elizilla

The electric scooters don't whine at all. Even at top speed I could hear the announcer, and the gas scooters around me on the course.

It was the coolest thing ever, and I can't wait to do it again!

Pictures are finally starting to become available so I have put one into the post. I know HS likes these things to lead with a picture. :)

I have re-read my message, elizilla. I don't think I was proposing a regimen, but rather stating what has worked for me. I'm glad your experience with shaft drives has been so much better than mine. I still have 3 shaft drive bikes. None of them are the brand with which I had so much trouble. It was indeed fortunate for you to have a parts bike with a compatible, usable and free final drive. I doubt many are as lucky as you were. My comparison works for me, which was all I intended to say. It's based on 60 years of riding, more miles and bikes than I can count. R~

This chain oiler blog was an effort to provide some real information and real data, so people who are interested can find out about them. If you don't want a chain oiler, don't install one.

I'm not angry at you for challenging me, but I've had this exact conversation approximately eleventy-seven-thousand times. You can learn a lot from talking to older riders, but nothing they can tell you is the same as firsthand experience. I took the time to find out about chain oilers for myself, and found that while there are hurdles to overcome, they do work for their intended purpose, in my actual real life riding. Occasional WD40 does not.

As for the shaft drive, well, that's completely outside the scope of this blog, which is about chain oilers. If you want to argue about that, start a new thread. You won't convince me there either, but you can probably get more support for your position than I will for mine, since most VFRs have chains and this is a VFR forum after all. :)

I don't typically throw wet blankets. Please forgive. I'm also way into simple is better. Plus I'm aged and would tilt the demografics of this illustrious list; should the number be known. With those caveats and outright pandering here is my general lack of chain maintenance, i.e. I semi-occassionally & every so often, spray WD-40 on my bike chains to retard rust. I do nothing else, other than adjustments. What works for me is O-ring/X-ring chains with their sealed at the factory lubricants. I typically get ~25k miles out of whatever chain and sprocket arrangement is on any given bike. For me this is good enough and fussing with the mess created by actual periodic chain maintenance is questionable.

How long does your chain last compared to the next rider? Our data will vary relative to riding style, motorcycle, wheel alignment and environment.

A question not asked, but perhaps pertinent to those believing a shaft drive is the way to go. "Low maintenance", many will say. Perhaps. But when something does go wrong, hang onto your wallet. Be close to a competent dealer. Pray that the parts are available.

R~ Ducking and running.

Yeah, I've heard this sort of thing a lot. After trying every regimen proposed by folks like yourself, replacing seven chains in six years, and after having to replace a chain in a motel parking lot 2000 miles from home in the middle of a cross country trip, I concluded that my mileage definitely varies. I believe I gave chains a very fair test, and they were not working out for me. The chain oilers were my last ditch effort to make my peace with chains and I think they work - I'll definitely use them again.

As for having a shaft drive fail, well, I weathered one of those a few years back. Swapping in the final drive from a parts bike took less than an hour and cost me nothing. That was the only shaft drive failure I ever had, and I don't think that one would have failed if the moron who owned the bike before me hadn't run it for 30,000 miles with no grease on the splines - I found crumbly rust and lots of wear in there the first time I changed the rear tire. I added grease and they went another 50K before they stripped. My other shaft drive Hondas went over 100K and were killed by other things (crashing, dropped valve, bottom end failure), leaving me with final drive parts ready and waiting when I finally needed them. It's nonsensical to compare a shaft drive failure, to a single chain and sprocket set. You have to compare it to dozens of chain and sprocket sets, because that's how often they each happen.

But if you're happy with your chain care regimen, more power to you! It all comes down to how much you ride and in what conditions, and what tradeoffs you are willing to make.

Thanks Trav. I just sent you a PM.

Jon, the oil has gotten dumped onto the rear tire, repeatedly. So whatever the problem is, it's not a one time deal.

MikeC, the oil on the tire surface does worry me. I've turned the oiler down even farther, and chain guard mods are on my list for this winter's projects. But even as it is now, it's less work to clean the tire periodically than it is to manually clean and lube the chain all the time. I'm hoping I can eventually get it perfectly fine tuned, to get the oil to stop going onto the tire.

Swimmer, how many miles have you put on your VFR with the Pro-Oiler, so far? I'm curious to know how quickly you accumulated that oil on your tire. And I'll be interested to hear your results as you go, please do share!

Someone not on this forum asked me to elaborate on why I did not disqualify the Pro-Oiler because of the oil on the tire. I'm posting my response here, in case anyone else has this same question.

I don't think the Pro-Oiler is more likely than any other oilers, to put oil on the tire. I think that this problem is bike specific. The ScottOiler puts the oil on at exactly the same spot on the rear sprocket, and pushes four times as much oil through, yet no oil ends up on the TDM's tire. So if I was going to disqualify anything based on the oil on the tire, I think the thing to disqualify is the VFR.

