By Richard Vohsing One ongoing issue that I still had to face with my FZ was the leaking forks. I had already done a rebuild on them, and yet nothing I tried seemed to stop the gushing flow of fluid every time I compressed the fork. It wasn’t THAT bad, but it was still concerning.
By Richard Vohsing With my trackday over, and the FZ down two cylinders, I trudged my way home with my tail between my legs. The trackday had actually been great fun – I set a new personal best on the GSXR, but I couldn’t escape the shadow that the FZ cast upon the weekend, and
By Richard Vohnsing Saga Part One So, there I was, astride a new-to-me and freshly modified motorcycle, sailing around one of the most daunting tracks on the west coast. I had stepped down a group as to not upset the racers trying to set lap-times, and I was running a set of unwarmed street
By Sergio Laurente I recently completed a replacement of the stator and voltage regulator on my 2008 Harley Davidson Fat Bob FXDF. Since there are plenty of online resources like Youtube or sites with text describing the process to complete, I will not replicate that step-by-step instruction. However, there are a few pointers that were
By Richard Vohsing So, you’ve just rebuilt and modified an old bike and now you need to take it through its paces and make sure everything is working correctly. Smart people would probably idle up and down their street or maybe run some drills in a local parking lot to test everything out, stopping
By Richard Vohsing It’s finally time. After seemingly endless minutes of waiting, my Amazon orders have finally arrived, my calendar is clear, and my boss thinks I’m sick. In other words, it’s time to get dirty. First up is a set of Vortex rearsets. I know, I know, this is supposed to be a commuter
By Richard Vohsing I have learned many harsh lessons over the years – getting a haircut from fantastic sams, confusing yellow snow for frozen lemonade, etc. The harshest lesson I have learned however has been an ongoing lesson – something that has been learned through years of experience rather than a one-time. This may
By Richard Vohsing Fully spelled out, NASCAR stands for “National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing” which I find to be highly ironic – not a single car on the track during a NASCAR race has anything to do with its production counterpart. Hell, the “Toyota Camry” has a freaking 5.9 litre V8.
By AJ Jacobsen So now that I had these side projects partially completed, it was time to see if I could fit both fans. After a fair bit of wiggling and wrangling I determined that was not going to happen. That meant it was removing the stock fan and figuring out how best to
By AJ Jacobsen After moving to Texas in June of this year, I was looking forward to trying to see what might be out there in terms of reasonably enjoyable rides that weren’t hours away from my house. I knew there wouldn’t be much in the way of beautiful twisties, but okay scenery and some
By AJ Jacobsen The San Francisco Bay Area is home to a wide variety of motorcycle riders, from those who are Harley Davidson loyalists, to dirt bike riders, to street racers, to custom café bike riders, and everything in between. With such a diverse range of riders, skill levels, and reasons for getting into
By Ryan McNerney So as you can tell by the title, I changed my tires recently! In a previous post I mentioned that I was running a set of mismatched Dunlops (Sportmax GPR 300 in the rear and a Roadsmart 3 in the front), and I’d need a new set soon. The Nighthawk 750
By Sergio Laurente Yesterday, I flipped through the Amazon Prime Video catalog and came across Dirtbag II: Return of the Rattler. The documentary focuses on group of guys and their process to get a build ready for the Dirtbag Challenge, a San Francisco event where the adventure of hacking and piecing together a ride
By Ryan McNerney Since my first visit Since then I’ve come back for every 4,000 mile service. I’ve also done the brake service class, where I upgraded my brake line from the ancient rubber line to stainless steel. The three hours it takes me to do the service with a brake bleed comes to
By Ryan McNerney Last Friday I received some unfortunate news from the Moto Guild SF email blast. Aleks and Wilder, the shop’s current owners, have decided to move on and sell the business – or close if a new owner can’t be found. I consider myself a relatively new rider with a mere 4
By Talya Adams I don’t know if there’s anything that stresses me out more than money, maybe my mom, but that’s all. So, whenever I have to get work done on my bike, I get very tense and focused on getting the best bang for my buck. My upcoming bike work has been in
