Learning from your Rides- KDs Motorcycle Diary

After a lot of Harley riding over the past 4 years, I have had some hard introspecting to do.
I graduated in bikes from the SuperLow to the Super Glide to the FatBoy where my liking for torqueand economics finally seem to have peaked.
I am more driven now by marquee rides. Signature rides- unique locations. Sequencing locations like no one has done before.
Riding to Dhule ten times a year or riding to Vapi five times a quarter to just add 5-700km a weekend- is just useless commuter riding to me now.
I restrict my riding to Igatpuri, Lonavala and then to Palasdari in the north. That's it.
After completing the Leh ride by car and then by bike- I see no charm in rides that I call pedestrian now.
Yes- so where is my problem? It is that I make new friends and they are where I was in India 4 years ago. Wanting to pound the streets and I looked at them- 'what boss? no vision, no dream.'
So wrong on my part.
Probably my peers also questioned my quick change of bikes equally, branding me as whimsical- at its most police. Probably my neighbours wondered- where does he go for five hours every weekend morning.
Over the past few weeks I have been thinking and all I have made peace with is- destinations and goals of other riders and mine will not match.
Rajmachi in the rains does not attract me. As much as the best road in India- Hyderabad to Bangalore, does not beckon me either.
The border roads of india- be it the 'no pillar zone' in the Kutch, the long forgotten Munnabao railway station, the Israeli grass and snakes in the sands of Longewala  sector, the wheat fields and the brave punjabis who live around BOP Khakian.
All the way to the riverine plains around Dhubri in Assam. I learnt- these may not turn on other riders. I learnt not to demand- and yet I learnt.
To let them sell their bikes till their economics and riding senses were filled.
To let them ride where they learnt to enjoy themselves- remembering good times with their fathers and friends on the road.
Not many have been machine gunned at on the LC while having a younger Officer say- 'park your bike this side, so those fools won't get a stray round into your paint.' But yet a samosa-chai stop in a torrential downpour in Bijapur with friends you have not seen in ten years, could hold more thrill.
I promise not to cringe or wince at the topic of an upgrade. I promise not to chew my lips at the sound of a destination.
I will learn to smile that I did all that.
Just a few months ago. 

Upgrading your Harley

UPGRADES
With the monsoons receding, the long zonal rides are upon us. It is time to get you bikes out of their hiding places and put on some miles.

A few riders on the last ride were asking me about the various upgrades and accessories available to us. I have broken this into four parts for this writing:

a.       Lights.
Upgrades on the main headlight is usually to the preferred Daymakers from HD. A direct fit, and a quick job. The light beam is very powerful and lights up the road pretty well. An added benefit to most of our daytime warriors is that it increases your visibility to oncoming traffic by a thousand times- and also makes you very easy to track, when you are in a group ride. There are afew riders who have complained about the dawn/dusk hours and the effectiveness of the same when its raining. Do not throw out your old headlight, if the rains bother you, then switch to the regular lights for 3/4 months of the year.
Additional Fog or Auxiliary lights are a boon in our kind of traffic allowing for more light to be ‘laid’ on the road making it safe to ride. These can be mounted along side the headlight or on the crashguard. Always make sure that you use these with a relay and get your wiring checked by someone at the workshop. This is the weakest link in the reliability of HDs.
Cheap Chinese made ones are available, and then there are some super gorgeous ones like the Clearwater Simple faults and shorts cause bikes to fail on highways- and your little effort towards saving money can result in a huge loss of riding opportunity and the cost of getting your bike shipped to a nearby service station.

b.      Exhausts
This is a tricky one. Choose an exhaust that you have heard on the same bike as what you own. Do not buy a particular exhaust because it sounds good on a Sportster. The Sportsters are the nicest sounding bikes, in my opinion but on the FatBoy, the same brand could sound just like distant thunder. So do not choose by name/style or recommendation. Choose because you heard it. Slip ons are changed at the far end of the header pipes, while ‘full system’ ones are ones that change from the exhaust port. Make sure that the full system pipes have Oxygen sensor ports drilled in, as if you have to do it, you could drill too close to the exhaust port and you could burn off the sensor filaments.
The usual suspects for an upgrade are V&H’s, Arlen Ness, Cobras to the more exotic SuperTrapp and Covingtons. The pride of Indias HD was a CFR on a Night Rod- which won any exhaust battle, hand down, till the police surrounded the owners house at 4AM on a Sunday- but that’s another story. Unless its radical change in exhausts, the slip on do not usually need a fuel management system.

c.       Air intakes
Stage 1 from SE is the best upgrade to a better breathing air filter element. Also, it comes with a very long life and only needs regular maintenance (as opposed to replacement for the OE air filter.) Various other more aggressive breathers are available like Heavy breather Screamin’ Eagle of HD, VO2/Drake/Duke from V&H, and the Big Sucker from Arlen Ness. These are the ones that protrude out into the oncoming air and feed the engine with more air, almost like ‘forced air induction.’

d.      Fuel Management Systems
Once you have altered the exhaust profile (mostly making your exhaust a freer flowing one) and given your bike more air than it could handle with its basic ECU, the air intake and exhaust sensors start to keep correcting this imbalance that is beyond their parameters to handle. So what?
SEPST from HD is the factory choice for FMS. The SEPST comes with a orange coloured interface that gets mated to ONE HD. One specific bike, not the owner. So when you sell that bike, you give the SEPST away. Given that its an authorized product, it is used to flash the ECM with no moving parts to ‘hang around under the seat.’ The drawback is not this- the drawback is if you mix components like a V&H exhaust with a Heavy Breather, you are essentially out of depth and you will need a Dyno to tune in your bike. Very very unlikely. Which means you are jammed. Call your workshop advisor for pricing on this item. Or you need to be like this one ‘tech head’ mariner from Pune who could really work wonders with the SEPST.
FP3 from Vance and Hines is a very popular upgrade, relatively cheap, easy to install, and with a huge database of products to mix and match.  This takes the map from a table that will come with your FP3, or if you have some eclectic mix of parts, then you email them, and in about 72-96 hours V&H will email you the new maps, which again- can be done by yourself.
Power Commander would be the more advanced version of a piggy backed system that alters the ECU output and based on preset maps that you key in, the bike runs. A lot of people are happy- globally with this PC-V, which is the current version on sale.In case of any engine issues, or for instant comparison you can just unplug it in literally 5 minutes and get your bike into stock condition again.
Power Vision – is possibly the most vaunted of the lot. It takes your maps from the dealer, and flashes the ECM with its new maps. There are many plus points to this like recording your ridng data and almost everyone who is tech’ interested in fiddling with the bike would have this. IF flashing your ECM worries you, then this is not for you. If you are going to be upgrading your bike on completion of warranty and the likes, then you should probably plonk in the dollars and get this.

What happens if you don’t do this FMS. The ‘out of syllabus’ oxygen intake and ‘freer than free’ exhaust will cause your bike to start running lean and will cause ‘blueing’ of your exhaust headers. This is the first sign that all is not well in your bike. You will continue to ride it hot till one fine day you will burn your exhaust valve.

I write this from various inputs- printed material and fellow riders mainly. I could be off the mark and would welcome questions or corrective feedback.