Adventure/Dual sport bikes vs sports bikes.
- Thread starter Smoke&Slide
- 50 comments
- 13,270 views
Well I bought a running late model RGV and discovered the head stock was out of shape, so I stripped the whole thing down and got a frame from a guy who races them, he also managed to sell me a whole lot of other parts I didn't really need but sounded cool. It was basically an Aprillia bottom end and I put new piston and rings, and carbon reed valves, skimmed head, and slightly ported with the power valves blanked off too, so it really kicked when you hit the power band.
Great salesman.
Why'd you block off the power valves?
Nice bike though. Our RZ has new pistons and rings, (Seized at 120mph.) plus some porting that we didn't even know about until the engine let go and it was torn down.
I didn't have all the parts for the power valve system, so I got blanks made as I thought it would be lighter and give more of a kick without the power valves smoothing the power band.
I was going to get racing pipes for it, but my friend wanted it so bad I sold it to him before I got around to it, but I think I gutted the end cans to make it louder.
I custom painted it my self with a suzuki racing style paint job I made up, which made everyone want it. It's a shame I never took any pics with the paint job done.
Is an RZ the same as an RD350? My first bike was an RD80.
- 5,677
- United Kingdom
- Dragonistic
Supermoto for me. Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a supermoto and I've never seen a sad person on a sumo.
In all seriousness though I see the appeal of a sports bike or sporty naked when it comes to road riding which is what I spend most of my time doing over off-road or track use. The power is intoxicating and on a smooth open road there is nothing on the road that will realistically keep up with you other than another bike, but that's not the kind of riding I enjoy. For me there's something unsatisfying about having any machine which you can't utilise to it's potential, the litre sports bike is the epitome of this on most UK roads and particularly local to myself.
My DRZ on the other hand is not particularly fast, not very comfortable over distance and unrefined. On the other hand it's hilarious, obnoxious and set up properly to be confidence inspiring on any day in any weather. Alot of people would argue that the DRZ in particular is gutless, but mine's breathed on to release some of the power and generally wake it up so you have plenty of power to do something stupid with but not so much you can't put it down anywhere. A supermoto allows you to take ridiculous liberties which you just can't on a sports bike because, again on UK roads, you can't for fear of losing your license or worse.
The real solution is both as has been mentioned and when I have more cash I will probably get, but to me you can have alot of fun on a sports bike on the right day but on a supermoto you can have alot of fun on almost every day..
In all seriousness though I see the appeal of a sports bike or sporty naked when it comes to road riding which is what I spend most of my time doing over off-road or track use. The power is intoxicating and on a smooth open road there is nothing on the road that will realistically keep up with you other than another bike, but that's not the kind of riding I enjoy. For me there's something unsatisfying about having any machine which you can't utilise to it's potential, the litre sports bike is the epitome of this on most UK roads and particularly local to myself.
My DRZ on the other hand is not particularly fast, not very comfortable over distance and unrefined. On the other hand it's hilarious, obnoxious and set up properly to be confidence inspiring on any day in any weather. Alot of people would argue that the DRZ in particular is gutless, but mine's breathed on to release some of the power and generally wake it up so you have plenty of power to do something stupid with but not so much you can't put it down anywhere. A supermoto allows you to take ridiculous liberties which you just can't on a sports bike because, again on UK roads, you can't for fear of losing your license or worse.
The real solution is both as has been mentioned and when I have more cash I will probably get, but to me you can have alot of fun on a sports bike on the right day but on a supermoto you can have alot of fun on almost every day..
Yep I just wanted the thing to kick hard when it hit the power band, the joys of not being a racer I guess lol, I don't have to care about lap times
though it could still beat a 600 on acceleration, just have to slip the clutch until you're going fast enough to be in the power band.I put a huge main jet into the carb of my RD 80, so it drove like crap until I hit about 6,500 rpm then it just went nuts
. The RD350LC was another bike I wanted but I found an RGV first, though I was toying with the idea of putting RGV suspension on to an RD, because it looks cool.
- 8,100
- Guelph, Ontario
- 8,100
- Guelph, Ontario
I'd like to see a trike do 100mph in 2nd gear.
Was really only a small slide, but anything more would've gotten hairy real fast.
Guess you can't put down 100hp laid over like that in the wet, even with rain tires.
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- 34,949
- Indian Falls, NY
- slashfan7964
I'll take you up on that someday haha. I tossed around the idea of shoehorning a 1000cc snowmobile motor into a dirtbike frame then putting 350X forks on it with a quad swingarm making it a trike haha. Need tall gearing though.
But then there is this with a 2000cc single cylinder motor...
But then there is this with a 2000cc single cylinder motor...
The highest speed would have been about 80 mph. Yes the higher speed can be more hair raising and usually not entirely intentional. Like the time I didn't realise the fast bend I was on was covered in light coating of wet dirt and it was dark. Luckily it turned out to be one of the nicest sideways I ever did on a bike.Ah, that makes sense.
Is that sliding at 20mph? Because believe me it's not all fluffy clouds when you're nearing 100mph and the back end decides to kick out.
