Riding RPM

Horses for courses, and all that. I have a 22 tooth on my 850 MKIII Interstate. This is my touring bike and here in the US you can pile on the miles. My other 74 850 has a 20 tooth, perfect for the back roads this bike lives on. I reluctantly installed a 22 tooth on a 750 Combat for a customer, and it was too much sprocket for that bike. 21 max for the 750's I think.

The Interstate is a touring bike, one would assume to be a highway cruiser. Yet the factory fitted 72 Combat Interstates with a 19 tooth sprocket. That motor can certainly sustain 70 mph all day without stress.

The Commando's isolastics don't start working until just under 3000 rpm. I would expect that people would tailor their gearing to put the isos in play at whatever speed they normally ride at. Yet I've seen no mention of that in this thread. For me, with most riding below 50 mph, the 20 tooth lets me cruise along at 40-45 and not get buzzed to numbness.

I'm 67 and nowhere close to getting old yet. I just feel things more than I use to. It helps a lot with maintenance scheduling.

concours said:

With a little GOOD luck, I’ll get old too.

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I m 78. The reason I never ride a motorcycle on public roads, is because you cannot ride a motorcycle there in the way God intended them to be used. When you road-race a motorcycle, everything is lovely. There are no idiots trying to fine you for speeding and you can use your bike to the max. To me, riding on public roads is soul-destroying. In any case, I am too old to die in that way.

When I first moved to Benalla, I had a Yamaha RD250 LC. I kept running out of road. If I rode it between towns, it would drone on down the highway forever. If I rode it within the towns, I could never find a decent corner. It is all far too frustrating. In any case both of my cars have six-speed manual gearboxes, so I can cruise around in comfort and actually drive them, if I find a corner that looks interesting.
The tightest corner on Winton Raceway is a second gear right-hand hairpin bend. I usually brake about the third of the way into it while cranked over, then get straight back onto the gas while the bike is pointing towards the fence. My bike wheel-spins out of that corner and comes out on the right side of the bitumen. The revs never drop below 5000 RPM. If you get that corner right, every other corner on the circuit is a soda. How can you do anything like that on a public road ?
When I approach any corner on a motorcycle, I know what it should look like. So when I road race, I am usually very safe. When I first started racing, an old expert told me to force myself to go slow and speed up gradually. Another told me ' you need a lot of racing miles under your belt and the bike has to do something for you'.
The thing that puts many guys of road racing is fear of crash and burn. Once you get past that stage in life, road-racing is better than sex. Riding on public roads is like having sex while wearing a condom.

I had to laugh - a while back I was approaching a set of traffic lights in my car, at an intersection where I had to make a right hand turn. I just caught the lights nicely, so I changed down as gear and accelerated around the corner the way a good man should. There was a police car approaching the corner from the other direction driven by a lovely young police lady. So I pulled over while she did the U-turn to come and give me an ear-wigging. She had nothing on me, so couldn't find an excuse to book me. I simply apologised and said I should not have done that, but I had caught the lights perfectly and there was nobody else around me. - But what a lot of bullshit ?

Acotrel you are definitely a one of a kind rider and driver .... carry on Sir !

worntorn said:

Dave, I might be misreading your info.
Are you saying that the bike does 90mph in second gear with a 19 tooth gearbox sprocket?
With redline at 6500, the 19 tooth is topped out at 58 mph in second.
(1.7 second gear ratio)

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Yeah, I meant 60. My redline is marked at 7K but I rarely have taken it there.

acotrel said:

I m 78. The reason I never ride a motorcycle on public roads, is because you cannot ride a motorcycle there in the way God intended them to be used. When you road-race a motorcycle, everything is lovely. There are no idiots trying to fine you for speeding and you can use your bike to the max. To me, riding on public roads is soul-destroying. In any case, I am too old to die in that way.

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I agree with every word.
Just pulling your leg
Did I mention, how soul stirring it was, to take the RZ350 out go pick up my take-out food, (50 miles) in the brisk (48F) evening air, on DESERTED stone wall lined, twisty roads (300 year old horse trails) ? The banshee wail of the well tuned 2-stroke (running SUPER crisp because of the cool temps!) was a most uplifting therapy.

I had two friends that rode those many years ago... The little bikes screamed in an impressive manner and always delivered.

Swell. Another thread derailed by racing bullshit.

Dave, getting back to the ‘cruise’ gearing I think I see the source of our difference... you’re looking to cruise along at 40-45mph, whereas I’m looking to minimise undue engine wear at 70-80mph.

