Twist-Throttle.com

Well it’s finally happened, I finally have my GS750 on the road! It seems to be running pretty decent to. Of course it could use some more “tuning”, but it’s not to bad.

Last night I finished installing my 2 new throttle cables, the night before that I installed the carbs and the airbox. It took me a little bit to get the throttle to work smoothly last night, it kept sticking & it would not return on it’s own. But in the end last night, I got it freed up & adjusted it the best that I could at that time.

So tonight, after getting my Ignition switch back from my co-worker friend… who repaired the broken connector… I installed the gauges, hooked the wires back up & installed the headlight. After adding some 4-stroke lawnmower gas, bam!, the motor fired up pretty quick, it only took a few revolutions. Actually though, it sure fired up… revving around 4,500 RPMs & holding. I shut the motor down & looked into the culprit. In the end, I ended up putting my one good OEM Throttle Cable backs on the bike. The new aftermarket cable that actually pulls & opens the throttle, well I never was able to get it adjusted to were it had enough slack to let the bike idle down. The new aftermarket throttle cable did seem to be a little longer in length then the OEM throttle cable.

So now that the bike will idle at a decent RPM… well let me repeat that… now my bike will idle. That was my whole problem last fall when I tore into the carbs. Back then, my GS would not idle on its own. So after all my messing around & waiting to get my Idle Adjuster fixed, now that the Idle Adjuster is fixed, my GS will idle on it’s own. This is a big step in getting the bike back on the road & to being a decent commuter bike.

The motor seemed to be running a touch rough, I wasn’t 100% sure that it was running on all 4 cylinders… so I pulled all 4 plugs one at a time, & verified if I saw spark… which I did… I also shocked myself 3 out of the 4 times when holding the spark plugs to the cylinder head looking for that spark (doesn’t that indicate either that I don’t have a wire grounded somewhere, or that my spark plug wires/boots need to be replaced?). So now that I verified that it has spark for all 4 cylinders… I accepted that it was running a little rough, the bike has been sitting for so long, plus my jetting is likely to be off a little & my carbs likely needed to be sync’d as well.

Well the next obvious thing to do was to put some more air in the tires & take the old bike out on the road.

“She’s a runner” I thought to myself as I’m cruising around my neighborhood. It seems to be running ok. It has decent enough torque & actually pulls ok from 4,500RPM - 7,500RPM’s (redline is 9,000 I believe). Of course I didn’t “get on it” right away. Boy, does this thing feel totally different then the ‘08 GSXR600 that I’ve been riding for the last 2 weeks! Everything is different about it; seating position, all controls feel very different then the new GSXR, it has an old feeling to it, it shakes & vibrates more, the brakes work… but surely not very well. But I must say, it was fun to ride it & that it for sure has it’s own character. With it being so old, that makes it cooler, I did notice a few guys & girls definitely watching me ride past.

After riding the GS for a while, I did jump back on the GSXR, now that felt different to me, instead of back to “normal”. I can see that jumping back & forth between bikes will likely need time to get re-acclimated with whatever bike I’m riding at that time… to give it a few minutes of riding to let my brain come to grips with that particular bike.

So yea… I did get the bike up to 65MPH, it seemed just fine at that speed, I do suspect that the brakes will improve a little when the new pads bed into the rotors & that I will look into “dialing in” my carbs better in time… plus just putting some miles on the bike might improve how it runs by itself. I still feel that the GS is a very easy bike to ride & that it would make a great beginner bike, plus it’s way more comfortable then a new sportbike. Oh, and to adjust the Idle Adjuster after you’ve been riding the bike… that thing is a bitch to reach in-between the tank, carbs & the airbox. I tried when stopped, not sure if it’s even possible while riding?

Where from here? Well my wife Brandy, a few days ago, she just received her motorcycle license… so we’ll be battling over who rides which bike of the two… we’ll have to alternate of course. For the GS itself, of course I plan to continue improving it, getting it to run better & stronger, plus to continue improving the looks & condition of it… each year it will only be a cooler bike as it gets older & older. So this is far from the end of The GS Project, it is just the beginning of the next chapter.

Well Brandy & I just bought a 2nd bike. But it is not exactly like the ‘77 Suzuki GS750 that I’ve been working on. I’m really excited about the new bike, but for sure, the GS Project is still moving forward & I hope within about 2 weeks to have the GS on the road along side the new bike (Currently, I have some carbs & gauges being shipped that will be used to repair my final known issues with the GS).
Actually, Brandy is taking her motorcycle safety class in one week, so then she will have her cycle license & will be riding by herself, instead of passenger. Let the fighting over the bike begin !!

So yes, the new bike, kind of a impulse, but also we’ve been talking about this for a few years, I’ve been doing some casual research for a couple of months, she calls up the bank, tells me what time to show up to sign & all of a sudden we own another bike. You gotta dig a wife that is pushing the purchase of toys

Our new bike is a 2008 Suzuki GSX-R 600. Really, the ‘77 GS750 is the foundation of where the GSX-R’s came from, so it does all tie into the same family, I suppose if we had gotten GSX-R 750, that would of have been even cooler next to our GS750… but o’well close enough. The 600 is still possibly more bike then a beginner should even start with. I hope to start Brandy off on the GS for awhile, but I know that isn’t going to last long, she already wants to ride the GSX-R in a parking lot, the parking lot because she doesn’t have her license yet. I also have to add, that I am nervous about her riding alone… not so much because of her, but the other people on the road.

