the engine survived, so i still can't buy a zs190 :(

Spent the afternoon riding some trails and back roads to find some decent loops for my newbie friends, before I throw them into some real technical stuff 😈

I’ve been monitoring it for a few days. I carry a small portable air compressor and the digital gauge on it consistently shows the pressure being around 2-5 psi lower.

It seems the front tire loses air slightly faster than the rear but I can’t confirm that yet.

It seems I have to top up both tires before every ride now. I do around 80-150km per ride and measure inside a my garage before riding.

Should I be concerned? Is this normal? What has been your experience? Put my mind at ease one way or another 🤪 I just want to ride safely.

Over just under 3 weeks (June 21st to July 11th) I travelled from Chattanooga, TN to Metropolis IL, Branson MO, Dodge City KS, Colorado Springs CO, Winter Park CO, back to Colorado Springs (my buddy had a short out-patient surgery to reattach his bicep), on to Roswell NM, Blanchard OK, Camden AR, and finally back to Chattanooga. I spent several days at my friends houses in Colorado, and 2 nights in Metropolis, Branson, Dodge City, and Blanchard so I had a day to play tourist and spend some time with my family in Branson and Blanchard. I probably averaged about 350 miles per day on my riding days, but did pull close to 500 twice. While my bike is definitely not a touring machine (more like a cafe racer), by standing on the pegs and making frequent stops, along with an unrecommended daily dosage of Ibuprofen, I made it and had a blast doing so; even if my butt complained.

The title photo was taken by my Nephew in Oklahoma (and yes, it has inspired a gym membership and diet).

Metropolis Superman museum

Dodge City, KS

Deer in Colorado

Roswell

Saucy’s owner was staying at my hotel, cool car

Camden at the Rut

Summer skies, tall clouds, country lanes. Today is perfect; take the time now and tomorrow you can deal with tomorrow. For instance, maybe tomorrow I'll finally get around to painting that silly crate black to match the rest of the bike...

Guess what I did wrong?

Friend had a get-together for the holiday and about half an hour before i was planning to leave i decided to see if the ol' pig would start. It's been sitting for at least eight or nine months.
Kicked it over a few times and it fired right up so i put air in the tires, got gas, and hopped on the highway.

What a machine.

My friend has like an acre or so of backyard with a creek and a bunch of trees and we have a little track going through it for the little bikes but it's so fun to stuff the big bikes through it, too. lol

Bikes in attendance!
Honda XR650R
KTM 500EXCF
KTM 250XC
Yamaha WR450F
Yamaha TTR110
Yamaha TTR90
Yamaha YZ80 (?)

Saw some great riding, some cool bikes and cars, and will definitely come back again.

I've always been dreaming of riding my motorcycle on a race track, free of speed limits and idiots in cars. And recently, I did so, thanks to the Total Control Advanced Rider Course.

They had us do various classroom exercises between the 6 20-minute track sessions. We learned about trail braking, proper body position, proper line selection, and suspension setup, among other things.

While on the track, the 1st session was about line selection, the 2nd session was about trail braking, the 3rd session was about body position, the 4th session was about practicing weaknesses, and for the last two sessions we could try to go as fast as we could.

We were split into 7 groups during the sessions, with group 1 being the fastest and group 7 being the slowest (many cruisers in that group). I started out in group 5 but I was more similarly paced to group 4. Some of my riding buddies came along and some were about the same speed or a little slower than me, but a couple were far faster and ended up lapping me while dragging knee. (I'm not at that point yet)

I've done my fair share of spirited street riding but the speed and adrenaline is dwarfed by that on the track. I had a couple sketchy moments, once where I rode over the painted line for track entry from the pit and the rear slipped quite a bit, and another where I was trying to make a pass then my line was blocked and I went wide and panic braked, entering into the grass at 35mph. I stayed calm and I did not go down, but gosh that was scary.

Overall, I had a lot of fun, learned and leaned a lot, and can't wait for my next track day. I'm just hoping it didn't ruin street riding forever. RIP my wallet.

cross-posted from: https://fedia.io/m/micromobility@lemmy.world/t/2366432

An electric motorcycle bearing a Honda badge is bound to attract serious attention – and lately, the rumor mill has been buzzing. Has Honda finally launched its first fully functional electric motorcycle? You might’ve seen headlines suggesting as much, but there’s more to the story than meets the…

Got caught in some rain so I stopped under and overpass to wait it out.

Hello Lemms

I have an XSR 900 and some old soft luggage from an XG 750. Does anyone have suggestions for mods that would help mount a tail and saddle bags? I am aware that the XSR and sportbikes are not made with touring in mind, but I am stubborn. Really the saddle bags are optional, but would like to be able to take them.

