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The bikes were looking, well, ….ratty. One email and 20 min later AMR racing was our new graphics sponsor! Damm should have come up with that a year ago.
As with all of our other reviews, I won’t let a little free swag get in the way of a unbiased review, so here it is.
Quality:This stuff is BEEFY. I made a mistake on a front fender piece that I noticed a week later. I just pulled it off, gave it a little heat, and re-applied it. No stretching, no ripping, no warping, it just mounted right back up. 10/10 on quality is all I can say here. They say “world’s toughest graphics” and I belive them. Fortunately/unfortunately my students will be putting that to the test.
Style: Well it was my design, with Aaron from AMR Racing implementing it, So I’m gonna have to say coolest graphics ever! Nothing really to say here, as far as graphics kits go you either like the style or you don’t. I’m really happy with how they came out. When we designed the socal supermoto logo I told my friend Larry I wanted it to look like a late 60’s flat track poster. For the graphics on the bikes I wanted the same thing, yet to match the more modern lines of the bike. “16″ and “27″ are my kids birthdays. They came out exactly how I wanted them. I’m very stoked to have the school bikes looking the same.
Install: Honestly install was kind of a pain simply due to the load of doing multiple bikes, but can’t blame AMR here. I of course didn’t follow the instructions. There is a technique where you use soapy water and squegee out the air bubbles to get the proper allignment. I just wasn’t feeling it, and was having pretty good luck doing what I always do and using a hair dryer and credit card. If I was just doing one bike it would have felt pretty easy. Problem is I don’t have any patience as it is, and I was doing more than one bike. The project soon turned into feeling like a job. But if there’s one thing you don’t want to rush this is it. I solved the problem by just doing one or two pieces at a time over a week or so. There might be a little bubble here or there, and a piece that isn’t aligned perfectly, but overall the install came out nice and clean. It just took some real work, key is to give yourself time.
Fit: Here’s where I was really impressed. These guys have done their homework in the design of the template. The larger pieces are divided into multiple pieces which makes the installation process way easier. Also every single piece lined up pretty much perfect. Had one issue where the vinyl cutter missed a minor cutout. I did it myself with scissors, problem solved. With all the pieces and curves I can only imagine the work it took to get the template right, and they nailed it.
Wether you’ll want a set will of course come down to wether or not you dig what they have. Fortunately they have a lot! It’s pretty easy to get lost in their site, you can check it out here:
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June 10th Adams
June 20th Adams
June 24th, overflow if other days sell out
Keeping the donuts fresh and sticky…..
MOTYdesign tire warmer review
Story #1: Our buddy John shows up to the track with a brand spankin new husky 530smr with fresh slicks. John goes out to warm up the tires, highsides on turn #2, and shatters his knee.
Story #2: Some kook that owns a supermoto school in San Diego takes out the school bike to warm up it’s michelin pilot race tires. Knowing that the tires are cold he takes turn 1 at about 10mph. Thinking he is done with the turn he gives it some gas on exit, bike spins around, and the instructor tears a ligament in his thumb. Spends next month braking with his thumb on the top of the bar, and immediately calls MOTY for some tire warmers.
What both stories have in common is both were experienced riders who know better, and yet were still “bit by cold tires”. Accidents are frustrating. Easily avoidable accidents are flat out annoying. Both riders using tire warmers would have saved a lot of money and hassle.
I tested the MOTY digital tire warmers at Adams motorsports park. In the interest of full disclosure MOTY is a sponsor. We’ve been using their batteries for a year and really dig em. These warmers had a few features that seperated them from standard warmers.
- Good build quality. They had a bit more fabric to them and felt beefier that other warmers I’ve used. Only downside to this is that they occasionally rubbed the chain, or the fork guards. Totally liveable, and it felt good having warmers that easily wrapped around the edges of the tire, thus keeping all the heat in.
- Velcro for attaching to the tire worked well, and without issue.
- Same pricing as all other quality warmers on the market,
- Digital thermostat! I recently rode Han’s crf450 racebike after taking it his single temp tire warmers. Despite the tires being at the right pressure the rear was sliding on the gas/turn exits. A few laps later the problem went away. It would have been really nice to be able to bump up the temp of his warmers, so that the tires would be good to go on the first lap, not the 8th.
- Digital Display of set temperature (blinks), and current tire temp. This by far turned out to be the best feature for the simple reason that you could tell when they were on! One time the extension cord pulled out of the wall, and another time the fuse flipped on the outlet. The display going out is what kept my students from heading back onto the track with cold tires.
If you need warmers, pick up a set, you’ll dig em. MOTYdesign is good people, and you can find em here. Tell em Socal Supermoto sent ya and they’ll hook you up with free shipping, or free shipping and $20 if you pick up a battery too.
OK, this has been on the to do list for a while. Only took me 8 years to finally make the dmv test video. Buvez!
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