I have it on loan for a day or so while the 2000 model ZZR-250 RMB is buying is in for a roadworthy.  The bike is an excellent height for me – nearly too high in fact for me to comfortably stand on it in traffic. Considering I’m 6’9″ tall, that is quite an effort!

The riding position is very comfortable, with my arms bent at about 90 degrees and my back nearly straight. Under acceleration I have the urge to lean forward lest I be thrown from the bike because of the way the suspension shifts.

The handling takes a bit of getting used to, going from my normal heavy old ZZR-600 to what is effectively a trail bike which weighs half as much. It is very manoeuvrable due to the light weight, trailbike suspension and very wide handlebars.

I have not had a chance to really test the handling due to the fact I only have it for a short time – not to mention throwing a loaner bike around in peak hour highway traffic while it is raining probably should be avoided. The general feeling that I get of the bike is that it is well settled and useful on the road, tight tracks or on fire trails where sticky mud and traction are not an issue.

The engine is very different to what I have ridden with before. The smooth carby-fed inline four cylinder ZZR-600, the thumping SV-650′s V-Twin and the ZZR-250′s wheezy but rev-happy two cylinder inline engine all have different characteristics, but they are still sports bikes at the core. The XTX’s engine, with its single piston and small useful rev range is a totally different beast. It definitely lives up to the “thumper” moniker such engines receive, roaring during acceleration and sounding like a burbling Harley-Davidson when you back off.

Without a tachometer on the bike it is hard to tell what you are doing at any point in time, but the feeling through the seat is that if you fail to choose the right gear you are heading for rattly-stallsville on the low end and it runs out of puff on the top end. There is a relatively tight range in the middle that it is quite happy to cruise in and pull away from under normal riding conditions.

The controls are easy to find and use as one would expect, all the switches and buttons are in the normal places and easy to feel for when you are first on the bike. The gearbox is reassuringly smooth and accurate, never leaving one to question whether it went into the gear I wanted. The levers aren’t adjustable, which makes me think that riders with smaller hands could be left over-reaching ont hsi bike. Clutch actuation is smooth and light which is nice.

The brakes I am still deciding about. The front sports a big single 320mm disc with four Brembo aluminium pistons doing the grabbing, and the rear has a not-too-shabby 245mm rear single disc. There is no question that if I was to grab the brakes that the bike would stop quickly, but under road use it seems to require more than the usual two-finger grab to pull the bike up. I’m not sure if this is another case of the motard-road bike comparison but it makes me feel a little nervous grabbing so hard on the lever to pull myself up.

Obviously after an hour or so on the bike in traffic it’s never going to be the most exhaustive of reviews, but it certainly is an interesting bike. Easy to ride and a good height, with a complete minimum of features leaves the bike in the normal motard position. Good for those that haven’t got a ute and want to ride their bike to the trail or for a fun bike which covers a lot of simple bases.

For me though, I’m going to be happy to be back on the dedicated sports bikes

Supermotard – the Yamaha way

The XTX’s 660cc liquid-cooled, 4-stroke single is built to last, but it’s also built to perform. It boasts a specially designed SOHC 4-valve cylinder head with high intake efficiency and a 10:1 compression ratio.

Inside the lightweight cylinder head, rocker arms with roller bearings are fitted (the first Yamaha motorcycle so fitted), reducing friction-related power loss (50% less than without bearings).

Inside that formidable cylinder lives a lightweight aluminium forged piston, with an anodised head surface treated to reduce oil consumption and increase heat resistance.

The aluminium XTX cylinder is ceramic composite plated to improve heat radiation and reduce oil consumption, while a cylinder skirt cutaway reduces pumping loss.

Throw in a light crankshaft for low reciprocating mass, and a return-less fuel injection system with 44m bigbore throttle bodies and you’re looking at a smooth, crisp delivery, instant grunt and an exhilarating mid-range when you need it.

A lot of lightweight dirt bikes might feel nervous on the road, but remember, this is your road bike that just happens to be your supermotard…

While the steering might be pleasantly quick, the strong, diamond frame and steel swing arm boasts plenty of torsional and lateral rigidity.

The lightweight 17-inch Excel front wheel carries a 320mm floating front disc gripped by four Brembo aluminium piston calipers, while a plush Kayaba shock with five step preload adjuster and beefy 43mm Paioli fork with generous 200mm travel cope easily with rough secondary roads.

I can handle:

• A four hour bike ride, that’s easy.
• Five or six kilometres of fist-sized gravel on a sports bike.
• The seals on my front master cylinder deciding to refuse to  live up to their name.

What I can’t handle is the terrible state of back-country Queensland roads and ending up with incredibly sore wrists by the time I was half way home.

