Mike B, our resident Yamaha Ténéré 700 rider and salesperson extraordinaire recently took a 860-mile round trip across Oregon to Idaho and back. The serious chunk of saddle time allowed him to evaluate the upgrades on his bike. Read his reports below:
In this month’s tech talk, we will go over how to replace the throttle return spring on a Mikuni TM40 carburetor that’s often used as an aftermarket option on the Suzuki DR650, Honda XL650L, and Kawasaki KLR 650. Many of our customers feel that the stock spring is too stiff, making it harder to rev up their bikes and straining their wrists on long rides.
In this month’s tech talk, we are going to go over bonding the rings onto a Mikuni TM40 carburetor for use on the Suzuki DR650. We sell these rings in the DR650 conversion kit, and have received a few questions on the process of attaching them to the carb.
The kit we sell includes two rings: the larger for the airbox side and the smaller for the cylinder side. We use a good 2-part epoxy (such as Devcon Home 2-ton Epoxy) to bond the rings. Following these instructions will allow for many miles of smiles.
It’s been about a year since we started work on our Project Yamaha TW200, and the transformation has been huge! Tom and Mike put together a video to showcase all that we’ve done to improve the bike.
Starting from the bottom up, we replaced the stock wheels with a 17x3.5” rear and a 19x2.75” front, giving us a lot more tire options. We were finally able to get a knobby set of tires on the TW, and the upgraded wheels and tires provide a much more direct road feel.
We all know that riding a motorcycle can be risky. However, there are many things we can do to make our riding safer.
Being fatigued can cause us to become less aware of our surroundings and cause us to make mistakes in controlling our motorcycles. So first, don’t over-ride. If you’re feeling tired, take a break and stop riding for a while to recharge. Sometimes, you may not even know that you’re tired. If you have been riding for a long period of time, take some time to stop, relax, and get some refreshments.
We’re excited to announce the winners of the 2024 ProCycle Calendar Photo Contest!
At ProCycle we often cater to riders that roam the globe in search of something. What that “something” is, varies from rider to rider and journey to journey. But no matter the reason for your trip, we are here to support you as we have done for over 20 years. And so, it’s not uncommon for our customers to add our shop in Springfield, Oregon as a waypoint, or even destination, on their adventure. We’d like to share one traveler’s recent trip with you.
We often get asked by customers what size sprockets they should put on their bikes. The answer depends heavily on the type of riding you intend to do. Bike manufacturers typically choose a standard front and rear sprocket ratio that is good for “all around” riding, but depending on whether you ride primarily off-road or for long highway stretches, you may want to change that gearing.
Occasionally when we're riding and come off the throttle, we hear a loud popping. This is particularly noticeable if you've installed a new exhaust system or jet kit. In this month's tech talk, we'll explain what causes decel pop, whether it hurts your bike, and what you can do to reduce it.
By now, most of you are familiar with our project Yamaha TW200 and our attempt to bring more aftermarket support to this wonderful little machine. As part of these efforts, we have been continually working with our suppliers to test and develop new parts and bring them to market. One of these items, which we worked on with Rick's Motorsports, is a larger stator for the TW200, so that our customers can power up more electronic gizmos. Like with all freshly installed items, particularly a new product, we needed to take our rig out on a test ride.
