Your motorcycle consumes more than just gas in its quest to please you. Things like chains, tires, oil, filters, chain lube, spark plugs, clutch plates and in time, bearings.These are called consumables.

Hopefully, friction from the great asphalt beltsander known to most as pavement doesn't wear down your riding gear faster than your tires, but even your riding gear will eventually need replacement.

This page contains ads in which I unabashedly look for a way for this website to pay for itself and for you to get in touch with cool online products. I get a percentage of anything you buy (at no cost to you) through this site, so if you like the site, buy away!

 

Chains.

I love the way sooo many people try to build more power into their bikes by buying expensive exhaust pipes, air filters, power commanders, etc while leaving the chain dry and stretched, possibly even kinked. A crappy chain can easily lose 10 or even 15 hp, a slip on pipe and a high flow air filter at best will only revive half of that loss!

Chains take monumental abuse and keep working, but sooner or later they need replacement. When a chain "stretches" it does so because of the wear on the pins adds up (if each pin wears 1mm and there are 100 pins, than you have 100mm of stretch, of couurse these numbers are just for illustration, in reality a bad chain may only stretch 10mm) The side plates that traditionally look like dog biscuits don't actually stretch at all. To fight this stetch problem the chain brains came up with O ring chains (currently all of the makers seem to have some kinda of an O ring, X ring, Y ring chain, sounds kinda like Star Wars attack fighters don't they?) the purpose of this is so that the manufacturer can put a super lube inside the chain on the roller pins and the o ring sealer will keep the lube in.

Lube the thing! There are debates on bike forums worldwide whether WD40, chain wax, or chain lube are what you need to use on your bike's exposed driveline. I have found chain wax to take the grit that comes wandering by and suck it into the O rings, chewing them to bits. That makes for a short chain life, so don't go there! WD40 will clean the chain well and keep the rust off, but it won't help your sprockets any. The real plus for real chain lube is that not only does it do everything that WD40 does (other than clean) and that it shouldn't fling off, is that it actually reduces shock through the chain as well as lubricating and also reducing the shock on the sprockets.When lubing with spray on lube, try to do it when the chain is warm and leave it parked for 20 minutes to let the aerosols vent off (they are what makes it thin enough to spray through the tiny tube)

The lighter chain and sprockets, the faster the bike! Old Isaac Newton said " a body in motion wants to stay in motion" well, a body sitting still wants to stay still, so it takes energy to move stuff that is stationary to start with. If old Ike was a biker, he would have said that cutting rotational mass makes a far larger difference than just cutting vehicle mass... He would have had a light chain and sprockets for sure!

Sprockets (chainrings)

Changing the sprockets changes the gear ratios.

A lower gear ratio will mean more torque to the rear wheel at a given speed, in a given gear. This is why lowering your gearing will make it easier to wheelie (a bit more snap to bring up the front wheel). The downsides? Higher revs on the highway (more vibration, more engine wear, annoying, lower fuel consumption. Also remember that you if you change sprockets your chain may not be the right length. This would mean you'd either need to take some links out, or replace the chain. Most people who want to change gearing just wait until they are replacing chain/sprockets anyway. A final problem is that the speedo will not be accurate. There are gizmos you can get that will correct this. Some people go the other way-- making gearing taller, to get better mileage and reduce vibration on the highway. Most of the time, you will not increase top speed with taller gearing unless you are making more horsepower too. Lower gearing will reduce your top speed.

You can calculate your overall ration by using the following formula:

Front sprocket teeth
---------------------- = final drive ratio
Rear sprocket teeth

So, if I had a 14 tooth front sprocket, and a 44 tooth rear, the ratio would be 0.318. In other words, for each time the front sprockets turns, the rear wheel does just a little over 3/10ths of a turn. If you're having trouble with the concept, think of it this way: If you turn the front sprocket one complete turn, you have moved the chain 14 links. Since you need to move the chain 44 links to get one complete turn out of the rear sprocket (and hence, rear wheel), you need to turn that front sprocket just over 3 complete turns to get one complete turn out of the rear. Make sense?

Now lets experiment with adding two teeth to the rear sprocket, and removing one tooth from the front.

13
--- = 0.283
46

So now when you turn the front sprocket a complete turn, the rear wheel is turning LESS than 3/10ths of a turn. You have just lowered your gearing!

How much difference will it make?

Let say in top gear, the engine is spinning at 5000 rpm at 120km/h.

Just multiply thusly:

Old RPM x (old gear ratio)
------------------------------ = new RPM.
(new gear ratio)

Sooooo:

5000 x 0.318
----------------- = 5618 rpm
0.283

So, at 120km/h, you would be revving about 600rpm higher. Remember, your speedometer will not be accurate. Yup, we can calculate that too:

Old speedometer reading x (old gear ratio)
------------------------------------------------ = new speedometer reading
(new gear ratio)

So,

120 x 0.318
------------- = approx. 139km/h.
0.283

You can also just divide the above ratios to get the % that the speedometer is out:

0.318 / 0.283 = 1.124. This means your speedometer will read 12.4% faster than you are actually going.

