Ttaskmaster

This is why I always advise against modding 125s - Because some ranty bugger will end up buying it and then their impression of the bike, perhaps even motorcycling in general, will be forever destroyed... and then I have to get all scary on them!! "Ferocious, aren't I!"

It was a well-conceived argument, with plenty of sciencey stuff to afford it reason... but when the OP refused to supply further info to give us a context for the argument, instead backing up his sciencey stuff with blanket statements that apply to just about any bike you can imagine, it fell apart and lost all credibility in my view. That and the fact that you don't really come on a Yamaha forum and rip into one of their successful and popular products, claiming it's a fucking potential deathtrap... this isn't Watchdog or Rogue Traders. We deal in fact, proof and real world experience. I don't care if the thing is fundamentally flawed in every aspect of its design... it happens to work damn well for many of us and nothing can dispute that. I put out what I thought was a fairly reasonable and considered reply. If I scared him off, so be it. I scare quite a few people... sometimes I even get paid for it, ha ha!! I'm probably painting myself as Al Pacino in Heat, or something!! "Heh heh... Ferocious, aren't I!"

That's not something he has to defend, apparently, even if it's not (initially) being attacked... But suffice it to say he's in the top 5%! Comeback or not, that was a load of ranty crap... That bike was, by his own admission on his other threads, utterly shagged to begin with and nowhere near indicative of the resulting high quality from the millions of pounds Yamaha spent designing the thing in the first place.

Great to see!! Would the insurance not still pay out, perhaps?

Oh, is that news for me? I didn't realise... So all those tank-slappers and high-sides and myriad other crash-causing design flaws on the various OTHER kinds of bike make them far safer than the Dragstar 125 Deathtrap, do they? What's your excuse for all that lot, then? You're sounding like you just fucked up, crashed your bike or something and cannot cope with the concept that YOU fucked up. Any Cruiser will deck the pegs well before it even considers losing traction and lowsiding. If you're coming off while cornering, you're taking the wrong lines and going in too fast, or simply target-locking. Err... guess what - Bikes coming off corners is a commonly cited cause of crashes, REGARDLESS of which bike you have. You now gonna tell me ALL bikes are dangerous and we should stop riding? Do I? I've seen thousands of cruisers and none of them had any lowside damage... Where's your evidence? Compare that to 6-1200 hoolie bikes which DO have some scratching, most commonly from static drops. Sorry, *WHICH* bike do you claim to own again, boner boy? Did you not also say it was fucked when you bought it? Did you not also intimate that the 'mechanic' was utterly incompetent, yet still found demonstrable issues you yourself, in all your supposed wisdom, were completely unaware of? You haven't met very many then... No really, you havent. Again, that is a large percentage of bikers in general, not just Cruisers. I do also wonder why, if you have SUCH great technique and experience, knowledge, ability and know-how that you consider yourself above the vast majority of motorcyclists... what the fuck are you doing on a 125 still? Why are you buying clearly knackered small bikes and then bitching about it, when a rider of such immense calibre as yourself should surely be blazing up the road on anything between a 600 Bandit, through an R1 right up to a Hayabusa? I mean, if you're THAT good and all... Heck, an FJ1200 would cost far less than a 125 Drag and be a far more suitable bike for anyone who knows anything, much less the *everything* a top 5%-er like you would. What does engine size have to do with it? It either copes or it doesn't. Having ridden both, I can confirm that they cope admirably. Err, yes you do... You come on to a Yamaha forum, having bought yourself a completely fucked Yamaha bike to begin with and then go on to utterly slate said Yamaha bike that is very popular and successful here, without giving any sort of quantifiable evidence to disprove that YOU are not the problem. Many here ride or have ridden the 125 Drag and are very happy about it. You are the only one that seemingly isn't. The evidence presented, statistically if nothing else, strongly suggests you are indeed the issue, not the bike. I therefore legitimately challenge you to disprove it. You're not going to quantify it beyond your own vague opinion??!! I call bullshit. Complete and utter fucking bullshit. You fucked up and are trying to blame the bike, ranting away at the brick wall of evidence that contradicts your misplaced beliefs. It's a discussion that raises the question of your lacking abilities (against the opposing opinion of those here who have had successful experiences with what you suggest are lesser abilities to your own), which thus far has not been ruled out, along with the fact that ANY bike which is heavily abused to the degree your piece of shit was, will also be similarly fucked. But to further the argument you yourself made, despite being utterly fucked, that bike still ran and hit 70mph... By your own statements, it sounds like a pretty well-built bike to me!!

