Harb67

I hope he leaves just so Clevelanders stop getting false hope

i say we write a letter to QFM and see if they can maybe set out a donation box at a bike night and promote it

Actually, this could be a very good idea.

One of my best friends and his girlfriend have both been interning at QFM for at least a year and a half and know more or less everyone there. The girlfriend even works some of the bike nights. I'll mention this to them very soon. I'm not sure if they're going to be interning there this summer though so I can't promise anything yet.

So I can't help but keep thinking that we should send a letter in to Sport Rider about this. Their editor (Andrew Trevitt) was in a bike accident recently-ish and is in the same situation as Brian. Maybe if we promise Brian will put Sport Rider stickers all over the Landing Gear we'll get a donation from them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyK-9cD20YI

Can't wait to see that on a black 650r

I'll make my donation once this weekend has its way with my wallet.

No, its Linex on dudes tank.

Same idea I don't own a truck and I used to hear Rhino Liner commercials on the radio all the time so that's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of any of those spray-on bed liners.

If...and I am SO not going to volunteer anything that might advocate a domestic dispute between anyone she would volunteer to do so, I will pack the gear.

If you decide to bring the grill let me know and I'll tell her to expect to cook, but now that someone has mentioned that lunch will be extra long and we don't have to hurry to eat I'd understand if you opted to leave it at home.

At first I thought you meant "linux", as I recently read an article about an electric bike running Linux. After staring at the pics for about half a minute I went "holy crap...is that freaking Rhino Liner on that dudes tank?" and realized what you were talking about

Not to derail the current conversation, but r1crusher and I were wondering about the lunch situation there, and decided to bring a Coleman Grill2Go with plenty of propane. So as the owner, I am offering up the use of it to anyone who decided to bring their own chow. We're doing simple hot dogs or burgers, but if you want to bring your own food and cook your own food, the use of my grill is free. He and I are both running in the novice class, so anyone running at the same time is welcome to come grub up when we do. If there are riders that are in the other classes and want to use it, get a hold of us sometime Sunday morning and you can come over to where we're set up.

Hmmmm....wonder if I could convince my girl to play chef for us while we're out on the track so we can end our session (I'm in novice too) and have food waiting? That'd be a win-win for everyone

329 miles? I walk that to the fridge and back. Bring it on!

If you're looking to add more to that and avoid a bit more freeway, you might consider taking 93 south from Logan till you hit 50 in McArthur, then taking that East a bit till you hit 278 then taking that back up to Nelsonville. 93 has some great turns in the beginning of it and one or two long sweepers, and 278 is pretty fun as well. The only downside is that several miles of 93 are quite straight and boring, but I've always felt that the beginning of that road combined with 278 make it worth it.

Did you get the canyon dancer 2 with the plastic ends on it? Also make sure you have atleast 2 tie downs so we can get your bike setup in steve's truck. We are still working on the ramp situation.

Yep, that's the one I got. I called him while I was buying it and he said we would be ok on tie-down straps so I didn't get any, but I can make another trip to the Pony to get them if it turns out we need them.

Dropped my leathers off to have the 360-degree zipper sewn into my jacket and stopped by Iron Pony to buy a proper back protector and a bar harness. I think I'm finally prepared for this track day

Silver lining: You'll fucking dominate Iron Butt rides.

Gotta say man, it would be awesome to have you back on 2 inline wheels Hocking isn't the same without a second 650r out there

*edit*

Also, shoot me a PM or give me a call sometime if you still need help moving the bike. I tried to contact you just before I got back from spring break to get that taken care of but never heard back from ya.

Just saw it and LOVED IT.

I was grinning like an idiot and having a ball the entire time. It's just a fun movie, plain and simple

I bought tickets Wednesday to go see it at Movie Tavern tonight

Burger + beer + Iron Man 2 = a good night

Man, after the morning I just had, this video hits far too close to home

Nice! I really love Arrow pipes, I don't know why more people don't run them!

i don't know a whole lot about suspension, but i didn't realize going to a softer spring would make the front end dive less under braking.

i better call pauly to make sure we're not ordering the wrong springs.

Damping rods simply don't do anything for low-speed compression; it's almost entirely the springs doing the work. The valving in the emulator takes over a good portion of the low-compression damping, so your springs don't need to be nearly as strong. In the end, you have maybe 20% less springs doing far more than 20% less work. I'm sure the increase in oil weight also played a part in the difference, but not by too terribly much.

Then again...you were probably being sarcastic But hey, the explanation may help someone else out down the road if they read this post.

I also forgot to mention that the spring preload has nothing but Paulie's best guesstimate backing it up; my bike doesn't have adjustable preload () and I haven't checked to see if the sag is properly set. For various reasons, I couldn't provide Paul with the information to use to cut the spacer lengths. He used his vast repository of motorcycle wisdom to size them, and so far the setup as a whole is working out very well but I bet things would be even better if I took them to a specialist and got things set up with actual measurements and maths and stuff.

I recently reworked the front forks on my Ninja 650r and thought I'd share my thoughts on the star of the show: the Gold Valve Emulators from Race Tech.

