Improve your Sports Bikes Handling - Setup

 Talking about motorcycle suspension to your biking mates is a bit like speaking in a foreign language that you both only know the odd word of.
 Everyone knows you need suspension to make the ride more comfortable on bumpy roads and it makes the bike handle better when its done right, but what the adjusters actually do and the words actually mean normally brings on vacant stares.

At the bottom of this page are the setups we use on our bikes. 

 Heres a basic guide to setting up your bike 

Tyres

Your motorbikes handling will improve quite noticeably just by having the tyres blown up. Col likes his tyres set to the manufacturers recommended pressures as it makes the bike feel light and quick to respond in the corners, where as I like my front tyre 5 psi down and the rear 2 down from the recommended pressures. This way I think the front grips and give more confidence in the corners and the back rolls from side to side better as it gives a larger contact spot. Jon always seems to have a flat middle section and rarely does anything to his tyres and Rich has not got any preference as of yet.

 Suspension Settings

Before you start do this:- Get a pen and paper and write down the settings you are currently using so at least if you like how your bike feels you can go back to that setup if your adjustments or messing's don't go to plan.
 The front adjustments are done on the front forks and the rear adjustments done at the rear shock.

 The Suspension has 3 adjustable parts:-
 Compression -
This is when the suspension first moves, such as when braking,accelerating or going over bumpy surfaces
 Rebound -
This is the movement when the spring has peaked and is returning to its usual position
 Preload -
This is how much the spring needs to be loaded before it can compress.

Preload (gold bit with hex head) rebound (flat screw part in middle of gold bit)
 Compression is a screw head at the bottom of each fork leg.

Rear Shock Preload (Threaded collar above spring), Compression screw head at top of picture,
Rebound (screw head below the spring at the bottom of the shock)

To adjust them, you will need a flat screwdriver and the rear preload spanner that comes in the kit with the bike.

 Front adjustments  

      Preload is normally determined by how many lines are on show at the top of each fork leg.

      Rebound and Compression are determined by how far from full in you turn the screw out (anti clockwise), eg. 1 and a quarter turns means turn the screw 360 degrees then a further 90 degrees.

Rear Adjustments

        Preload is determined by which position the lug is located in starting from the lowest (softest) position.

         Rebound and Compression are determined by how far from full in you turn the screw out (anti clockwise), eg. 1 and a quarter turns means turn the screw 360 degrees then a further 90 degrees.

     

 Some more modern bikes have clicks when you turn the adjusters so they may suggest 5 clicks out from full in, again anti clockwise.

 

 There is no one right or wrong setup, the default is closest to that as it has to suit a plethera of situations, however when making adjustments be aware that what suits you may not suit your mate, you may like the front to steer quickly where your mate may not, you may like the rear to dip as you accelerate but someone else will not. Also you may not be as heavy as your mate so it may be set perfectly for you but its no good for your mate, so theres lots to think about.

Do your home work before making any changes, you can learn lots from magazines and advice and opinions form the owners forums for your bike.

Remember, always take it slow for a few miles after making adjustments until your happy with the way the bike handles and be prepared for the bike to feel unpredictable if you didnt get things right.

  But when it is set just right your ride is sorted!

Our Bikes Settings

Bike  / Year                                Front                                                      Rear

                         Preload    Rebound    Compression Tyre      Preload    Rebound    Compression Tyre

Yamaha R1 '02'     2 lines   3/4 turns      1 turn          31psi      6th          3/4 turn       full in           42psi

Improve your Sports Bikes MPG

 In our end of year survey I asked, ''What would be the best improvement you could make to your motorbike?" and the most common reply was better Economy.

Every year we at EDSBK while on one of our road trips do an ECO challenge, this is mostly to give us something to think about when on the long journeys between fuel stops. We record the miles traveled and the fuel added this gives a reasonably accurate measure of how well the bikes are performing and to make it more interesting make a competition out of it. Over the few days we are away our average MPG ranges from 37 - 52 MPG  depending if we are cruising or going for it. 
  Sports bikes are designed to go fast, the engine is designed to deliver lots of power to the rear wheel and not to deliver lots of MPG. The shape of the sports bike is to cut through the air and its low weight is also an advantage to achieving a higher MPG, but you don't buy a sports bike for its economic fuel usage. Taking advantage of its design and keeping it in a good condition can yield a reasonable MPG figure providing you ride in a fuel conserving way.

