jmck

In the US we have many so called dealers who sell two or three trials bikes a year out of their garage, and offering financing to the customer isn't an option, so in order to buy a new machine from one of the small dealers, the customer has to come up with a large amount in cash, the truth is financing may not be an ideal way to buy anything, but it is how most high cost items are sold in today's world. To be competitive with other back yard dealers, I will often sell the bikes close to cost, I'm not in it to make a living just trying to promote the sport I love, but this also makes it harder for anyone to make it viable and probably Why you don't see many trials bikes for sale in the large motorcycle dealerships? I am one of the "back yard dealers" that you are refering to, and I am attempting to (eventually) make a living at doing this. I am starting small, trying to pay cash for everything, and hoping to build my business to possibly one day be self-supporting. I have a LOT of money invested in tools, shop equipment, and parts to better service my customers. By selling bikes at near cost you are not "trying to promote the sport you love", you are actually hurting it by doing so. As you know, there is very little profit margin in these bikes to start with, and by selling at near cost, you are not only hurting yourself, but you are hurting me, other legitimate dealers, the importers, customers, and the sport of trials. In my opinion, to promote the sport of trials, the small legitimate dealers need to work together. We are the ones that have the investment in the business to try and make it work...we are the ones that support our customers with parts in stock, be able to handle warranty claims and service the bikes when necessary. Bikes and parts should sell at close to MSRP so we can sustain our businesses to support our customers. You can come to my shop and actually see and ride new bikes most of the year. I try to keep at least one new bike in stock at all times. This year, I plan on having parts and accessories for sale at local events as well as a demo bike for people to try. "As a back yard dealer, I don't want to take the chance and stock a bike that costs $7000 + and at best will make a couple of hundred profit, but is more likely to loose a couple of hundred." My answer to that is maybe you shouldn't be a dealer. I think the importers should tighten their requirements of what it takes to become a dealer. If you are not willing to make the commitment to stock parts and be able to service the customers properly then don't call yourself a "dealer". You would be much better off just buying a bike from a real dealer and actually show support for the sport you love so much. The mainstream motorcycle industry learned years ago that to survive they had to band together and they formed dealer associations, etc. in the attempt to get all the dealers to work together and try to maintain a price structure. It wasn't the complete answer but it sure helped. The importers stepped up their requirements and demanded that the dealers stocked parts and bikes, had training for the mechanics, bought the necessary special tools, etc. The guys that didn't want to make to make the necessary committment did something else. Eventually most of the non-legit dealers got tired and went away. When was the last time you saw a Honda shop operating out of someones back yard? Now, I know that the trials industry and dealers will never have the sales volume of even the smallest Honda dealer, but we can learn from their past mistakes. Trials needs dealers that will step up and make the committment to stock bikes, have parts on hand and be willing to service the customer. In the long run, getting a franchise to sell a couple of bikes to your mates at cost just hurts the sport. Eventually it will cause the legititmate dealers to go out of business which hurts everyone, including the sport of trials.

If you can't find the exact setting, which is always better, a very good setting to start with is to adjust the float height so the bottom edge of the floats are parallel with the carburetor base just when the float needle closes. This is very difficult to explain in writing, but very easy to do once you grasp the idea. I have used this procedure for years in many different brands of carburetors with no problems at all. Always use the factory settings when availble though.

I'd sure like to see him do good, but I think a podium finish this year may be a bit dodgy for him. With the resurgent Rossi and Lorenzo on the gas, the new speed in the Honda and Kawi's, it is going to be an exciting year, that's for certain.

Gas Gas recommends 95 octane. Their tech guy says he mixes 20& ~ 30% unleaded race gas to premium unleaded to get the desired octane rating.

Gas Gas recommends 95 octane premium unleaded for gas, 80:1 premix ratio, your Motul should be fine. Tire pressure depends a bit on the brand of tire and the type of terrain; generally from 3 ~ 5 psi.