The only racers I ever thought worth watching... and they are SO worth it!!

It's a Cruzah, innit!! You say you're an owner with many years experience... You don't say anything about your service intervals, cleaning or maintenance schedule. Also, you imply you put all 34,000 miles on the bike yourself, from new but don't specifically say so. Can I request a short bit about you and your riding habits with the same detailed precision by which you analyse the bike characteristics, just to establish an accurate perspective? As for the rest - These are just initial thoughts as I read: Rust - Did you actually keep it clean? You can get plenty of brushes, cloths and similar gubbins specifically to reach hard-to-reach places. Winter needs ACF50 or similar, as well. I kept my 125 Drag (2002, IIRC) pristine and never had a single issue. Passed the 30k just fine. Exhaust bolts - That's every Cruiser out there pretty much, innit? Again, keeping it clean seems to work rather well. 30,000 miles - Yep, that's when most poorly maintained Jap Cruisers tend to start karking it. 125, 250, 400, 650, 535, 750, 1100 - Dragstars, Viragoes, Shadows, Eliminators, Intruders, Marauders, I've seen most sizes of all these Cruisers go tits up around 30-35k. They last much longer if you look after them. Steering geometry??!! You're *seriously* comparing the handling of a Cruiser to a Ninja??!! Might as well be bitching about how ragging your Fireblade throttle as if it were a CG125 "makes the front end unstable"...!! I'd normally be really insulting about this, but since I have outridden Sporties on my 125 Drag, I guess I can roll with this... Both my Drags were ridden as close to 600 Hoolie bikes as I could make them, all weathers including snow and ice. I can honestly say that I've NEVER had a serious problem losing rear wheel grip on my 125 Drag (or the 650, really). The 'moments' I've had were all my own fault. First night out on my new bike, I was leant over so far I was scraping the pegs yet didn't think and grabbed the front brake. Second time I again panic-braked but this time on diesel. Final time was simply target lock during a slow U-turn and my knees getting in the way of full handlebar lock, resulting in me clipping the kerb. The only other one was over-revving on very wet campsite grass. Tyres - The 650 Drag has a 100-110/170 front/rear mix (depending on year), which is even worse, so that should make for a fucking god-awful ride, right? People should be sliding off and killing themselves left, right and centre, right? So how come none of us Drag Queens here have offed ourselves by riding such deathtraps? My primary thought is that we understand it's a Cruiser - It has limits, characteristics and features unlike any other bike, so you must adjust your ride accordingly. I like your especially structured approach, but feel you're perhaps expecting something from a bike that is obviously not designed for what you want.

EU regulations? You mean complete bollocks concocted by some stoned Dutchman, supposedly for the entirety of Europe but will only ever be adopted by the morons who run our country? Why not just ban drivers altogether and make people use the excellent public transport service... oh yeah, they already privatised that, liquidated the useful parts and sold the remainder to dickhead companies who rip people off with high prices for shit services! OK, so the young scrotes will now be older when they smash everyone up. How nice... what about the existing middle-aged and old-age pricks who do equally stupid things? What's being done about the 35-55 age range, who are old/rich enough to fuck around killing people in their BMWs and Audis? Nothing? Oh, OK then...

He is... he's traded it in for a 600cc!! 12hp limits what you can do and how you can do it, pretty much down to basic car level. If you need 130hp in order to ride in what you consider a safe road manner, then you're asking for trouble! A 125cc forces you to take your time getting up to speed and for any manoeuvre undertaken you have to observe well the conditions around you, planning everything in advance. Overtakes in particular. Once you graduate up to a big bike, your ingrained 125 habits *do* make you a better rider. You observe and forward-plan, rather than relying on your power to blast you out of trouble. 125s generally don't do much on the 'highway' (once you ditch the L-plates, of course) as although the minimum speed capability for motorway vehicles is 50mph, the limit is 70 and at that point you'll rarely need to overtake very often. Usually - Lane 1 is chugging at 50-60 and Lane 2 is 65-75-ish, with Lane 3 anything up to 90+ and full of dickheads in BMWs and Audis.

