Running Good, Not Great
One of the twisties on the Needles Highway. Using the GoPro I’m finally able to get these kinds of shots.
We’re home now from this year’s OFMC ride and while I’m eager to tell you all about the trip, if you’re really hard-core your number one question would be, “how did the Kawi run?”
I can’t give a one- or two-word answer to that. So I won’t.
It ran well. It ran a lot better than it did before Joel worked on it. It did not run perfectly and at times it ran alarmingly. Details:
Ever since this bike has been giving me problems it has been hard to get it going from a start. Once in motion it has run OK, other than dying when I’m coasting to a stop. Those problems are gone. There are new ones.
All Kawasakis, as far as I know, are cold-blooded, meaning you need to fire them up and let them run a few moments before you take off. This one is no different but now it responds more readily to a twist of the throttle than it had been doing. The flip side of that is that when I roll off the throttle the engine does not immediately back off as it should. It continues to run hot for a moment and then fades.
Or worse. At times, though fortunately not all the time, the throttle seemed to stick and every time I would pull in the clutch the engine would race. Imagine pulling up to a red light, pulling in the clutch to stop, and having your engine sound like you’re screaming down the highway. I suspect that at its worst that kind of thing could damage the engine. What I would do is let the clutch out just a tiny bit and hold firmly on the brake. That reduced the screaming. It was probably hell on the clutch.
The rest of the bike was great. I knew there was enough rubber on the back tire for the trip but that I would need a new one when I got home. We actually rode about 400 miles more than I anticipated so let’s say I was definitely correct about the tire, in both ways. When I give the bike back to Joel to put in the needed carb parts and get the bike running the way it should I’ll also have him put on a new tire.
But the bike did me well on the trip and that’s the most important thing. And it was a great trip–can’t wait to tell you about it.
Biker Quote for Today
Life is a big road with lots of signs, so when riding through ruts, don’t complicate your mind, wake up and live life.
Tags: kawasaki concours