The Miracle Product

 At this point I would like to say there is a product out there that's going be the answer to our question giving an average 60mpg to the typical sports bike rider. There isn't one. However, an improvement can be made with some thinking around your bike,kit and riding style.

What works?

 I have been reading other peoples fuel saving tips, there are some good ones out there. Here's some examples of them and my thoughts on how it affects sports bike riders.

 Remove excess weight
EDSBK - Our bikes were designed to be light,  after market exhausts can save a few kilograms for the money they cost, but unless your a racer with a good budget realistically there's not much to be made here. If you worry about saving weight try putting yourself on a diet!

 Use correct tyre pressures.
 EDSBK - We regularly check our tyre pressures, it makes such a difference to how the bike handles and improves MPG. Best of all this improvement only costs 50p

  Slow Down. Twisting the throttle uses more fuel.
 EDSBK - Boring. OK the way to improve here is on roads like motorways and dual carriageways just cruise along in 6th gear at the speed limit, tuck yourself behind the screen and your MPG will be as good as you can get it. Once you get onto the more exciting stretches of road you can give it some beanz as you will have saved a bit of fuel.

 Keep the bike moving, an idling engine does 0 MPG
EDSBK - The advantage of a motorbike is being able to avoid queuing by passing any stationary traffic waiting to get into the field to the car boot sale. Even riding slowly and getting 5 MPG is better than nothing. However if you can see that there's nowhere to go and your going to have a long wait, turn the engine off for the best fuel savings.

  Be aerodynamic, use a full face helmet and tight clothes.
EDSBK - I dont like a face full of dead flies so always use a full face helmet. Last years trip to Scotland rained a lot, so flappy wind catching waterproofs were required on some parts of the trip. On all the bikes the MPG dropped when wearing these, but as our speed was slightly lower due to the poor weather conditions it almost evened things out.

  Keep the bike in good condition
EDSBK - A nicely polished clean bike with correctly aligned wheels,adjusted chain and a fresh set of plugs,oil and filters will improve you MPG by a fraction.
The main thing to remember is the harder the engine works the more fuel it uses and the more money you spend. 

 Change to a different style of motorbike
 EDSBK - Not for me yet. All of the above will help to save fuel, you might get up to an extra 5 MPG if you really try, but you have to ask yourself, why have a sportsbike if you want excellent MPG? If the difference between riding as normal or riding economically on a Sunday morning ride is only 3 or 4 MPG will you even notice when you next fill up the fuel tank. Why worry about fuel costs when the tyres and insurance cost as much as they do?
  For most of us owning a sportsbike is for fun, racing around a circuit on a track day, an escape from the usual daily routine or for a morning out with your mates, so is the best thing just to take it for what it is?
 Of course you can do all the above on any style of motorbikes, but for now I still like, the look, speed, handling and sound of Sports and Superbikes.

 Go green use electricity
EDSBK - Sports bikes that run on electrickery have a few major flaws so far. They weigh more than a petrol bike, and more importantly cant do the mileage, OK 90-100 miles seems to be the figure most manufacturers are quoting which is good enough to get us to the Cafe on a Sunday morning, but how do we get back home? Going touring for a few days would be out of the question. The good thing is these latest electric bikes look right, they have very similar dimensions to the petrol bikes and as time goes by these bikes are getting better. Who knows in 10 years time electric super bikes could out perform petrol bikes and charge times could be just a few minutes. Until then I will be riding my petrol bike.

Some of my favourite Electric Superbikes

 

Nope I'm not ready for one of these yet!

Ethanol

 Recently at work we have employed a new guy who had been running his own service station. We got talking about fuel prices and fuel saving methods, which is when he started telling me about Ethanol being added to petrol. I decided to look deeper into what he had told me and the following is what I've found out based on what he had said.

