Hey, what's up.

Hey guys. I'm 24 and just got my M permit on Saturday. I'm having a 04 Kawasaki Ninja 250R delivered to my house tonight, which I bought for $2600 cash. It has 1300 miles and I will be the 4th owner.

I'll be hanging out in here a lot more now.

welcome to our little paradise. post up some pics of your bike when you get some time.

Hey guys. I'm 24 and just got my M permit on Saturday. I'm having a 04 Kawasaki Ninja 250R delivered to my house tonight, which I bought for $2600 cash. It has 1300 miles and I will be the 4th owner.

So each previous owner averaged only 433 miles before selling the bike?

Any reason why they got such little use out of it? Too small, and they grew out of it quickly?
Still, it sounds like a great beginner bike.

or maybe they disconnected the speedo like i always do.:naughty:


or like my honda, i had my HISS light melt through my speedo. Honda replaced it under warranty and i had zero k's again. (was at 5000km)

Yeah, Honda instrumentation plastic is crap. I also have a corner of the tach reading melted off.

Here's my bike.
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h195/rubix777/250R/P1011005.jpg

I haven't washed it yet so it's a little dusty.
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h195/rubix777/250R/7bf3755b.jpg

nice, clean! like the rims.

I was tackling some turns on some mountain roads I have by my house and my bike felt kind of weak on the turns. I was thinking my eclipse could take the turns faster. I noticed that the tread on stock tires do not extend all the way to the sides of the tire like other sports bikes. Maybe I'm just expecting too much from the 250R.

I was practicing downshifting before a turn as well and accidentally used rear brake and released the clutch. It caused the back to wiggle a bit since I had gas and brake on the rear wheel, but luckily the wiggle stopped before I entered the turn.

How fast would you guys normally take a hairpin turn?

Another thing I noticed is I can never trigger the stop light for left turns. It just doesn't detect me. Are you guys able to trigger the stop light or do you just wait for a car to come?

That bike should be able to carve a corner as well or better than anything. Do you let it fall over into the curve, countersteer, and look through the curve where you want to go, apexing the line, or are you trying to steer through it?

Makes a huge difference.

They make large magnets you put on the underside of the bike to increase your presence to the (magnetic field) sensors under the pavement at lights. I don't know if they really work or not..

I think maybe it's because I'm too scared to lean even more into the turns. I guess I have to work on leaning more without feeling like my knees will scrape the floor like when they race.

During one turn, I accelerated a little coming out the turn and the the back hopped. I usually close the throttle before the turn and accelerate after completing it.

I know during hard cornering in a car you can feel when traction is about to break loose and the tires start screaming. On your bike are you able to feel/hear that or does it just suddenly break loose?

I have a hilly area near my house that I can probably take some times to know if I really am going faster than in my car. There are some hair pin turns I can work on. For some reason turns feel a lot slower in a bike than in a car.

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h195/rubix777/turnbull.jpg

I think maybe it's because I'm too scared to lean even more into the turns. I guess I have to work on leaning more without feeling like I'm going to do a lowside.

I know during hard cornering in a car you can feel when traction is about to break loose and the tires start screaming. On your bike are you able to feel/hear that or does it just suddenly break loose?

Since I don't accelerate through the turn, I think that may be a reason why I feel the back drifting out a little and wiggling.


I've never broken traction while leaned over (unless there was something unexpected on the road). You aren't going to lowside on good pavement and mortal speeds.

What I mean by countersteering is, for a bike to truly tear a curve up, the bike wants to fall over into the turn, tighter and tighter, and the steering is used to counteract that and keep it on the line you want to run. So you are actually ateering slightly OPPOSITE of the direction of the turn, if you are doing it right.

One of the guys who sport rides can probably describe it better, but it's the same thing you always did on your bicycle at higher speeds, but probably never thought about it.

But to really carve up curves, you have to get comfortable with banking and countering, then it all comes together, and becomes more like flying than riding....

Decellerating once into a turn tend to make the bike want to stand up and counter your lean, which can mess you up...so pick your entry speed well and stick with it, and accelerate out after the apex, and you get a nice bite on the road, and a bit of a slingshot effect as your tire rolls back onto the tread face, which has a larger diameter than the side you were rolling on while leaned over...so in effect you change final ratio slightly as the bike stands up, which you feel as a kind of rush as it stands up....

