Reunited Chris
Senior member
- Location
- Sydney
Vince,Today I extracted a diget and decided to tempt fate and try another club ride on the Atlas. I had al sorts of plans about doing some test rides first but that didn't happen so up at 6am and off I headed to fill the fuel tank first. The last ride had me suddenly stopping after the bike travelled for 5 minutes. I had suspected it was borderline on reserve and was starving for fuel for that reason, didn't even think this last time. And then starting after a few minutes on the sidestand or so I thought. Today I avoided that expressway tunnel just to be safe. And then it happened again. At approximately the same travel time but in a much safer spot the bloody bike suddenly stopped again. Fuck me this again. But this time I noticed something earlier when getting fuel. Everybody drags out the old chestnut of the fuel tank breather getting blocked. When I filled up with fuel I noticed that the fuel tank breather hose, very typical dirt bike style had kinked right on the cap and pinched off. I tried manipulating it so it opened up but that didn't work. So after the bike stopped I pulled it off and the bike started and ran well for the whole ride, exactly 150ks with quite a bit of expressway. My bloody expensive tank bag has a cavity formed that is supposed to clear this breather hose, but apparently not. Easy fix, so simple but also easy to not notice especially if you tick this off with a specific tank bag removing any thinking of this as an issue. I also did an MPG check, I was curious as to how efficient the huge car carby might be, and it's pretty dam good at 48.6 MPG. No idea what that converts to metric, I never swung that way for MPG or tyre pressures. The main issue the bike needs now is for me to back off the rear shock preload so I can get both feet down, the way it now makes the bike very nervous at slow speeds, it steers really fast, it needs to be way more stable especially when filtering traffic. A lighter clutch pull and getting neutral would be bloody good as well.
You might try fitting a light spring over the tank breather pipe to prevent it creasing where your bag sits.
If you lower the rear ride height not only will your feet touch the ground easier but it will also have the effect of giving you more trail on the front thus slowing the steering down. Win win.