PPMPR: Project Poor Man’s Pro Race

[toratora]

My buddy Jon from Secret Society called me up saying there was a ride on Sunday going to Alice’s. I figured I had better get that 15 tooth front sprocket installed.

[toratora]

La bala roja
What I had thought was going to be a Secret Society two stroke scooter ride turned out to be an SFMC (San Francisco Motorcycle Club) big bike four stroke ride. I thought for sure I would get dropped on the higher speed roads, but it worked out mostly okay. Although, by the time we got to Jamison the front brake had faded again. I let it chill enough to enjoy 236 though.


The first leg of the ride was basically down HWY 1 to 84, and up to Alice’s—the local Mecca of moto riders. Most of the ride was rather boring if not somewhat picturesque. It’s just that going straight at close to wide open on these bikes isn’t much fun. Replicas need corners! Once on 84 though things got a lot better.


From Alice’s it should have been a nice hop though Pescadero to Duarte’s Restaurant, but the group got separated, and someone’s non-iPhone directed us to the east side of 84. This was eventually corrected, and we headed the proper way. I wasn’t particularly remiss though as there’s been a lot of work done to this section of 84 making for some nice fresh pavement.

Once corrected we rode the west side of 84 connecting to Pescadero. I almost always ride up this road so it was a nice change to ride down it this time. Featuring a bounty of curvy goodness Pescadero is an excellent route—even for the bigger bikes. Upon our arrival we were greeted by the rest of the group, some locals, and people fascinated by the Replica—I was the last one to the lunch table due to entertaining said interested parties. The city of Pescadero hosts a population of around 450 people. The local gas station is always a hub of activity, and the local coffee shop has a nice Morini feature in the window display. Pescadero is a good place to visit with your Replica.


After lunch most of the group headed north on the coast highway back to San Francisco. I felt that to head home now while being this close to 236 would be tragic. It turned out that Clay, and his son AJ were headed to Bolder Creek, and so the three of us headed out together enjoying some of the area’s finer roads.

We started off with Butano which begins with a rather long straight, but quickly turns into lush twisties. It use to be full of nasty pot holes making it one of Doc Wong’s favorite torture tests, however recently there have been numerous repairs turning it into a perfect experience for the Replicas. Butano eventually emerges at the Coast Highway providing yet again another long stretch of very pretty, and very boring top gear wide open riding until Bonny Dune is reach. There we headed west again with the beloved twisty action.

From Bonny Dune we connected to Smith Grade. Here I led and while it had been well over a year I still knew some of the nasty gotchas, bun only some! There are a number of hidden natural sleeping policemen that can send you right out of your seat if hit at the wrong angle. Smith is a challenging road for any bike, but particularly so on sport bikes—even the light weight replicas. From there we connect to Empire which for the Replicas it’s okay, but not particularly exciting. Lots of shifting for the inclines, but not a lot of twisties. It is from Empire that Jamison Creek road is found, and this one has a propensity to destroy the front brake on my classic GPRs. Clay expected me to lead down Jamison like I had with Butano, and Smith, but I just couldn’t pull it off as I had to take it very slow due to the lack of front brake ability.

Jamison lets out on the tail end of 236 which we took into Bolder Creek. I do this for two reasons. One to gas up, and two to provide the much needed respite for the front brake. We got a couple of photos, and the guys headed off leaving me to enjoy my favorite Bay Area road—236.


By the time I got to Big Basin for the 236 riding I was quite tired. I was quickly invigorated by the curvy smooth tarmac as I ascended the mountain. I probably should have jumped off the bike numerous times to take photos for my dear readers, however I just couldn’t bring myself to do so. I did stop at the Big Basin sign, and at the 236/9 sigil, but that was all I could do. The road just begs to be ridden. I know I say this all the time, but I am totally dumfounded that this road isn’t crawling with Replicas buzzing up, and down it all day long.



From there it was up the Nine, back to Skyline where I arrived at STP (Woodside Skyline Trading Post). This is one of the main watering holes (refueling stations), and a must stop on most adventures. I had noticed that their H2 station was up and running. This is very exciting as the future of motor vehicles will revolve around H2. To me this is very exciting. E-bikes are the future, but batteries totally suck, and the fuel cell is really our only hope to keep motos as free and wild as we have been enjoying for over one hundred years.


