Safety is for Jerks, Comfy seats rule

While out on the PB500 i was having some trouble starting the bike. it took about 5 minutes to trace the problem to the clutch lever switch. There is a switch in the clutch lever that you have to close in order to start the bike. This is a safety feature but not one that i really need and it is a feature that is keeping my bike from starting. A quick search on Thumpertalk revealed that it was an easy fix, just pull the head light off and follow the wires. there is a Male-female connection and a Female-male connection. Pull the wires and plug them together. Done. (Sorry I didn't take a picture.)

Next up is the Side Stand Switch. This is a danger but only when jumping the bike. Sometimes when you land it can make the side stand flip down and open the circuit and kill the motor. I don't ride aggressively enough that this is a problem for me but that switch is hanging down awfully close to the ground for my taste so I decided to remove it too. It would suck to be stuck in the middle of nowhere because of a small switch that got broken in a fall. This is another easy operation but it requires a butt connector. pull off the seat, trace the wires up the frame to where they go into the loom. cut off the connector and butt the green and white wire to the black and white wire. Tuck it all back into the loom, pull the wire and sensor out of the bike frame, unscrew the side stand switch and toss it into the garbage. Done. If only it was all this easy.

I found a solution to the tire changing issue: buy another wheel. i found a guy who has a DR350 rear wheel for sale for $150. This is cool because it is an older wheel from when the DR350's still had the cush drive on the sprocket so i should be able to just put my sprocket right on it. this will be a little bigger than the 17" that came on the bike but 18" rears are the enduro standard and they must know what they are doing. Another search on Thumpertalk and i found a couple guys who have already done this to their bikes. it seems pretty straight forward but we'll see how it works out. From what i have read it is just a matter of flipping the standard DR650 brake disc around and bolting it on. I am sick of swapping the brakes on my wheels so I am going to order a front and rear disc plus the bolts to go with them and then i will have 2 complete sets of wheels. The only pain in the ass is that i just bought a dunlop 606 for the rear in 17" size and i will have to sell it off. not a big deal but it is just one more thing to take care of. HOLY SHIT! i just called the local parts store for the brake discs, the front is $288! and the rear is $200! What the hell? that is an amazing amount of money for 2 pieces of metal. holy god. Now i am thinking that maybe removing the brake discs isn't that hard after all. It certainly isn't $500 hard. Man, Motorcycles are expensive!

Next up is a seat. After the ride back from the pine barrens i knew that i needed a new seat. Corbin is kind of what everybody goes for and they seem good but i have been reading lots of stuff about how they don't fit the bike as well as they should (especially for a $350 seat!) and they are breaking off the tab on the gas tank. This doesn't seem like a good way to spend my money and I was looking for something cooler. Enter Renazco Racing ( http://www.renazco.com/default.cfm ). This is a small company that makes custom seats for Dual Sport bikes. their website has a great ordering form that you list percentages of riding and also a short essay section where you tell them exactly what you are looking for. They got back to me very quickly but with kind of bad news. They said that the soonest that i could get an appointment to "build" my seat was next February! I still signed up but was dreading the wait, and then magically they sent another email saying that they could get me in in December and that my seat would be the last one they build this year!



They sent this along as a guide to how it will look when finished. I am going with the Black Vinyl top, Black smooth Vinyl sides, Black Stitching and no logo. I don't want the bike to look fancy so i don't need a custom seat logo on it. The guys at Renazco are calling it the "stealth seat". Ha. Here is the ultimate kicker, their hand-made-custom-built-only-for-me seat is going to be $25 CHEAPER than a Corbin seat! That just plain rocks and I can't wait to send it off to them. If you are looking at a Corbin seat make sure that you talk to the guys at Renazco first. It might take a little longer to get your sweet new custom seat, but it will be a much better item and it will be made just for you.

The Pine Barrens 500

This was without question the hardest thing i have ever done. So much fun. The ride was broken up over 3 days all starting and ending at the same hotel in the middle of nowhere New Jersey. Each day we would start between 8am and 9:30am and it would be about an 8 hour ride depending on how fast your group was and how many times you wrecked/ cried/ pooped your pants. Here is a picture of some of our group from day 1:



Tons of fun all day long. For me it was very challenging but i am sure that the more experienced guys were kind of bored with the pace. It seemed pretty damn fast. I only had one fall that day and it was very low speed and i Just kind of fell over in the soft sand. I hate sand. Ther were some parts that were just a wide dirt road that oyu could haul ass and hang off the bike on. Dirt riding is very different than most of the stuff that i have learned about street riding. When in doubt give it more gas. This was hard to get going but awesome the few times i did it right. Always use the rear brake. that is weird but cool when you do correctly. Then the sadistic bastards would end the day with a wicked final 5 miles. it was tight trails with whoops and water holes and then of course sand. fun but very hard. It was a good way to go for one final blast that wasnt too fast but was still really hard. it makes the final 2 mile (or so ) ride back to the hotel feel like a cool down lap, very relaxing and quiet after a day of cursing myself and crying.




day 2 was the easier day. it was for the guy who jsut wanted to go for a ride and not kill themselves on their huge BMW's. Most of the guys on the big bikes were still going for it but i can't imagine it was easy. It had some hard stuff and some really fast stuff that we got lost on. The ride was all based on a few GPS routes that the organizers would email out prior to the day's rider meeting. i am sure that it wouldnt be easy to go as fast as we were going and still read to little map. i gotta get one of those things! On day 2 we rode out to the beach:



This was a fun easier day with lots of street riding. most of the streets that we were riding on were decently twisty especially for the coast of New Jersey. We were moving a little slower on tuesday so we didn't finish till it was almost dark. If you think you are going to die riding these trails during the day then riding them in the dark is a very special experience. (Gigantic headlight. anyone?) No one got hurt in the dark so i'll call it a success.

