If, like me, you ride a motorbike you’ve no doubt heard the many arguments against buying a sportsbike. Things like “the insurance is too much”, “they’re uncomfortable compared to naked bikes”, or “when you drop it it’ll cost heaps to fix”.

While these are undoubtably true, I feel that they’re somewhat superficial, and that there are more substantial, but much less voiced reasons for not getting a sportsbike. I’m talking about road use in australia, so those of you who actually can go over 140kmh without fear of imprisonment, YMMV.

1. Sensation of speed is more important than actual speed. Sportsbikes are fast. No doubt about it. That’s what they are designed for, and they do it well. So well, in fact, that you lose the sensation of speed. If you want to go fast, catch a plane.
2. Acceleration is fun. You want usable acceleration on the street? A naked bike, streetfighter or muscle bike is going to be just as good, or maybe better than a superbike due to tuning for low and mid range power.
3. The street is not the track. Ever tried racing on the street? Can you tell how many 1/10ths of a second faster you are than your mate? I bet it’s not because of your slipper clutch or quick shift. Probably more to do with your willingness to break the speed limit by more than your mate, or your disregard for the gutters, trees and oncoming traffic.
4. If you reach the limits of handling and suspension of a modern naked bike on the street, you’re probably doing something wrong. Learn about throttle control, for a start. If you aren’t doing something wrong, then you’re pushing it so hard that a sportsbike probably won’t extend the limit far enough.
5. Wheelies are fun. Why would you buy a bike with special design features to do things like limit wheelstand under acceleration?
6. The hunched over riding position reduces your field of view, making it harder to look through corners and harder to look ahead for hazard detection and avoidance. Looking through the corners and “you go where you are looking” are some of the fundamentals of riding. With your head down, it takes much more effort to do this than with your head up in a neutral riding position. Hazard detection is a lot harder also, with you more likely to fixate on nearby objects.
7. A bike that isn’t designed for high speed handling and stability, when pushed, will teach you a lot more about riding that a sportsbike will. For example, sportsbikes are set up for a front end weight distribution bias, which increases front traction for cornering. A more neutral bike will have less front end traction, but will be more forgiving (ie front end will push rather than giving way). Shifting your weight to the front will give a noticable improvement.

So, piss off your sportsbike, and get a Super Motard.

Mr Rudd was kind enough to buy me some motard wheels for the XT6. Nice chap he is.

Anyway, I’ve been wanting to do this for years, so I was very excited to finally get it happening. I’ve got spare hubs (one new rear hub, one second hand wheel), which I got motard rims laced onto. I figured this would be easier than cast wheels, since i don’t have the machining skills (or equipment) to make spacers and caliper brackets.

I ended up going through Two Wheel Tyres. Turns out they actually just send them to Ash’s Spoked Wheels. No big deal though, since the two wheel tyre’s price was the same as I got quoted from Ash’s.

I went with a 17×3.5 SMPro rim on the front, and a 17×4.25 SMPro rim on the rear. Both are 36 Hole. I fitted Pilot Road 2CT front (120/70) and rear (150/70), which ride very nicely.

Some issues i encountered were:

• rear tyre rubbing against chainguard – i have a modded FZR250 chainguard, which required spacers and brackets, so this probably won’t be an issue for most.
• rear tyre rubbing against swingarm – some weld seams protruded slightly and rubbed against the sidewall. ground these back to provide extra clearance. installing a few extra links in chain to move wheel back would also probably fix this
• Rear wheel rubs against inside edge of stock muffler. Fitting spacers or hammering muffler in aren’t options (muffler goes inside frame, so too much tension to put more than a few mm of spacers, and muffler is a baffled chamber design, so dints would probably block off chambers causing serious backpressure increases). Good excuse for a replacement full stainless system!
• Due to different front wheel size, the speedo reads approximately 15% higher than actual speed.

