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…since I have been without a street bike.  Its wierd.  My garage is empty, clean, and roomy.  I hate it. :) 

The Futura was a great bike and I plan on doing a full review at a later date.  I really had no complaints, and she never left me stranded.  I think its the best sport-tourer to have if you want to ST fast.

Anyway, the new owner picked it up today and created a hole.  That hole will be filled eventually, but probably not for a while.  I have a fancy for the Triumph Rocket III at the moment, but time will tell how the used market has them priced. 

Heh - someone else is going to have to do the heavy lifting

My wife and I were driving somewhere last night and we got on the topic of cars.  My wife said that her favorite car of all time was her first car…err SUV…a Jeep.  She loved to looks and the convertible’s wind in the hair, but I was amused at her number one reason:  “because everyone else in a Jeep waves to you”.  I get that…I completely get that.

If I saw a complete stranger and the only thing I knew about him was that he rode a motorcycle, he would have an in with me.  I think its why the sport, on one terrain or another, has survived in my arsenal of activities for so long.  The  common bond of knowing

It’s a problem I have not had to face in many years due to fuel injected bikes.  Since 2001, I have had Aprilia’s which are all fuel injected and my trusty YZ426 that came to me already jetted.  Now as I go through my YZ450 to get it ‘right’, its the learning process all over again.

As an avid believer in motorcycle forums for the best knowledge available, I am a member of thumpertalk.com.  It seems like everyone and their mother is running a 45 pilot jet and a 165 main jet.  The main has been on since the beginning, but the idle circuit has not.  Starting this machine has been a bitch from day one - cold or hot.

Checking the

It’s been decided, the mighty Futura is for sale!  The bike is in excellent condition with 11,344 miles (edit) and is located in Phoenix, AZ.  The add-ons are as follows:

• Staintunes exhaust with AF1 H-pipe
• Tuneboy module with custom map (passes AZ smog);
• Heli-bar risers
• Pyramid double bubble screen
• BEF fender eliminator kit (powdercoated satin black)
• Grip heaters + heat-troller
• Braided front brake lines
• Throttlemeister
• Upgraded alternator, ‘brown connector’, & quick-disconnect
• Two extra power outlets
• New Dunlop ‘Roadsmart’ set to be installed
• Factory matching hardbags
• All stock parts included

Here’s the bike…

Price - $5800.

I just penned an email to the guy who sold me my current Aprilia Futura.  His condition for selling it to me was that if I ever wanted to sell the bike that I would contact him first.  You can see where this is going…

The bottom line is that I haven’t ridden the bike since November 4th…when I got a bullshit ticket.  The two main reasons are simple:  the new found love for the dirt & the ticket.  I have been trying to go off-roading every weekend since the new year and have almost succeeded.  I’m having a total ball with the dirt bike and I only have to go about twenty minutes away from my house. 

Second, no cop is

I am having to learn all over how to jet carbs on bikes.  It has been since 2000 since I have had to jet a motorcycle.  It sucks at first, but I have a better understanding of how stuff works now.  For an excellent techie look at what attribute of the carb affects performance at a certain throttle position, click here.  I have been using this graph for years now and it is the absolute bomb when it comes to understanding jetting.

I am going through my bike now and trying to sort the jetting. This is the history to date:

1. As purchased (used & stock performance parts with Keep reading >>

Actually, I would consider mself having pretty good luck, but not today.  See my wife is going out of town for one week, with the kids, starting this Wednesday.  I have huge off-road plans for me and my dirt bike.  That might have just changed.

Since we planned on riding on Sunday versus the normal Saturday excursion, I decided to check out the fueling and how easy the bike starts after an oil change.  The bike fired up on the first kick and idled very nicely.  I took my daughter out with me as I rode around my subdivision to warm up the oil to ease the draining process.

After the oil change, I went to kick the bike to get the new

Gone.  I had that bike for about six years now and she treated me well…after my broken ankle of course.  It was a love-hate relationship.  I hated it in the beginning until I spent time researching and fixing the Gremlins in the beast.  Afterwards, I have to say it was pretty good.  The bike never broke down or left me stranded. 

Over the years I learned to predict how the bike was going to react to upcoming events and simply rode it well.  The 426 to dirt was what the 900RR was to the street - revolutionary.  It was the leader in what is now the norm - 4-stroke motocrossers.  It just took a little time to dial it in and the

I finally finished the building of my new (to me) dirt bike.  I decided to go through the entire chassis and start over.  I also did a full service / maintenance on the bike because the previous owner was a tool even though he should not be touching them.

For new parts, I added a full exhaust system, an autoclutch system, a desert tank, brush guards, other protective wear for the bike, new rubber, and had the carb rebuilt by ZipTy Racing.  For maintenance, I changed out the fork oil, engine oil, coolant as well as greased all the chassis bearings.  I figured that I should draw a line in the sand for a fresh start on everything - knowns versus

It happens with every used motorcycle purchase I make - buyer’s remorse.  This time, I am diagnosing my 2006 YZ450F purchase.  For me, its usualy about money.  I got the bike for about $4k and have about $1300 of goodies waiting to be installed.  Doing the math, and considerring future purchases (heh - tomorrow), I’ll have $5500 into her.

There are two bike that are haunting me for very different reasons:

The first was a 2006 that was desert raced at the expert level for half of a season.  The bike was owned by a motorcycle shop owner and well maintained.  It had every goodie that I wanted (I think) except for the suspension.  He was a little heavier than me, but running