If you look at the rear sprocket on the VFR, it is much closer in to the wheel. The TDM's rear tire is narrower and there's more space between the path of the chain, and the bike's tire. So the VFR's tire would be closer to the flight path of the flung oil.

I've noticed that when I ride in rain, the flung oil on the tire seems to rinse away or wear away somehow. I only see it on the tire when I've been riding in the dry. And I've gotten a few responses to my comparo, from other chain oiler users who report oil flung on their tires, who say that it hasn't hurt their traction any. You can see in the picture that the flung oil is not a thick coating. It's all those narrow streaks. It may be safe to ignore, but half the cornering ability I have comes from my own confidence in my tires, and having that oil on my tire reduces my confidence. So I don't intend to give up on fighting it yet.

The oil is supposed to fling - that's a feature, not a bug; it's what keeps the chain so clean. And I have to say that apart from the drips when the bikes are parked (easily managed by sliding a piece of cardboard under the sprocket when I park), the flung oil from all the chain oilers has been surprisingly low on mess. It's way easier to clean up, than the spray can chain lube, which is creates a tar-like coating that is very difficult to scrub off, and fills the countershaft sprocket compartment with a solid black mass that has to be shoveled out every 10K or so. My bikes look pleasingly clean since I installed the chain oilers, and it's not because I'm working harder to scrub them.

I like everything else about the oilers, so much, that I am going to keep trying to resolve that oil-on-tire issue. Here are my ideas:

1. Dial the amount of oil I'm feeding, down even further.

2. Modify the chain guard, make it slightly longer in the back, to catch a bit more of the fling before it can get out to the tire.

3. Add a step to my gas stop routine, of using the gas station paper towels to quickly swipe the areas where the most fling accumulates. Maybe the tire oil is not going directly from chain to tire, maybe it's getting there by way of some secondary accumulation point. And wiping the heavy fling spots regularly will probably reduce the amount that ends up on my garage floor, so this could be a good habit regardless.

4. Use the ScottOil or ATF in the Pro-Oiler, instead of 10w40 - maybe these other lubes are less inclined to stick to tires.

5. Ride the twisties more often, so I can scrape the oil off my tires before it accumulates enough to be scary. :-)

6. Ride in the rain more often. :-(

Can anyone think of anything else I should try?

I have the same MP3 players, for the same reason. I bought several of them for about $5 each. The silver ones get "borrowed" pretty quick. The pink ones are easier to hold onto.

There's a plan for a roll-yer-own amp out there, google "cmoy" and it'll turn up. I wonder if the one you made is similar?

You can buy cmoy amps on eBay, there are kids who make them in altoids tins and sell them out there.

I've never yet had any audio project that required me to solder, work decently, so I've been sourcing pre-made components. When I was looking for an amp I wanted something that would run off the bike's 12v system, instead of needing it's own batteries. None of the cmoy kiddies were making this, so I ended up buying PIE part LD-1, "Adjustable Line Driver With Subsonic Filter". I've got several now, I just order them from online car stereo shops, they cost about $35. They work fine except they use RCA jacks for the lines in and out, which means thicker cables. No big deal when they're under the seat, but they bulk things up when installed in a tankbag.

Seriously, Trav, I'm slow, I struggle, the skills have never come easily to me. I just want it really bad, so I continue to work at it. I have stamina and independence, so I'm a good traveler, but I'm not a talented rider and I'm not a risk taker. The only reason I don't get left in the dust more often, is because I put in a huge amount of seat time.

soichiro, where do you ride your 100? How do you find places? I live in the city, don't own a place to ride one, but it would be so cool to do it more often. I'm thinking a little dual sport might be a lot of fun, I could take it out on the gravel roads around here.

I am glad to hear it! I have missed you!

...I do not practice this on a street but having said that it has certainally helped my street riding skills and ability to navigate corners with way less of a pucker factor than before, I'm confident I can navigate corners now if i'm in a little hotter than I really wanna be by my learnings on the track. Great write up on your track day experiences and what to expect, very imformative and what I believe to be a must do for any and every sport bike rider, afterall, why do we ride these things over cruisers, speed, excitement and the ability to rail through corners...........it just doesn't get any better.

This is exactly why I want to do this. Well, that, and because it's fun.

I'm probably more cautious on the street than most. But that doesn't mean I don't want to develop these skills. As a latecomer to motorcycling, and a person who has always been fairly slow to pick up anything that requires physical coordination or grace, it's really good to go to these track days and specifically work on this stuff.

Now about that peeing thing outside your truck..................................................................... :P

Next time I go, I intend to set up camp a whole lot closer to the bathrooms! :rolleyes: