i registered the little 250 yesterday, now it’s time to make her a real race bike.
for the coming 3 months she’ll have to be an enduro bike – that should not be too hard, that’s what she was built for anyway. in any case i’ll replace the cool six days graphics with plain white ones. i would love to keep the original design for when she’ll be up for sale (which is hopefully not too soon).
then she’ll be transformed into a rally bike. that’s going to be about two things: making the bike as durable as possible, and making the ride as comfortable as possible. the former is about ensuring the bike will go the distance with as little work as possible so i can sleep instead of spending my nights fixing broken stuff. the latter is ensuring the long hours on the bike cost me as little energy as possible.
here is one of the changes i’m making to ensure i travel in as much comfort as possible.
on the left the six days ‘wave’ seat. looks more comfy than the brick the standard exc gets. but the one on the right will be on the bike going forward. it’s from seatconcepts.com and should provide a more pleasant ride – i’m sure it is quite obvious why. of course in the race i’ll spend a significant amount of time standing on the pegs, but i don’t think i’ll be standing for 8 hours a day, so for those moments when i can sit down my bum will rest on this. let’s hope it’ll be less sore than after the condo last year.
and there is the time card pocket so i can avoid having to fish around for the card in my jacket.
i’ve also rebuilt the md roadbook again. just a general cleanup, a few taps with a hammer to straighten out the alu shell a bit, and a new motor.
i also added a few drops of loctite to some threads; i had a problem with the little worm screw connecting the motor to the driveshaft last year and would not want to move the paper by hand. and i’ve also built in an led lighting strip, apparently there will be at least one early start. i hope no late finishes.
the old motor is going into the spare parts bucket with a lot of other stuff – i doubt i’ll have access to some of the more exotic parts in outback western australia.
a few pictures of the little girl before i started to take her apart.
a tight package, and very light. there is not too much difference between this 250 and the 350 i rode before.
the billet triples are a six days special; so are the 4cs forks, and the black handle bar with the six days logo. and there is the orange frame of course.
the triples will be swapped for the adjustable ones that should allow me to run the forks with less offset for more straight line stability. i’ll need every bit of help i can get.
yep. 250 cc. will get me into the m1 class.
i like the narrow lines; it makes it easy to move around on the bike.
yep, a six days all right.