If you have ever gone on some road trips on a sport bike what tricks or mods did you use to have enough tie down points for your bags?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32180453

One of my favorite motorcycle YT channel randomly decided to get into algorithms.

EDIT:

Thanks for all the advice! I got a lot of long detailed comments back. I’m reading each one and doing some research, but I wanted to make sure I thanked everyone for the replies!

Original Post:

Hello, Fediverse!

Recently, my company moved to remote work, full time. Since I’m not making a long commute each day, I’m really interested in getting a small bike I can ride for errands. I’d love to get some advice from this community about it.

Needs

First, I’m a woman at average or maybe even slightly below average height. I want to make sure it’s something I can actually ride without feeling like a little girl in mommy’s shoes.

Second, I don’t just want to ride. I want to work on it and learn how engines work. I’m a very mechanical person and I love this kind of thing. It’s fun for me. I’m happy to buy a bike that might not be running immediately because it gives me an opportunity to learn and tinker.

Last, I don’t need to go fast and I don’t want to take it in a big highway, but I do live near a state highway with a limit of 55mph. I’d like to be able to safely ride there:

Aesthetics

I’m not a huge fan of the Harley Davidson type low rider style but I wouldn’t rule it out entirely if it made sense against my other needs. I’m also open to scooters/mopeds if I can safely ride at 55mph.

I tend to like 80s style cars and bikes. Especially the bikes that aren’t quite sport but have some nods to it. Example: Kawasaki KZ, Honda CB, Suzuki GS, Yamaha XS (Japanese name followed by two consonants collection) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Looks aren’t as important to me as the other needs to be honest.

Current Motorcycle Knowledge

Next to nothing. I know the basics of how an engine works. I know how to change my own oil. I have done big repairs on my own cars in the past, but with guides.

I plan on taking a riding class. I know I’ll need safety equipment, such as a helmet. I do have a gear-head in my life so I have someone that I can ask questions to, but I’m mostly starting at zero.

Aside from bike suggestions, I’d love to hear something you wish you knew before you got your first bike!

TLDR:

What would you recommend for someone who wants to learn about engines but isn’t particularly tall? Anything you wish you knew before getting your first bike?

Eacaped the house to go look at bikes and talk crap about bikes, found this matchless g50 IOM racer, 1 of 3 apprently but I forgot to ask what made it that rare.

Well used v-rod and a trx850

Modern stuff I liked

Bikes of my era I was drooling over

And some grom's I parked my Dax next to.

It is with great satisfaction that I report the banner image at the top of this page is now out of date.

The fourth bike in from the left, the blue one, is my old Bashan Enforcer (A.K.A. BSR-250, A.K.A.BS250GY-18D, A.K.A. Vitacci Raven, et cetera) which was a bike I bought for my nephew to learn to ride and also to tootle around behind me on adventure rides. This is a task at which it actually excelled. There wasn't a single damn thing wrong with it other than its tiny stature and even tinier engine. It did everything the big bikes did on our trips as long as it wasn't asked to do so quickly, thanks to cranking out only about 14 horsepower. This is much the same platform as the RPS Hawk 250 and its myriad derivatives, except the Bashan is genuinely 49 state street legal whereas the Hawk is an "off highway vehicle" you may or may not be able to talk your state into putting a plate on, and the Bashan is also built slightly better. Most if not all of the parts including bodywork are compatible.

But my nephew outgrew it pretty quickly and despite him throwing quite a bit of effort at it trying to make it faster -- new exhaust, carb, changing the sprocket ratios, etc. -- there's only so much you can squeeze out of a 229cc mill knocked off from Honda by the Chinese circa about 1988.

He was talking about finding a CRF250L Rally or a DR250.

A buddy of mine who flips bikes came into possession of exactly this CRF Rally was moaning to me about how he doesn't like it, because he wishes it was an XR650L. Hombre, do I have the perfect solution for you. So just yesterday we rolled this off his truck and now we have a new member of the family.

It's a 2018 and only has 3200 miles on it or so. Somebody obviously wiped out and put it down on its left hand side at some point in history which seems to be a recurring theme with all of the rescue bikes I've adopted over the years. There's a small dent in the tank and a scuff in the plastic on that side, no big deal in either case, and the rear luggage rack must have hit the ground because it was slightly bent. So I bent it back. Oh, and it was missing all of its reflectors because of course it was, hence the cheap Autozone bullshit screwed to it there just to get it through inspection. I'll do a better job on that later.

Two previous owners, only one not counting my friend who had it for about a week. The original owner was dad who bought this, for some damn fool reason, to follow his kids around on the trails on their dirt bikes. Why the hell he did not just buy a dirt bike in the first place is beyond me, so that's exactly what my buddy traded him for this.