AXXKicker

this is from the firstgear website: www.firstgear-usa.com CE-Certified: The CE is the standardization body made up of European nations setting standards for transportation. This is like the United States’ DOT certification. The U.S. does not address standards for clothing as does the CE.

whenever i drive over gravel or stones, especially at lower speeds, the rocks that the tire picks up make a very unusual sound (in my opinion) as they get skipped off of the underside of the front fender. i know that the fender is just plastic, and that this is bound to happen, but i've been thinking of ways to stop it (it just disturbs me that it sounds cheap). so i came up with the idea of hitting the underside of the fender with rubberized spray undercoating, just like you'd use on a car. this will cushion the fender from thrown debris and prevent small stones and gravel from making those scraping sounds. can anyone here think of any drawbacks to this solution? aside from being careful about overspray, i am inclined to think that this would work pretty well.

not to totally swipe the topic of your thread, but where the hell did you get that avatar and why does it look familiar?

well, the front tire feels fine. i dont notice a significant difference between the tire that i had on there (stock) and this one. i suppose that means that the tires are similar in profile and composition- or it could mean that i just dont notice the difference. :grin:. of course, i'd like to think that it's because of the similarity.

thank you for the technical help. i do need to purchase a manual. is there a digital version of that bad boy available on cd or am i stuck with the paper version? i'm a high tech guy, after all :grin:.

last night, i parked my bike to go see anchorman with a friend and happened to glance at my front tire. "hmmm, must be a stone in the tire. f. stones dont have philips heads on them." wanting to ride around today and tomorrow, i went calling around to all of the bike dealerships for a new front tire. my shopping list included popular brands from this forum: dunlop 202, 208, avon 45, avon 49sp, bt010, bt57, contiforces, contiroadattack, metzler sporttech m1, etc. being saturday, i didnt have tons of options- but i toughed it out. couldnt do it if the tire was on the bike, so i disassembled the front of the bike, left the fork tubes sitting on a full-sized spare car tire and went to the dealership that offered the best price for a tire that i'd heard good things about- dunlop 208. the quoted price was around 100 plus 30 to mount it if i just brought in the tire. good. i can do that. when i got there, the price had jumped to 175- plus 30 to mount. wanting to ride this weekend, we split the difference and paid to mount it and rolled. f. there's 170 that i had earmarked for other crap. got the front end buttoned up- and i need to get the torque specs from someone. so now, i'm looking forward to taking it easy on my new tire and ride with impunity again. f.

actually, raising the clip-ons. the first step towards my long-distance touring plans involve reducing some of the weight on wrists that the xx demands. raising the clip-ons higher up on the tubes seems to be a good intermediate step to doing this. i happened to be near the bike with an allen wrench this morning and decided to try it. i can't get the clip up at all. what the hell am i missing? i'm sure that i could figure it out, but someone who's already done it would be useful at this point :grin:. thanks in advance.

whenever i've checked chain slack, i just used the tip of my extended index finger and raised the chain as far as comfortable. a tug or a shove beyond the natural endpoint *would* give another 5mm or so, but i never counted it. using that argument, a very tightly set chain could have 5-10mm of play. in short, i've always considered mine appropriately adjusted when the play was as advertised without excessive pressure.

does anyone here use the pop-up tire pressure indicators? i see them in the back of the magazines and wonder how effective they are. i think that the last ones i saw had red-yellow-green indicators on them to show danger-warning-fine tire pressures. just curious. brc

i'm hesitant to ask this question, but here goes. what is the general consensus (*now* i've done it) on clutchless upshifts. does it harm anything? i've always fanned the clutch, at least to a small degree (must be the mx background), but have found that some slight upward pressure on the lever, followed by a brief reduction of power gives smoother upshifts than clutching does. let the avalanche begin.... :grin:.

you know, i don't know much about pipes, but i truly do enjoy round cans. even alloy ones.

i've not tried blipping the throttle as yet. next time i'm out and about, i'll be sure to give that a shot. i've had the oil changed recently (for the first time), and since the service it hasn't been as bad. i'll just keep on it. it sure as hell isnt going to stop me from riding it :grin:.

no offense taken. i DO downshift, but this geographic area can occasionally lend itself to coasting stops (not necessarily always at stoplights, as my first post indicated). at redlights, with vehicles stopped behind me, i will admit to popping into neutral and sitting up, and that's where the question originated. i've had quite a few road bikes, mostly honda's and i've just not noticed the problem to be quite as pronounced as on this one. perhaps its the low miles and not-quite-broken-in gearing? who knows. thanks for the words or concern though :grin: .

i was wondering if anyone else has noticed this.... sometimes, when the bike is in neutral, it's hesitant to snick into first. i'll pull the clutch & press on the shifter, but the bike remains in neutral. no amount of pushing on the shifter will budge the tranny- only cycling the clutch will allow for a somewhat noisy (grinding & audible clunk) move into first gear. and sometimes at lights, i'll get caught in higher gears (say, 4th gear, stopped) and will have a hard time cycling down to either neutral or first. anyone? anyone? bueller?

just curious. on my magna, when the bike sputters, i know that i can go to reserve (there's actually a valve under the tank) and then go about another 30 miles before attempting to run on vapor. the 'bird doesnt have a reserve valve as such, but i know about the last fuel indicator flashing as the level reaches "x" amount. here's the question: when that thing is flashing, how long do i have? in either time or mileage. i've heard that the icon flashes a bit early, but dont know much beyond that. i'm not planning on being a test pilot for this one. (for once). brc