Track Day - 14 Dec 2008

It was not an ordinary Sunday on 14/12 as I was busy burning the track at Sepang. My second time joining the track day with my Ninja 250R accompanied by fellow mates - Hilman, Doc Shaiful and Sham. We had a pool of 'umbrella boys' (Fazli, Hisha and Yop) as well to witness the not-so-fast bikes speeding along the Sepang main straight.

I think there was a big improvement on my part on maintaining the correct line without any scary moments approaching the corners. No errors tackling Turn 9 at all though a bit slow ... Yeah! I'll post more pictures soon.

Why Shoei X11?

The reason I spent so much money on a helmet is due to these videos below(plus some other kind of 'poisons' coming from my mates). That fat guy statement is clear and convincing - I'm Sold!

Ducati 1198

Ducati just announced its latest superbike for 2009 - a bigger,bad-ass 1198 and 1198S. It has the same design cue with its little brother 1098. Some comment for the new bike from motorcycle-usa as follows:

"The liquid-cooled L-Twin mill sports a bigger displacement at 1198.4cc with a 106 x 67.9mm bore/stroke. Its 1098 predecessor measured 1099cc with a 104 x 64.7mm bore/stroke. Also increased are the performance numbers, with an extra 10 horsepower and 6.6 lb-ft of torque totaling claimed peek numbers of 170hp at 9750rpm and 97 lb-ft. " Continue reading here.

If you just couldn't wait to read the whole article and for the full review, let the pictures whet your appetite.

Red as juicy tomatoes while white as super-hot nurse. Yummy!

Sepang Track Day #1 - 2 Nov 2008

It was one of the historic day of my life. At last, I attended Sepang International Circuit (home of Malaysia F1 and MotoGP) not as a spectator anymore. I was there participating in November Track Day. What a lovely day it was.

I can now happily strike it out from my 'To Do List Before I Die'. :)

Sepang MotoGP Ride, 19 Oct 2008

Kawasaki Malaysia invited all Kawasaki bike owners to join the 'big ride' to Sepang MotoGP 2008 on 19 Oct 2008. An opportunity that I couldn't miss to be part of the big Kawa family. Their target was to gather 300 bikes (all kinds) in Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur and ride together on a 6okm journey to Sepang International Circuit (SIC). The ride started at 930am and we reached SIC at around 1015am. And we had brilliant day afterwards.

Picture : Starting Point - Dataran Merdeka, KL / 800am to 930am

Picture : Sepang International Circuit / 1015am to 500pm

In the end, Rossi won the race with such a big gap from Stoner. And we were all wet going back home due to Thunderstorm!

Port Dickson Ride - 12 Oct 2008

It was a hot day in the morning and raining in the evening but we endure all for our very first long ride together for the first time. To sum it up ... it was FUN! There were some incidents but it won't cover our grin from ear to ear (though you couldn't see it as we were all wearing full-face helmets with tinted/iridium visors).

The Ride trivia:

• 37 Ninja 250R joined the rides
• Other bikes : 1 ZX10R, 1 ER6N, 1 KLE and 1 D-Tracker
• 2 Rep from Kawasaki Malaysia lead the convoy
• 3 guys from Media joined our ride (you should start buying Berita Harian from today)
• 5 ladies joined the ride as pillion (we will convert them as riders soon)
• We had free lunch at Port Dickson and free food again at Sungai Pelek on the way back (TQ Bad for the open house)We were all wet when reach home!

Now, let's the pix do the talking ...

Thank you to the Ninja 250R riders, Kawa Reps and Media Team in making this a memorable ride. Thank you to Kirana for holding a special open house at his bungalow. You All Rawk!

pix 2,3 and 5 is by keylinkshukry.

Selamat Hari Raya!

Just coming back from a long holiday trip back to two kampungs (hometowns) - Sitiawan and Muar. A tradition for most folks in Malaysia during the festive season is going back to their hometowns. It's in the blood already .. whatever how bad the traffic conditions, people still hit the road to balik kampung. Hope that all of us have a safe journey and already back home to continue our normal life.

Selamat Hari Raya to all my friends! Maaf Zahir Batin.

Answer - The thing under the plastic wrap.

OK, the thing under wrap was indeed an aftermarket windshield for the Ninja 250R bike. It is actually a double-bubble windshield from MRA. Don't ask me why they call it double bubble in the first coz I don't have any idea. But that thing really deflect alot of wind resistance from the front of the bike. Wow!

Just look at the pictures of the double-bubble and the OEM windshield and you might understand how well it will perform. After a couple of high-speed ride, I can vouch for its effectiveness. Recommended by me!

