OUR BIKES
Next I fitted a Power Commander and took
the bike to Brett Roberts for him to work his
dyno-tuning magic. He ran the bike on the
dyno and built a custom map, which controls
the fuelling far better than standard. It runs
cleaner and goes further on a tank of fuel.
Next mission was the driveline. I found first
gear much too tall for the riding I do, so fitted
a one tooth smaller front sprocket and went
two teeth bigger on the rear. This gave much
more fun on gravel, and meant the bike
pulled much better when loaded with a pillion
and luggage. This really proved its worth on
our South Island adventures, especially in
places like the Nevis and Rainbow where I
could get over the rivers and climbs two up
with luggage transcend, without being too
hard on the clutch or having to carry too much
speed. It’s also better for low speed manoeuvring.
Due to the gearing change I had to fit a
Speedo Healer to get the speed reading
correctly. The Healer is a neat unit that’s easy
to fit, and it’s simple to program new gearing
into to get a correct speed reading.
A Scottoiler has significantly extended the
life of the chain and sprockets.
STAMPING OUT JUDDER
The only engine modification is a Werks
clutch basket from the US. This gets rid of the
judder V-Stroms seem to develop due to
spring and clearance issues in the standard
clutch basket. The re-engineered basket has
new bearings and springs yet it’s still less
40 KIWI RIDER