If you get leaned over and realize you are too hot into the turn, stand up and go diagonal as much as possible across the curve in a straight line, braking hard, then get off the brakes once you knock speed off, and dive back into it hard....using brakes hard and suddenly in a lean is what's gonna spill you if you get panic going and grab brakes hard.

Upright you can brake hard as you want and gain some control and then dive over hard, at much slower speed now, and even if you took it all the way to the edge of the pavement straight line braking, you now can just drop over hard and recover before running off...where before you would have run wide at high speed, or locked a wheel when you grabbed the brakes and lowsided....

I thought this clip was kinda cool. Maybe I'll be able to do that some day... :iceslolan

http://www.dumpalink.com/media/1125311151/Driving_Test

I saw that one a while back...very cool.

http://www.spodefest.net/download/c_pfeiffer_03.wmv

Ever watch Christian Pfieffer? Amazing.

http://www.biked-boys.livenet.pl/download/filmy/gr2_hayabusa.wmv

And for pure 500 hp, 200+ mph wheelie insanity....

Here it is...this is the shit here....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH8gZ4r3yRI

Don't get any ideas. None of us will ever be this good (or lucky)

Listen to that boost...see it slip sideways everytime he even blips the throttle? Nuckin' Futs, man!

Just a brief comment... I love a good set of twisties, but in all honesty, that doesn't always mean running a bunch of S-curves or hairpin turns. Sometimes a nice curve is one that just kinda changes up the pace and lets me lean for a second or 2 instead of just sitting on the bike.

One HUGE thing that can make giant leaps in your comfort in turns is looking through the turn, so you are looking basically where you want to be, rather than where you are. That is one thing that I am still working on. In fact, I know many things that I need to "work on" to become a better rider, and I sometimes even chant them to myself as I ride. Granted, this is after 5 years on the road that I feel comfortable enough to consciously think about what I am doing wrong to fix it, but it's something I have come to kinda enjoy.

Sounds like something is wrong with your tires. May be overinflated or bald. Or the rear compression is squatting way too easily. Or that you're inadvertantly tapping the rear brake in a turn. Doing so can easily lead to highside. Anyway, I would cheack the treads, check for leak, and check the pressure contrast to manual.

Since you claim you're barely leaning (which is a good thing at this moment), though I don't know how deep you lean, but you should not be losing traction easily. In order to get the back end to come around from that bike, you'd have to be scraping the pegs and exhaust and hamfisting the throttle.

Best approach is as everyone says, look through the turn, and the bike takes care of the rest, and your eyes will automticly direct how much countersteering is needed, granted you're not entering the turns too hot for your skill.

The ideal approach is brake while the bike is still upright, tip or lean the bike, and as soon as the bike is lean, crack the throttle slightly, and as you pass the apex, increase the throttle more and more as you exit and as the bike is upright.

Like I said, never tap the rear brake leaned over. If you have to slow down, slightly let go off the throttle, look through the turn, and keep the bike in line. It is a bad idea to brake in a turn, as it will go out of road.


It is normal to feel lot a slower in a bike as cars are so much easier to drive, but as you ride more and more, you'll realize your skill progress and up to par with handling cars. Bikes take more time, as more skill is required, and you're only given two wheels. It is not a good idea to take turns faster than your skill allows, where in cars, you can get the tires to squirm, but bikes, you'll get in trouble.

Keep rubber side down ;)

I wanted to take some pictures of the turns I was trying.. maybe I'll do that next time.

I was coming out of a turn and saw an SL 500 with 20"+ rims pull out in front of me. It had AMG rims, but did not have the badge.

Needless to say, I got left in the dust because I didn't know he wanted to race until he creeped farther and farther away through the 5 or 6 hairpin turns and eventually disappeared. :eek:

This time around the corners I was more confident and focused more on leaning and applying weight on the foot pegs as opposed to before when I would put all my weight on the handle bars through the turn. I didn't get any wobble this time and I think I could have leaned even more.

I will try again tomorrow leaning a little bit more and keeping the throttle steady.

I gotta beat that SL 500 in the twisties.

Fron Tire
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h195/rubix777/250R/P1011019.jpg

Rear Tire
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h195/rubix777/250R/P1011020.jpg

Fron Tire
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h195/rubix777/250R/P1011019.jpg

Rear Tire
http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h195/rubix777/250R/P1011020.jpg

Yeah, you aren't using the sides much...can still see the nubs where the tire has hair when new...those are erased the first time I ride 50 miles or so on new tires....

