Claude confuses socal supermoto with motorcycle weed bowling…
What: Omega neck brace
How much, $270, ebay.
There are certain peices of riding gear that once you start wearing them, you can’t remember how you rode with out them. This is exactly what happened with my new omega neck brace. Now anytime I’m on the bike without it I keep imagining landing on my head and seriously tweaking or breaking my neck. To get the idea of what I’m talking about ride down the street with a half helmet. If you’re used to a full face it’ll feel like your face is destined for the cement. Being a cheapass I initially tried the evs neck brace which was an utter nightmare. It was so restrictive I couldn’t even look through the turn! The omega is fully adjustable, offers real protection, and practically unnoticeable. Highly recomended.
Tire review: Bridgestone bt003rs.
We rode a new set of bt003rs 150/120 at both grange and adams for supermoto trackdays. Intermediate rider (slow fast guy, or fast slow guy), pretty much bone stock drz. 23psi front and rear.
Price. Dirt cheap. $90 for a front, $108 for a 150 rear.
Grip: At peg grinding angles, I never remember losing the front. Despite this I never had a ton of confidence in the tires due the fact that they felt like a hard tire. I chalking this up to a pretty soft compound but a well known stiff carcuss to the tire. This isn’t a issue once you just start trusting the tire. For the price there was plenty of grip.
Wear: Only used for two trackdays, but at the end of those days the tires show virtually no wear suggesting a very long lasting tire. The smooth slick track at grange never really does much to tires wear wise, but the grippy rough adams surface is a different story. Still the tires look pretty new, no heat cycle coloration or anything
Slide: this was my favorite part of this tire. Unlike distanzias or pilot powers, these have a very predictable slide. To the point that I’d experiment with sliding the rear on exits intentionally, something I don’t usually feel all that confident with.
Heat up: Seemed to heat up quick, and never overheat. ie ideal for the agressive street sport riding it was made for. However they never get real hot and goey like a tracktire. This tire doesn’t roll into the pits with rocks sticking to it, nor does it overheat and start getting oily on you. If I dropped the pressure to get more heat into them they didn’t feel right, ie loud screeching on sliding into turns. 23-34psi showed the best results on the sm.
In the dirt: does it really matter what tire you have in the dirt section?
Feel: Now this is totally subjective. I like a really twitchy v profile tire. My objective was to get one set of these and one set of 2ct’s and compare but everyone was out of the michelin’s. These have a very round profile so they’re very stable (yawn). At cruising speeds this results in the bike trying to stand itself up around turns, which is less noticeable when at a faster pace. Personally the weakest part of my riding is the transition from the brakes into the turn, and a v profile tire seems to get the bike turned in much faster. I love a bike that flops over, stays there, and even requires some input to get it to stand back up. Just seems to make the bike feel so much lighter. This is definitly not the case with the very stable/predictable bt003’s. If you like a sticky and stable tire, here ya go.
Overall: Amazing tire for the money, good grip, good value. Next time I’ll experiment with something a bit more race oriented, like the michelin power ones, which at the time are just way to expensive for our use of the tires. No regret’s buying these. I’ll be racing on em at Qualcom on the 15th.
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This wheel has been on three bikes, and through a house fire so I treated it to some fresh rattlecan:
and then bolted it to the new test bike! 06 tw200, custom fork brace, sm fender, 17″ front, taller gearing etc:
2007 Yamaha tw200 trailway. These bikes are famous for being easy to ride, and virtually bulletproof. Details:
- All original, except some plastics converted to black. Will throw in round headlight and mounts if you prefer the japanese style tw/scrambler style
- Fresh tuneup: cleaned carbs, valve adjustment, oil change, lubed cables, etc…
- Only 1500 miles on wheels/tires
- 8000 miles
- Some scratches but mechanically sound.
- See full size images here: http://socalsupermoto.smugmug.com/Motorcycles/2007-tw200/12336159_yejge#881128663_4bRZ3
– $1999 FIRM. Call Brian at 619.224.6686
Heres her 69′ triumph trophy! It sat for a year so I went to her place, cleaned the carb, kicked it for a hour, and tada! Man it felt good cruising around the neighborhood on that thing.
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