Short Test Ride

Rather than drive to work today, I took the opportunity to take the bike instead. It would allow me to assess how sucessful the work on the carbs had been in terms of getting rid of the bad misfire and the "bogging down" under accelleration.

It's only a short journey to work, so I extended it by going over to Chorley and coming back through Rivington. I needed to find some open road to stretch her legs. Once warm, the engine ticked over perfectly, but when blipping the throttle, it doesn't seem "snappy" enough. Anyway, I set off and was more than pleased to find that the bike pulled well throughout the rev-range, right up to 10k. There seemed to be a pleasing amount of power considering it's only a 450 and I knew straight away that I could live with this bike.

One thing that still concerns me though, is the effectiveness of the front brake. It's pretty poor! I'll take a look at it when I'm fitting the new mudguard next week. I tried to buy some front shoes from CMSNL.com but they were out of stock (despite claiming online that they had 4). Looks like I might have to get the originals relined. I also noticed a slight "pulsing" on the back brake pedal, so the drum is obviously out of true. Not a big issue - just a minor annoyance - especially when using the rear brake for slow manoeuvres. The front forks are scaring me a little too! Going over small potholes has them bottoming out all too easily.

Now that the fuelling is sorted out, I'm keen to make sure that the carbs don't fall victim to any crap that's in the tank. I fitted a glass bowl fuel-filter but it was just too damned long. There's very little room between the tank and the carbs and it just wasn't a practical installation, so it's off again. I'll try to find a short-profile filter. I need to!

So overall, I'm pleased with the way that she's running. There's still some fine-tuning to be done and there's still a period of "getting to know you" ahead, but I think it's all gonna be fine.
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