Japan Meets Britain

Vince Lupo · Post by **Vince Lupo** » Sun May 12, 2013 4:52 pm

Another great ride this morning -- put in about 100 miles, and discovered a couple of new roads near Mt. Airy, MD (west of Baltimore by about 40 miles). Definitely need to run up and down these roads a few million more times.

Bike is really dialed in right now -- idles perfectly and solidly at 1200 rpm, and the charging seems totally fine now. Laughs in the face of 9000 rpm, and hits 90mph without even so much as a shrug.

Hopefully this will do it for at least a little while, and will be the perfect foundation for a long-distance ride sometime this summer.

Ah to chase that endless ribbon of road......

Patuxent8 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr

Vince Lupo · Post by **Vince Lupo** » Tue May 14, 2013 2:30 pm

Yet another update in the long list of updates.....

LED by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr

Vince Lupo · Post by **Vince Lupo** » Mon May 27, 2013 6:05 am

Went for a beautiful ride yesterday with my friends Scott and Andrew. Scott rode his cherry '85 Interceptor 500, and Andrew on his Ducati Monster 696. We headed west from the Baltimore area, out Route 99 to Mt. Airy, then picked up Buffalo Rd and over to Glissins Mill Rd, which is a twisty up-and-down ribbon of asphalt, and finally out to the historic city of Frederick, MD. Beautiful scenery, a sunny cool morning, and very light traffic. Total distance for the morning ride was about 120 miles. The bike ran great, and the new LED taillight is quite bright and effective. Definitely worth the expense.

At our coffee stop in Frederick, MD -- can't have a morning ride without COFFEE!

Sunday Ride2013 by Vince.Lupo, on Flickr

sarals · Post by **sarals** » Mon May 27, 2013 10:36 am

Great shots, Vince - looks like it was a wonderful ride! You're making me anxious to get my Hawk finished!! I'm glad yours is behaving so well. That's just great to hear. Oh - you beat those other two, right? ;)

Vince Lupo · Post by **Vince Lupo** » Mon May 27, 2013 12:08 pm

Actually when I was leading our little group through the really twisty parts, they were but tiny specks in my mirror. Of course, on the straightaways from a dead stop they left me, but eventually I would catch up to them, so keeping up wasn't really an issue. Did make me realize how exhilarating shifting at 9-grand in 1st, 2nd and 3rd can be!

Don't know how much more 'oomph' my 358cc/5-speed setup has over a standard 305cc/4-speed SuperHawk (in addition to all the other performance tweaks I've had done), but from my 'seat-of-the-pants' perspective, it definitely has more. Would be interesting to do a dyno comparison!

jensey · Post by **jensey** » Tue May 28, 2013 1:01 am

Hi Vince,

I have enough dyno info on my CB72, but also on my slightly faster bike, so count me in.
Knowing it's not a CB77, but I think nobody has done a dynorun with a CB77 yet and went public with it.

Jensen

Vince Lupo · Post by **Vince Lupo** » Tue May 28, 2013 5:15 pm

I'll have to do some asking around in my neck of the woods to see who is a reputable dyno operator. Funnily enough, Bob's BMW (a very prominent BMW dealership here) had a recent 'open house' event, and they were running a dyno there for people to have their bikes tested, if they so desired. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend, otherwise I might have taken them up on it. Maybe I'll contact them to see who was running it (if it wasn't the dealership itself).

Think the bike is comfortably dialed in, and is now ready to do a long ride....there is talk around here about making a trip to the Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum at the AMA headquarters in Pickerington, Ohio, so that might be a good place to start!