With bike stationary and in Neutral, or better yet switched off, sit on and take a normal grip on the throttle. Relax your hand a bit and then twist it clockwise. You should feel tension on your thumb and little finger. Use this to operate the throttle. If it helps, rest your first three fingers on the front brake lever. With a bit of practice, you can use this for hill starts without relying on the back brake. I'm told it's an advanced riding technique, but since I've never done IAM or anything, it's just something I've ended up being able to do. Obviously you won't ride like this all the time. Mainly those moments when you're just covering the front brake. Also, more control than just pinching between the thumb and metacarpophalangeal joints...

I have massive hands anyway but am also used to Cruiser grips, so adding the Puppies on actually meant elimination of cramp from trying to hold grips that were too thin for me. It's also far easier to control the bike and I can just lightly rest an angled right hand on the throttle, gripping only with thumb and little finger.

Since yesterday at 04:27pm??!! He's not Elvis reincarnated, is he?

"How fast does my bike go?" Newbie, but clearly someone experienced with bikes, simply posted that. The forum kicked off, as usual, he argued against the need for polite manners because, "it's the internet", I suggested his ilk were tepid puddles of afterbirth, he started stalking me online... it was a ride!! [laugh]

Accelerate normally up from 1st through 2nd & 3rd, up to 4th. Increase your revs a bit more gradually in 4th and when you hit the top of the powerband, click into 5th. 5th should ease the revving, but not feel quite as responsive as the other 4. Basically, it's your cruising gear. From here, increase the throttle SLOWLY, taking a good 30 seconds to a minute to reach 3/4 throttle. By gradually increasing, you'll build more speed. Just be very aware and leave time for your overtakes, etc. I used to top 74mph on my 125 Drag like this.

Are you short-ish as well, or overly tall? I'm 5' 11" and my feet are only slightly forward of my knees on a Drag. I also lean back ito it, rolling my hips forward until the weight settles. Then you just take the strain on the arm joints, like an archer does and you're good to go for hours. Leaves room for stretching, too. Kinda hard to explain, perhaps, but you do the same thing behind a drum kit. Oh, and countersteering is pulling the opposite bar in, almost hanging your weight off that arm. The main prob I have on the FJ is weight on the wrists. Having broken the left twice and the right thrice, they're not in the best of nick. The seat, however, does somehow put me in a position of getting pins & needles in the nuts... Serious shock first time that happened! Just stepped off the bike and almost fell over!! I never said *I* didn't like the Viagro.... It's just not for me because it's too small without heavy modification. I did try a 535, at least - Mainly because it's the same one Gary Numan has, but he's 6" shorter! I think the main dislike is the upswept tank - It looks like a Dragstar that got longitudinally squished by about a foot, but half the Harleys out there have that too! Besides, the Drag may have the long, low sleek looks, but you do have that space under your carbs for keeping yer lunchtime pasties warm on the ride to work Honestly though - Nice pic. Camera-phone? The grainyness gives it an 80s look, that seems to really suit what is one *seriously* shiny piece of motorcycle!! W-reg, did you say? It looks brand new!

Really?? That slouch-seat thing is more comfy than my FJ!!

You mean this thing? http://www.memphisshades.com/metric-shades/batwing-fairing/metric-batwing-fairing Well, they work pretty well... I just always thought they looked like a misplaced accessory from a '60s Cop Bike, myself... I'd rather aim for something like this:

No no no... you grip the puppies, while feeding the pussy. Did they not teach you *anything* at Biker School?

The big grin comes from when you've ridden 520 miles (ie from here to where I'm from in Scotland) all at once in complete comfort, not rushed in the slightest and are as fresh as the minute you started out! Well, that and long, slow banking as if you're flying a massive bomber... oh, and revving it up with it sounding like a big growly vicious beast instead of a wasp on crack (Sporties all sound like that)!! Plus, the girlies all LOVE Cruiser bikes - Pulling Powah!! I have to explain the FJ1200's stats before the ladies are even mildly impressed...

Great, ain't they!!

You may also like: Mass Effect. Assassins Creed. Tomb Raider (except the new one). Freelancer. PC gamer here too - Love my insane peripherals!! Getting ready to up-spec the rig itself soon... 16GB RAM here I come!!

Crossposted. No worries. Google bit was just my usual cutting humour