In other news, Kawasaki wins again on the parts front – went down to TeamMoto’s big warehouse store at Springwood and ordered a rebuild kit for the master cylinder ($93) and a replacement seal for the top ($25ish).

The three-brake-line system that the bike runs as standard needed replacing because the lines were bulging even under light braking situations.  I found a local manufacturer called HEL Performance and I have ordered some from for the reasonable sum of $160 delivered.

I’d highly recommend them because they allow you to choose from a variety of colours for both  the lines and the fittings and have a massive back-catalogue of supported bikes with their associated configurations of lines. I have chosen to go with a more race-like dual-line setup which runs a line for each caliper directly to the master cylinder. This configuration allows for more direct feedback and improved performance along with reduced parts count and ease of bleeding.

After a second or so of blank stare, she said “yeah, that’s right, have a good night!”

I’m a fucking JEDI!

I’ve been fearful of the wet because I don’t like the feeling of the bike being unstable under me. It reminds me too much of the feeling of the bike going down while heralding a expensive, annoying and boring couple of weeks.

Tonight it didn’t slip or shudder, sailing along as smooth as silk. I kept my speed to under about fifty and I was doing not much above walking speed for some of the corners, but it was smooth and that’s what matters.

Good times, now all I need to do is work on trusting the bike.

And convincing a mechanic I trust to service the engine and suspension.

I went down to Springwood Suzuki and was reccommended the Oxford brand, and I agreed – purchasing one of these. Well, borysSNORC did anyway

It’s got loads of pockets, big magnets to hold it on, can zip into a backback and has a zip-off bum bag on the right there. Pretty good quality, that’s for sure.

A couple of days ago I adjusted the throttle free-play, something that’d been plaguing me since I got the bike. It had about 1/8th of a turn of play :S

I also plastic-welded the fairings back together, which made me happy in my pants to see the bike not rattling and ripping itself apart…

Today’s work included a replacement of the oil filter and the oil in the bike. I hope to do it every six to ten thousand K’s with the oil I’m using and the bike that I have. I chose to use Motul 5100 semi-synth as it’s under sixty bucks for four litres and has good reviews on a few sites. The oil filter was easy to get – a Ryco Z411 from SuperCheap Auto for a massive twelve dollars.

The job wasn’t hard to do – I’m getting good at taking the lower fairings off Once I worked out how to take the oil cooler off without having to replace the seals on the hoses, I dropped the oil and got the filter off. I was worried if the filter would fit, as I’d read only found a vague reference to a non-standard one on a forum posting. Uh, it did, huzzah. If you want a cheap and good ZZR600 oil filter, get a Z411. I’m thinking I might try to find a highflow one later, and will take a look at things when I can. Until then, the filter designed for a much larger motor should be fine

The rest of the job was pretty easy, topping up the oil and making sure I didn’t get it all over the place. 3.6lt of oil later, and the job was done

Searching for motorcycle gear’s been a challenge, because it’s specialised and they don’t sell that much. I’ve found three pairs of boots that fit, and only two that fit comfortably without plans to take them to a bootmaker. Both of them are made by RJays and the ones I bought todays are their “Edge” model in a UK size 48.

I got ‘em from Springwood Suzuki for the sum of $229 or so. Don’t ask me to be specific because I’m too lazy to go find the receipt. It’s a good price, since the Sidi’s that didn’t fit me (too skinny, those girly Italian feet) were at least twice the price. But they had more shiny bits and toe vents and things. Eww. Give me boots that protect me from going smoosh, and don’t fall apart. Thanks.

I also found some leather pants that fit me, but that’s a post for tomorrow or something.

So, my bike’s in the shop and I have a morning off from work. A friend offers me a ride of his spare bike, and the opportunity to be led through the twisties heading up to the Maiala Rainforest Teahouse at Mount Nebo/Glorious. Who could say no? Not me!

I’ll admit it, I was shitting myself. On someone else’s much lighter and more responsive bike, tooling through the hills and trying to not look like a complete grandma – which I failed at, but am cool with that)

It was a great couple of hours of riding with a break for coffee and a toasted bacon and egg sammich. I got to see how my practice held up against some real roads instead of the lots-of-straights-and-suburbia I’d been riding around. Not to mention I finally met snail/rasp/David, which only took about a year or two.

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It got knocked over onto its left side, scractching the clutch cover, the bar end and muffler. It seems that she’d run straight into the right hand indicator, smashing that and scratching the fairings around it.

The worst part of it all – it looks like the bolt that holds most of the right hand fairing on has snapped out of the mounting in the frame (the mount failed, not the bolt – worse) so that’s going to be a right pain in the ass to fix :S

At least I got her details, so I’m going to get a quote and hopefully she’ll be insured and I won’t have to fix it.

Kids, if you have to nearly double your tyre pressure – there’s a reason your bum’s wiggling a bit around corners.

