Today's ride...

After much waiting I finally managed to ride my bike to work today. Starting out at 5:30am this morning was a little chilly. Besides being cold there are some things I've noticed:

1) I don't drive aggressively enough on the bike in heavy traffic. Or at
least it feels that way. There are an awful lot of trucks out on the road at 5:30am...

2) I have a tendency to upshift without using the clutch. Bad Mike! No
doughnut!

3) I didn't miss the radio.

4) I didn't stop for fast food.

5) Because I wear glasses I had to open my visor every time I stopped the bike or I'd fog up. The vents were open but they didn't help.

I haven't colotuned her yet so I also had to keep her out of the 4500 rpm range which turned out not to be a problem as I was almost always going slower than that on the way to work.

I did feel like a "noob" a couple of times when I tried starting off the line in the wrong gear but that will go away with time and practice.

 

Shifting (or being in the right gear all the time) will become second nature. To be perfectly honest with you, I generally never have any idea what gear I'm in. I just shift when it feels like I should. When coming to a stop, I just keep shifting till I get to first. On the highway, I just keep upshifting till the revs feel right. The end result of this is that I often find myself attempting to shift into the non existent 6th gear.

I would try to be really conscious about using the clutch though. Your shift forks will thank you for years to come.

Being aggressive in traffic is a double edged sword. Don't be too anxious to be aggressive. When you begin to feel confident, then go for it. For the time being, I'd be perfectly satisfied to relax in the slow lane.

Fogging is a serious problem. Not just for people who wear glasses. Here's an old trick. Coat your visor with shaving cream. I can't begin to explain why this works, but it does. I coat all of mine and they fog far less. Obviously this won't help with your glasses.

Enjoy the ride!

Greg

BTW, is Serenity and RG or an RJ (Maxim or Seca)?

 

Indeed. This week I don't have to transport anyone but me so as long the weather holds I'll get more practice. I'm less worried about my forks than the gears on a bike with 23k on it. (Despite what the odometer says.)

I pretty much let people pass me in general anyway but things like a flatbed of steel I want to get out of the way of as fast as possible.

Even with just the morning traffic though I didn't feel safe unless I was way ahead or way behind all the other vehicles. :/

Actually a few moments ago I just noticed that my vents weren't open.

RJ from all that I can tell. IIRC the RG was only a European model and this is a US bike.

 

I'm working from memory here. I thought the 82 650 RJs were Secas and teh RGs were Maxims.

I know that my (Canadian) XJ650RJ is a Seca.

So is your bike a Seca or a Maxim?

Greg

 

Even though I love both the Maxim's & Seca's, I probably favor the Seca a tad more, even though I don't have one anymore and I only have the big boy Maxim. Largely for the little more sportier edge the Seca has, I remember days in my 20's of dropping a knee and railing around corners on my Seca, for the day that thing really handled and for a 750 it seemed so fast, but when I go from my Maxim 1100 to my Vmax, it brings clear what a great handler the old Maxim is too.

You can rip corners pretty hard on the Vmax but it takes some muscling around corners as it wants to stand up, where the Maxim just lay's the perfect line down around corners. Wouldn't it have been great if they'd made a Seca 1100.

As for using your clutch to shift, (and I've undercut gears myself, and am a dragracer) I think it depends on how you are taking off. If slowly, use the clutch, but if you take off at a pretty good clip, just unloading the transmission by blipping off the throttle and lifting the shifter, it quite easily and flawlessly and much smoother will go into the next gear. This is how an air shifter works on dragbikes, but it removes a momentary spark to unload the transmission allowing the engagment change to make. It is completely harmless to the trans and shift forks, and is a far smoother way to get going, also as judged by my son or wife's helmet not clacking mine from behind.

I'm sure some will argue this, so I just suggest you do what your comfortable with, but I find I more often get a false neutral or ugly shift doing it slowly using the clutch. It always seems clean and never fails doing them quickly up to 5th, then cruise. But this method of shifting does need to be done quickly with a bit of throttle, if traffic won't allow it, definately go through the gears slower and use your clutch.

 

Seca but you've moved my lazy ass to update my .sig info. ;-)

 

I think someone on the forum has already gone through this before... but I believe the R means seca and the J means 1982
My bike is an XJ650RK which means it's a 1983 Seca.
Correct me if I'm wrong - so I can change my signature, :?.

 

I suspect you're probably right Ease. My memory isn't what it used to be.

I know that all my Secas are XJXXXR something so you're probably right

That excludes the Turbos of course which are Ls.

Greg

 

A couple other cheap tricks for fogging visors:
Soap - yes soap. The dry bar kind for washing. I prefer Ivory myself. Rub the dry bar all over the inside of the dry visor, then wipe clean with a dry cloth. Did I mention keep things dry? 8) This works surprisingly well, and is what I use unless I've got a bottle of actually anti-fog stuff.

Pledge - lemon is best. This is what I use exclusively for cleaning the whole outside of my helmet, and I put a good second coat on the outside of the visor -- makes water run-off like Rain-X, but cheaper. I'm told (though I've not tried it) that you can use it on the INSIDE of the visor too to stop fogging as well.

 

heh i always did the same thing my Seca. And now with my new bike with six speeds, i'm doing the same thing trying to reach the imaginary seventh gear.

 

These things don't have six gear, that explains alot, Just kidding

I use rain-x on the out side and rain-x antifog on the inside, The anti fog will seem to wear off fast the first few times, but by about the fourth application it will work great, at least that's how my snowmobile helmet was.

 

It's a Seca (R). I know what you mean about the trucks around McHenry. Give 'em hell!
Don't fret about your mileage. My baby has 44k and still going strong! Just keep the oil fresh and you'll get another 10 years or more out of her!