motorcycles, technology, music, business

Life is full of relatives and tradeoffs.

This became apparent to me for the hundredth time this morning while hopping on my 2006 Yamaha FZ1 for the first time in three months after having put 1100 miles on a 2013 Suzuki GSX-R750 a little over a week prior.

What was immediately obvious was that relative to the Gixxer the FZ1 is more relaxed and my mind immediately considered the tradeoffs between the two. Everything on the FZ1 is heavier and less aggressive. This includes the suspension, seating position, engine, steering, and controls.

Since I had recently ridden the ‘track-oriented’ Gixxer my mind, bones, and muscles were automatically comparing my staid FZ1 relative to the Gixxer. My body was confused by the upright seating position and raised handlebars. The steering and clutch and brake controls felt very heavy, again relative to the Gixxer. Many things felt worse relative to the Gixxer, however some things were better. All of these relatively better characteristics are results or byproducts of the more relaxed nature of the FZ1. The mirrors are significantly more useful without requiring me to look ‘around’ my elbows and the suspension is much more supple over highway bumps and dips.

Regardless of which bike I am riding, I arrive at my destination happy, smiling, and exhilarated. Arriving at work today on a motorcycle was so refreshing relative to yesterday proving to me that despite the tradeoffs riding a motorcycle, any motorcycle, is better than driving the car (cage) to and from work.

Thanks for reading and happy riding.

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At the 30,000 mile service the chain needed to be replaced. To my knowledge it had never been replaced.

The stock FZ1 is geared quite high which makes it very subdued even when doing 80 MPH on the highway. This behavior is great for MPG and long highway trips but is not very engaging for backroad riding.

That being said, when it came time to replace the chain I opted to replace the rear sprocket with one size larger (48T) than stock (45T). From the reading and gear ratio calculating I had done I was hoping this would be a nice comprimise between relaxed highway creuzing and the high stung impitance of the two sizes smaller (15T) than stock front sprocket (17T) that I tried a while ago. I was still a bit nervous though. If I didn’t like it it would be a fair amount of money down the drain and/or many mile later until I felt ok changing it again.

It’s been nearly 1500 miles now and I can honestly say that it is significantly better the huge majority of the time. On slower corners 2nd gear is smooth yet powerful, and on the highway 6th gear is also smooth but more wanting to pull away as it sits right at the bottom of the power band when cruising on the highway. In many ways it feels like I went down a gear. The new 6th feels a lot like the original 5th. It also still has some punch at around 7000 RPM whereas the 15T front sprocket took that away.

In conclusion: I would say unless you only want to ride casually on the highway, this simple modification is well worth looking into. It has made my gentleman’s sportbike much more fun to ride on the street.

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48 tooth rear sprocket on a 2006 Yamaha FZ1

Today could bring both the first snow and potentially the first salting of the roads.
This is a big step in the direction of putting my bike away for winter storage. Can you say “boring”?

I typically put the bike away in mid-December and this year will probably be no different.

Thanks for reading and happy riding.

Everyday I toil over what my next bike should be. When I say “everyday” I mean “everyday”! It’s a bit annoying how consumed I get optimizing my life in some future state of my life when I can afford to buy a new thing, in this case a motorcycle. I call this behavior premature optimization, or pre-optimizing. I engage in this behavior all the time.

All that being said, when it comes to motorcycles I am constantly torn between performance and practicality and between retro styling and modern components.

I want performance when I day dream, but I want practical performance in real life. I want a powerband that is usable and fun and keeps me close to legal speed limits.

I want like retro styling for its cool, laid back demeanor, but I value light weight, high performance, components more than I do retro styling. By example, suspension and brakes have come a long way since the 60′s. Why would I want to use basically the same technology that existed 50 years ago if the new technology is better at what it does (suspend or brake in this case) and lighter too?

Let’s bring in some bikes to ground these examples. Take the Triumph Thruxton.

photo courtesy of TriumphMotorcycles.com

I really like this bike. I like the looks. I like the seating position. But, it’s about 100lbs too heavy and has outdated suspension and brakes. It also has outdated wheels and frame. However, it has a very practical performance engine.

Now let’s take the Triumph Daytona 675R. One of my other favorite bikes.

photo courtesy of TriumphMotorcycles.com

This bike is super sexy and has every last bit of modern technology but it has a very unpractical seating position and a moderately unpractical engine everyday riding. It is wonderfully light and flickable, but too uncomfortable for mixed riding and possibly too fast for the street.

It seems that you are either stuck in the old (read cool looking, comfortable, heavy, and out-dated) or in the new (read light, fast, and unpractical).

There are some crossover bikes of interest to me.
The Triumph Street Triple R is one of them.

photo courtesy of TriumphMotorcycles.com

This has updated components and is relatively light. It still has an uncomfortable seating position (which could probably be fixed with a new seat and handlebars) and the engine is mostly practical for everyday mixed riding but not entirely. This is a contender for my everyday-mixed rider motorcycle.

Finally, there is the custom market which brings me to a bike that I saw when it was originally posted on BikeEXIF but recently saw again and loved the concept so much that it sparked this post. That bike is the T-Type by Mr. Martini.

photo courtesy of Roberto Brodolini via bikeexif.com

This is a bike I would love to ride. It is retro and modern. It has to weight at least 25lbs less then a stock Thruxton based solely on the wheels. It should have a very practically performing engine since it is a two cylinder Thruxton engine with a big bore kit. The main problem with such a bike has got to be price.

I know that I haven’t mentioned price yet in this post, but I imagine this T-Type bike is at least double to cost of any of the previous three. Not to mention it is one of a kind and would need to be shipped from Italy.

If price were no object, that T-Type looks awfully nice.

After all that, I think what it boils down to is … I don’t know what I want. Actually, I take that back. I do know what I want. I want a magical bike that can morph into any of these bikes at the push of a button. That’s what I want.

But for now, I will be sticking with my boring, but very capable 2006 Yamaha FZ1 (which consequently is most similar to the Triumph Street Triple R but bigger). It allows me to ride comfortably at most speeds, but is a bit heavy and high speed biased. Speaking of which, what’s up with these race inspired close-ratio gear boxes which are totally lost on a street bike? Ah well, that will have to be for another post.

Thanks for reading and happy riding.