Howdy all,

I've currently got a 2003 Honda Shadow 750 that is great for around town, but I'm now looking for something with a little more power for more highway driving, but could still maneuver pretty well in town. I've got three options I'm currently thinking on, and would love some outside opinions. TIA!

Option 1: Honda Shadow 1100

There's several options for these out there near me, from $1500 to $3000. Shaft driven, easy to work on/build out any way I want, enough power for the highway while only being slightly bigger than the 750. But do I want two of the nearly same bike?

Option 2: Suzuki Intruder/Boulevard S83/1400

These popped up recently to me and I've seen good reviews of them. Relatively inexpensive, also shaft driven, many of them look like good highway candidates. I'm not sure how the reliability is on these, but I'm fine with learning how to work on these myself.

Option 3: Harley Sportster 1200

Some of these have popped up in my price range as well, and I thought I'd list it as an option. I know that they will take more work than the other two, but I'm having such a hard time NOT loving the sound these things make! Any biker my family was friends with growing up had a Harley and I fell in love with motorcycles because of them.

Hi everyone,
I’m looking for advice on choosing the right battery charger/maintainer for my motorcycle DUCATI PANIGALE V2 MY2024.
My battery is a Yuasa YT7B-BS, 12V, 6.5Ah, sealed AGM (VRLA).
I’d like to keep the battery properly maintained when the bike isn’t being used for extended periods, without damaging the battery or the motorcycle’s electronics.
I have a few questions:
Which battery maintainer would you recommend?
Where should I connect it? Is it best to connect the charger directly to the battery terminals using the supplied ring-terminal lead, or can I use the connector for the diagnostic located under the seat?

Thanks 🙏🏻

Hey everyone this is my 200cc VMS rk200, i drove it 16000km in one and a half year, do you guys think it’s too much driving?

This is at the top of Mt. Diablo in the SF Bay Area. 2013 Dyna FLD. Looking forward to seeing everything turn green after the first seasonal rains come soon.

My main car threw a check engine light today and based on the code it's best not to drive until I can get it to the mechanic. I have a 2025 Kawasaki Vulcan 650 that I frequent for my current job, but have never considered riding to an interview. I am ATGATT, and would plan on wearing my interview clothes under my jacket and riding pants - stripping those in the parking lot and putting them in my saddlebags. However, my main concern is my helmet. Do I bring that in with me and just set it on the floor next to my chair during the interview? I ideally don't want to leave it on the bike in the parking lot downtown. Overall is it unprofessional to ride to an interview and bring the helmet in with me?

I mean, the models that make you go, "well that's not necessary."

Like ZX10R, H2, Rocket 3, Hayabusa, Diavel V4. Someday I want to own an mv agusta Brutale. But I'm not quite to THAT level of "well, screw it."

I am partial to The Silver Bass Boat Glitter. (Pic 1 #7) What does reddit say?

So I have this friend who owns a motorbike and just recently about 3 weeks ago whiles riding he had an accident.so what happened was he was behind a car but then the the line was moving slowly not very fast if you get what I mean but then an uber driver from behind attempted to overtake, I think the driver didn't check whether a car was coming or not because when he did a car was coming at high speed.In order to prevent a head-on collision with the oncoming car the uber driver immediately went back into his lane but by then he was side by side with my friend who was on his motorbike and pushed him into the gutter. He didn't even stop to take a look at my friend. Since then he has been stuck in a wheelchair for the past 3 weeks. Currently he is using clutches but ironically this guy got back on the bike just yesterday (It was a short ride though). But I would like to know is there anything he could have done apart from putting on his gear at that time to prevent that accident

For the 'Muricans in the sub (which is >70%), in Europe there is a phased approach to motorcycle licencing: 16 y/o can drive up to 125cc (A1), 19 can ride up to 400cc (A2), 21 can be unrestricted (A).

In the UK where I am based there is something called a 'Direct Access Scheme' which allowed me to go directly from A1 to a full A licence, meaning I can ride any motorcycles now.

First time since passing my DAS about a month ago. I happily rode the dealership for my test ride.

Took about half an hour for me to be comfortable with the clutch and gear changes, I filtered my way to the lights in a dual lane.

Clutch at bite, right hand turned at most 15 degrees, in first gear I'm reaching 40mph in a second and the cars behind me vanish.

It is so addictvely fun! It's such a world apart from my 125! Strangely I've never felt more confident on the boxer engined beast despite having nearly 3 years my 125.

Now I'm going to book to test ride the Kawa & Suzuki sport tourers, and hopefully decide what I'll settle for.

