Matthew Supert

It has been a couple of weeks since I have had the opportunity to get out and ride. Last week I posted a status update on some of the upgrades I have been working on for the ZR-7. It was around that same time that I had been looking at the Powerbronze fender eliminator for the bike. To just my unluck I found this kit exactly one week after the manufacturer had decided to discontinue it. THe timing was truly remarkable and after following up with two different US distributors it seems I missed the boat. So in order to avoid a similar future fate I decided to bite the bullet and purchase the Competition Werks fender eliminator. 

Now this kit is stainless steel compared to the fiberglass of the PB kit. It has some advantages and disadvantageous over the other, but it seems it was my only option. It arrived this past week and I was not completely planning on installing it for a while, but I was planning for a nice bike ride up to Lake Geneva on Saturday (more on that in a bit) so I wanted to get it installed for the big ride. 

So Friday afternoon I went at it. Overall the kit was fairly easily to install once you figure out how it goes. The biggest problem was the instruction manual was absolute garbage. If anyone plans on getting this kit themselves, my advice is to just look at the photos and work your way from front to back on putting all of the screws in. I spent probably a good thirty minutes trying to figure out where the signal panels went before realizing that they went on the outside of the kit. Overall though the end results turned out pretty good. 

So the point of getting that thing installed as quickly as I could was to get ready for a large ride up to Lake Geneva this weekend with the Road & Track Riders of Chicago. Unfortunately my neighborhood got nailed by thunderstorms and I couldn't get out to meet up with the group and I was left with another weekend of no riding. Needless to say I was very disappointed.  

Made with Paper

After picking up my ZR-7 last year I was determined to learn a little bit more about motorcycles and wanted to stick with something that had a carburetor to do some fiddling on. So far this year I have accomplished most of what I intended to do with only a few items left to get on later this summer. Most of my focus for 2012 was to upgrade the lighting system to LED's, get a new seat and perhaps re-paint the bike. I haven't decided yet if I want to try reupholstering the seat myself or just go and purchase a Corbin.

My basic goals for the rest of this summer are to get the turn signals upgraded to LED, replace the flasher relay, install a fender eliminator and also install the Screaming Banshee Horn. All of this will probably happen together in one shot since the fender eliminator is a good time to replace the rear lights and I will also need to remove the tank again to get the Banshee Horn on. 

As I have been searching for fender eliminators several other ZR-7 riders over at RiderForums.com have been opining for a black fiberglass kit made by PowerBronze. After finally finding out the manufacturer we all found out that they decided to discontinue its manufacter litterally last week. 

ZR-7 Upgrade List:

• Clean Carbs
• New Tires
• HR Relay Kit
• LED Taillight
• LED Signals
• LED Instrument Panel
• Banshee Horn System
• New Seat
• Paint Job
• Jet Carbs
• Threaded Brake/Clutch Lines
• Wheel Stripes
• New Headlight and Bucket

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. 

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. 

View Ride Log: 03-18-12 in a larger map

Not a lotto comment on this one. Just a nice hour and a hald ride. Went through a nice fores preserve area that worked out quite nicely. 

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. 

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.