2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back...
So after a week of tooling around my neighborhood to road test the Ninja, I woke up to an absolutely beautiful SoCal Saturday morning and decided to get the Ninja out on the open roads. I geared up in my leathers because they make me feel fast and took off. I planned a route that would let me get to know various aspects of riding this new-to-me bike from stop light sprints to freeway flying. I also wanted to scrub off the new tire fingers from the tires so I swung through a neighborhood chock full of round-a-bouts to practice leaning left. So far so good on everything.
The bike was running superbly. I am trying to learn my shift points and how the suspension feels so I was varying the engine speed for different road speeds and generally having fun. Did I mention the weather? Incredible. I jumped on the 101 and lit up the tachometer. 13,000 rpm, banging out the upshifts, speedo swinging decisively around to the right, man I felt like I was in MotoGP. Or at least Moto3. Bent over the tank in a full tuck with my blue and white leathers as the cages just disappeared into my mirrors. I am going to love this bike on the track!
I decided the test needed twisties so I went to a secret road of mine to put the Ninja through its paces. This road is an 8 mile out and back dead end in a ranching area in the Ventura hills. I have to watch for dirty patches as most of the houses are dirt driveways. Sand and gravel collects right where the bike wants to go for the fast line through the corner and trees can shade the road hiding the danger. There is no traffic though which give me freedom to spin my right wrist a little. I am aware that I am being tentative on the turns and not getting too low. The bike is so little for me that I feel like I'm riding a BMX bike and I still have not bonded with the suspension to know when the front end will let go. I am still learning my body position what kind of input the bars want. The basic technique I use for riding the V-Strom are the same, but the nuances are still out there needing to be discovered for me and the Ninja.
As you can see I still have plenty of tire left to get hard over. I got the new Pirelli Diablos warmed up and can now start to find the lean angle limits. I need to shave that tire fuzz!
After my secret road I decided to head to the hills of Santa Paula and the Ojai Valley. The bike was still running superbly and the road were not clogged with slow traffic. I felt like I was able to carry more speed into some of the turns thanks to the light weight and strong front brakes of the bike. I need a gear indicator on this bike as I had a hard time matching engine speed to road speed, but I'm sure that will come with time. After making a pass on the last straight section of the 150 before I hit Carpinteria, the bike ran in to some trouble. At this point I had done 80 trouble free miles of test ride. Now the power was dropping and cutting out only to surge back. The tach was jumping erratically so I bailed at the only turn around point and limped home. It was very undignified at times especially at the stop lights. No power off the start so I had to push the bike with my feet. A 6' grown man in full race leathers pedaling a BMX sized Ninja. Nice.
106 miles of mostly successful, trouble free road test. I had about 15 miles of neighborhood test prior to my adventure. I jumped on the forums after getting home safely and slowly. The tach is electric and that is the main clue that I have an electrical issue. After talking about it with my friend and gear head neighbor across the street (he has 5 motorbike to my 3), we are pretty sure is it a loose or broken ground connection. I just have to find it. If not that then the CDI box could be bad. Mechanically the bike is sound. I have some more safety wiring to do and some refreshing of seals, gaskets and fluids as part of the mild restoration/race prep plan.
Good news did greet me when I got home. My number plates arrived from Speed and Sport Vintage Motorcycles. I got two 10"x12" yellow rectangle plates for the sides and one 9"x11" oval plate for the front. For most of the club racing orgs out here (AFM, WERA West, CVMA) novice/amateur riders have yellow plates with black numbers. White plates with black numbers are for expert riders. Top 10 riders get some other combo like red with white numbers and of course the numbers 1 through 10.
I did some quick mock ups with a little duct tape, both with and without the tail piece. I am trying to decide how to mount them cleanly and simply with out just drilling into the body work. I am also contemplating running the bike naked or naked with a tail piece from Airtech. I think a strip of good double sided tape can take care of the sides with the stock tail. I need to get a roll of the 3M stuff to use for my GoPro mounts anyway. It will hold well and come off cleanly later if needed.
The front will be tougher due to the curve of the front fairing. Here I placed it up high so that I might be able to use a couple of the bolts from the windscreen mount. Maybe the 3M tape will work here too? I don't have numbers yet since I haven't registered with CVMA. I'm not going to drop the money to do that until I know I have the bike ready. At a minimum I want to do the new racer school in January in conjunction with a track day to give me one last chance to bail on the whole idea if I lose my testicular fortitude. We shall see, for now I need to break out my wiring diagram and start hunting for the ground issue. Stay tuned for more Ninja adventures!