While I was fueling up the GPR a large crowd circled the Derbi. It is as if people had never seen a two stroke before. I was able to snap a fun photo, but most of the guys were too shy to remain. Those that did though had an awesome sensor humor as you can enjoy from the photo.


Earlier this year the Crystal Springs dam reopened. It had been nearly a decade of closure, and I was quite excited to check it out. On the way home I chose this route in order to get some photos, and ride the bridge. They did a wonderful job creating the dam, a walkway, and new twisty bit of road.


I know you are all waiting to find out how the bike with the Stage6 kit performed. Clearly it did well to keep up, and challenge the bigger bikes. On the last stretch of road I was passed by a late model R6 and a 500 Honda. They went down Skyline at Daly City. Even though this is a mostly straight bit of road I was able to out ride them with the GPR. Now the top speed isn’t anywhere close to what those two bike can, and did achieve, but they were not able to drop me, nor could the keep with me in the corners as I was able to pass them quite easily. Yeah I know they were probably super green riders that had no business on such bikes—with that I would totally agree. Still they do represent the typical neophyte, and they could not outride the GPR.

The bike has a lot of power, but it is rather difficult to tap into it. The fifteen tooth sprocket did help quite a bit by smoothing out the power delivery, but the initial opening of the carb was frequently met with a jolt. It’s possible this could be tuned out with a more appropriate needle, and running the chain a bit tighter. Mostly though keeping the bike in the power band is a lot of work. This probably would have been slightly easier were I able to employ the tachometer—this was inhibited by the previously mentioned battery issue. Kept in the power band the engine would spool up wonderfully pulling the bike through nearly every situation. Riding with the four strokes was typical in that their style would frequently push me out of the power band. I hope they weren’t too upset when I sped past in order to keep the engine on the pipe!

Should noobs get this kit? I really don’t think this would be a proper kit for them as they might not ever master it without first training on a more agreeable kit. For someone skilled wanting lots of power, without much need for stop and go traffic this kit is amazing, and a whole lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoyed the bike the entire day, but it was a lot of work to keep it in the zone.

[Rj_666]

Sounds like A (TIRING) BLAST !
Great ride review - Thanks, Tora !!

[toratora]

Today it was hard to do anything but lounge. My body has suffered this past winter, and wasn’t really ready for such a ride.

If you make it down for GPR Camp this year you’ll get to enjoy three plus days of wonderful twisties very much like these.

[toratora]

On the Earth Day ride I had some issues with the front brake. Actually, these issues started up quite a while ago on a Doc Wong ride, showed up again on the SFMC ride, and really got sketchy on the Earth Day ride. That morning I was hesitant to take this bike, but the other ones weren’t ready for this sort of riding. I figured if I were careful it would be okay. But even riding out to the Chevron station proved to be challenging as the front binders were getting stuck.


I was managing it fairly well until we got to Bo-Fax, and it starting being an issue that could not be ignored. I stopped to let the brake cool off. After a bit of time we started up again, and the front had completely gone. With a fair amount of pumping I was able to bring it back. The scary thing was how much confidence I was able to put into that front brake on the rest of the ride home. The bike was running so well that I couldn’t resist the temptation.


Now there are plenty of options with which I could deal with this situation. I did find the proper rebuild kit for the stock caliper on EasyParts (which I have on order). Bill and I have been checking out making an adapter to employ the AJP radial caliper on a 300mm disc from the newer bikes, but that’s proving to be trickier than expected. Now Dave has posted up the Yamaha caliper setup with his bike, and that gave me a bit of motivation to do some investigation.

The Yamaha caliper is a proven mono block system that is very inexpensive. These calipers can be found on eBay for under $20! It was very tempting, except for the blue.