Zippy, If we were all riding four-strokes, I don't think you guys would be quite so confused. In very general terms, a four-stroke engine needs only fuel, air, and spark to ignite the mixture to be happy. Fill the gas tank with straight gasoline, kick-start it and away you go. As we are all aware, our two-stroke engines require an additional step prior to starting the engine...that step is to mix some oil in the gasoline so the engine will run longer than approximately three minutes before it seizes and you end up with a one-piece motor. Again, as we are all aware by now, we can't just dump a gallon of your favorite two-stroke oil in five-gallons of gasoline and ride off into the sunset; the oil must be mixed proportionally relative to the amount of gasoline for the engine to be happy. You stated in your last post: "That more oil makes the mixture of oil to fuel richer." If we are discussing the oil portion and refering to the oil being richer than the oil should be stated first. You are correct in saying that "That more oil makes the mixture of oil to fuel richer." , however when expressing the ratio of fuel to oil, the standard is "20:1", or "100:1", (or any combination between these two) etc. The standard implies that in a 20:1 ratio, there are 20 parts of gasoline to 1 part of oil. A 100:1 ratio implies 100 parts of gasoline to 1 part of oil. To express the oil/fuel ratio in the manner that you suggested it would read: 1:20, or 1:100. I would be fine with that, but I think it would create even more confusion for the masses. In summary, let's define richer and leaner in the following manner: (for the sake of this discussion, let us confine the terms richer and leaner to fuel/oil and fuel/air ratios and not the overall wealth of the motorcycles owner...I have been running way too lean for way too long.) For the sake of comparison and possible clarity, I will give examples of richer and leaner in both four-stroke and two-stroke engines. In a four-stroke engine, the terms richer and leaner refer to the engines fuel/air ratio: i.e. - "12:1", "13.5:1", etc. A fuel/air ratio of "12:1" implies that there are 12 parts of air to 1 part of fuel. A fuel/air ratio of 13.5:1 implies that there are 13.5 parts of air to 1 part of fuel. In the above example, the fuel/air ratio of 12:1 is richer (less air relative to fuel) than the fuel/air ratio of 13.5:1 (more air relative to fuel than 12:1, which makes the 13.5:1 ratio leaner than 12:1) In a two-stroke engine, fuel/air ratios of "12:1" and "13.5:1" behave exactly the same as in a four-stroke...i.e. - a "12:1" fuel/air ratio is richer than a "13.5:1" fuel/air ratio, and a 13.5:1 fuel/air ratio is leaner than a 12:1 fuel/air ratio. A two-stroke engine needs oil mixed in the gasoline to complete the combustion process as well as for lubrication of the top-end components, crankshaft, connecting rod, and bearings. (unlike the four-stroke engine that needs oil only for lubrication and heat rejection) Consequently, the amount (and quality) of the two-stroke oil that is mixed in the gasoline has a pronounced effect on the fuel mixture that the engine sees. As we all know by now and are in agreement with, the more oil that is added to the fuel, the richer the fuel/oil mixture is. Please don't confuse the issue by thinking that a 20:1 fuel/oil ratio makes the engines fuel/air ratio leaner; (because a 20:1 fuel/oil ratio has less fuel, more oil, in comparison to the oil than 100:1 does) it really doesn't, because of the carburetor. The carburetor does not separate the amount of oil in solution from the gasoline that the engine sees, it simply provides a fuel mixture to the engine that it recieves from the fuel tank, mixed with air. Therefore all else being equal, a "20:1" fuel/oil ratio provides a richer fuel mixture to the engine than does a "100:1" fuel/oil ratio. Zippy, I hope that this satisfies your statement: And I don't want any "well you know what I meant" type of replies, because if we knew what was meant than there would not be 2 pages just argueing what "richer" means. Finito...

Mr. King, perhaps I can explain this to you in a different manner. You said: 20:1 states that there is 20 times the amount of fuel to the amount of oil, 100:1 states that there is 100 times the amount of fuel to the amount of oil. That part of your statement is correct. 100:1 means that there is more fuel in relation to the oil than there is in a 20:1 mixture. What may be confusing you though, is the more fuel the engine sees in relation to the amount of oil, (100:1) the leaner the engine runs. The inverse is true as well: the more oil that the engine sees in relation to the amount of fuel, (20:1) the richer the engine runs. Please do not confuse all of this with the engines air/fuel ratio, where the opposite is true: the more fuel the engine sees in relation to the amount of air, the richer the engine runs. This applies to two-stroke as well as four-stoke engines.

MSRP on a new Sherco 125 is $6600.00 MSRP on a new Sherco 250 is $7250.00

Let

I suppose that in theory what you are saying may sound correct, but in reality it is not. The more oil you keep putting in the gas the richer the mixture...to the point that the plug will foul and the engine will die.

The valve shims will not wear out if that is what you are asking. The valve clearance will change periodically due to valve/valve seat wear and the shims will need to be changed to maintain the proper valve clearance.