You definitely could be hitting it a lot harder without loosing traction....but take your time, it'll come with practice.

was that guy in the hyabusa goin 280mph or 280Kph

Yeah, you aren't using the sides much...can still see the nubs where the tire has hair when new...those are erased the first time I ride 50 miles or so on new tires....

You definitely could be hitting it a lot harder without loosing traction....but take your time, it'll come with practice.

I'm supposed to use the tire to those nubs? :eek: These are still the same tires that came with my stock 2004 Ninja 250R. It has about 16xx miles now.

I'm supposed to use the tire to those nubs? :eek: These are still the same tires that came with my stock 2004 Ninja 250R. It has about 16xx miles now.

I'm talking about the ones on the edge of the tread blocks...not the actual sidewall...that would be nuts ;)

But you can see where the edges of the tread have barely even been scuffed yet...bike hasn't spent much time banked....

was that guy in the hyabusa goin 280mph or 280Kph

KP/h...I know that's under 200 mph...but I was figuring (probably incorrectly) on those first ones, where they are in the rain on a runway or empty road...a Hayabusa hits it's governor at 186 Mph stock...I'm sure he has gotten around that and has no speed linked cut-out, because I've seen video of him shot from a chase bike where he's pulling away and the chase bike is registering nearly 320 KM/h (200 mph) but probably still would have a RPM limit to bounce off of...to save the motor from an overrev. with 500 hp, I doubt he's done any gearing mods, unless it's to make it faster on top....wouldn't need to put taller gears in to get better acceleration with that kind of power...

It sounds like a motor bumping it's limiter when he's running full-out on one wheel in those shots...so I suppose it could be higher than 186 mph...unless that's aerodynamically impossible...seems like it would really want to flip you back over...

At any rate....much faster than any of us will ever go on one wheel (intentionally)

http://media.putfile.com/MotoGP-53

Watch these guys...see how the body is positioned, head up and looking at the exit of the turn? Can learn a lot here...

And oh yeah...double your money back if this isn't one of the coolest motorcycle vids ever....

shit thats sweet.
see that guy go flyin when the two bikes hit.

wow. that motogp vid has me psyched for my next track day.(next tuesday:evillol: )

the others were cool but the knob in the city was a absolute tool!
he wasn't in control. wheelies only to lock up and slide into an intersection and be forced to blow through. not cool. no respect for anyone else on the road, even other bikes.

as for the left turn vehicle sensors, they are a loop of cable wound in the ground and connected to a voltage sensor. when a vehicle (metal) appears above it, the magnetic field is affected so the voltage is also affected. so sets of the sensor. magnets may work or may not. depends on the voltage and sensor.


rubix.
your bike isn't the best handler out there and your tyres shouldn't get too near the edges. as your width and profile are on the smaller side i'd be very suprised if you came close to the edges of your tyres. the hero knobs would bottom out first.
most important
never try to keep up with someone or try to beat someone if it involves going past your limits. you'll come undone. push your limits while you learn. is it really worth it to beat a car only to crash. imagine your doctor saying "WOW man your the best. you beat an SL. oh by the way you'll never walk again"

wow. that motogp vid has me psyched for my next track day.(next tuesday:evillol: )

your bike isn't the best handler out there and your tyres shouldn't get too near the edges. as your width and profile are on the smaller side i'd be very suprised if you came close to the edges of your tyres. the hero knobs would bottom out first.
most important
never try to keep up with someone or try to beat someone if it involves going past your limits. you'll come undone. push your limits while you learn. is it really worth it to beat a car only to crash. imagine your doctor saying "WOW man your the best. you beat an SL. oh by the way you'll never walk again"

Listen to Aussie before me...he knows more about your bike and the riding style associated with it. i'm primarily a cruiser/standard rider...sportbikes are another animal to me....

Learned my leeson about trying to push my limits keeping up with a better rider...luckily I had dumb luck with me and ended up unscathed and even making him think I was crazier than him:lol:

Check this out...this guy could RIDE...I've never met a better rider with no formal training, just an incredibly gifted and intuitive rider, he could hit it harder through turns than anyone, and just always seemed to know exactly what the bike needed to keep it's grip.

