Shane - Superlite (#43)

Well I took her out for her first outing this evening and it was very interesting.

The batteries haven't been holding their charge so I've had to constantly charge them. The best was showing 13.6v so I threw that in, bolted her up and cranked her over. She didn't start right away, which surprised me and made me a bit nervous, but after a couple of goes she fired and sounded very happy just burbling away at idle. I let her warm up while I climbed into my gear.

I hate stands with the rubber bits rather than bobbin type stands. Trying to get her off the stand while sitting on her saw the bloody stand twisted around and stuck, meaning I had to climb off, extract the stand and hold the bike up at the same time. After a bit of swearing I was right and climbed back on.

Talk about tall gearing!! The clutch bracket had slipped down so my fingers would jam between the clutch lever and the fairing but luckily it wasn't done up real tight so I was able to adjust it on the move. But that gearing is definitely Puke/Hampton Downs material. I was almost idling in 3rd gear trying not to overtake the car in front.

I took a side road, kicked it down a gear and opened her up a bit. The scooter I passed must've been impressed cos she sounds fantastic. Unfortunately, cos the battery is crap and had dropped below 12v just starting her the dash had cut out so I had no idea how many revs I was doing. There's no speedo anyway so no idea how quick I was going, but she sounded like she was doing a million miles an hour.

Because of the state of the battery I only went 5 minutes up the road, turned around and started heading back. I pulled out onto the road, picked up a bit of speed but because there was a car up ahead I didn't give it heaps, which is lucky. Cos there a cop coming the other way, following the guy on the scooter. No idea if he was wanting to pull the scooter but he didn't take a 2nd look at me.

Needless to say I quietly cruised back to the shed.

She feels different that's for sure. The engine has a beautiful sound to it, no doubt helped by the pipe and the missing bang. No revvy 600 this, she sounded like a horny twin. I'm guessing she's gonna sound like the business once I put a decent fuel map in the ECU. Awesome. The bars are quite a reach but it'll be fine once I get the pegs sorted. They're just a bit too far back and too high for me. I struggle to get the pegs under the balls of my feet and once I do I'm so cramped up I can't move around without lifting my arse up first. Less than ideal that's for sure. I reckon the brackets that Andrew's making up will be spot on for me. They're midway between the stock pegs and the current rear sets so should be perfect. I can't wait to try them out.

It wandered around and felt weird on the road, but that's not surprising considering the tyres are well and truly rooted. I'm sure the muppets knew even less about suspension than they do about engines (farken scary thought that) so she definitely felt like she was nowhere near what I'd need, but that's easily fixed.

So I've got some stuff to do before the first track day at Taupo. Find a huge Allen Key for the front axle, put on the other tyres I've got, get a new battery, change the front sprocket, change the brake fluid in the front, put some brake fluid in the rear brakes, measure and adjust the suspension and go over her to make sure she's not gonna lose any bits in the first few laps.