(submitted by Gord Hooker, thanks Gord!)

Speedos are usually out by 15%-ish to the higher side when they come out of the box. Most modern bikes run their speedos off of a sensor somewhere in the transmission so if you change the final drive you will be affecting the speedo error.

Say your speedo says 100kph and your tach says 4000, you may actually be doing 90kph, now you shorten your gearing by 500 rpm, now your speedo still says 100kph and your tach says 4000rpm, but now your only actually doing 79 kph.

Now say that your speedo is off by 15% (apparently the norm) and you shorten your gearing 15% with a couple more/one less. Now you are doing 85Kph before the gearing switch and 72kph after the switch but your speedo still says 100

Now say you make your gearing taller by 500 rpm, now you would be closer to 101 kph, nearly bang on what your speedo says.

Now say you made it way taller with one more front/two less rear or whatever, by 15%, now when your tach is at 4000 you are doing 108 kph.

Tires.

Since I have a page in this site devoted to tires already, I won't use much space here other than to say: Replace them before they are bald! a 500$ set of tires is cheaper than a wrecked 10,000$ bike, a 800$ helmet, and a 1000$ leather suit!

 

Personal protection.

No glove, no love! should also apply to your motorcycle! There really is no excuse for not wearing at least a full face helmet, a bike specific jacket, armored bike gloves, and armored boots. If you need convincing that a little preparation is a waste of time and you can't visualise what asphalt, or worse, concrete can do to that soft bag of tissue and liquid that you get the pleasure of spending the rest of your life in, just do a web search of bike crash videos!

I have heard a hundred reasons why proper gear is not feasable, believe me, cost and heatstroke do not rate!

The cost of decent gear has dropped significantly over the past few years.You can buy a helmet with good protection for only a couple of hundred bucks, a textile jacket (a very second place to leather in my opinion) for 2-3 hundred, armored or padded gloves for 50 bucks, and armored boots for another couple of hundred. You may find a decent 2 piece leather suit for only a few hundred more than a textile jacket only. For sure for those prices the fit and finish won't compare with the big dollar stuff, but at least you have some protection and you can build on it as the cash rolls in.

Heatstroke? come on! sure, a full leather suit can get a bit warm on a hot day, and you probably find yourself riding on hot days, but once you are moving at 80kph it is usually bearable. To me, the discomfort is just one of the costs of motorcycling. Drink plenty of water, take routes that keep you moving, and try to get used to it.It is kinda funny, you can actually be cooler in a non vented leather jacket cruising down the highway with it 1/2 unzipped than you would be getting wind burn from showing too much skin, or even getting whipped by your own baggy T shirt.

You can buy underleather suits that provide a gap between your skin and your gear and wicks away moisture so you don't fill your boots up with your sweat! (actually it holds the moisture in the material so it is like a cooling shirt on your dry skin) If you are commuting in town, at least wear a denim jacket or something! if for nothing else, it cuts down on the sunburn.

So, what is the difference between a fashion leather jacket and a real leather bike jacket? oh, about 80 feet! as in: you will be dragging your exposed skin along the ground for 80 feet, ouch! Real leather bike jackets are made from thicker leather that is more dense and is specifically designed to help you look pretty after a big fall, fashion leather is not. Check this out, the last # in each line is the distance travelled before failure:

Sept 88 "Cycle" magazine article "Abrasion Testing: Torn in the USA".
Drag Test

"For the Drag Test, samples were stitched to a bag that held a 75-pound
sandbag inside a milk crate, then dragged behind a pickup truck..."

New, 100% Cotton Denim Jeans: 3' 10"
Senior Balistic Nylon: 3' 10"
Leather, Lightweight, Nude Finish, 2.25 oz/sq. ft. 4' 3"
Leather, Fashion Weight, 1.75 oz/sq ft. 4' 4"
Two-year-old 100% Cotton Denim Jeans 4' 5"
Cordura Nylon Type 440 18' 3"
Kevlar 29 Aramid Fiber, Style 713 22' 1"
Leather, Competition Weight, 3 oz//sq. ft. 86' 0"

None of that takes in account stitching procedures, zippers failing, securing methods, or anything but just material comparison. I am sure ballistic nylon has improved since 1988 but I doubt the rest have.

Armor is another big plus in bike gear. I once actually split a piece of shoulder armor in a high speed high side, my shoulder was fine! I also would have broken my back if not for my spine protector. Armor is good, buy it!

 

Filters.

It should go without saying that you should change your oil filter each time you change your oil. Air filters are a bit different, sure you replace them when they get dirty, but with what? Do you go with the big hype free flowing aftermarket job or yet another stocker? well, it depends. It depends on what kind of bike you have. Do you have and older bike from the mid '90s or earlier? if you know how to tweak your carbs (or have read my carb page) then go with aftermarket, if not go stock.After the mid 90s the stock stuff got to flow as much as many of the aftermarket hi flow filters, sometimes even more. If you have fuel injection without a piggyback ECU such as a power commander you will probably still be ok since your injection sensors automatically correct the fuel mix going in (any changes below the intake might affect how the bike runs though)

 

Oil

Mineral or Synthetic? Mineral (regular oil) is not as slick or as expensive as synthetic, but it is much cheaper.Synthetic oil will make your bike shift better, run cooler, and even gain you about a horsepower or 2. Change your oil at 3000mile intervals, regardless if synthetic or not.