It feels a lot better now that it’s setup properly!

I went into Kawasaki after looking up the Haynes manual to see what I needed to fix.

It seems that there’s an O-Ring that I can replace, and I guess it’s just perished or gotten crushed or something – should be a cheap part, right?

Well, this is where it goes a little weird. I shot a local Kawasaki dealer an email through their website hoping for a response, but was in the area on Monday so I thought I’d drop in to ask since I hadn’t gotten a response.

I asked for a gasket for the water pump (no sleep, too many painkillers, should have asked for an O-ring), and the incredibly distracted and ambivalent guy on the counter told me they don’t sell individual parts for the water pump, and I’d have to buy the whole water pump assembly for $388.75!

I got a little disheartened at this point – thinking about my options on the way home to custom make a silicon O-ring  to replace it. Until I got home and opened my email, which included a response from the dealer.

“Thanks for your enquiry.A new water pump will set you back $388.75.The oring inside the water pump $4.65″

So, um. I can get it now? What the shit? So, I gave up, ordered it and should have it in two days. Glad I didn’t go to all the effort and expense of rebuilding a second hand pump or something like that because the dealer was too slack to give me good service. And I’m damn happy that I knew exactly what I wanted the second time because I had to be able to describe where it was on the Kawasaki documentation (which is kinda hard to get unless you’re on the internet).

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Everything went relatively smoothly except for the light rain starting just as we left to go do it. Riding back was a fun experience, finding out on the fly how the bike rode and where all the controls were

I took it out for a ride tonight (yay rain) and I think it needs a damn good tune but otherwise seems sound. Time and inspections by mates will tell

I’ll get photos in the morning, and until then will dream sexy two wheeled dreams.

There have been a few that I like the look of, and many complete shitters. It’s to be expected with a low-turnover item and my low budget – under three thousand dollars was my goal. Another problem is the fact that I’m 6’9″ tall, leaving me out of the running for many smaller bikes because they look like little pushbikes under me.

After a while of looking, I found this on eBay: Kawasaki ZZR-600. 70ish thousand K’s, seventeen years old and after sending him an email I found that a roadworthy was to be supplied upon sale. There was a reserve of unknown value on it, but I asked and was told it was two thousand – bonus!

Previously the bike had been passed in at ~1900 dollars, leaving me wondering a little about its condition. I met up with the owner and took the bike for a quick ride around the back streets and gave it a good looking over. From what I could tell with my limited bike experience – read none – there wasn’t any leaks, it didn’t wobble, and it rode alright so I decided to bid.

With my usual eBay tactics in hand, I bid with twenty three seconds to go (praying the internet or my wireless didn’t drop out) and secured it with a final bid of 2075.00

It’s in for a roadworthy tomorrow, so hopefully if I’m feeling well enough to go get it and the insurance company will play nice I’ll be the proud owner of a 1991 Kawasaki ZZR-600 tomorrow

Here’s the photos from the eBay auction in case it disappears:

I’m following the M1 down the east coast because it’s the easiest route and seems to be the most direct anyway There’s also plenty of towns and places to stop if I need to, which is a comfort considering the condition of the car that I’m driving.

Speaking of cars, I probably should have updated more about the gemini project, but bleh. It’s officially shelved until further notice, and will probably be scrapped entirely. In a few months the mazda’s likely to give up the ghost or get to a point where it’s going to need a large amount of money poured into it to keep it on the road. The clutch is failing, the CV joints need doing, the stem seals are leaking and it’s generally a piece of junk. The TD isn’t much better, with obvious rust repairs that have been done, loads of surface rust and other issues that need to be sorted out, and it’s not even registered yet.

At this point I’m going to DIY (not dodgy) repair the mazda until it gets unmaintainable, and by then I should have myself back in a position to find another (good) car to buy and drive. Something cheap, plain and easy to maintain while being reliable.

Currently I have to leave the fan setting on “heat” while driving the Mazda for more than a short distance at highway speeds otherwise it gets hotter and hotter and boils the water out of the system – something I avoid now I know how to fix it. I don’t know why it does it, there has been mention of the coolant system having air in the top of it, a possible thermostat issue or otherwise, but I haven’t been in a position to test either of these things lately, so that’s something to sort out later. At the moment it’s fine to drive all day like that as long as I don’t put the windows up and turn the car into a mobile sweat box.

Right now I’m sitting in the Park Drive Motel, a three star hotel on the river in a town called Kempsey, which is about 100km south of Coffs Harbour in New South Wales. I’d originally planned to stop at Grafton, but by then it was only about 3:30ish, then I planned to stop at Coffs, but then it was only about 4:30ish… then I planned to stop at Nambucca Heads, but it was a hole and I thought I could get a nicer place for cheaper. The only place there with a vacancy wanted $55/night for an on-site caravan with no facilities or $80/night for a cabin with ensuite. Uh, no.

