Darkside

[macmac]

So much fer yer girlie figure huh?

I wouldn't bet you can't hit a deer with a bike because thar's a CT on back... I know of another guy who did, besides pablo.

So far I have been lucky and only had the begeezus scared out of me by deer, bear and the really bad boys of all bad boys the friggin MOOSE.

For about the past decade I guess I tell riders to look the hell out for Moose, and they think I am joking. Around here that ain't no sorta joke.

The state used to show a count on road signs, but now they stopped the count and the sign says many collisions.

[Kawhead]

So much for my false hope built on dreams and wishes. ::) I hadd a 800 Classic, and I went so far as to put two different brands of "Deer Whistles" on and a bell on the bottom. That don't work EITHER fellas! I'd forgotten 'bout pablo and his little "incident" wiff the deer.

On the way to my house there's farm land and woods and a couple curves that I like to lay into just before I get to the house. I was well insulated 'cause it was 25 degrees. No idea how fast I was going, I was just hauling butt and all of a sudden out of the trees, the deer was doing the same thing I was doing and wham! The next day I was sore all over and it twisted the you know what out of my left ankle. Every time my heart beat for the next few days my ankle throbbed! :'(


A moose might be a hole different animal. Your going to have to bulk up macmac. If you hit one all he's going to do is look back ad maybe lick it like a skeeter bite and finish grazing. My 200+ Lbs is going to at least knock the wind out of his sails, which is a small cancellation to ponder as I lie there bleeding from every orifice in a ditch

I was sure hoping the low pitch variables twix the MT/CT would frighten the deer. Maybe pablo wasn't going fast enough for the effect.

[pablo]

Maybe if you duck, you could go under a moose. :)

[Kawhead]

[macmac]

I might duck before I figure out how to fly, but either way it is a bad deal. I have seen more than once first hand what a moose does to a car... I know only one guy who hit a moose, and lived to say so. Of course he didn't know he was anything muchless alive for a very long time, and when he did come too, he had no idea why he was in a hospital.

More than once I have come up fast on a moose, once even two moose, I think maybe that is mice in plural. This has been both on bikes and in cars.

The Moose here can run to about 1,200 pounds and be over 6 feet tall at the withers.. (hump at the ft shoulders)

I see them in my yard from time to time and as recently as 3 weeks ago there were tracks in the snow.

For a really big thing they can hide in plain site. One day riding around Lk Winnie in over cast I saw a shadow and then decided fast it was a Moose. I was doing a fair clip and stopped about 4 feet from hitting the moose. They don't even bother to try to get out of the way.

It was one of those panic stops too, the kind where yer head goes into auto pilot mode and you can hear tires burning rubber and the horn such as it is blarring, the engine seems to down shift and the clutch works as if it auto....

Mista' that made noises other people could hear, and they came on the run to find me with a smoke stuffed in my face and my right arm clutching at my chest where my heart's supposed ta' be.

They were all about asking me lots of silly questions like Was I alright.. I ain't never all right in the first place, but I was ok... I had a bad time swallowing my heart because it is a tad bigger than my tonsils.. When I could mutter and then talk I assured them all it was just another moose!

If nothing else to those who come here, don't hit a bear or a moose.. Doing that just pisses them off.
Ah, yes forget the bells and the whistels, that's bear bait..

[dkdixie]

Lowered my air pressure to 35lbs yesterday. Handling was much better.
Next trip, which will be delayed for couple days due to nasty weather moving in, plan to lower to 33lb.

[macmac]

I'ld ride a bit more at each setting to get to know the feel... See how it goes on different surfaces, how it handles slowing fast, and speeding up fast, how it is in the twisties.. Find a reason to try another psi...

I started low psi and loved it till I twisted the wick hard and fast hit 80 and had a rear wheel wobble.. Just a little wobble I could hardly feel at all, but then I know what happens pretty soon after that...

That was a reason!

The next thing I thought was start high psi and work down. I didn't get very far... I didn't get off the 1/2 mile dirt driveway even before I dropped psi from 40 to 35.

The rear in sandy loose gravel was like riding a radical bantam water ski... Slice and dice and not my idea of making a nomad a good dirt bike. Just way to active. About the only active rear ends I like are found on young girls.

Fer sum reason young girls won't allow me to change their psi....

[Kawhead]

I find they (chicks) don't dig ever increasing psi @ waist lines.

[pablo]

Originally Posted by macmac

I started low psi and loved it till I twisted the wick hard and fast hit 80 and had a rear wheel wobble.. Just a little wobble I could hardly feel at all, but then I know what happens pretty soon after that...

I also had the rear wheel wobble, but mine started about 105 indicated (about 93 actual). I did some experimenting and if you eased into it, you could feel the exact speed where it would start. I'll have to repeat this now that I have the pressure up to 30 psi.

[macmac]

Well I can almost remember so far back I think young girls liked it when I tamppered with their psi, but at this point I am not really sure.. I might have dreamed it once.

Pretty soon I will have forgotten everything I ever knew about girls, that ain't sayin much.

I did learn to take total controll in the bathroom, and the best way to do that is to be a Buck Skinner and soak tomahawks in the toilet. My wife never mentions a thing about the condition I leave the seat ANYMORE!