I am not looking for a "my bikes better than yours" thread, but I would like to find out about known problems/issues with the current Gas Gas and Beta models. Please, no bike bashing, that is not my intent, just things like the stator problems that have haunted Beta for a while, fork/shock problems, etc.

The current Sherco factory recommendation is 80:1, which should be the absolute richest that you should ever run your bike. There are some oils that are not designed to that lean, so always try to run the proper oil. It is a good practice to pick one brand of oil and gasoline, stay at one mixture (80:1 ~ 100:1) and jet the carb accordingly. If you constantly change oil brands, mixture ratio's, and even brands and octane ratings of the gas you will never be able to get a handle on the jetting.

In general, are parts availble for the early 70's Sherpa T's? Both engine bits and chassis parts. The reason I am asking, is I am looking for a restoration project to work on and have never personally owned a Bultaco trials bike but have had a hankering for one recently.

Too much oil in the gas will not make the bike run leaner, it will just foul plugs and run like crap. None of this is rocket science, just good common sense. To start with, use a good quality 2-stroke motorcycle oil, run it at the ratio the manufacturer recommends and then jet the carburetor correctly. Trials bike engines are very forgiving lot and will put up with a fair amount of abuse, particulary running on the rich side. However, to get the most out of your bike, both for performance and longevity, it is important to pay attention to running the correct mixture, jet the carb properly, and service the air cleaner properly and regulary. I run our trials bikes at 100:1, using Red Line two-stroke oil and have never had a fuel related problem. I only use one kind of two-stroke oil and stick to one ratio, and use Shell premium unleaded gas. then I tend to get pretty anal about the carb jetting, but that is just something I enjoy doing, and have been doing for the last forty years or so.

don't know if it is availble over across the pond or not, but Red Line's two-stroke racing oil is the best I have ever used. I have used it in Yamaha TZ-250 road racers, Husky moto-cross and enduro bikes, and our trials bikes. It is by far the cleanest burning, best-lubricating oil I have seen. We won the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in 1991 on a 250 Husky running 100:1, and the engine was perfectly clean after three days of testing and racing, with zero carbon build up. In a properly jetted trials bike at 100:1 the oil is nearly smokless and there is almost no build up of exhaust by-products in the exhaust after a full season. It is a great oil, as are all of the Red Line products.

what size engine does the 06 Raga have?

check the obvious things first, kink in the throttle cable, smooth operation of the throttle, grit between the throttle tube and the handlebar, etc. With the engine idlng, spray some contact cleaner around the intake manifold... if the revs pick up you have a leak and that can cause your problem. Not likely but still possible is a lot of wear on the carburetor slide / bore allowing the slide to 'vibrate' and hang up coming down, especially if the return spring is a little weak. I had this happen on an old Bultaco Sherpa T years ago and it took me a long time to figure out what was going. Also make certain that the fuel petcock / fuel filter is clean, allowing the correct amount of fuel supply to the engine. I had a TM-400 Suzuki once that I MADE SURE I never ran out of gas on, (again) as just before it quit running the bloody thing would lean out and the revs would head for the moon, with me trying to hang on until it ran completely out and would quit. Changed into my brown underwear more than once on that bike before we parted company.

Sweet... thanks for the follow up, It may save someone else some heartache down the road.

A streetbike accident and the resulting new career had removed me from motorcycles for a few years, but I am now back in the fold so-to-speak, although in a slightly different role. I had been a motorcycle mechanic for most of my adult life, and had a Ducati, Husqvarna, and Gas-Gas dealership in Colorado for a while. The aforementioned streetbike accident left me paralyzed from the chest down, and although I can no longer ride trials, this is truly where my heart is. I am a new Sherco dealer and also build / repair motorcycle spoked wheels, primarily for vintage motocross, trials, roadracing, and Supermoto applications. My son is going to compete in as many trials this season that we can, and we are planning on holding two new events this year in the Charlotte, NC area. Cannot tell you all how excited and glad that I am to be involved in trials again!

Yes, any threadlocker counts as a lubricant. A rule of thumb with Loc-Tite is to decrease the printed torque spec by 18%.

It may be too late for this case, but remember that unless stated otherwise ALL PRINTED TORQUE VALUES are for dry threads. And, since so no fastener should ever go together dry, remember to DECREASE the torque setting by 18% ~ 25% depending on the lubricant used.

Have any of tried the Sherco 4-stroke yet?

If you had your choice and money was no object, what brand / size of bike would you ride to compete on, and why? How much would dealer / distributor support influence your decision?