If you remember, I bought a scooter (2008 Kymco People S 200) less than a year ago. It was my first owned scooter after many years of having a rider license, I learned a lot on it especially how to do the maintenance myself.
But I've been eyeing Facebook Marketplace for a while waiting for a good opportunity on a used motorcycle that would give me more riding comfort and more power for highway travels.
In preparation for selling the bike, I took my Kymco to a local waterfront at sunset to take some nice pictures. Sunset and sunrise are the best time for taking shots of your vehicle, not too bright, not too dark and nice golden color. It almost look brand new.
Three weeks ago, I finally found a motorcycle that suited my needs, the 2007 Kawasaki Eliminator (VN250 aka 250V) with only 23000 Km on the counter. It's a 250cc cruiser, quite small of an engine for a motorcycle but I'm not a speed devil and the 35HP, low end torque and 6 speed makes it cruise at Australian max highway speed of 110 km/h very easily. Apparently it's possible to reach 140 km/h with it but I can't personally confirm.
The bike was down in Sydney, 90km from my place so I had to take the train to go pick it up and ride it back up. The trip was not without hiccups. Firstly, I forgot to bring a phone holder so finding my way back home was very interesting, I've taken wrong turns or missed turns several times, having to stop on the side of the road every now and then to check the map. Then secondly, at one point, I stopped the bike to take out the laptop and get an insurance for it (almost forgot). After about 15 minutes, I went back on the bike ready to continue my ride back home but the bike would not start again! When I stopped the bike, I used the kill switch to turn off the engine but I didn't turn the key to off and stop lights and headlights were still on and drained the battery! Luckily, I was on a slope and managed to push start on first gear after two attempts. Pushing uphill an almost 200 Kg bike was not an easy feat for a guy my size.
All went well on the motorway and I got home safely. The bike reached 110 km/h with no struggle, the 6th gear made it very smooth.
Now it's time for some first maintenance work. As you can see on the picture above, some parts of the bike were painted by one of the previous owners and the paint is now flaking. So I've been stripping those off down to the chrome and will be polishing it later on. The rest of the chrome has some light surface corrosion but I got them back to mirror shine using 0000 steel wool, that stuff works like magic.
I decided to change the oil, it was a great idea, it was dark brown. The oil filter was also replaced at the same time. I also checked the tyre pressure and that was also a good thing I did it because they were way over-inflated. The owner's manual recommends 25 PSI at the front and 28 PSI at the rear but it was 40 and 42!
Next steps will be to bleed the brake fluid, change the liquid coolant, change the fork oil and lastly replace the rear suspensions (they seem OK so no rush for now).
Today, someone came to inspect and purchased my Kymco, I finally have some space in the garage to do some DIY work on the Kawasaki. My first project is to make a sissy bar or a top box rack. Then I will make some floorboards and maybe a crash bar if I find some spots to mount it on the frame.
So after almost a month riding the Eliminator here are my thoughts. The obvious things I noticed are that the Kawasaki is less nimble but more stable than the Kymco due to much more weight, lower centre of gravity and longer wheel base and I like that because I want to do longer ride with some highway sections.
Despite having changed the rear suspensions and fork oil on the scooter, the suspension system on the motorcycle was way better, the ride was much more comfortable and probably due to the extra weight, little bumps on the road were nothing when they usually push me off the seat on the scooter.
The Kawasaki front light is also wider, illuminating the entire road in front of me, the beam of light is almost rectangular as opposed to a smaller round shape from the Kymco. For more night safety, I've also added some silver reflective stickers around the bike on places where they would not be too noticeable during the day but would make me very visible at night.
The exhaust sound was great but I made it better (louder) by drilling a couple of holes in the baffler plate it has a deeper sound now although nothing compared to if it was a 500cc or more.
It's a good thing this summer isn't too hot or I wouldn't be able to ride this at all, there were days were it was better to stay inside but we had a lot of very enjoyable days this year and I took some rides after work.
I'm now looking forward to the weekend to do a longer ride to the country side.