*Following any of the advice in this post may cause you to crash and die, void your warranty, or be ridiculed by the local shop-bros who look like this guy:
1. “You should never try to repair a punctured motorcycle tire.”
Remember the time you picked up a roofing nail in your new Michelin, so you took your Hondawazuki down to MotoMart, and shop-bro told you that you’d have to throw away that tire and buy a new one? Well, Dino came by MotoMart later that day and scavenged your tire off of the garbage pile, plugged the hole, and got another 8,000 miles out of it.
Plugging a tire is fun and easy, you just have to use sound judgement when deciding whether or not a puncture can be repaired. The other day I watched Dino jump off of his SV, pull a nail out of his rear tire, plug the hole without even deflating the tire, and still get his south-end rush delivered on time.
2. “Modern sport bikes have too much horsepower to use the old clip-style master link for the chain; they require the rivet type, which also requires the special rivet-setting tool.”
I call Shenanigans on that. I’ve been using the clip-type master link on my chain and it works great, you just have to install it right. And like the grizzled old trail rider at Renton Cycle Works told me, “Make sure the fishy swims upstream,” meaning the closed end of the clip goes in the direction of the chain travel.
3. “Motorcycles require special motorcycle oil that must be purchased at motorcycle shops, otherwise the wet clutch will slip.”
It’s not about the clutch slipping, it’s about shear value, VII rating, detergents and dispersants, and a whole bunch of other highly technical info. The good news is that “C certified commercial diesel oils” like Shell’s Rotella T Synthetic (which can be purchased at Schuck’s for less than the stuff that MotoMart sells) are probably the best oils for your motorbike. If you enjoy reading about oil-analysis data as much as I do, you have to read this article, entitled “All About Motor Oil” in Motorcycle Info. It’s truly fascinating.
| Rotella | Rotella | Syntec | GTX | Syntec | Mobil-1 | Valvoline | Valvoline | |
| Synthetic | Synthetic | Blend | Synthetic | Synthetic | ||||
| Rating | 5w-40 | 15w-40 | 10w-40 | 10w-40 | 10w-40 | 15w-50 | 10w-40 | 10w-40 |
| pump Vs | 39k | ? | 60k | 60k! | 60k! | ? | ? | 30k* |
| Vs @ -30 | 6400 | ? | 7000 | 7000 | 7000 | ? | 3150* | 6500 |
| Vs @ 40 | 89 | 108 | 89 | 100 | 111 | 125 | 125 | 97 |
| Vs @ 100 | 15 | 15.5 | 13 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 14 | 14 |
| VI | 176 | 141 | 148 | 150 | 152 | 153 | 155 | 148 |
| Flash | 246 | 213 | 232 | 213 | 213 | 230 | 230 | 216 |
| Pour | -40 | -24 | -33 | -30 | -30 | -45 | -40 | -33 |
| Ash | 1.3% | 1.5% | ? | ? | ? | 1.3% | ? | .8% |
| Neutral | 10 | 11.5 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
* = @-20c
! = @-25c
hey forest!! your lookin pretty fly in those pictures!! i will try to lowside at the mono rail sometime when you have your camera out!(just throw a hamburger out under my front wheel)