Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Cold ride yesterday
I went for a ride yesterday and damn near froze my butt off! It was way colder than I expected. I cut the ride short and made myself a hot beverage when I got home. Brrrr! Where is that spring?
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Great ride today
As I planned yesterday, I did go on a ride today. I started by giving the bike its Spring Bath (it usually gets very few baths, so this is special :) ). I then rode over to North Star where my older son Jonah does most of his home schooling. The staff there was interviewing parents of teens who go there for a video clip to put on their web site. I did my interview and just as I finished the interview my riding buddy Bill pulled up to the building (as per prior arrangement). We left Hadley around 1 pm and headed over the Rt. 9 bridge to Northampton and from there north towards Deerfield on Rt. 5 and 10. From Deerfield we took 116 north to Ashfield, which is the best piece of motorcycling road around here and is probably a mini Dragon. From Ashfield we took 112 north to Vermont border and in Vermont we took Rt. 100 north to Rt. 9 east, which is another amazing road with a great overlook of the valley to the south and east. Rt. 9 east leads straight to Brattleboro, which was our tentative coffee break stop. We had our respective beverages in a great little coffee shop (I had tea, Bill had coffee) and headed out of town on Rt. 5 over the Connecticut River to New Hampshire, where the same road becomes Rt. 119. We followed this rode along the river to Hinsdale, NH where it meets Rt. 63. We took Rt. 63 south (again along Connecticut River) all the way to Massachusetts. By the time I got home around 6 pm I had 140 miles on my trip odometer covering 3 New England states. That's one of my favorite loops around here. But not the only one.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Ricor Intiminators
I purchased and installed Ricor Intiminators for my front end. I have installed them according to instructions cutting about 0.5" off the preload spacer (the intiminators take about 0.5" just below the spring). I have added this upgrade in search of better handling and more stability from the bike in the twisties. Time and miles will tell how well these things work and if they are worth the money. I will update this post when I have more info. So far I can say that the install is very simple. Drain old oil from forks, take the springs out, pop the intiminators in, add a bit of oil, push the intiminators down to the bottom with a spring, but keep the spring out for the time being. Add correct amount of 5W Amsoil Shock Therapy (fork oil recommended by Ricor for this application), add spring and preload spacer (adjusted for the 0.5" of the intiminators), button it all up and it's a done deal.
Update April 16, 2010
So far I have logged over 300 miles with the intiminators in the front end and the short summary is: THEY ARE GREAT!!!
The longer story goes as follows. Right after installing the intiminators and going for a ride around the block you may say to yourself, what the heck is the big deal?! Why did I just spend close to $300? Well, that's just the thing. Around the block or on a gentle ride to your favorite watering hole you may not notice a significant difference. And frankly, in those situations Sportster is already good enough anyway. Well, some of the smaller road imperfections seem to go unnoticed even at an easy pace, but that's not worth $300, I don't think. So, if you are thinking of buying these things and expect your bike to become a Cadie on two wheels, forget it. Here is where the intiminators really kick in. Twisty back roads where you tend to go a bit over the speed limit :) The thing is that even on those roads the bike does not feel much different, except when you look at the speedo. First time I did that I had a bit of a shock and quickly closed the throttle instinctively. I was going around curves I knew very well at about double my usual speed without ever realizing it. Everything about the turn felt the same. The lean angle, the effort at the handlebars, etc. The speed, however was much higher. Catching a small pothole (or even a large one) in the curve did not upset the bike any more. The stability of this Sportster was improved by an order of magnitude. I am still playing with some settings like the height of fork tubes in the triples, etc. But in general the front end is very, very VERY good right now. It also made the rear end behave better. I have dialed the 1200S shocks in and now I have pretty sweet handling Sportster. I am very impressed and highly recommend the intiminators to anyone who is frustrated when pushing the Sportster through the curves (too slow, way too much lean, I am going to scrape stuff if I go any faster around this curve, that type of frustration).
Update April 16, 2010
So far I have logged over 300 miles with the intiminators in the front end and the short summary is: THEY ARE GREAT!!!
The longer story goes as follows. Right after installing the intiminators and going for a ride around the block you may say to yourself, what the heck is the big deal?! Why did I just spend close to $300? Well, that's just the thing. Around the block or on a gentle ride to your favorite watering hole you may not notice a significant difference. And frankly, in those situations Sportster is already good enough anyway. Well, some of the smaller road imperfections seem to go unnoticed even at an easy pace, but that's not worth $300, I don't think. So, if you are thinking of buying these things and expect your bike to become a Cadie on two wheels, forget it. Here is where the intiminators really kick in. Twisty back roads where you tend to go a bit over the speed limit :) The thing is that even on those roads the bike does not feel much different, except when you look at the speedo. First time I did that I had a bit of a shock and quickly closed the throttle instinctively. I was going around curves I knew very well at about double my usual speed without ever realizing it. Everything about the turn felt the same. The lean angle, the effort at the handlebars, etc. The speed, however was much higher. Catching a small pothole (or even a large one) in the curve did not upset the bike any more. The stability of this Sportster was improved by an order of magnitude. I am still playing with some settings like the height of fork tubes in the triples, etc. But in general the front end is very, very VERY good right now. It also made the rear end behave better. I have dialed the 1200S shocks in and now I have pretty sweet handling Sportster. I am very impressed and highly recommend the intiminators to anyone who is frustrated when pushing the Sportster through the curves (too slow, way too much lean, I am going to scrape stuff if I go any faster around this curve, that type of frustration).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)