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New owner with questions

8K views 24 replies 15 participants last post by  Robble10 
#1 ·
I recently bought a 300 and so far I am pretty pleased. I have been looking through the forum quite a bit lately and I have watched a bunch of YouTube videos, and I am quite surprised by some of the performance that people are saying they get out of them. I don’t mean to start another “how fast does the 300 go” thread as I can see that there are plenty of those. I guess my questions are 1. How are people getting those speeds out of their bikes? Am I just shifting too early? I bought a tach that wraps around the spark plug wire to see where my RPMs are. I have always driven manual vehicles so I ride my bike in sort of the same way (shifting when it sounds right) but I wonder if the power is more top end then I think. 2. Does your 300 feel stable at those speeds? I have been riding around at around 50 mph or so, and the bike doesn’t really feel “planted” at that speed. I am 5’11” 235lbs and it feels a little like riding on ice at higher speeds. I am also new to road riding (I was never a great off road rider either) and I can’t help but wonder if the feel is just something I need to get used to. Anyway, thanks for your help
 
#3 ·
I'm no expert, so others may want to chime in, but you may need to adjust the preload setting on the rear suspension to deal with the stability issues. I believe the default is position 2, which seems fine for my light weight frame (145 lbs). You may need to bump to position 3.

As a new rider, I've only made one limited test run on the freeway with my 300. Did a whole mile at 65 mph and it felt stable. The wind was actually the worst part of the experience. It definitely felt like there was more speed to be had if I wanted it.
 
#4 ·
I have considered the suspension issue, but not thoroughly. I have only had it for 6 days and my mechanical skills are fair, but not enough that I’m comfortable tinkering with the suspension. The more I see other view points, the more I keep coming back to the thought that this may just be psychological...
 
#7 ·
Kyle if you do change the suspension it literally is very easy, you can see the adjustment on the rear shocks, it's just a matter of turning them in one direction or the other, from positions 1-5. it does come as '2' as was previously mentioned. i moved mine to 3 and was much happier with it going over bumps.

Not sure if the tool was included depending on what country you bought the bike in, but you can still get a cheap version of that pin spanner wrench for probably 5 bux.
 
#8 ·
I’ll have to check the tire pressure. It is literally 6 days from the dealership floor with 106 miles so it didn’t occur to me to check. I think I’ll tweak the suspension tomorrow before I ride. So no one can really relate to my instability comments...? That further makes me think that it’s all I’m my head. I will play with my suspension and SACK UP AND RIDE. Any thoughts on why I can’t get more speed out of my bike? I’ll install the tach tomorrow and report on some readings.
 
#9 ·
Hi OP, yeah I was wondering the same. Have about 1000kms on my 300 - just finished breaking it in.

What was the highest rev you saw on the tach? The 300 rev really high after 2nd gear. 1st and second are really short IMO. 1st max out about 25kms and second at like 40kph (15 and 25mph respectively). You can really stretch 3rd and 4th though and that's where I find myself around time the most with decent pull in reserve if needed. Took me a while to get used to it by sound and feel, but my point is, you have to really give it a good rev to get the most out of each gear. If you think you're topped out in a gear, you probably still have a solid 2 or 3K Rpm left in the range, but it just feels like you're giving it everything because of the vibration...and there's lots of that!
 
#14 ·
Man that's crazy! What about 1st?

I really don't see how 2nd can go all the way to 50...it legit feels like I'm giving it all it's got in 2nd at 30 MAX!

I know the redline is at like 10k rpm or just under? But who the heck knows when you're hitting that...that's why I was hoping someone can point me to some figures on a bolt on tach
 
#16 ·
We've had our 300s for just over a year now, going from zero experience on a motorcycle to almost 7000 miles now. I don't know if it was break in of the 300 or break in of our confidence on it, but there is a point where 65mph + starts feeling normal. Just starting out, 45 was the fastest we felt comfortable before we had the "not planted" feeling. We still don't do interstates because 70mph seems like a recommendation to most, but we've done plenty of long stretches on U.S. routes with 60 and 65mph speed limits.

For a long time it felt like every additional 5mph we added to our speed felt like the next warp level on a starship, but now it's all fine. That said, there is definitely something to be said about the wind factor. It is still unsettling to get blasted by big gusts on windy days or by opposing traffic wind blast from big trucks while moving at a high rate of speed. We had to keep telling ourselves that this thing will only fall over if we interrupt it's natural ability to stay upright. Basically, sit back and enjoy the ride.
 
#19 ·
Thanks for the input. I put an aftermarket inductive tach on and I watched for a while. The problem I had with the tach was that it was counting 1 revolution per spark and not 2 revolutions per spark so I was only reading half of the RPMs. I managed to run right up to the rev limiter which kicked in at around 10K RPMs. After that I decided that I would ride it a little harder than I had been. I was finally able to hit 70 this morning by staying in each gear longer. I did stiffen up the rear suspension by 2 clicks and that helped with the feeling on the bike. I think I’ll go all the way to 5 and see if it is even more comfortable. Thanks again for all of your insights.
 
#22 ·
The tach is helpful because it tells me how much room I have left in the gear before I MUST shift. I am still trying to get used to running such high RPMs. My car and pickup obviously run at much lower RPMs so the tach has been a fantastic tool to help with the transition to more top end power. I suppose if I shifted sooner I could still pull highway speeds in 6th gear, but I feel like I would be running a much higher risk of being rear ended by traffic not expecting me to be taking so long to get up to speed. Soon enough when I get a feel for the bike, I won’t need the tach at all (much like my other vehicles) but for now it is a nice aide.
 
#24 ·
I will have to experiment a little bit with that. I have been pretty nice with the lower gears so far and only just started opening up the higher gears like 3rd and higher. I have seen a thread on here where someone had more or less created a chart in MPH, but I want to say that was maybe for the 500. I’ll see if I can find it and link to it
 
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