ericm

I took all the extra wiring stuff off my '03 SY250. I only had to cut one wire, and I could solder it back up if needed. I did have to slit some of the protective plastic tubing so I could unravel the whole mess though. I also removed the black cylindrical thing (which I beleive is a battery eliminator type capacitor for the lights). Removing all the junk moved me up a level in my local club!. Ok, not really, but it does make working on the bike a bit easier.

I use Denso Single platinum 3166 K16PR-TP11 (recommended by the US importer) that I got from sparkplugs.com. Can't tell you how long they last 'cause I haven't had to replace one yet.

In 2002 or 2003 FIM announced that in 2005 two-strokes would be restricted to under 250cc and in 2006 would be banned alltogether from world rounds. At the time the regulation was on their web site. I beleive that they have softened their position since then. Here in California there isn't any state goverment rules to ban two-strokes. But there are emissions regs for off-road bikes two and four stroke. Bikes that don't meet them get a "red sticker" and can't be ridden on state or federal land during the summer. No current two-stroke meets the "green sticker" requirement but the technology is there to do so (i.e. Honda EXP-2 and CRM250) should the manufacturers wish.

The Chinese are already making good trials bicycles (Echo, Zoo, etc). In fact most good bicycles come from China now. They are doing some pretty high end bikes-- titanium (with nice welds), carbon fiber, etc. Most of the marque name Italian makers are having some or all of the actual work done in China. If there's a market for making trials bicycles there's a market for trials motorcycles. It's only a matter of time.

My '03 SY250's front brake is kind of weak. The lever comes in quite a ways too. I've changed the fluid and bled it, no difference. Has anyone tried the Galfer trials wave rotor? Or the Galfer kit with caliper? Are there better pads I could be using (I'm still on the stock ones). Thanks.

Thanks Les! And Marc for operating micapeak. It wasn't anything to do with viruses, just a power outage that killed my server's hard drive and backups that turned out to be bad. I'm sure you'll do at least as well at running the list as I did.

I rode a tough trials yesterday on the Scorpa. Just a local PITS (NorCal club) trials but the loop was really rough. The OHV park it was held at (Carnegie) is huge and has massive hills. The loop used nearly all of the park. It took me 5.5 hours and I only stopped to rest once. My whole upper body is completely beat! The bike did great though. Most of the sections (and a lot of the loop) had steep loose uphills and the Scorpa motored right up 'em. It seems to be good at finding traction. Which is good because I'm not! I got the CF water pump guard right off so I haven't had any problem but I can see that it's pretty vulnerable. I've been looking for a small container to make a radiator overflow reserviour from but I haven't found the right one yet. There's not much extra room on modern bikes. Eric

Riders! My SY250's shifting leaves a bit to be desired. Sometimes I have to hold the lever a bit to get it to go all the way in, otherwise I can get a false neutral. Happens most often in sectinons of course... that'll teach me not to shift in sections. I've been using Maxima 75wt gear oil (what I used in Betas). I've tried ATF as well. Does 10w-30 work better? Can I remove the lighting just with unplugging connectors and not cutting any wires? If I do, can I get rid of the black cylinder thing? How about the two electronics boxes? Do both stay? I'd like to simplify my bike. How does one drain the fork oil? There's no drain screw. Do I have to take them off and upend them? Where do you run your forks in the triple clamps? Thanks. Eric