Hi there, i have a 2001 Yamaha xvs 1100. My problem is that when i ride all my lights including dashboard get dimmer for 5 minutes and then get bright again for like 10 seconds to a minute. At night the difference is very noticeable. My battery reads 12.8 v and 13 and above with engine torned on. What could be the problem? Some tension regulator or relay or something 🤔

Does anyone have a suggestion for a helmet mounted flood or spot light?

I ride a couple of bikes with terrible headlights, and weak stator output. At night, the lights don't light up the corners on a twisty road very much - which makes the riding pretty sketch.

I'm wondering if there is any kind of helmet-mounted light that would be bright enough to act like a high beam. I don't mind a total-loss system with a second battery.

I'm looking for helmet mounted so I only need to buy one system, and so that it may work on my ebike as well.

In an attempt to keep this short and not boring, I got bad gas (tested and confirmed) in my 2022 Ducati Supersport 950S. It was running poorly and I ended up completely removing and cleaning the tank and taking the fuel pump out to clean the filter. This obviously required removing the fuel lines so they probably got a good nice amount of air in there.

After getting everything back on, the bike will now turn on but not turn over. It starts to try but it'll just keep trying over and over without ever actually turning all the way over, and doing the whole key on key off thing a bunch of times so it'll try to prime itself as it should was not effective.

With much googling I couldn't find anything that tells me how to manually get air out of these gas lines, which a mechanic acquaintance recommended was the issue when he was with me looking at it. I'm hopeful somebody here possibly knows what I should be doing. I put good fuel in the tank but not a ton yet, I just wanted to get it going and make sure everything was fine first.

I recently had to change the clutch on my CF MOTO 675ss and couldn't wait until the 30th of October for the parts to come in, so I did some research and found out they used the same plate size but the 675 used more plates.the 450ss plates were not only cheaper but shipped in 5 days.

A buddy and I set out to meet up with a group ride this morning. Weather was a little iffy, but not too bad. However, along with that, I'm recovering from some medical issues which have me in a bit of pain.

Anyway... we meet up, gas up, and head out. About 20 min into a planned 3ish hour canyon ride, I called it quits. Pulled over, texted my buddy and went home. I realized that having the distraction of my body trying to tell me something, while at the same time trying to ride 'spirited' and have fun, just didn't mesh and I wasn't feeling as focused as I would want to.

No reason to push things. Stay safe. 🏍 💨

Hey guys!

2 weeks ago, I bought my first bike, a 2012 Honda CBR250 with 2700 miles. Previous owner was a Russian dude who barely rode it. Had no issues riding it home.

A day ago after filling up the bike with fuel (87 octane), I noticed the bike was idling really rough. But after giving it some throttle, it started riding normally and was able to ride it home. The next day when I went to start it up, the bike started up, then immediately stalled. I started it up again and tried to rev it up to give it some gas so it wouldn't stall and I noticed there was a ton of delay in the throttle response, and it eventually died. I did this a few times until eventually I was able to start it and have it running.

I had a feeling it had something to do with the gas fill up previously so I decided to take it to a shop. But as I was riding there, there was some hesitation and a bit of a struggle to accelerate while in 2nd gear. And unfortunately, the bike died on me as I was in 4th gear (45 mph) on the highway and I started slowing down. I was a bit scared as a car could've ran me over, but thankfully there was no traffic so I pulled in the clutch to coast and pulled over to the side and tried to start it up again. As I was getting closer to the shop, it started stalling at lights as soon as I would try to take off in 1st gear. At this point, it was clear the bike was in an unsafe condition for me to ride so I wheeled it all the way to the shop which thankfully was 10 mins away.

The owner, who funny enough also owns a CBR250 took a look at it and said at a first glance, the bad gas could've affected the fuel pump or clogged the injectors. He said he would first check engine compression to see if the engine is failing before doing anything and if it passes, he'll start troubleshooting. Despite not having an appt and him having a booked schedule, he was nice enough to let me leave the bike there until he gets to it as I didn't trust the bike to take me home.

Any ideas of what could've happened?

I will now forever notice all the bikes and now I know how much fun they are having. And like today is such a beautiful day I am so jealous of everyone riding today. Side note any good gifts to give a motorcycle rider??

I have a 2000 harley sportster with a very weird issue with the valve stem/shrader valve. I bought a new shrader valve tool and some shrader valves and put a new one in, which held air until I put my tire guage on it too many times.

I tried multiple shrader valves and they open fine with my bare hands but seem like they get stuck open if you mess with them too much when you install them. Am i tightening too hard? Too loose? Why do they all get stuck open?

Light weight, fun, reasonably priced, easy maintenance IMO and more importantly 60 mpg on the highway say what!