Now I'm actually riding.

[SDSUsnowboards]

My presence might not be well known here but I thought I'd post the good news anyways.
My bike has been delivered to my house tonight. Its a 2000 Honda CBR600f4. Customized with carbon fiber mirrors, levers, framesliders and some suspension adjustments to accomodate my height (or lack of).
This is a suzuki forum and I got a Honda, but I like the people here and I suspect I won't get grilled for not being partial to any one company.
first things I noticed while riding the bike is that, for all purposes, it's easier to ride in all ways compared to a gz250. Braking and comming to a complete stop is a challenging process for me at the moment, because being so short and light I find it hard to keep the bike balanced as it falls to whatever side and I need to "catch" it before the momentum becomes too much to handle. No I can't flat foot it but I can do a little more than tip toe it.
Anyways, I'm very happy and i'd ditch my single class tomarrow to go riding all day if it wasn't for a test. Damn you philosophy test!

[GIXXER-Mike]

That "little more than tip-toe" deal you explained sounds disasterous to me, dude ! A little sand or gravel at a stop will really take u out! Doesn't sound like you have any room to play with .

Heck, my foot slides a bit sometimes just rolling my bike backwards out of the garage .

Be vewy, vewy careful...oh, yeah...happy riding!

[themeatmanlandry]

Enjoy

<i could have sworn he said cbr?!? JK >

[SuzukiGirl1]

Have fun, be careful, let us know how your first few rides go!

[SDSUsnowboards]

I snuck one in today before school. By "snuck one" I of course mean I woke up 3 hours early and at breakfast ect then rode for over an hour and a half. Wrists feel good, back feels good, neck feels good... It's all good! At first I stuck to the residentials around here, lots of culdisacks(sic?). A HUGE steep hill, that my house rests on, was used to test the power. Well, interestingly, 40mph looks alot slower on a bike than it does in my car. I wasn't expecting that. I kept myself in check though, and actually rode around quite a bit slow than I would in my car around here. After getting comfortable with the mechanics of stopping and remembering to put one or both of my feet down afterwords (LOL) I took to the streets with the traffic and the cars and the stopsigns and lights. The bike was delivered to me bone dry so I was forced to go to the gas station. Luckily we got one right down the street so no worries. Went there and back without a problem. Then it was time for hills! I'm good at those with a car but I remember having problems with them at first (I actually learned stick shift on a hill... thats makes you a PRO I recommend everyone learns that way). Well, I learned at this point in time that bike stall very... very easily. No drops, but I had one sudden stop that suprised me. I got it down after that but I still rev it insanely high to get going... Probably around 4-5K I wasn't looking too closely in the down direction!
Other things I observed is that people still tailgate bikes. I make a "slow down gesture" with my hand(palm pointed downwards then a stomping motion) and the guy backed off. I guess he wanted to prove his VW golf could keep up with a NOOB on a bike

Anyways, with all the power of a 600 I found myself going 4 cyl car speed very easily. Matter of fact, it took some cognitive effort to go faster than my usual slow car speeds. I'm actually happy with that because it makes the bike easy to ride and it helps keep myself in check. Anyways I wrote enough, I give motorcycle riding a 10/10 guys

[Louis]

What is a culdisack?


I'm surprised you're having trouble with hills on your bike if your learned stick shift. It's much easier on a bike than on a car.

On a car your got 3 pedals to manage with 2 feet. On a bike you got 1 pedal for one foot, and 2 levers for 2 hands.

Just keep your right foot on the brake (as you "should" always when stopped), release the clutch slowly up to friction point, give a bit of gas. Adjust. That's it. On a car you have to let go the brake to give gas. Much scarier to roll backwards (at least with the hills we had back home).

[Poosey]

What is a culdisack?

A turn around at the end of a subdivision.

[SDSUsnowboards]

Ah, in a car I use the handbrake to prevent rolling backwards while meeting the friction point. Now you've learned something!!!
I'll try to use the rear brake now, before I tried using the front brake. It's tough to manipulate the throttle while operating the front brake!

In any case I forgot to mention I keep forgetting to turn off the bliners. Heh heh everytime I look down to speedcheck I'm like DAMN MY BLINKER. I better guess used to it lest I creat many confused drivers in back of me.

[themeatmanlandry]

It ain't the ones behind you that you need to worry about.

On the off chance that the old lady actually even sees you, she may see your blinker also and think you're turning!

for the vertically challenged like you, you should ask your local dealership about dogbones, or lowering links. say dog bones first though.

[SDSUsnowboards]

meatman thats a good point. Good thing today was eventless for me in terms of potentially hazardous situations. And since I rode mostly low speed areas with plenty of driveways I'm glad you brought that up... something to add incentive to remember... I am getting better at it though. I've clocked a little over 3 hours today. I'm gonna go for another hour or so after rush hour ends here in a minut.

Soad: Good advice bro, that's the first thing I did. Via dogbone the rear is lowered about 2 inches. The front nearly that much. I think the guy also took the liberty of stiffening the suspension because it's not as "bouncy" as I remember it a week ago on the test ride. So it's b-b-b-umpy sometimes :o .

[svhooligan]

How about shaving your seat to "drop" the height?

[themeatmanlandry]

Sometimes you lose MUCHO comfort that way!!

SDSU: My friend hooked up a loud beeper to his turn signal (with little effort he said) where if it blinks for more than 10 seconds, he gets an alarm (not like a car alarm, silly . . . a beeping sound). He got the instructions from the internet. I can get you his email address if you'd like.

He also made his own electrically heated jacket, out of an electric blanket!

[LayinLo]

Originally Posted by themeatmanlandry

He also made his own electrically heated jacket, out of an electric blanket!

He didn't by any chance invent a vibrating seat......j/k

[FIVEINCH]

Nope. That was Harley-Davidson!

[LayinLo]

Funny....but I was joking about the Viberider.com post.
Still funny, though.

[FIVEINCH]

Sorry, never saw the post.


But I did go to that site.

I have GOT to get me one of those!!

[LayinLo]

For you or the drunk navy chicks????

Just kidding. I never saw a price, did you?

[FIVEINCH]

Navy chicks don't have to be drunk.... the one with 'em does!

Why do you think I joined the Air Force?



$129.00

[themeatmanlandry]

Originally Posted by FIVEINCH

Navy chicks don't have to be drunk.... the one with 'em does!

Why do you think I joined the Air Force?

ZING!!