I've ridden the bike a lot as a commuter. I put a lot more miles on it when I lived in California. The weather here in north Idaho takes a really big bite out of riding opportunities. Winter is long and cold. Autumn and spring are both really chilly for the most part. Even during the summer you need to be watchful of storms and decide whether the day is a good one for riding a motorbike. I suppose it's different for a bike equipped with saddlebag storage, to hold clothing for different weather.
Here's the Honda a couple of days ago, warming up for the first ride this year (48 degrees in February and no snow!) The gravel piles on the concrete are due to earlier snow removal with the tractor.
As with the diesel engine in the F-250, it's easy to buy an electronic module to adjust the fuel settings for the engine and to hot-rod the bike. You can download various "engine maps" from the internet and then upload them to the module. The module then tells the engine to inject more or less fuel at different points in the RPM range and/or for different engine air-flow. Thus the owner can customize the engine output to crank out more power. The manufacturer also had to keep emissions in mind, so the stock fuel delivery curve doesn't necessarily make the most power.
Below an electronic module to modify a motorcycle's electronic fuel injection curve.
There are also after-market intake and exhaust systems that help improve airflow, and therefore allow even more fuel to be added to the engine.
Personally I find the bike terrifying enough. If you pin the throttle in first gear it will start lifting the front wheel up at about 50 miles per hour. If you keep the throttle wide open after that, the bike will flip over backwards before you get to 60 miles per hour. I'm not sure I need the power to flip the bike at 100 mph.
That's me a few years ago... Yep it's fun. Hopefully I never grow up too much :)
No comments:
Post a Comment