A very popular brake upgrade for a lot of bikes is the Brembo 4 pot axial. They come in a number of different configurations, mostly color, and logo, but are basically all the same thing. These range in price from $30 to $200 depending on condition. For $200 you can actually find a NOS unit! I was able to find a nice black one from a MotoGuzzi of all things for under $100. Ed assures me that with a templet, a band saw, drill press, and a bit of finesse we can make something “ugly” that will work. Obviously I’m not really down with the “ugly,” but there’s not a lot of time before GPR Camp 4, so “ugly” will have to do!

I also wanted to upgrade the 260mm disc to the 300mm from the newer bikes. The EasyParts price of a stock disc was only a little bit less money than going for the nice NG disc found on the Mononoke and Red Rocket bikes (and now on Dave and Amaya’s bikes too). Because of this I went ahead and ordered another one from brixiamoto.


While investigating adapter ideas I did see that this caliper has been available in red. Now that would be awesome, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to source a red one. I did find an example of an adapter on We!Bike that looks very similar to what the GPR will probably require—it seems at one point the CBR had a similar mounting setup.

Either way I should have something working soon. I will be rebuilding the bike still running this caliper as it has been close to twenty years for each of them, and they probably need the attention, and hopefully this Brembo project will work out nicely.

[Dangerous Dave]

Upgraded disc and caliper

I've never had a moment of regret since I put the big brake stuff on my GPR. I had one of the Metrakit floating rotors on it with the R1 caliper, after my buddy made the caliper mounting adapter for me.

The Metrakit rotor actually had a NASTY pulsation when I first got it. I had to take the braking ring off the carrier and have it surface ground at a machine shop. It was good after that. When the 50 died and I was riding the 125 all the time, I swapped discs and put the floater on the 125, and the stock 125 disc on the 50.

When I sold the 125, it wasn't worth the effort to me to swap them back. Once the 50 was back up and running, brakes were very good, but damn, that stock 125 rotor was butt-f*#cking ugly! I bought one of the NG floating rotors. Now that the pads have bedded in to that rotor, life is good. The Brembo caliper is sexier, but the R1 caliper gives great power, feel, and modulation, and it cost peanuts. I'm good with that. Even better that TT found a MUCH better price on the NG rotor than what I'd been finding (HALF the price)!

[toratora]

This is going to be interesting. I've had Brembo masters on the GPRs, but this will be the first Brembo caliper I’ve installed on one.

[toratora]

Derbi de Mayo is in two more days, and I have yet to get a ridable bike prepared! The PMPR is the most likely candidate, but it still has issue with the front brake, and there’t not enough time to fashion the adapter bracket before the ride. So the next best thing is to steal a working system from another bike. That’s what I attemped today, but it didn’t work out. I expected that I could take the front brake setup from the track bike, and just use it for a bit. Everything went well until I tested it, and found it leaking at the master.


Removal of the current system. Basically once the parts were free it was easy enough to thread the master through the fairing. This is much easier with the stock unit. The Brembo was much more difficult to free up.


The pistons on the caliper look to have some corrosion on them.


The track GPR became the donor bike. Unfortunately the master failed when I tested it on the PMPR.


Looks like some seapage is coming from the left fork. Then it was late enough that I had to pack it up.

[toratora]

The Freno Disc is on the way. Looks to be hanging out with Berkeley today.

[toratora]

I’m starting to feel a bit like Ed. Late night wrenching in the kitchen in an effort to have a working front brake for tomorrow. Since the brake from the track bike failed I figured I might as well try to get the PMPR's setup more functional. There were a number of issues with the system. The pistons in the caliper were sticking, and the master had noticeable oxidation from this year’s heavy rain.


A little bit of leverage was required to free up the binder bolts. And a couple photos illustrating the oxidation.


I don’t have one of those fancy tools for pulling the pistons so I had to improvise. The right side piston was stuck, and difficult to remove. Some damage occurred during the removal. The left piston came out swimmingly.


The damage wasn’t too bad, but I still ended up sanding it down so that it doesn’t tear the seals. I’ve got some kits on order so the seals and pistons will eventually be replaced.


Everything got a bit of cleaning before reassembly. It all seems to be working. Tomorrow I’ll put it back on the bike, and hope it works a bit better than it did previously.