At the same time as putting the motard wheels on, I replaced the chain and sprockets as they were completely shagged. Stock gearing is 15/45, and I went with 15/40. My intention was to go 15/43, but the guy at the shop accidently gave me a 40 instead. It is a bit tall, but given that the rear wheel size has changed (130/90, which gives a tyre height of 117mm, vs 150/70, which gives tyre height of 105mm), it is not quite such a large change. It still feels a bit tall, but I’ll give it a chance before going 1 tooth down on the front. I used an RK heavy duty 520 O-ring chain, with a clip type master link. The opinion I got from several mechanics is that clip links these days are very good and never come apart if properly installed. As an added safety, adding a dab of silicon to the clip makes it even more secure.

I also installed a fork brace, which has significantly improved braking power, and stopped fork twist under heavy braking. I got it off a friend – not sure what it is for, but I had to slightly modify it to get it to fit.

Things still to do are get new exhaust system [pic above includes new exhaust - I didn't get around to taking a pic till after!], and a motard front guard. I’m going to go through Motorcycle Exhaust Professionals, and get oversized stainless headers and an oval stainless muffler. They  quoted $790 for the full system, compared with around $1100 from Pipemasters, the other big custom exhaust shop in Brisbane. As far as a motard front guard, I’m going to go either a polaris or acerbis. Morgs’ XT6 motard has a polisport which seems to fit well, but Acerbis seem more common at the local shops, and I’ve heard they are better quality.

Some useful data:

• 17×3.5 front rim is the right size for a 120/70 or 120/60 tyre
• 17×4.25 rear rim is the right size for a 150/70 or 150/60 tyre
• both front and rear rims for the XT600 are 36 hole
• 120/70 and 150/70 rides nicely
• (I’ll include bearing and seal data here soon)

I bought myself a set of Black Diamond Contour Eliptic walking poles recently. The initial use for these will be when I do the Kokoda Challenge in a few weeks time. I bought them from K2 Base Camp in Fortitude Valley.

When chosing the poles, I opted for these ones as they have an eliptical (or oval) section tubing. From my highly scientific bendy tests in the shops, the oval section added a lot of rigidity compared with round section. The click lock system that black diamond uses felt a lot more secure and easier to use (think wet and slippery conditions) than twist lock mechanisms employed by other poles. My impression is that they are simple, heavy duty walking poles.

After my first use, some features which I do miss are a shock absorber, and extended grips. My first use was only a 3 hour hike, but I could feel jolting in my arms, and I think this could lead to issues for long walks if I’m not careful with technique. The extended hardgrips I think would be a bit of a bonus for uphills. The idea is that instead of adjusting pole length, you simply hold the pole lower down on the extended grips. Especially up steep hills I found that “normal” length expended more energy compared with a shorter length. If I was to buy another pair I’d definitely get ones with shock absorbers, but I wouldn’t pay extra for extended handles.

Having not previously used walking poles, here’s a few of my impression on using them:

• They help out a lot for walking on flat ground and gentle ups and downs, letting your upper body do some work
• For steep downhills I felt a lot more stability and I think they took some load off my knees
• For steep uphills they allowed me to transfer load to my arms to give my legs a bit of a rest
• I would never use just a single one – always two, otherwise it would just feel unbalanced and wrong
• The wrist straps are not just there so you can dangle them when not in use – they are used to support your weight through the palms/side of your hands. Same technique as using ski poles. Look it up
• Getting the rhythm right (left foot, right pole etc) actually takes more concentration at first than I would have thought!
• The Tungsten Carbide tips are surprisingly grippy on rocky surfaces. I would not get poles that don’t have Tungsten Carbide tips (if these even exist…)
• With two poles, it makes it a lot harder to get stuff out of your pack when on the move, since you don’t have free hands. As I don’t use camelback style water bladders, instead water bottles this actually has a big impact. I think i’ll need to either switch to bladders, or get a pack that has external pockets for water bottles.