Day 3 was back to the brutal stuff. They have a tradition of making day 3 the hardest and they stuck to it.



It looks pretty and peaceful but it is deep sand and it sucks.

We went back to some trails that we had riden on the first day but they werent really any easier. the day was a blas tand it ended at just the right time. we were packing up our gear and ehading out by around 5:45pm. of course all the other guys had the common sense to bring their bikes down in a trailer. This means that they also got to [ut the bike back into the trailer and drive home. That would have been nice. Instead i rode home on my bike.
With the stock seat.
For 2 hours.
Plus it was cold.



The PB500 was a great weekend and without a doubt it was the hardest fun i have ever had. I know that I'll be signing up for it next year, and a few other events too.

Now to find a rear wheel. changing tires sucks.

Bar Risers and Dunlop 606's

So my buddy talked me into doing the Pine Barrens 500 this year ( http://www.pinebarrens500.org/ ). 500 miles of dual sport heaven right here in NYC's back yard, AKA Jersey. If you have the chance to do something liek this i highly recommend it, it ROCKED!
Hang on, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Having never done any type of off road riding i figured that a little warm up was in order so we planned a ride for the weekend before the event. In preparation for this ride I spent some more money!!! I ordered a set of Dunlop 606's since i had read/ heard that they were the best compromise for on and off road riding. they look super knobby but offer an amazing amount of grip on pavement. check them out:



I jumped into the deep end with the tire changing by reading a little online and then just going for it. I ordered a 21" for the front and a 17" for the rear that way i dont have to change out the front tire on my fancy new 19" wheel. pulling the front tire off was about as easy as my reading had led me to believe. IT SUCKED! Don't let anyone fool you, changing a bike tire is a total pain in the ass. I recommend you make friends with a bike shop and get them to change all your tires for you. they have the correct tools and can do it easily. i spent about 45 minutes with 3 pry bars and a roommate to get the front tire on and could not for the life of me break the bead on the rear. I wound up taking it to my saviors at Speed Motorcycles. They pulles off the sweet new Avon and replaced it in about 20 minutes. This is after i struggled with it for 40 minutes before giving up. So now i am in the market for a spare rear wheel so that i never have to change a tire again myself. i know it is the easy way out but i don't care. I cant keep paying them $40 to swapa tire every time i want to go get dirty and I don't ever plan to change a tire if i can avoid it. i know how to now and that is all i wanted. sigh. here is what the bike looks like with the all dirt set up on it.



Pretty sweet.
I also was trying to find a solution to the horrible stock seat. it is fine for a short ride but feels like some sort of torture device designed by the Japanese to punish my big fat American ass.
I borrowed my buddy's Suzuki Gel seat to try it out. One word: LAME. Don't even bother with the Gel seat. I wont even bother posting a pic of it it isnt worth the time to resize the image. It feels like they jsut removed all the padding from the stock seat. you sit lower and i dont really like that, maybe i just got used to sitting so high but i like the height of the stocker much better and i liek the padding of it better too. i rode with it for 2 days and couldnt pull it off the bike fast enough. Save your money for a Renzaco (foreshadowing...)

So sweet new tires and its time to get the bike dirty! first trip off road and it was very different from the street riding that i am used to. I learned some important things:

1. dirt riding is fun.
2. Deep sand SUCKS
3. sliding the back of your bike in turns on the throttle is awesome
4. Deep sand and whoops SUCK
5. This bike will ride over anything on earth, and i mean anything.
6. Deep sand might be my mortal enemy.

I also learned that my bars are a little too low for comfortable stand up riding. they arent bad they are jsut a little too low for my arms/ legs. you knwo what that means: Bar Risers!



these are as easy to put on as it seems. pull out the bolts that hold your handle bars on. put in the metal shims until they are as high as you want them to be, put the new bolts that come with the kit in and tighten everything up. done.



They really do make a difference, your back will thank you. I found them on ebay for about 24.95 plus 5 bucks for shipping. worth every penny. the last thing you want to do while you are hanging onto your rip-snorting fire breathing dirt-death machine is be uncomfortable.

The next thing i discovered while out in the Pine Barrens was that my bike was jetted in CA and not for the east coast. this manifested itself by cuttign out on me while i was riding in my favorite enviornment: narrow trails, deep sand and whoops. this SUCKED. so when i got back i dropped my baby off with my good friends at Speed Motorcycles (i know i am putting their kids thru college). they had it ready to rock on Thursday afternoon just in time for me to load up and head to Jersey for the start of the PB500. The mistress is even better than before and runs like a top. I also learned that the bike has a DJ kit installed by a previous owner, and that it has had the paper base gasket replaced with the metal one. Neat-o!

Next up, the PB500!