Well enough babble about the GSX-R…

This is the first time that I have embed video from other sources on my site, but I thought that these 2 videos from Jay Leno kicked ass. I often forget that he is a legitimate motorhead.

Brandy & I went to the AMA Superbike races at Road America yesterday… Road America is in Elkhart Lake, WI. There were storms, rain & more rain from the morning until just before the races actually began. So we saw practice in the rain, but the races were relatively dry.

Even with the terrible weather, we had a great time stomping around in all the puddles, watching the show & roaming the pits, hoping to spot the pro racers & admiring the machinery.

One of the young-guns, up-&-comers or whatever you want to call him… Blake Young seems to be a rising star in American Road Racing, well he’s from a nearby town of mine… so I’m rooting for him since we are from the same state of WI. Well it was very cool to watch him race & win in SuperStock & possibly cooler to be right next to him in the pits, listening to him talk with his team about his bike, the track conditions & lack of grip in the rain.

But anyways, here are pretty much the best pictures that we took from the rainy day at the races.

Brandy & I went to the races this last Saturday (6.4.06) @ Road America, just outside of Elkhart Lake, WI. She has never seen the Pro’s race in person… she had a good time!

The day kind of reminded me a when the circus comes to town… there were all kinds of shows to watch. what I mean is this; of course the main attraction was the road races… but as a bonus, the 2nd round of the AMA Supermoto Championship took place there as well… plus after the road races where done, there was a Sidecar race & even some kind of an event where RollerBladers did a couple of laps around the 4 mile road course. Also, you can’t forget some of the odd creations that went around the track during the spectator Track Lap. So there was plenty of unique sites to see throughout the day.

But back to the beginning… on the way up there that morning, I missed my turn somewhere in Fondu Lac… so we ended up taking a different highway… which turned out to be extremely slow, stuck behind a bunch of slow-asses going 5 below the speed limit through the no-passing zones… so needless to say, I was pretty stressed out by the time that we got there, about an hour later then I had hoped. But shortly after getting through the track gates, my mood turned back to good. I have to admit, that I find walking through the pits to be pretty much as much fun as watching the actual races. I get into the mechanicalness of it all… the smell of the race gas in the air, watching the teams work on the bikes & hoping to spot the factory racers in person.

Brandy seemed to really enjoy seeing the Pro’s in person… she got the autographs of Factory Honda racers Miguel Duhamel & Jake Zemke… and also her picture standing next to Factory Yamaha star Eric Bostrom. I believe her favorite racer is Suzuki’s star, Ben Spies… she thinks he’s hot… we spotted him eating like 10 feet away from us. There were numerous other stars that I spotted… but she didn’t recognize them w/o me pointing them out.

The races themselves were good as well. The perspective is a little different compared to TV… at the track you really only get to see a single corner/straight-away or a section of about 3 corners only… so unlike TV, you kind of watch them scream by… then wait a bit for them to come around again. This wasn’t so much the case with the Supermoto guys. You could see pretty much their entire track. I’ve never been to a supermoto race… this was pretty cool as well. It was really impressive watching them “back it in” to the corners. One observation was how hard the dirt sections were. No wonder they do get traction on the dirt sections with street tires… almost like concrete… I’d hate to crash on that dirt.

So anyways…. yes, we had a good time at the races, smelt some more race gas, saw a few hotties in the pits

OK, I must be getting old now. I just don’t really get the whole freestyle thing. As a kid, I grew up dreaming of being a racer, dreaming of being a racing champion. Now all the kids get all excited over people just doing tricks, over & over… Doing tricks. Obviously there is freestyle with motocross, but over the last few years freestyle is now being done with sportbikes… I’m sure they have some fancy name for it other then freestyle. I’ll admit, what they do does take skills. There’s even a local group of sportbike guys getting paid to do shows in my area. They are called Vertical Mischief. From what I have gathered, pretty much all of the sportbike riders in Janesville just do tricks. Granted, there isn’t much for twisty roads down in this part of the state. But we do have a race track 25 miles south of town. Oh, another thing… yes, they are called Sportbikes, not Crotch Rockets.

I know it’s a good time to pull some wheelies & a stoppie, but to specialize in tricks, I don’t get it. To me, motorcycles are about laying that thing over in a corner. These Freestyle guys now are even putting bumpers on their bikes at the rear for wheelie tricks & also bumpers on the sides because they are on the ground so often. That blows me away, I always thought that ground clearance for cornering was a concern. Finally, they are denting down the top of their gas tanks to make them flat for standing on. Their lack of concern for the condition of their bikes is mind numbing. apparently they are not too concerned of how most non-motorcyclists must view all these tricks on the street as reasons to hate motorcycles & start making stricter laws against motorcycles. Damn, have I gotten old, I sound just like an adult now.

I’m pretty pumped, we’re going to Blackhawk Farms raceway in South Beloit, IL this weekend. CCS sportbike road races are going on this weekend. I believe that it’s been 2 years since I’ve been there to watch the bikes race. Speaking of road racing, I’m pretty sure that Brandy & I are going to Road America this summer (June 5) to watch the AMA Superbikes race. Brandy has never been to any road courses other then Blackhawk to watch CCS. She should be pretty blown away by the show. I’m as pumped to walk through the pits as I am to watch the races. I haven’t been to Road America since around ‘95. I hope to post some pictures from the races shortly after I get back… well within a day or two.