If you aren't familiar with exactly what these are, click here for a very good article on them by Sport Rider

. It is worth noting that along with the emulators, I also changed the fork oil to a different weight (from 10 to 15) and drastically changed the spring rate: went from the extremely stiff 1.2 kg/mm stockers to some .95 kg/mm springs (also from Race Tech). Because of all these changes, it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison between the bike pre-emulator and post-emulator, but I doubt that there's anyone out there that would put these in their forks without also changing spring rates and possibly oil as well.

I purchased these to resolve two major gripes I had with the front end of my bike. First and foremost, despite the ludicrously stiff 1.2 kg/mm stock springs, the Ninja 650r in stock trim has unbelievably bad low-speed compression damping. Even braking from stoplight to stoplight in normal city riding produces huge amounts of front end dive, causing braking to feel awkward at best. Second, the bikes high-speed compression damping was extremely harsh. Hitting bumps at speed felt like I had no front suspension at all, making riding over bumpy pavement uncomfortable during "normal" riding and downright frightening when cranked over in a turn. It's important to note that these problems aren't unique to the 650r; they're simply characteristics of damping rod forks. While I've never ridden one, I'd wager that an SV650 or any other bike with damping rods would have similar issues.

After riding on these new parts for about a week and a half, I can say that I'm very happy with the performance. Front end dive under braking has been significantly reduced; it's still there but I'd estimate that it's been cut by at least half. It's most noticeable in city riding where I'm not braking from any huge speeds; casually hauling it down from 40 to 0 at a stoplight produces hardly any dive, whereas the stock setup would use almost the entire range of travel. High-speed compression has been drastically improved, to the point where it feels like a completely different bike over very rough surfaces. The bike is now to the point where any major drama from hitting bumps at speed comes almost exclusively from the stock shock out back, whereas before the mods the front was so brutal over bumps that it completely eclipsed any problems the rear end had.

Overall, I'm quite happy. The front end is now nice and firm under low-speed compression, yet very compliant and manageable under high-speed compression. Aside from going from the crappy stock tires to Diablo Rosso's, this has been the best bang-for-the-buck mod I've done to my bike, and I would strongly encourage anyone who isn't completely satisfied with their damping rod forks to consider doing the same thing. The only problem I have is that in order to tune the emulators, they have to be removed from the forks. I misread the instructions the first time I tuned them prior to install, and just yesterday I pulled them out to fix my mistake (had them spring twice as stiff as I had intended...oops). It's not particularly difficult, but it's still far more involved than just twisting some screws on the fork caps as you would do on many other bikes.

Last but definitely not least: I did not do most of the install work. I simply removed the forks from the bike and dropped them off with Paul at DucRX and let him work his magic. Paul did a great job and I am very satisfied with the whole experience. I would recommend him to anyone who needs work done on their bike.

tl;dr version: got valve emulators, new springs, changed fork oil weight. PROS: much less front end dive, much more compliant during high-speed compression. CONS: emulators are a PITA to tune once installed...do it properly before you install them. CONCLUSION: well worth the money, big improvement, DucRX FTW.

Sold out already? Wow, I didn't think there was a ton of interest judging by the small-ish running list that was floating around a few dozen posts back.

How many slot are available in each group? I'm not interested in switching or anything (I'm as green as they come with regards to trackdays ), but I'm kinda curious just how many people will be there.

Really good thread, and great timing as well Seems like some of the board has a bit of track day fever with Gingerman fast approaching and the NESBA event that was recently announced.

The 16th can't come soon enough

Alignment isnt a big deal unless something is bent. You've got to loosen the steering stem, loosen pinch bolts for the forks (on the triples) and remove the front axle. Use a straight edge to line everything back up and tighten everything you loosened. Install the front axle last, and you should be good to go.

I'll give that a try. I never loosened the steering stem when I was trying to straighten it back out, so maybe that will help. I'll grab my service manual and see if I can't get things back to normal sometime this week.

*edit*

Argh, I meant to post this as an edit to the last post...

I'm fairly sure the handlebars (I don't have clip-ons) aren't bent. I'm using an aftermarket bar that is really heavy and thick...i'd wager that these bars are one of the toughest parts of my bike. Plus, these bars have never hit the ground or anything hard.

Put the front tire up against a wall and twist as hard as you can the other way.

Tried that with my dad actually. I loosened the upper triple and kept the lower tightened, and i wrenched on the bars and he pushed on the wheel. No improvement :\ I might try it again with both the upper and lower very loose. I don't know much about the internals of the steering stem and triple tree; is it even possible for the upper and lower to go out of alignment or is it all one solid piece that should always be straight?

So the top of my triple tree and my front wheel are out of alignment. Not by much, but when I'm riding in a straight line with the front wheel going straight ahead, my handlebars are pointed maybe 2 to 4 degrees to the right.

This is not from a crash, as far as I know. Last season someone tried to steal my bike (i think). It looks like they tried to turn the front wheel so hard that they would be able to break the steering stop/lock mechanism and ride off, but they clearly failed as I still have the bike. After that, I noticed the steering was off ever so slightly. I recently had the forks off the bike and I tried to straighten things back out while I was reassembling it, but if anything it's unchanged or a bit worse.

I don't think the fork tubes are bent; I didn't notice any damage to them when I had them off. I think what might have happened was they twisted in the triple a bit and now the upper and lower triples are out of alignment?

Does anyone have any idea what may be up and how to fix it? If anyone around Columbus would want to take a look at it and maybe get things straightened out, I could pay in the typical college student fashion: beer and/or smallish amounts of money