A few months back I could have gotten a 2018 s1000xr from a friend for the price of my new nc750. I decided not to buy it. Not being familiar with BMWs and not liking the potential maintenance costs, I decided to stick with something more familiar to me, another Japanese motorcycle, which wouldn’t tempt me to ride like I’m still 25, and daily break licence losing speeds. I can see from your post you know what I’m talking about.
I believe half the front fork problem is the springs were made for a much lighter rider. I’m 195. The static sag, and I find this hard to believe. is 40mm. With me on the bike it’s 60 mm. Half the available fork travel is taken up without the bike even hitting a bump. I’m probably going to have to put in stronger fork springs, but first I’m going to try replacling the non adjustable forks caps with preload adjustable cb1100 fork caps, to see what difference that makes.
The preload adjustment is about 18 mm if I recall correctly. I installed the CB1100 caps in my 2015. I think you will still have to replace the stock springs.
www.nc700-forum.com
Nobody thinks it's fun to ride a slow Kawasaki Mule fast. Not an applicable comparison to the saying.
Thanks. I feel you are right and the springs will need replacing. I’ll still get the fork caps to fine tune the new springs when I get them..The preload adjustment is about 18 mm if I recall correctly. I installed the CB1100 caps in my 2015. I think you will still have to replace the stock springs.
Fork spring spacer info - adjusting preload
I will be adjusting my front fork preload soon and wanted to confirm the current spacer size and how much preload is currently there. From the spring free length, the only preload amount is the height of the fork cap. That's it folks. Because the spring is progressive and a high number of...
I agree with you. I’ve owned enough sport bikes, and raced a few in my time to know power is not everything. And just because you ride a powerful bike, it doesn’t make you a fast rider.
I’m with you. 100 hp is all you need in the real world. I’ve been at both ends of owning fast and slow bikes. I didn’t consider my Vfr750 as a fast bike with its sub 100hp, but after jumping straight onto it after riding the nc my vfr went from a comfortable, moderately fast bike to a leaned over superbike with high foot pegs. It doesn’t take riding the nc long to make anything more powerful and sporty feel fast and uncomfortable.
I've never ridden an R3, but I know at the track an R3 will be near dead even with me on the straights, sometimes even pulling away from me a little bit. The ones that pull away are probably re-geared and have other basic performance mods. I assume around town and normal highway driving, the feel of the R3's power is probably much different than that of the NC, whereas running wide open throttle on track, the R3 seems to have a very slight power advantage over the NC. Well, an NC700 anyways. Can't speak for how it compares to either generation of the NC750.
To me the advantage of a higher horsepower bike is that you don't have to run the beejeezus out of them to run the same speed you would on a smaller hp bike. 75 mph is 75 mph no matter which bike you are riding, but on a 23 hp bike you have to be running (example) 8000 rpms to do it, on a 100 hp bike you can be doing that same speed while turning at 4000 rpms.
I wouldn’t be handle the buzziness of an R3 on the road. I sold a gsxr1000 because I wanted to slow down and got a cbr600f4i. Kept a year and sold it. Couldn’t stand revving it hard compared to the gixxer. I like big, or understressed engines like the nc that never feel like they’re working. For me you cant beat a v4 for feeling like it’s never working hard at any speed.
I agree with all that. If you have to tach something out just to squeeze the power out of it it makes no sense to me.
Well, pulling a long grade at 70+ mph into the wind the NC lets you know it's working hard especially when hand guards, panniers, and a larger windshield have been added.
Yea, I think Honda knocked it out of the park with the NC750.
Bikes that you have to "tach out" to build power are designed that way for a reason. When riding aggressively on curvy roads on the street or on track, it is advantageous to the rider to have a wide rpm range in a single gear so as to minimize the need to shift as many times between turns or mid-turn. It also makes the bike more controllable through turns when you are in the higher rpm range, as getting off and on the throttle is more predictable and less jerky. Whether you buy a sportbike of the 300cc flavor or the 1000cc+ flavor, and no matter how you use it, whether it be to commute to work every day, get out and ride wheelies every weekend, only drive it to bike nights, etc., the manufacturer designed it for track use, or aggressive street riding. These bikes rev to 10k-16k+ rpms for a purpose, not because that's the only way the engine designer could get any power out of it. They are purpose built machines, no matter what other purpose you may buy them for. Kinda like the NC is not an offroad bike, never was intended to be, although several use the NC in that manner. Adventure does not mean offroad, I go on adventures all the time and never leave the pavement.
Sometimes you might want a lighter weight, nimble motorcycle. You can build the bike around a larger, heavier low rpm engine, or you can build a lighter, more nimble bike around a smaller high rpm engine and still get a comparable power to weight ratio.
