Post Mortem: Kawasaki Demo Day

Had a blast at the Kawasaki Demo Day yesterday. The crowd was pretty full because the weather was poor on Saturday. Kawasaki had about thirty bikes there to demo. I signed up for the Versys and the KLR 650 since I am currently most interested in a dual sport at the moment. I wanted to get a ride on the Contours, but it was booked up until the late afternoon and I didn't want to wait that long to ride it. The day was already long enough as it was. 

The demo ride was about 20-25 minutes long and first up was the Versys. After the ride I have to say I enjoyed it a lot. It has a very standard seating position and a sporty overall feel. Ergonomics were great on it, but I can't say I was a huge fan of the instrument panel. Personally I think the dual speedo/tach is the most perfect of designs since everything can be very easily read at a glance. The Versys however had an analog tach with a digital speedo. I am not sure if it was just my newness to the bike or not, but I just couldn't make my mind click with it. Granted I only rode for 20 minutes. One other minor gripe was the positioning of the foot pegs. They were set so far forward that I had to put my feed on the ground behind them. All just a minor annoyance that has more to do with my personal habits more than anything else. Overall though I could see myself owning this bike. It is a perfect size for someone who is 5'8" like me and has the bones to do longer trips. 

The second ride of the day was on a KLR 650. Having demo'd the BMW F 800GS last fall I was prepared to try and handle a bike that was too tall for me. To my surprise however I was able to get both feet on the ground, although tip-toed. Everything about this bike surprised me quite a bit. It is only a single cylinder engine, but it had plenty of "git-up" in it. It won't be winning any speed races, but it cruised along about about 70 mph very easily and I was able to mostly hang with the other cruisers in the group ride. The bike setup was also a very standard riding position that was incredibly comfortable. The KLR is definitely more of a dual sport than the Versys and it showed in its suspension. It is a very tall bike that rides high. I can see how people take this thing across the country. The only minor gripe I had with it was that the turn signal indicator was a single light for both signals. There was one instance on the demo ride where we had to make a right and then left very quickly and I wasn't quite sure which way my blinker was going.  Overall though super appealing and I came away a little more interested in it than perhaps the Versys. 

With the riding position so upright on these bikes and both having fairly high suspensions hoping back onto my ZR-7 at the end of the day sort of felt like getting onto a toy cycle. Bike ZR-7 isn't small by any means, but it is comparatively small to a bunch of these other bikes. 

 

Ride Log: 03-25-12


View Ride Log: 03-25-12 in a larger map

Took a nice trip this past Sunday up along Route 25 and the Fox River. The route had a nice mix of scenic road, downtown areas and a bit in-between. I then swung over to Big Timber Road and then on to Route 20 to head back east. Both were nice drives as well, but Route 20 became stop and go once into DuPage County. 

Ridelog: 03-11-12 - First Ride of 2012


View Ride Log: 03-11-12 in a larger map

The weather in Chicago this weekend as fantastic. Mid-fifties on Saturday and mid-sixties this Sunday. I had to bring my motorcycle into M&M Motorsports yesterday to get some new tires installed. I purchased some Metzeler Roadtec Z6 tires and ran over to the mechanic at around noon yesterday. At first I wasn't expecting to get the bike back yesterday since he seemed booked. To my surprise though they called me a couple of hours later saying they got the tires on. I have to give some big props to them and Mark over there. He commented to me that since the weather was supposed to be nice today they wanted to get me back on the road. That was really great of them to do that. 

As for the ride itself today, it was great. Just a good farm road ride. It is unfortunate how boring most of the roads are in central Illinois since everything is on a grid. 

Motorcycle H4 Relay Install

Well I got the H4 relay installed this morning. Took a lot longer than it should. The basic thing that I needed to do was just remove the gas tank, then run the new line from the battery to the headlight assembly. Of course something unrelated to the relay install threw me off. After disconnecting the gas tank I had a slow but persistent drip coming from the primer nozzle on the fuel tank. I don't know why this thing was leaking as I just rebuilt the damn petcock in October. Well that led to me having to drain the tank so I didn't get gas all over the garage. That was the longest part of this whole process.

Once I got the H4 relay installed it was just a matter of moving in reverse. The relay kit has the relays set inside the headlamp housing so I think later this summer i will replace the standard three pin connector with posilock connectors to get some more free space in there. 

My troubles didn't even there of course. After getting the bike fully assembled again it wouldn't start. It would turn, just not over so I knew I didn't jack up the battery connection. My guess is the engine was flooded or something or perhaps empty from sitting for the past couple of months. After about thirty minutes of messing with everything I finally got it to turn over and run. I let it run for quite a while just to flush itself out. Turned it off and it started back up again with no problems. Overall a decently smooth project.

Should I Buy a New Motorcycle?

I have only had my motorcycle license for five months and I am already grinding my teeth, thinking about another bike. Not that I need one of course. The motorcycle I have now (and my first motorcycle) is a 2000 Kawsaki ZR-7. It is a nice bike and I have to say I am really drawn to the streetfighter look. Apart from some minor work that I needed to do on it this fall it runs perfectly and only has about 7,500 miles on it. Now that I have had some time to ride though I am getting a better sense of what type of motorcycling I want to do. The streetfigher is excellent as a commuter bike and for riding on the weekends, but it isn't really something that was designed for longer trips or touring. My butt is certainly hurting pretty bad after a couple of hours just on a saturday ride.

Initially I caught some of the dual sporting bug and even went and test road a BMW F 800 GS earlier this fall. I'm only 5'8" though and that bike was a bit tall for me. I liked it, but I wasn't in love with it and after some more research I found that dual sporting is pretty difficult in the midwest. 

So here I am left thinking what I want to do. Do I keep my current bike and take it as an opportunity to learn more about motorocycles? It is carbureted so the possibility of me doing some work on it myself is totally there. As soon as I get into a fuel injected bike that has a computer, you can forget about me doing any tinkering. The Kawi certainly has decent power at ~75 bhp and although it only has a 5 speed gear, I never had a problem with power on it. Possible upgrades include the installation of an H4 relay kit for the front headlight, upgrading the running lights and taillights to LED, upgrading the seat, and getting new tires. 

Of course my research has still been going into the purchase of a new motorcycle. My top runners I think right now appear to be the Tiger 800 (not XC) or the BMW F 800 R. Both have the naked look that I like and both have the ability to get some panniers on the side to do some longer riding. There is of course some potential trade offs here for both. The BMW of course is a straight up streetfighter and doesn't offer much more more power (84 bhp) than my current ride. It does offer removal panniers from Givi in which the rack can quick release, making for a clean bike when just cruising around town. 

The Tiger 800 on the other hand is a bit bigger with more horsepower. It also can have a clean look without the panniers, but does it lose some of the fun zippy-ness of the streetfighter? I would say 95% of my riding will be weekend rides.  

Not sure, but would love to hear thoughts from people if they have them. Then again, I could always buy a new motorcyle and keep the Kawai. Question is what do I go with then. Something big and cruisery? A BMW ST series which got a top ranking for touring this year?