By Talya Adams No matter what you drive, car or motorcycle – no one enjoys taking his or her ride to the shop. I don’t think dread is an innate response to the process, instead I think it’s a learned reaction to negative experiences while visiting mechanics. Often when I think of trips to
By AJ Jacobsen After loading up the race bike early Sunday morning, my friend Anh and I headed to another friend’s house to see if he could convince this clutch basket nut to come off. Alan had a full shop set up with all the fun machining tools, and we got set up to
By AJ Jacobsen Back in 2011, I had my first experience with a track day. After winning a spot through my riding club, I had shown up excited, scared, and nervous to finally ride my bike on a track. Friends surrounded me, and that first day was phenomenal, and laid a desire that came
By AJ Jacobsen After completing the rebuild on my transmission, and getting that and the clutch reinstalled in the bike, I had one more weekend of final prep left to do before I felt ready to kick off the season. First up was installing a new chain. While this is a routine task, it
By AJ Jacobsen It was a lovely Saturday morning. The sun was shining, the weather perfect, and I was ready for a weekend of learning some new things about my bikes. I had my service manual by my side and ready to go, my bike on the stands, and space to work and spread
By AJ Jacobsen In December of 2016 I picked up my brand new, fresh from the factory 2017 ZX10R. I was so excited to get my hands on the bike, and could hardly wait to turn it into a race bike and get out on the track with it. I had big plans, and
By AJ Jacobsen 2018’s season preparation is already far underway, and the investments have already started. The biggest purchase (besides my street/B bike) was the Ohlin’s shock and cartridge kits that I bought for the race bike. Thankfully my sponsorships made these purchases a little easier, but it’s still far from cheap. I knew,
We’ve all been told at some point in our lives looks aren’t the most important thing. Mostly this pertains to people’s appearances, however today I’m going to apply this saying to motorcycles. I’m even going to go a step further and suggest looks do matter, especially when it comes to your bike. About a month
It’s that time of year again. The beginning of flowers blossoming, and motorcycles coming out of garages. I recently went to the mechanic to get my headlight inspected, and I figured while I was there I’d get an oil change as well. Imagine my surprise when I learned that I needed to replace my back
How many times have you heard someone say, “Oh, it’s only cosmetic damage?” In the past I’ve heard a variation of this sentiment more times than I can count when shopping for a used vehicle. The seller of course wants to down play the eyesore their bike is sporting, and the buyer tries to decide
Let me first start out by saying that I am not a mechanical person, and I take my car, and motorcycle in, for almost all maintenance. But, there are some jobs I can do on my own – as a way to save money and time, plus to have some level of pride. By installing
If you own a motorcycle, the last thing you want to do is have it die on you in a parking lot, or worse yet, in the countryside. I have ridden for years, and out near the deserts of San Diego, I have had to be towed back to the nearest town, at a high
Do you hate auto shops? Yes? Well, don’t feel bad. Almost everyone I know hates auto shops. It doesn’t matter if they drive a car or motorcycle, as the disdain for going to the shop tends to cause as much dread as a trip to the dentist. I too hate these journeys to the shop.
When bikes come off the assembly line, each model pretty much rolls off one-size fits all—unlike riders, who come in every size and shape imaginable. Fortunately, a bike that comes to you one-sized doesn’t have to stay that way. You can change up a bunch of elements, make key adjustments, until your new bike fits
My bike has been down for a long time. After last November’s ‘car turned left in front of me’ incident, I’ve been scraping money together for parts and repairs. The first thing I bought was a new helmet. It has some WIFI dingus. I got it to talk to my phone, so I can play
“I know it’s been awhile since I last rode this track, so I’m not surprised that some bumps have turned up here and there. But I just feel like there seems to be too many bumps. I’m getting a lot of action on my front end. Can you check it out?” I had asked my