 

Options (not consumables, but I am going to write about them anyway) There are tons of goodies to bolt on to your bike, starting with..

Steering damper (not dampENer, when you dampen something you make it wet, when you damp something you control its movement)

A steering damper should NOT be used as a chassis control unit, if your bike needs one to go down the road without drama, you have something wrong! The steering damper is meant as a safety device, its presence only to make itself known if things go badly (or even better, the thing stops any badness from happening in the first place) I like to set them on the softer (less damping) end of the range, when the bars start really slapping the damping will make itself known and calm things, but I want to know if there is a problem so I can correct it. Having said that, I don't mind a little headshake (keep hands loose!) from time to time. There are basically 2 types of damper, a rotary (The Scotts is the most popular) and the standard tube style. The rotary ones usuallly have the benefit of a 2 stage (high speed/low speed) adjustable damping mechanism that lets you separate your damping speeds for both just around town riding and high speed riding so you don't have the extra effort at low speeds. The Tube type for the most part (Hyperpro has a 2 stage tube damper) give a consistant rising effort that works great at one type of riding but not so much for the other without changing settings. Most race bikes use tubular style dampers because they work great as high speed/high intensity slapper killers and race bikes don't troll through traffic.(Ohlins is the fave here)

Do you need a steering damper? not really, but it is a good security unit.

Exhaust pipe loud, light, fast, right? maybe not!

Most aftermarket pipes are louder than the stockers they replace, and they get louder as the fibreglass that is used to absorb the sound gets compacted and loses its light fluffy sound sucking properties. You need to repack most pipes after 10,000kms if not sooner. Most aftermarket pipes might save up to 10 pounds (full system) But do they make your bike faster? for most cases, not by much. With a good slip on you may gain up to 5hp, but most slip ons actually either only tie the stocker or actually lose power to the stocker, while usually creating dips and spikes in the powerband.

A full system is different, you can gain up to 15hp from a stock 1000cc motor (as long as it's fueled correctly) and you get the maximum weight advantage. The only drawback (other than noise) is that most of the big four use a copy of the Yamaha EXUP powervalve for increased midrange, with a full system you lose that handy little piece of gadgetry (not a concern for a racebike)

If you do buy an aftermarket pipe for your streetbike, please keep the revs down through residential areas and repack the thing at least once a year.

What modifications do I do?

My first mod (assuming I have good tires already) is always HH sintered brake pads (at the moment I have DP brand HH+ on my bike and I like the soft initial bite for trail braking and they have great power) then a modded fork (revalve/resprung) and maybe shock. then maybe a pipe. The stuff after makes smaller differences, like braided brake lines, double bubble windshield, then just cosmetic stuff. I think that order makes the best bang for buck, performance wise.

I like a little bit of noise but not too much, so a quit-ish pipe or even a stocker works for me.

 

 

John Kocinski was your typical phenom: billiant, arrogant, and quirky. But fast? yep, 3 time AMA 250cc GP champion, world 250cc GP champion for 1990 in his first attempt before moving up to be Wayne Rainey's teammate on the fearsome Marlboro Yamaha YZR500 where he won a couple of GPs against what I think was the strongest GP grid ever. After Kenny Roberts dropped Kocinski from his squad (reason unknown, but probably because he was almost as cocky as Roberts himself) he went to Suzuki to ride their pathetic RGV250, giving them their only 2 ever 250cc podium finishes.That lasted half a season before they parted ways and Kocinski showed them what they were missing when he hopped on a then developing Cagiva 500 and within 4 races won their first dry GP (as well as a DNF while leading a race) The next year he gave them another GP win, but Cagiva pulled the plug on their 500cc GP effort. Kocinski found himself back in the AMA before entering the World Superbike championship in 96 where he finished 3rd in his first go. "King Carl" Fogarty was wobbling around on the Castrol Honda RC45 in 96 crying for his Factory Ducati. Fogarty got his wish for 97 and got off his "unrideable" RC45 only to have Kocinski hop on it and take the World Superbike title. He restarted his 500 career after that on a Pons NSR500 and later a Basically self funded NSR with Kenemoto with poor results. He came back to Yamaha a bit later and helped develop the YZR-M1.

Some of his other highlights would include 2 podiums a the Suzuka 8 hour (on a Honda and a Yamaha), numerous all japan championship wins in 250 and 500. He is quoted as calling 4 stroke bikes "diesels" but he won a national endurance championship on a GSXR750 in "85, and had success with 600cc 4 strokes, as well as his later success on superbikes.

 

 

Take me to the home page