[Kawhead]

Quit trying to pull me to the "darkside" of women macmac

[dkdixie]

Looking forward to some seat time later this week. Suppose to be in mid-70's Fri thru Sun. The weather in N GA this time of year is all over the place. Its mid-20's right now but should be mid-40's this afternoon.
I'm becoming more comfortable with the ct every time out. Rode last week with a friend who said he didn't notice any difference in my riding style or speed. Since I lower the air pressure to 34lbs much better ride. At 40lb it was "harsh." Seems to track better now with less effort to hold a line......or am I just getting use to it?
One of the guys on the Darkside forum suggested a good way to try different pressure is to find a nice "sweeping curve", run it, lower the pressure, run it again at the same speed, looking for difference in handling. Might be fun.....

[macmac]

itsemt, No......

dkdixie , IMO 40 psi causes over steer, and you are slowley working to understeer.. You will like the feel of understeer better, much better in time.

What works on other frames by make, doesn't mean it will work on Vulcans.

Over steering in this case means the rear acts too fast to in puts, and a point comes somewhere maybe around 60 psi you could no longer controll a straight line.

IMO at much over 40 psi you can get right up on that hard sharp sidewall corner because the tire carcxass won't flex, which sort of causes the tire to roll like a coin...

Lower psi allows the tire to flex which a radial should do in the first place. This slows steering,

Each time you drop psi a test should happen to see if there is any other unwanted actions..

I don't know why the rear tire can start a wobble, but I know it can happen. Sharp power curves or the reverse can cause them.

This is common in sport bikes and is called a tank slapper, and is from a harmonic imballance in the forks and geometry common to sort bikes.

The same thing can happen to the rear ends on Nomads evidently, as it happened to me.

The first sign is the feeling that happens when you get in a long crack on the road going the same way you are, except there is no visable crack in the road...

In all case to me this was very slight and if I wasn't looking for it I wouldn't have known about it... On the other hand I rode out a really bad tank slapper once and was taken down for it, so I know what can happen..

There is no counter a man can do to compenstate for this. No man can think and move that fast.. Many men survive to tell the tale, and what ever they did or didn't do might have saved them just the same.

Speeding back up can help, allowing the bike to do what it will do if there is room can help. Usually it is a sharp demand that sets up the harmonic that cause this.. Sometimes that is too much power at once, and or slowing down too fast, and when one wheel is moving faster than, or slower than the other.
(both times on a Nad I was braking sharply after accelerating very sharply.)

Since the CT rear is bigger than the ft , there is more difference in the speeds of each tire than stock, but since on a 1600 these are not the same sizes there is some difference in tire speed there as well.

And then there is that little problem of No pre-load adjustment for the swing arm!

If the swing arm can move side to side which it can on ALL Vulcans, there is going to be a point where this side to side slop gets to have impact on handling..

A bigger tire is going to exagerate this slop. I have no idea why the engineers missed this point, since all other motorbikes I know of have some method to adjust pre-load on swing arms.

[Kawhead]

GOOD GRIEF Y"ALL MAKE A GOOD SELL!!!!!!!! I sit here and read and the tiny gears and cam followers are clicking to justify tossing the Metz and the 2 or 3 K miles with it. Maybe as a short term "fix" I can go ahead and order it.

I'm going to put it on myself, I've seen it demonstrated on you tube and if he can do it so can I.....and better! I have a buddy that has a shop but he's strait business and I want to remain friends so I'll do it myself.


Do the CT's have a dot on them that indicates the light spot?



Slow down o all this information.............I'm 'bout to buss a spring

[macmac]

Yeah there is a dot, sometimes more than one dot. I don't know why that is... My CT has 3 dots 2 white one red. I assumed the red one was 'it'...

If your buddy is all work bring him the tire to mount and pay him. Toss in a 6 pack anyway just because..

Still you can take and should take the time to service that swing arm. The book calls for that at 7,000 miles anyway and there after each 7,000 more.

I am willing to bet money no one with a car tire to include me is going to tear down at that next 7,000 miles so make it right....

I don't know how long it will take in miles to wear a CT out, but what ever that is, it will be past 14,000 miles and might be passing 24,000 miles.

For sure it won't be any weasely 8,000 miles...

The first thing you want to KNOW is if that U joint is any good.. There is a heck of a lot of bad joints not properly lubbed at the factory! If this first service is by-passed a rider might not live to see the next 7,000 miles end. If that joint goes to bits the first thing that happens is the rear tire locks up with no warning.. It will never turn again, which might not matter because that rider just kight be dead.

Then that sudden of a lock up is going to mash the clutch the tranny and probably the engine, so there woun't be much to save there, not to mention the rest of the bike in a bad tumble, and if that happens at 45 plus there is going to be a rear end first bad tumble.

This has nothing to do with a CT or a MT... it is all about knowing that U joint is any good in the first place.

I had a bad one on my 01, but this is no 01 only problem...

People talk about chips and burrs, and I don't know about that... My best guess is that when it was grease time for these joints that they were air bound and 2 planes on the cross yoke never got any grease at all. I have seen this happen many times before..

When I grease these to install I pinch off one pair of the yoke and pump grease into the cross, untill grease comes from the plane not piched off. Then I pinch off that greased plain, and get grease to feed into this pair.

That is bleeding, and so now there is no more trapped air. If then the U joint has any fitting, it will feed grease into all plains, on any lubing application there after.