He rode a Yamaha 650 Special, I had a Kawasaki 750 Limited (too much bike for me at the time) I had the power to run over him, but could never get close because he just rode so much smoother and kept his speed up in turns. I'd try to mimic his body positioning and follow his line through the curves, but he was just like he was on rails...

We went to go get soda, his wife had just ordered a pizza. we were at the other side of the neighborhood and had just walked out of the store, and he saw the pizza driver go past...and realized he had all the money, so we had to beat the driver back to the house so he could pay for the pizza.

He took off going the shortcut way through the neighborhood, which was a zig-zag course that cut it diagonally, the pizza guy was on the road running square around the outside of the neighborhood.

So we are cutting through these streets that keep switching back and forth, and he's apexing and leaned over with his jeans almost dragging asphalt, and I'm struggling to keep him in sight...one last straight stretch and I gave it a good squirt to try to outgun him on the straight.....

And forgot there was one more 70 degree left hander just over a rise...these people had so many vehicles run off that curve, they had big boulders in the yard to keep cars from hitting the house...and I popped over that rise just in time to see him dive over hard and sweep the curve, and I had about three times too much speed to even consider trying to corner...

So I did like I told you earlier...stand up straight, get on the brakes as hard as possible, and work with what's possible, not what you wish would happen...and realized there was still no way that leadsled was gonna lean over and hold that turn, even with some speed scrubbed off....kept the brakes flirting with lockup right to the edge of the pavement, then released as I entered the grass....

So I picked a line through the boulders that took me through the yard, past the corner of the garage, across the driveway between two parked cars, and back out to grass and into the street we intended to turn onto (this was a corner house)...held the throttle up just enough to maintain my speed, in slightly damp grass any steering input or change in drive wheel torque can spill you, or at least get you squirming....just rode it straight through praying through clenched teeth that it was gonna work...

And popped out AHEAD of my friend, having cut across the corner, he had a stop sign at the intersection, I was already rolling down the cross street towards his house. I nailed it and kept him behind me down the straight all the way back to the house...

As soon as he pulled his helmet off he says "Man, you are a NUT! That was brilliant!....you got bigger balls than I do..." And I just smiled and let him believe I did it on purpose....took longer than usual to get off the bike, what with my knees all wobbly and such...:lol:

I quit trying to keep up with him after that, though.

I respect his abilities, but that guy is WAY too trusting of other drivers. he's a sneeze, hiccup, dusty/wet pavement spot away from an organ donor.

to rubix.

you need to work out your riding style. what works for some doesn't for others.

i never scrape my knee but my toe sliders get a hammering.

while some guys will go fast into a corner, brake hard and drop it over quickly, get it up and nail it out, others will set up for a longer curve and corner for the full length at a average speed.

i prefer to wash of a bit of speed before apexing early to get on the gas out of the corner, but thats just my style. i may be slow into the corner but quick out. guys will go around me and corner smoothly around me but while they are still leaning over, i'm on the gas and past them again. my knee goes up to the idicator and i twist my butt around the tank as opposed to sliding my butt cheek of the seat and poking a knee out. i put more body weight off the side and which helps me not lean as far as i need too and still keep speed.

here's my playground
http://www.eastern-creek-raceway.com/

and a photographers site. all photos of guys cornering
http://www.jpmphoto.com.au/frame_2.htm

Thanks for the advice. It looks like I have a lot to work on before attempting to race in a sport/standard bike.

So in cornering, it seems the leaning off of the seat is to lower the center of gravity as well as press down on the foot peg. Am I right? And one can lean the bike, lean the body, or do both, the last which maximizes cornering ability. I understand that to take the same turn you can either hang off the edge of the seat or lean the bike more while remaining on the seat.

When you work on your cornering, do you ever lean TOO much? As in leaning beyond what the bike can do? In some previous posts, someone mentioned that the footpegs should scrape first before the wheels start to lose traction, assuming steady throttle and sane speeds. Kind of like the effect you get in a car when you enter a corner too fast and the car slides outward.

My MSF course is creeping up slowly--it is this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I plan to turn in the certificate to get my license right after.

I appreciate your feedback as I am still learning to shift smoothly and quickly--without having the bike jerk.

