Re: Harley Davidson Dyna ride height

You're missing the point. Coming into a corner on, say, a TZ, I stand my weight
on the outside peg and shift my hips (ok, ars) outboard, at the same time
flicking my inside knee out til it touches. *This motion includes a bit of
countersteer but so little it is unconscious.* When my knee touches I pull it
up, pulling the bike down. All this is done in one quick smooth movement.
OTOH, on a UJM one must countersteer so hard that even "steady Eddie" Lawson
used to bend the handlebars on his quacker in order to consistently flick it
over fast enough to win the AMA championship.

There is a reason for the difference and that reason is the excess weight and
poor weight placement of a UJM's motor necessitated by emission laws.

Luckily indeed!

Allowing them to lap faster despite poorer handling?

And handle worse too ....

You're mistaken.

Last 2-stroke I dyno'd was a TZ-125. It cost $4000 (about the same as a GSXR750
at the time) but came with spare cranks, pistons, et al. Given the savings
implicite in mass production there is no reason it couldn't have been sold for
the same price as MX bikes. Suzuki sold the 750 'water buffalo' for less that
Honda sold their 750.

The motor was so docile I could start it by pulling the tire with one hand and
it idled smoothly. Power came on hard at 8000 thru 13000 rpm peaking at about 52
at the rear wheel. That'd be over 200 in a 500. My wife raced the bike for
about 5 years with nary a seizure always finishing in the top 5 or 6 (once 3rd)
in WERA.

But it was a race bike. Perhaps a better comparison is Suzi's water buffalo.
They were so reliable they were favorite tourers. No, they didn't make 180 HP
but neither did anybody else in those days and they clearly could have with some
development.

 

Gary R. ... or is it? said...

Pointless being Gary R if you're going to advertise the fact that you
are really "Tim the up-his-own-arse racer" then , innit?

You play the typical fucked in the head Merkin well. I'm not entirely
convinced it's an act though.

I'm not allowed to race, they won't give me a licence. 2 heart attacks
by the time I was 21, a mini-stroke at 42 and completely fucked eyesight
did for that.

I'll still take you and your Harley on though.

 

Naw, I used to wheelie my BMW. OTOH my Suzi intruder will not so I suppose that
if it were the only bike I'd ever ridden I'd believe shafties can't wheelie.
After all, look at all the folks here who've ridden nothing but UJMs who believe
they handle well ... at least as well as anything they've ever ridden, right?

Like I say, strap a 50 pound weight - say a car battery - to your tank and ride
a week, then take it off, and you'll be able to guess how much better your bike
would handle with another 50# gone.

 

Pearls before swine ......

Might as well believe it's because god made it so.

 

Ben said...

I led the field for 6 laps on my last session at Donington, until Champ
blitzed me going into Goddards. All I had to do was be first in the
queue when the buzzer sounded for our group.

 

I've owned a GSXR750 and I can say from experience that nothing to do
with the exhaust is the first thing to touch down.

 

I can't find it myself to involve any of these emotional judgements on
metal. Hardly Worthits excepted of course. I certainly don't look at a
car/bike and make any base character decisions about the user.

In my case I was laid up unable to ride bikes, Loz's Gixxer at the time.
My business partner had been through the same (but worse) and had owned
several 911's since. He lent me his and I thought "'Kin 'ell", didn't
realise a cage could be quite this involving. Looked further into the
TCO which is unlike any cage experience I'd had, due to the strength of
residuals, and bought a 2001 C4S. Never regretted it.

'Hog

 

I honestly prefer the more understated looks of the original.

One of the wonderful things about 928s is that they don't look
anywhere
near as fast as they are.[/QUOTE]

Bit like the XJR, another fine mota mister

'Hog

 

Not having been slightly interested in cages until recently I look at a
Ferrari or Aston owners and think ****** how can you bear to throw that
kinda money away. Ok, if you don't put miles on them it's not so bad,
but then what's the point of owning it. A young businessman traded his
DB9 in against a 911 recently. Something about it had pissed him off. 3
months old and he dropped NINE grand on the bastard. A C2 barely drops
that in a year with 6k miles.

All of these are soft compared to top end exec sofas and BMW/Merc sports
cars mind. Their first year hits are *hideous*.

'Hog

 

My money's on the cripple.

 

So, am I to infer that he's lying?

 

Do you think the bike that Vito was watching was the same year as
yours? Do you think it had the exact same exhaust system as yours?
Perhaps your Gixxer has a side stand and the one he was watching
didn't? Perhaps the ride height varied from one bike to another?
Perhaps the one he was watching had the suspension set up differently
than yours? Maybe it was being ridden by a different rider with
different riding technique on a different track with different tires?

Nah. Probably everything was exactly the same and he's lying about
what he claims to have seen.

 

Hard to say, some days....

 

Finally. I knew we would *eventually* find a Brit on a Gixxer Thou who
had the balls to take on an American on a Harley Davidson bagger. I'm
surprised it took 1,100 posts, what with the prevailing attitude you
folks seem to have towards Harleys.

Will you be flying over with the Older Gentleman?

 

Mostly Gixxers.

 

Gary R. ... or is it? said...

Who mentioned the Gixer? I was thinking of using my once written off and
scruffy as **** 1997 GPZ500S. I think you merkins call them EX500s.

If you pay, certainly.

 

Bear scribbled on the back of a napkin:

I honestly prefer the more understated looks of the original.

One of the wonderful things about 928s is that they don't look
anywhere near as fast as they are.[/QUOTE]

I'm with the Ursine one on that. Actually, 928 or a 924 turbo...

 

I just get tired of the lazy, stereotypical "thought" ruts that are
displayed. A motorcyclist has the guts to do something that 95% of the
population doesn't understand and can't comprehend. It's not that hard
to go from there to having the intellectual honesty to admit that other
riders might actually have made their choices on the basis of valid
observations and perceptions of what their riding needs and desires
are, and what motorcycles match them. Unfortunately, it seems much
easier for folks to fall into the same mental molasses that afflicts
many car drivers; i.e all motorcycle riders are stupid.

Well, sure. My observation is that there are so many who are willing
to make judgements on motorcycles that they have no personal experience
with, and to further make judgements about the riding ability of riders
whom they've never met and never ridden with, purely on the basis of
what brand of motorcycle they currently happen to ride - as though that
has ANYTHING to do with their riding skills. It's as if the rider who
had done respectably well in the IOM GP bought a vintage Vincent, and
suddenly everyone thought that he didn't know how to use a motorcycle's
brakes any more. Where the hell is the correlation? There is none.

Having spent 13 years training American motorcyclists to ride, I'm not
one to overestimate the average riding skill of U.S. riders. You may
very well be right. I would love to see more rigorous driving and
riding licensing requirements implemented in the U.S., but I don't
think it will ever happen.

Of course, here you will also find folks who think that because there
are straight, flat roads in Nebraska and Kansas, that no American rider
has any skill in traffic or in the twisties. Just another example of
how easy it is to fall into stereotypical thought patterns. You would
think folks with teeth as good as the British would be past all that!

 

I think I might be able to find a salvage title EX500 lying about
someplace myself, just to make things interesting.

You'll have to pay your own way, though.

 

Gary R. ... or is it? said...

No, you said you on the Harley would be a match for any of us. So you
take the Harley Bag-o-shite. Talk about moving the goalposts to suit.

I wouldn't waste my own money just to prove you wrong.