 In 2013 the Ethanol content in Petrol is due to go up from 5% to 10%. This move from the European Union is received by many as a greener alternative to crude oil. Fuel companies are obliged to add 3.5% bio fuel to both Petrol and Diesel and each year the content of bio/renewable fuel is set to rise by a small percentage.

 What is Ethanol?

 In short Ethanol is a modified form of alcohol, made from distilling fruit, vegetables or grain, which is a good way to get rid of unwanted crop waste and use less fossil fuels, and as it's made from plants they would absorb some of the carbon that vehicles generate as they grow. Sounds just what we need to help save the environment.

How will affect us?

 Research estimates over 750,000 motorbikes wont run on the mixture of Petrol and 10% Ethanol without some adjustments.
Ethanol is acidic so is very corrosive. When added to petrol the fuel is of a poorer quality.
 Being corrosive, Ethanol will clean old deposits from the fuel lines and fuel tank which can block up the fuel filter and in some case's cause running problems. Ethanol will cause damage to rubber pipes and seals, it reacts with sealants and on older engines can cause carburettor icing when humidity is above 77% and ambient temperatures are below 12C . In the USA they have been using a 10% mixture already, and common problems from the poor quality of the petrol is causing engines to struggle with starting, lack of power and mpg can be up to 10% worse than with 5% mixture. Once you have filled your motorbike with fuel at the service station, you should remember that Petrol with Ethanol added has roughly, only a 3 week life span, after this the petrol and the ethanol separate which is called Phase Separation.

Phase Separation describes what happens to Petrol containing Ethanol when water is present. When Petrol containing even small amounts of Ethanol comes in contact with water, either liquid or in the form of humidity, the Ethanol will pick-up and absorb some or all of that water. When it reaches a saturation point the Ethanol and water will Phase Separate, actually coming out of solution and forming two or three distinct layers in the tank. The only option when this happens is to get rid of the fuel as it will damage the engine.

 Fuel specialist are advising fresh Petrol every 3 weeks, as at present there is no additive that will stop Phase Separation.


(For more information click here to visit the Motorcycle Action Group website)

 Some of our bikes are affected see below.

Kawasaki are still considering the effects of E10 and do not recommend its use.

Yamaha models are compatible with E5 and some new models are compatible with E10.

Suzuki's have been compatible with E10 since 2005.

Honda models have been compatible with E10 since 1993 but carburettored vehicles could suffer poor drivability.

All the major Fuel brands currently run a mixture of 5% Ethanol in Petrol, apparently added to the tanker in seperate operations. Supermarkets get their supply's of fuel from the same refineries, I cant find any other details, so expect them to have the same content.

Mini DV MD80 / D001 Cam

 Myself and Jon have bought the mini DV D001 Cam from off Ebay. At the time of buying they were £18.50, they can now be picked up for as little is £12, which is less than a tank of fuel. So for that price we weren't expecting anything amazing.
  We have now owned these cameras for over 12 months, and after some recent testing can give a fair review of these little camera's.
 The purpose for buying these camera's was to attach them to the motorbikes and record some of our favourite roads and the trips away, so that during the cold, dark winter months we can virtually ride some of the best bits and share them with you via our Youtube channel.

Features

The Mini DV/MD80 has a 2 mb High Def camera,
Video records at 30 FPS in 720x480 pixels,
It supports memory cards upto 8 Gig,
There is a hi res camera mode that can shoot up to 2,000,000 pixel images,
It has a fast acting light response lense,
can be used as a web cam,
and has a 2 hour battery life.

 In reality the camera mode is a waste of time as you cant see what your taking the picture of,the 30 FPS is pretty good, 720x480 is almost HD, the fast acting light responsive lense works well,  the battery lasts about 2 hours and my 4G card holds about 50-55 minutes of video.
 When the camera arrives it comes with all the bits to attach it to a computer, a disk with the drivers and files needed, some brackets and instructions which were originally written in Chinese, so makes interesting reading if not any sense.

