A REALLY neat Ducati Website

Check out: http://viewer.zmags.com/showmag.php?mid=ghtpp#/page0/

Ducati put together this online magazine article clipping of the new 1098R Superbike. This is the bike to have!! Amazing power (180hp/100ftlbs tq), light weight (dry weight 363lbs !!!), and a first ever for a production motorcycle ---- A REAL TRACTION CONTROL SYSTEM!!!

Check it out & let us know what you think.

~ The Staff & GBMC/VNH

5 bhp increase on the 250R!

Got this link on the net. Roaring Toyz have this special exhaust for the Ninja 250R and claim to increase the max power by 5bhp!!

Available for 600 USD... Follow this LINK

2008 Kawasaki Ninja 250R performance figures

Here are a few figures from www.cycleworld.com



Price $3499
Dry weight 352 lb.
Wheelbase 54.9 in.
Seat height 31.0 in.
Fuel mileage 60 mpg (this is US mpg - means 25.5km per litre!)
0-60 mph 7.6 sec.
1/4-mile 15.54 sec. @ 82.70 mph
Horsepower 27.2 hp @ 10,770 rpm (again, diff power figs will be there for Europe model)
Torque 14.3 ft.-lb. @ 9650 rpm
Top speed 96 mph (or 154km/h)

Tyre upgrades for the 2008 Ninja 250R

The stock 110mm front

replaced with this 120mm

The stock 130mm of the rear...

replaced with this 150mm

While randomly surfing, i came across this article about tyre upsizing for the Kawasaki Ninja 250R. The guy at 2fiddy had posted this

The stock tyre is a 130/70 on 17inch alloy.
One can up size it to 150/70 on the same 17inch alloy

Also, this guy has upsized the front from a 110 to a 120.
Looks cool or not, you decide!!

In the meantime, have a look at the new 150cc bike from Yamaha for India. Yes, India again it is!
Click HERE to see the new 16bhp 150cc bike called the Yamaha YZF-R15

Last time I was at Twinline, I decided I felt enough residual energy from the day to learn a bit of mechanicking. So, after I finished what I was doing on the computer, Ian gave me his race-bike cylinder to clean out.

"Normally I don't start interns on rebuilding engines, but this just happens to be what I'm working on tonight," he said.



I spiffed that cylinder up real nice and learned how to work the air nozzle to dry it. (Isaac jumped when I let loose the first blast right behind him.) Then I gooped up the bores with some kind of grease, which was fun.



Next on the agenda was sliding the cylinder onto the pistons, a tricky maneuver. I volunteered to help, but Ian selected Isaac as his assistant for some reason. Maybe it had something to do with Isaac's scads of experience compared to my zero experience--I don't know. I wandered over to chat with Brian so as not disturb the procedure.

Brian was messing with some electrical stuff, making lights blink on and off. I supplied a river of helpful advice, based on the way I imagined electricity should work.

Suddenly, disaster struck from the direction of Ian's work table: one of the piston rings broke. Those particular pistons had taken a week to arrive from eBay.

Then, even worse: "Dude, it scratched the bore," Isaac pointed out.

Ian went through various stages of grief. Since I have an electronics disruption field, which makes digital and electrical things go wonky, I have grown accustomed to taking the blame when things go wrong in my vicinity.

When he got to the anger stage, Ian yelled, "Superball!"

"It wasn't me!" I said. "There's nothing electrical about that! Yet."

So I got to be Ian's sounding board until he reached a modicum of acceptance. We called it good for the night.

I received a text from Ian a few days later: "No shop this week, yo. Me hurt good." That's the last I heard until today.

It turns out he high-sided the same bike (not his race bike--still a touchy subject) twice over the course of three weeks, with the same injuries (elbow and shoulder).

Yep, racing can hurt.

Ian's 400F, Continued

Ian took out "ye old grinder and sawsall" and went to town on ripping open a hole under his pet 400F's sidecover. He took out the battery box and ground down every tab, nub, and other bit of metal daring to block the beautiful view through an open 400 Four.

A small battery will go under the seat, making the bike pretty much kick-start only. Ian may leave the starter motor in it, though, "just for fun."

Now that the first stage of roughing out how he wants it to look is done, Ian can go about finishing it with clip-ons and a wheel package: buffed-up hubs and aluminum rims. When you take off the pounds of a steel wheel, steering is a whole lot nicer.



So far, the bike has lacked a seat. Ian's trying to get a new one done as quickly as possible, so he can ride the bike raw. The new seat complements the "roundness and squarishness" of the tank--meaning the seat is pretty boxy with some nice curves. It's almost done. Ian just needs to rip up the backside (as shown by the black Sharpie line), stuff in a half-moon LED taillight, and weld some more steel back there to close it up.

"It should be striking when it's all done," he said. "It'll be mean. You wouldn't want to run into it."

Ian's 400F

Though this 400F has been for sale, Ian hasn't been trying too hard to sell it. Though some people have expressed interest in it as it is, he wants to build it into a cafe bike--make it his own, private project.

"This thing is mechanically solid," Ian said. "It doesn't even have any slap on the cam-chain adjustment. We kind of miss the Knockout 360, because that was going to be our personal shop bike, so I'm going make this into a really nice cafe 400 with a custom seat. I want to make a bike I can rock around on."

So he's thrown it into the pile of work already on the list--something he can work on during the couple of evenings that he sets aside each week to get caught up on stuff and to do pet projects.



The changes the 400F needs are all pretty much cosmetic. It'll have one of Ian's trademark steel seats, a single speedo (no tachometer), a drilled rotor, and a cleaned-up engine--though it already runs perfectly fine. The electronics and battery, currently blocking the view between the subframe and the frame, will move out of the way, the shocks and tires will probably get upgraded, and Ian will do anything else Ian wants to do.

Ian plans to keep the header pipe--the exhaust pipe--and do something fancy-schmancy with the mirrors. He may switch to clip-ons and will replace the turn signals and taillight with something "a lot more sleek."

What about the wheels?

"I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the wheels," Ian said. "I might rebuild 'em. I might buff 'em up nice and shiny. Maybe I'll put in some aluminum rims."

So it's a dream in the making.

When he's done everything he wants to do with it, will he consider selling it?



"Well . . . everything I have is technically for sale, except my TX and my SR500," Ian admitted. "I guess I'd part with this bike if somebody funded it for $5,000 or more. I keep asking for more money on these things because I keep having to part with good bikes, and I never have one to ride myself. I've been having fun on this one."

Reluctant as Ian might be, chances are that someone with grander dreams could also probably negotiate, with a good-sized deposit.