Aprilia SR 55mph

Today I decided to spend a little time with the most ridden bike in the stable as of late, the SR50. When I purchased the sweet scoot a few years ago it came with an uninstalled, nearly new, carbon fiber canister, Leo Vince ZX-R pipe with the stipulation that the SR was way faster with the stock pipe. This puzzled me as usually a performance pipe on a two stroke is like a high flow down pipe on a turbo car, simply amazing! So with all this in mind I gave it a go installing the pipe and after a quick ride to the park with my son, it was definitely much slower than it was with the stock pipe. Google revealed a bunch of other just like me who put a Leo Vince on and was slower for their efforts. Was this pipe made for the ruckus crowd who cruise slow and low? Well the forums revealed that none of us bothered looking in the header to see if there was a restrictor inside as these pipes were made for the EU market who have strict regulation on scooter power. After finding this key info and removing the pipe, close inspection revealed the problem!

A little Dremel work would take care of this quick, but mine was 20 miles away! Luckily I had just received an order of tungsten carbide bits that were scheduled for duty on my upcoming Derbi project, but more on that later. With tungsten bits, my handy Craftsman 19.2v, and a bunch of sweat and tears, mission accomplished!

After all this a fast 55mph test ride was in order! Definitely made a huge difference!

Looks really sweet too!

Fatty Spring

I had to special order a 6.6kg spring for our KTM65 endurance racer or else our fat bellies would blow out the shock! Cost me a little more than I wanted to spend, but the guys at factory connection were really great to work with. With both front fork springs and now a rear shock spring we are now nearly ready to finally take the bike to the track!

Mito Brembo

Since deciding to sell my Mito I have thinking about taking off the good stuff in order to use on my other bikes and at the same time lower my asking price. Step one of this process involved removing my super sweet full floating Brembo front rotor and two piece billet Brembo front caliper. Interestingly I didn't have a stock Mito front rotor, but found that the stock Aprilia rs125 front rotor I had on my rs50 was an exact fit! I will file this in the memory bank for future use! Anyway below are a few pictures of the stock front brake setup installed. Up next I may be swapping out the Brembo 16 front master cylinder and the Rizoma reservoir for the stock pieces.

Rizla Suzuki Rides Again!

Had some time to stop by my favorite shop yesterday, CN Racing, and see what he had going on. The most important relationship you can have in the world of rare and exotic bikes is a friend who knows how to fix them! Carlos has been a friend of Bats pretty much since inception and has a long history of helping people figure out complex mechanical issues that just about every other shop in the country would shy away from. After winning in every class he competed in he now helps the current AFM #1 plate Ricky Corey, who by the way also started racing at stockton along side the Bats on an RS50.

Anyway back to the title of this post which has to do with a really rare and sweet looking Suzuki RGV 250 that is currently at his shop getting the CN Racing treatment. How fitting that a 2 smoker would have a rolling papers sponsorship!

What is obviously striking about the bike besides the rarity is the owners custom Rizla racing replica paint job and decals. I would really like to see this beast after final assembly to get the full effect with all the body panels in place, but for now just gaze at how much custom handy work went into this beast so far!

Super sweet custom JL pipes!

Sweet wheels and radial front brake setup, must be GSXR!

This tiny racing battery is enough to start the bike, yes its electric start and not kick start! I wonder how these compare to the Shorai we currently use? Might have to do some investigating!

Bats Racing 50 Says Goodbye!

Today was my final day with the Bats Racing Aprilia RS50 that we completed the 8 hours of Grange on last year. This will be Karl's first track bike and he plans to learn at Stockton Motorplex which is where the Bats first began racing these sweet bikes so it will be back in action soon. I can't wait to hear from Karl after his first track day and hope to see him on Bats!