 In Use

   The first chance I had to try my camera was when we went to Germany and the Nurburgring. I used the brackets included in the kit and clamped it to the handlebars, but didnt have any idea what the camera was looking at as theres no view finder. Also I didnt know what the camera was doing as you cant see the lights when its sunny outside. The 4gb memory card can hold just under an hours worth of film so I saved it to record a lap of the nurburgring, the sudchleife and any other intresting bits we could find. We connected up to a laptop at the hotel only to find I had recorded a lap of the sky, with a few overhanging trees, and Jon had recorded by using a helmet cam idea of his a lap of the tank of the motorbike. Both cameras had wavy lines scrolling up the screen which made the footage unwatchable.  Most dissapointing!

Wobbly vision

 Once back home I tried the camera every time I went out with varying amounts of success  The main issue we were getting from both cameras was wavy lines scrolling up the screen, I found it was caused by the vibrations from the bike. After experimenting with places to mount the camera I discovered that the motorbikes frame hardly vibrates at all, so built a mount out of a piece of plastic tube which fits tightly into a crash bobbin. This has stopped the problem almost completely, only occasionally under high revs do they come back.
The brackets that are included in the kit, are useless for the purpose we need them for, so they went in the bin.

Lower MotoGP style view
 (Date Stamp was hard to adjust)

 After some experimenting we found that videos recorded from a lower position give a better perspective, show some interesting views and feeling of speed. If you watch Motogp they also use some nice on bike camera positions, looking behind across the top of the rear wheel or at how much the front tyres give in the corners, so we want to try out some new ideas and brackets.

 Another issue was the on light and record light could not be seen, so by removing the 4 screws in the sides of the camera and pulling it carefully apart you can see the little led lights. I used a dremil to make a hole big enough to let the light shine out of and put it back together. When riding along now I can see the lights clearly.

 After this Modification and using the bike mount I am pleased to say that I rate this little camera quite highly and have no fear of recommending them as a good buy and good value for money, just be prepared to put some time into experimenting with brackets/mounts.

For and Against

The good things about these camera's are the size, reasonable quality video and they arepretty tough. (We had one fall off a bike at over 70mph, when we went back to collected it it was still recording)
 The problems with these camera's are the poor instructions, the wavy lines, the L.E.D lights are not visable in bright sunlight and the worst thing is the time/date stamp cannot be removed. The newer version of the camera now has a much smaller transparent time/date which is a step in the right direction but totally removal would make for a welcomed option.
However there is ways around all of this:- 
The Instructions - Just go on Youtube and watch some of the how to use the MD80 videos.
The wavy lines - Experiment with positions on the bike that don't vibrate. Plastic fairings, mirrors and mud guards are no good, you need to find something metal for the best results, frame, swingarm or lower part of front forks we find work best.
 The L.E.D lights - Make your own window to view the L.E.D's (see above).
 The Time/Date Tag - Using Windows Live Movie Maker with 3rd party effects such as the increase zoom by 15% mode helps mask the problem as the time and date disappear off the bottom of the screen.     
 To reset the time - You will need to make a file in notepad which you copy onto the camera. There is a demo file on the disk that comes with the camera.
Good Luck with getting that to work! Eventually mine gave the correct time.

Old Camera with Yellow Date Stamp

New Camera with Transparent Date Stamp
To Watch this video click here 

 In conclusion we like it.   4/5

 See our videos on Youtube

Latest Video has the new look time date stamp

 The camera mount video

Suzuki GSXR K8

 This is Carls Suzuki GSXR 1000 K8. The model was released in 2008 having minor changes to the paint scheme from the previous K7 model that Jon owns. Suzuki have always made class leading motorbikes and this is no exception. The engine chucks out 185 BHP and was the first main stream bike to have a power mode switch that lets the rider select between full power, medium for economy and a wet weather mode. Suzuki have fitted twin pipes on their 1000cc model which is different from the other manufacturers who make superbikes. 

Carl has changed the factory exhaust from the standard 2 pipes into a Scorpion, shorter, single sided pipe which gives a much louder roar under acceleration, saves weight and looks great. He has had the suspension lowered as it was a bit to high for him and finds it handles well.

 He has been making some artsy, photoshop pictures and has submitted them to the site for all to see.