Blue
The bike was running superbly. I am trying to learn my shift points and how the suspension feels so I was varying the engine speed for different road speeds and generally having fun. Did I mention the weather? Incredible. I jumped on the 101 and lit up the tachometer. 13,000 rpm, banging out the upshifts, speedo swinging decisively around to the right, man I felt like I was in MotoGP. Or at least Moto3. Bent over the tank in a full tuck with my blue and white leathers as the cages just disappeared into my mirrors. I am going to love this bike on the track!
I decided the test needed twisties so I went to a secret road of mine to put the Ninja through its paces. This road is an 8 mile out and back dead end in a ranching area in the Ventura hills. I have to watch for dirty patches as most of the houses are dirt driveways. Sand and gravel collects right where the bike wants to go for the fast line through the corner and trees can shade the road hiding the danger. There is no traffic though which give me freedom to spin my right wrist a little. I am aware that I am being tentative on the turns and not getting too low. The bike is so little for me that I feel like I'm riding a BMX bike and I still have not bonded with the suspension to know when the front end will let go. I am still learning my body position what kind of input the bars want. The basic technique I use for riding the V-Strom are the same, but the nuances are still out there needing to be discovered for me and the Ninja.
As you can see I still have plenty of tire left to get hard over. I got the new Pirelli Diablos warmed up and can now start to find the lean angle limits. I need to shave that tire fuzz!
After my secret road I decided to head to the hills of Santa Paula and the Ojai Valley. The bike was still running superbly and the road were not clogged with slow traffic. I felt like I was able to carry more speed into some of the turns thanks to the light weight and strong front brakes of the bike. I need a gear indicator on this bike as I had a hard time matching engine speed to road speed, but I'm sure that will come with time. After making a pass on the last straight section of the 150 before I hit Carpinteria, the bike ran in to some trouble. At this point I had done 80 trouble free miles of test ride. Now the power was dropping and cutting out only to surge back. The tach was jumping erratically so I bailed at the only turn around point and limped home. It was very undignified at times especially at the stop lights. No power off the start so I had to push the bike with my feet. A 6' grown man in full race leathers pedaling a BMX sized Ninja. Nice.
106 miles of mostly successful, trouble free road test. I had about 15 miles of neighborhood test prior to my adventure. I jumped on the forums after getting home safely and slowly. The tach is electric and that is the main clue that I have an electrical issue. After talking about it with my friend and gear head neighbor across the street (he has 5 motorbike to my 3), we are pretty sure is it a loose or broken ground connection. I just have to find it. If not that then the CDI box could be bad. Mechanically the bike is sound. I have some more safety wiring to do and some refreshing of seals, gaskets and fluids as part of the mild restoration/race prep plan.
Good news did greet me when I got home. My number plates arrived from Speed and Sport Vintage Motorcycles. I got two 10"x12" yellow rectangle plates for the sides and one 9"x11" oval plate for the front. For most of the club racing orgs out here (AFM, WERA West, CVMA) novice/amateur riders have yellow plates with black numbers. White plates with black numbers are for expert riders. Top 10 riders get some other combo like red with white numbers and of course the numbers 1 through 10.
I did some quick mock ups with a little duct tape, both with and without the tail piece. I am trying to decide how to mount them cleanly and simply with out just drilling into the body work. I am also contemplating running the bike naked or naked with a tail piece from Airtech. I think a strip of good double sided tape can take care of the sides with the stock tail. I need to get a roll of the 3M stuff to use for my GoPro mounts anyway. It will hold well and come off cleanly later if needed.
The front will be tougher due to the curve of the front fairing. Here I placed it up high so that I might be able to use a couple of the bolts from the windscreen mount. Maybe the 3M tape will work here too? I don't have numbers yet since I haven't registered with CVMA. I'm not going to drop the money to do that until I know I have the bike ready. At a minimum I want to do the new racer school in January in conjunction with a track day to give me one last chance to bail on the whole idea if I lose my testicular fortitude. We shall see, for now I need to break out my wiring diagram and start hunting for the ground issue. Stay tuned for more Ninja adventures!
Blue
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