This is a bit of a different sort of video for me, so see what you think…
I was testing a bunch of stuff on the bike (manual timing chain tensioner, rebuilt cooling system, stunt cage aero) and also new camera equipment and angles. I ended up shooting this as a test if a camera angle and I kinda liked the footage I got. plus it was a fun ride so thought I’d post it 🙂
Those gloves tho LINK
So whilst I kinda prefer to write posts or make videos about a specific subject from start to finish, that’s not how my life is working at the moment, and whilst I’ve not posted that doesn’t mean I haven’t been up to much…quite the opposite, I’ve been doing loads and have loads to report on different fronts, but none of them has particularly concluded in a meaningful way yet…so perhaps this will have to be done in stages as things progress.
So for reasons best known to nobody I’m still hell bent on figuring this wheelies & drifting thing out on the 125, especially since now I *know* it can be done.
I’ve found myself a couple of quiet little spots to practice at (private property/non-road), my exhaust’s deliberately not obnoxiously loud so as not to annoy anyone and I don’t tend to stay in one spot very long either…so I’ve had a few decent little practice sessions without any complaints so far.
Continue reading Random updates – Wheelies, repairs, stunt cage, rear hand brakeSo it turns out I’m not the only person who’s interested in having different bars on the R125 – someone who I’ve been chatting to a lot about these bikes is also interested in this but didn’t want to go any wider with the bars – my clip-on arrangement added a few cm each side to the width (and you notice the increased drag so it’s a fair point.
Motox bars would be about the same width as my clipon setup but they can also be trimmed down a bit so should be no wider than the standard bars, just a little higher and angled a bit differently.
So after much back and forth about how best to do this and whether it would be strong enough I thought enough discussion, time to drill some holes and try bolting the motox risers onto the yoke directly and find out for sure.. and here we are.
There’s nothing like drilling holes in something to get a feel for just how solid it is (or not), and in this case I got the impression this yoke is actually pretty damn sturdy.
At the point of the holes I guess it was looking like ~5mm thick, and add to that the strength from the shape of the casting and any reservations I had about the top yoke not being strong enough were pretty much put to rest.
What struck me as important was to get a nice even pull on the bolt so that everything lines up correctly and doesn’t end up with weird forces putting stresses in places there shouldn’t be stresses, which could lead to cracks, bolt snappage or things wearing loose over time, none of which we want on our main means of steering the bike.
I don’t even know where to start so I’ll just chuck some pics in and hopefully it will make sense along the way
Ok so i beginning there was the normal clutch lever, then we went shorty two-fingers (which was better) and then slipping off once too often when pulling up with two fingers I realised why they all have 1-finger levers…
The 1 finger lever (ebay link) is actually bizarrely comfortable like I’m thinking why the hell did we have all that other nonsense before. The movement is pleasantly smooth and precise. Also the lever has 3 positions where you can hook the cable in which slightly change the feel and cable orientation to suit your hand. There’s a wee bolt to set the resting position of the lever too so you can get it set up exactly how you want. So much fun with one finger…anyway.
Continue reading YZF-R125 CLUTCH IMPROVEMENTS AND rear HANDBRAKE PROGRESSPLS NOTE: I (currently) suck at wheelies – this is about me getting better at it on my R125.
Continue reading Learning to wheelie & drift, practice session on YZF-R125ok soooo..
I’m not sure why exactly I’m motivated to do this but I really want to learn how to wheelie and drift my bike. I’ve always been into drifting cars but somehow had never considered drifting bikes, probably because it’s kinda insane and dangerous as activities go.
Continue reading Learning to wheelie on the YZF-R125
Whilst my thus-far pitiful efforts to pop dank wheelies are still going unrewarded, trying to do so highlighted some issues with my hand controls.
Continue reading YAMAHA YZF-R125 ADJUSTABLE CNC brake leversOk so this seems to be an ongoing urban myth, whether it’s chavs drilling the airbox of their mum’s Fiesta 1.1 popular or little 125s, or even big bikes, people seem set on the idea that airbox designers are actually our mums who are trying to sneakily slow our bikes down. or something.
On my bike I’ve shown the exhaust side of the engine quite a lot of love and attention, but despite the nice, big-bore shiny pipesness, she continues to run better with a little baffle in the end, like so:
The best reason I can come up with that the bike runs better with a smaller diameter exit/baffle in the end (effectively restricting the flow again) is that perhaps the exhaust is a bit much pipe for the bike – and by that I mean for the amount of air the engine is moving, the pipe diameter gets too wide at the end, which ends up with the gasses slowing down too much and actually impeding scavenging of the exhaust system. Or maybe there’s some sort of sound-waves stuff going on like with two-strokes.
Either way with the baffle in you get a little bit of torque around that 70mph point where you shift into top gear. With the open pipe it didn’t have the oomph to push through that but with the baffle it does (albeit slowly).
A couple of months ago, under what turned out to be ideal conditions on a private runway, thanks to that baffle we hit 85mph.
That was on a 15t front gear too so would have needed even more torque to make it through to the power band.
And it was absolutely equal parts terrifying and exhilarating..,as you would expect flying along on a glorified moped! 😀
Continue reading Debunking airbox mods On Yamaha YZF-R125? – part 1This is me trying to do a walkthrough of changing the front/drive sprocket on a Yamaha YZF-R125 without a rear wheel stand/paddock stand.
Continue reading Changing front sprocket on yamaha yzf-r125