My last bike, a 1995 Intruder 800, the first thing that contacts the ground on them is the bracket that spans from peg to peg and wraps under the motor and frame...it's really not the best idea they ever had, most (in fact every one I can think of) bikes have something moveable or less solid that touches down first, like a footpeg, and gives you an indication you've reached the limit of bank angle...

Not so on these, this is a huge solid slab of about 3/8" chrome steel, and when it touches down there is no give and the sparks fly, and it tries to lever a wheel off the ground, which one depends on your size, whether you are accelerating or coasting when it happens, etc. Most other Intruder riders tell me theirs tried to hoist the front wheel when it hit, but I weigh more than any of them too...

I found out the second day I had it...dove off to the right very sharply to take a highway entrance ramp at high speed, and GRRAAAATTTTCCCHHHHHHH!!!!!!!...and the rear wheel came up and chirped sideways about 4 times in rapid succession, which turned me a few degrees inside of the angle I was actually wanting. The only thing that saved me was the tire spun as soon as it broke loose, because I was accelerating pretty hard at the time, it couldn't get a decisive bite that would try to power the bike into the now crooked trajectory, which would have resulted in that sudden "snap" to the highside that you see pitching those MotoGP guys off the top when they suddenly catch traction in a drift...

Was able to ride it out like a dirtbike powerslide, countersteer and get it back under me....then had to put on my patented "I meant to do that" facial expression for the other drivers who saw it, and go home to remove the seat pad from my ass....:lol:

I had quite a few of those type issues with My 85 Magna I used to ride. Great, smooth, powerful bike, but not an ultimate canyon carver. The frame is hollow, and is actually the coolant pipe between the engine and radiator. At the limit, the frame would flex and then uncoil, which would attempt to yank the bars out of your hand. I had a blue-hair in Daytona during bike week pull out in front of me, and the frame uncoiled so violently after the evasive maneuver that it broke the fork brace in two. I was lucky and never even layed it down, but that pleather suppository (also known as the seat)was difficult to remove afterward.

I ordered some PJ1 Blue Label lube for my chain--I heard they were great for o-ring chains.

My manual says to use diesel fuel or kerosene to clean my chain so as soon as I get the lube in the mail I'm heading to the gas station to get a gallon of diesel.

It'll be my first time cleaning and lubing my chain so I'm sure I'll take time to to get it right.

when i was learning on my 250, i just rode. didn't concentrate on any one thing in particular. once i could ride i started to push harder through some favourite corners and developed my style as a way of cornering on less than smooth surfaces. i've had lecturers tell me i'm doing it wrong but it works for me. a guy i know through my usual bike shop racers and rides the same way.

if you hang your body off the side, you change the position of the centre of gravity. it is now outside the drive line of the tyres. if the bike is perfectly upright, it will turn due to the mass centralised to the side of the drive line.
that means you can corner without as much of a lean. lean and slide of the seat will give the max corner speed/lean. sticking a knee out does it as well. (also aerodynamics mean the knee acts as an airbrake to a small degree. try going really fast and stick one knee out on a straight)

I ordered some PJ1 Blue Label lube for my chain--I heard they were great for o-ring chains.

My manual says to use diesel fuel or kerosene to clean my chain so as soon as I get the lube in the mail I'm heading to the gas station to get a gallon of diesel.

It'll be my first time cleaning and lubing my chain so I'm sure I'll take time to to get it right.

I had my own (weird) system for chain maintenance....

I'd take the chain off the bike.

I'd change the oil in the car after driving, while it was good and hot. Then I drop the chain into the hot oil, and let it bathe for 15 minutes or so, then hang the chain from a peg with a bucket under to catch the drips.

Next day, I'd put the chain back on. They always seemed very supple and clean after. That hot oil cooks out the trapped greasy crud real nicely.

I'm not recommending, just commenting.:wink:

what's chain maintenance? My Magna had shaft drive and my Fat Boy has a belt. :smokin:

Seriously though, when I had my dirt bikes, part of my winter storage was to pull the chain off, soak it in kerosene overnight, then blow it dry with my air compressor. I then sprayed it with Gunk chain lube (PJ-1 is a great choice too) and put it in a zip-loc sandwich size freezer bag (because they're thicker than regular ones), and squeezed all the air out. It went into a cool-whip bowl (in case the zip-lock sprung a leak, and the wife hated me using good tupperware, :lol: ) and was beautiful, like new clean when riding time arrived