Although our legal speed limit here in the U.K. is 70mph, if you try riding at that you have cars and vans buzzing past you and you’re forced to constantly swap lanes to overtake trucks which, over here, are speed limited to a max 60mph.

It’s much safer at around 80mph.

Also on fast sweeping A roads, a decent turn of speed makes for much more fun.

As a side note, I raised the gearing on a T160 once, same goal to lower the engine revs at a fast cruise. But the relative lack of mid range meant that on fast A roads I spent a disproportionate amount of time in 4th (rather than 5th) gear, which rather negated the point of the exercise !

acotrel said:

I m 78. The reason I never ride a motorcycle on public roads, is because you cannot ride a motorcycle there in the way God intended them to be used. .. To me, riding on public roads is soul-destroying..

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You have absolutely no clue what motorcycling is all about.
It is about traveling, meeting friends, seeing places, discovering new roads.
Feeling the wind, the cold and the heat.
Smelling the fresh cut grass in the fields, getting soaked in the rain.
A campfire by a river. Getting lost. Coming home ..


I will take these curves any time over your "second gear right-hand hairpin bend at Winton raceway" that you keep us telling about:



sorry for the derail.

Fast Eddie said:

Dave, getting back to the ‘cruise’ gearing I think I see the source of our difference... you’re looking to cruise along at 40-45mph, whereas I’m looking to minimise undue engine wear at 70-80mph.

Although our legal speed limit here in the U.K. is 70mph, if you try riding at that you have cars and vans buzzing past you and you’re forced to constantly swap lanes to overtake trucks which, over here, are speed limited to a max 60mph.

It’s much safer at around 80mph.

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I avoid the highways whenever possible. 80 mph has a white-knuckle factor for me. Road conditions here suck. There's always construction going on, and you come up against pot holes, "raised structures", grooved pavement, etc. Do you have New Jersey barriers over there? Concrete walls designed to keep cars from wandering off the highway, and they're death to a biker touching one.

Riding a motorcycle shouldn't make you feel like the proverbial long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I live in rural New England and there are lovely roads in every direction. Ride out into the country, stop for a hot dog, ride some more.

maylar said:

I avoid the highways whenever possible. 80 mph has a white-knuckle factor for me. Road conditions here suck. There's always construction going on, and you come up against pot holes, "raised structures", grooved pavement, etc. Do you have New Jersey barriers over there? Concrete walls designed to keep cars from wandering off the highway, and they're death to a biker touching one.

Riding a motorcycle shouldn't make you feel like the proverbial long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I live in rural New England and there are lovely roads in every direction. Ride out into the country, stop for a hot dog, ride some more.

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Road conditions suck over here too, but look at the size of country and population density between posters here and there probably won't be a: 'One size fits all'. As Fast Eddie points out, on our motorways and dual carriageways it's dog eat dog no quarter given, and you need a vehicle that will maintain 75-80mph comfortably. Once you're off them though, it's 30mph through villages, towns, ring roads (20 or less in London!) so a tall sprocket makes life pretty uncomfortable there...

With 20 it's beautiful at 60 mph and still great at 70, however I begin to worry a bit on the wear and tear on the old motor. 80 up and I have grave concerns over maintained speeds for the bike and myself. Things happen quickly with nothing except a headlight in front of aging eyes and reflexes.

jbruney said:

Things happen quickly with nothing except a headlight in front of aging eyes and reflexes.

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This, my friend, is the crux of it. When my bike was new and I was 23 we were kings of the road. Not so any more.

I love my Commando, but IMO it's not a comfortable high speed machine. If I had to sustain 80 mph I'd trade it for a modern sport tourer made for that purpose. Or, give up 2 wheels and get a Porsche.

maylar said:

If I had to sustain 80 mph I'd trade it for a modern sport tourer made for that purpose. Or, give up 2 wheels and get a Porsche.

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Well that’s an option of course, or you could just fit some rearsets and raise the gearing and it’ll be just fine

I did get a modern ST , well it was modern when I got it , have put maybe 2000 miles on Commando since and roughly 50,000kms on the Ducati ST3s .... on the Duke I have no worries at 80mph all day if called for , the Commando very rare to break whatever speed limit now and it much improved from original ....

I ride in constant fear of things popping out in front of me and rarely exceed 50 mph. Cape Cod has the perfect storm of danger- very old population, sand on roads, clueless tourists and frustrated locals. Racing is out since the nearest track is probably Connecticut or New Hampshire. BUT - I need to ride like I need to breathe.