Ninja Gathering #5 - BBN Cafe, 20/9

It was our biggest gathering with 28 bikes came for the session at Nilai. Me and Pron rode together from Bukit Jelutong GCE Tol Plaza and it took us 30 minutes to reach BBN Cafe, Nilai. There were only a bunch of guys at 10pm mostly from Seremban and Nilai. Then at 1030pm, guys from Cheras/ Wangsa Maju arrived. We chat a bit then decided to move to a more quiter place - I called the new place Roundabout Joint. Around 11.30pm, the other Shah Alam clan arrived .... sesat kot! Then the meeting proceeded as planned.

It was a great time for us to see each others in such a big crowd. As always happen in a big gathering - it is hard to remember new names. We shall create attendance log after this. Not all of us joined our online forum by the way. We really appreacite members that come last night - it was the the furthest away ride for some of the members. Well done!

Pix is on the way!

Pix by keylinkshukry.Pix by keylinkshukry.

Moreh @ PakLi Shah Alam - 19/9

'Pron' (yupp... i write it correctly :) ) requested a meet-up at PakLi Shah Alam for moreh session on Friday Night 19/9. So we came there like a flocking birds. Total bike attended = 11 bikes. After makan-makan, we headed to Dataran Shah Alam for a photo-shoot. Here goes:

Pictures courtesy of Along7 (curi dari ninja250r website).

Quiz - What's inside the plastic wrap?

Guess what's inside the plastic wrap?

Hmm... Baju Raya, Langsir Raya, CK undies, kerepek ubi? hehehe...

Ninja Gathering #4 - NZ Wangsa Maju & Dataran Merdeka

It supposed to be a small gathering with only 3 members confirmed to attend the moreh session at NZ Curry House, Wangsa Maju (next to Carrefour) on 13th Sep 2008. However, it turned out to be a mega gathering with 12 bike owners appeared from nowhere (bunian bulan Ramadan). We managed to attract more cyber members to attend our tt session and recruit more members as well - great job to the headhunters.

As always we talk cock like nobody business while watching footie games on the big screen -Blackburn vs. Arsenal and Man City vs. Chelsea. Liverpool had beaten Man United 2-1 earlier (just a reminder to Man United fans that run to the bedroom and cried the whole night). Back to serious note, things that we discussed as follows:

1. Discuss about the get-to-know ride to Port Dickson on 12th Oct 2008 and MotoGP Sepang on the next Sunday (this is sponsored by Kawasaki Malaysia).
2. Plan to make official T-Shirt for Ninja 250R Malaysia. One of the members is a big towkay of textile business. But none of us knows to draw even a straight line (semua nak corner).
3. Argue on which exhaust is the best (helmet throwing/ carbon fiber knuckle gloves punching/ alpinestars boot kicking....... love to see this but it didn't happen).

Around 130am as everyone getting bored, we went to Dataran Merdeka - a place where people that couldn't sleep gathers in KL. So many cars and bikes .... Really. We did some photo-shoots as below:

Welcome to the new members. Hope this is not the last time that we are going to meet you. As always, the tagline 'We shall meet again'. And not forgetting 'You'll never walk alone' ;).

Answer to The Box Question

It is Shoei X11 Kagayama TC2 motorcycle helmet. The top of the line helmet from Shoei, Japan. It is a replica model of a Japanese rider named Yukio Kagayama that race somewhere in the world, I guess probably he is currently racing in WSB (World Super Bike championship) with Suzuki Alstare team. I chose Blue (TC2) for one specific reason - to match with my bike colour. Not due to the Japanese racer, I didn't even know him as a racer in the first place. Afaik, he got great sense of arts and designs ;) . Go Yukio... go kick some ass!

After gogling at the websites for so long, the helmet is now already at my home. I've been using it for a week already. It's far more better than the SOL helmet. The difference is like night and day. Money well spent - Double thumbs up for this helmet!

What's Inside The Box?

Guess - what's inside the box below?



A sewing machine? dinner plate set? box of chocolate? muahahaha...

Ninja 250R Makeover #1

I've done some minor makeovers to my bike yesterday. Thanks to the weather (raining), I arrived at NKS Sentul around 630pm. Met with William at the shop, gave him the bike key and his assistant Sam rode my bike away to .... err I didn't know where exactly. First thing is to install the 'rear hugger'. William insisted that it is called 'inside fender' ... Whatever lah. Steps taken in installing the 'inside fender' by Sam (guide to other Ninja riders):

1. Attach/ Weld a small steel bracket at the right swing-arm to hold the rear hugger using a screw nut. To do this, Sam send the bike for welding somewhere out there. I didn't really know.
2. Sam then made some small holes at the rear hugger.
3. He took out a portion of the bike stuffs behind the front-right foot peg
4. Put the rear hugger onto position - all screw at the hugger aligned with the mount at the swing-arm.
5. Screw the nut at the small steel bracket first and adjust the hugger as not to let the tyre scrap the hugger. I asked him to make some space allowance to accomodate wider tyres.
6. Screw all the nuts together onto the swing-arm. Use cable-tie to hold the hugger onto the swing arm bar
7. Re-attach the front-right foot peg assembly and it is DONE!