So, I kept driving, and ended up in Kempsey at about 7pm. Being a little worried about the possibility of getting food on a public holiday in a small town, and also about finding somewhere cheap with a vacancy I stopped at the first place I saw, and this is it. It’s not bad. Not exactly resort quality, but for $60 a night it’s got a queen sized bed, aircon that I’m not likely to need, views of the highway (and sounds) my own shower, a tv and a room well and truly big enough for me to swing several cats in a bag around. Considering it’s a place to sleep in and then keep travelling I’m happy

The local Steak and Seafood place called The Flaming Steer has a seafood basket and a serve of wedges on its way to my room, so that should keep me fueled until I find a truck stop in the morning for a delicious greasy breakfast of pig and chicken bits.

According to the trip odometer on my GPS, I’ve done 490km so far – not a bad effort for a tiny little car full of stuff. I’ve probably gone through 3/4 of a tank of fuel which is pretty good – easy when it’s mostly highway k’s. I’m going to keep a track of the odometer readings and how much I’m using to work out how much it’s cost me to do this trip. The main killer for fuel usage is all the hills, other drivers (yay for it being a public holiday and lots of families on the road) and speed limit changes. Small towns are great, and there’s plenty of them on the trip, but can’t they just make a giant highway through all of them and just let us do 100km/h the whole way? 100-80-60-40-80-100-70-etc is annoying, I’d hate to be a long distance truck driver and have to do that all the time!

There isn’t many adventures to tell of really, I stopped in Ballina for lunch, and had a burger with bacon and some chips – two dollars buys you about two child-sized handfuls of low-quality chips, won’t be going back there again. Uh, I stopped somewhere for a smoke and a pee. That’s about it.

I’d have to agree with them – most of the customers on the network were there because they got the cheapest service they could find, and it worked for them – most of the time. The phones sucked, the network sucked more, and while it was more profitable than 3g before they decided that the end was near, maintaining an old network isn’t a good business plan. The ability to focus your capital and human resources on a newer product tends to be the smart idea in business.

So, as of the 1st of February 2006, they decided that they would no longer provision new services, and that existing customers would be aggresively marketed to so as to push them to the 3g product. This worked well – over 200,000 customers moved in under three months – over 60% of the active number pool. They paid out contracts, they gave away cheap plans and phones, it probably cost them a lot of money, but in doing so, they locked most of those customers into contracts so they were less likely to change providers, thus retaining the revenue stream.

As for the affect on me – this is the sad part of my story. I started with Stellar on the 5th of August 2004, and the network’s due to shut down on the 9th of August 2006. Nice anniversary present! My contract’s customer care, and it’s due to end on the 31st of August 2006 as far as us, the minions, have been told. It could go longer, but not much further – by that time all the postpaid customers will have their final bill and will be paying it, and they don’t care what the prepaid customers do.

I don’t mind too much that my job’s likely to be over as I’ll get a redundancy payout of about two months’ pay, and I’ve already had two semi-reliable job offers. The plan now is to reduce non-vital spending, focus on paying off my debts, and efficiently work on getting the Gemini on the road so that if I do take up a job delivering pizzas, or any job where I need to drive to work, I won’t be paying $80+ a week on petrol like I am now with the PimpMobile.

The best option would be that we get another contract to work on, and I keep working for this company so that I don’t have to go through the garbage of starting afresh, but if not, I’ll just have to deal with it.

It felt so great just to put the key in the ignition, turn it, and have something happen! We got oil pressure rather quickly – after we filled up the oil filter. Next was confirming fuel flow and so on, and it mostly worked pretty well first go, just a bit of air in the lines and so forth. We had the inlet/outlet backwards on the carby first go, since we didn’t know which one was which – the wonders of using old hardware that doesn’t have a manual

Rather than fighting with the dodgy old radiator that had been sitting there for ten months with no water in it and was full of rust, I went out and bought myself a brand new one from Slacks Creek Radiators. Originally I’d planned to get one to suit an RA40 Celica, but it seems that the one they had wasn’t anything like the pictures and information I found on the ‘net. $230 got me a brand new copper radiator which bolted straight in.

We hooked up all the coil/dizzy/leads and the rest, and in went the battery and so forth. We seemed to have the timing way off, but after working that out it all got a lot better, and now it runs!

It seems to run rather smoothly – we didn’t run it for long since the cooling system is probably really full of air – today’s work is to bleed it and keep going with the tuning process.

All I can say is, it’s SUCH a feeling of elation to have the gem running after all this time!

Now, if only I could find some o-rings that’d suit this rail. Maybe I’ll just have to import the bits and make my own… yay for more money and time.