freedom is such a loaded word. the ‘home of the free’ comes to mind, the place many thought of as the shining city on the hill until, on closer inspection, it became clear that it’s really a dumpster fire. they are big on freedom over there: the freedom to tell those who are not quite like ‘us’ to not bother to try to vote, the freedom to harass people in the most vile manner, the freedom to let the ‘free market’ decide that the rich can continue to exploit the poor unashamedly, the freedom to tell females that they can’t have a say in what happens to their bodies. mind you, the ‘pro life’ stance seems to only work for unborn humans, once you’re out you’re game – then the freedom to bear arms and pretty much shoot anything that moves appears to trump (yeah that was intended) the right to life (i think the technical term for that is post-natal abortion).
i wasn’t pursuing any such noble goals: all i wanted to do was free up the flow of gas through the tt-r’s tiny cylinder. as i removed the exhaust system to clean it a bit with a wire brush i found this strange little tube within the header. apparently regulators in some countries like to be a bit ‘restrictive’ – see what i did there?
nothing a few minutes with an angle grinder and a cutting disc can’t fix. this is the offending piece, that impacts on the freedom of gas movement through the system, which in turn rob us, the riders, of our well earned power. we obviously can’t have that: now the little tt-r feels a bit more like a 250 and less like a 125.
and the whole system came up nice, too. we’ll have a bit more fun now. freedom!