Then William got some ideas and told me "Itu signal lamp manyak besar, lu mau tukar kecil punya? LED manyak terang ooo" And I said OK. Again the steps taken for guidance to other members:

1. Take-out the rear seat
2. Unscrew both the the rear signals from its mounts
3. Cut the wire cable connecting to the signal lamps ..ouchh!
4. Install and then re-wire the new teeny-meeny-mini LED signal lamp
5. And then test it ....... both LED signals lighted up but they didn't blink. We had a problem
6. Sam discuss with a guy (I believe he is the electrical master technician) and he asked Sam to change the blinker relay (or someone called it condenser).
7. Next step is to find where the hell is the rear blinker relay located inside the bike. It took Sam around 5 minutes to take-out the middle cover (black in colour) and the front seat. Another 10 minutes locating the condenser.... and he found it on the left side below the front seat.
8. Change the blinker relay and the LED blinking like a christmas tree!

Job well done. Time taken is 1 hour, can be faster if we know the location of the condenser. Damage to my wallet was RM180. If everything works fine, then I will certainly change the front signal lamp which looks like Mickey Mouse ears.

Ninja 250R Gathering #3

We had a gathering at our normal spot at Bintang Sidewalk Cafe, Shah Alam on last Saturday night (23/8/08). Not many turn-up for the gathering compared to our first gathering but still we had fun. Thanks to wanpuma, amad, trono7, along7, kacho, lionninja, keylinkshukri and roslan for spending the time talking cock non-stop till midnite. hahaha...

Point of discussion as follows:

1. We had someone with entrepreneurship skill in selling biking stuffs - Fox Knee/Shin Protector and Alpinestars Pouch bag at such a low price. Wow!
2. Next week gathering will be at Cheras or ampang area - expand our coverage area!
3. Someone is upgrading to a bigger bike, ZX6RR to be specific! Hmm...
4. It was the last gathering for Wanpuma in Klang Valley as he's moving to Kuala Trengganu. All the best in the new city my friend!
5. ... and Liverpool won 2-1 over Middlesborough.

We shall meet again for sure. ;)

Bye Bye Glove

After getting my newer gloves that is Clover Airtek, my old (old? ... only 100km ride) Rjays glove must go. I need to sell it to have more space in my store room. So , here it goes:

Details:

Rjays Leather Glove with Carbon Fiber Knuckle.

48% Goat skin, 34% Polyester, 10% Carbon Fiber, 5% Gel, 5% Nylon.

Palm area with full leather while back of the hand using mesh textile material.

Here are the pix:



Hope I could sell it on the next ninja owner meet-up. Else I have to advertise it in the online forum. Bye Rjays!

Rider and his biking stuffs

I've been riding since I'm 15 years old (that was a long time ago) but until just recently I'm becoming more serious on the safety gears. Dunno how it trigger me to buy those biking stuffs, prolly due to having a bigger bike exposes me to a bigger risk. So the all the protection gears are necessary.

Some of the stuffs that I bought since last year as follows:

Helmet:
SOL Hybrid 37X
Shoei X11 (not yet arrived)

Riding boot:
Alpinestars Ridge

Gloves :
Rjays Leather with Carbon Knuckle
Clover AirTek Textile glove

Jacket :
IZ2 cordura with hard-plastic padding
Clover AirTek 2 mesh jacket with CE approved plastic padding

Protection :
KNOX knee guard

Hmm... those stuffs cost me my arms and my legs. Hopefully they would do the job protecting me.

Helmet, Where art thou?

I've booked quite a handsome looking helmet from a bikegear shop three weeks ago and they told me that the helmet will arrive three more weeks. In total, 6 weeks of agony without proper safety helmet that would protect my head while looking cool!

I couldn't stand the agony for so long, so I bought a helmet that has all the safety elements that I want and CHEAP. It is named 37X, a hybrid helmet made by SOL of Taiwan. It came with gold tinted visor which look nice. Have a look ...

It will be my companion for the next three weeks, if the shop keep to its promise. Anyway, the helmet is indeed nice!