what is it with this country, so far bought 4 properties and they’ve fallen through due to fuckwits.
Maybe 5th time lucky, FFS!
bikes – what else matters!
My CB500XA updates.
what is it with this country, so far bought 4 properties and they’ve fallen through due to fuckwits.
Maybe 5th time lucky, FFS!
Moving house so won’t be posting for a few months.
See you soon!
Yet another sold to get ready for moving, sometimes life is really shit.
The YSS kit that I bought from Brook Suspension is very easy to fit. I have the factory centre stand kit which makes life easier, so I put the bike on the centre stand and lifted the front end using a ratchet strap from a beam in the garage.
Once supported remove the right fork leg after disconnecting the brake caliper, undo the fork cap (remove an per load first) the springs are so weak it will have very little resistance, pour out the fork oil, spring and spacer then drop in the emulator and spring, add new fork oil and refit.
I used a suitable long bolt to support the front wheel when removing the left fork leg as you have to remove the wheel spacer.
all in all took about 40mins and the difference is amazing, on the old forks I had the reload adjusters bottom and it was still too soft, touching the brake would havwe the front end diving. Now with zero preload its great.
The kit is good value and has good instructions.
I didn’t have a large enough allen key to undo the front wheel spindle, but found one of my flywheel removers was the right size when used with a suitable spanner.
Fitting VentureShield requires a bit of patience and as long as you’ve used plenty of water/soap mix you can lift and reposition decals as required.
Required items – venture shield kit, old hair dryer, brake cleaner, clean cloths.
Thoroughly clean the bike, then spray the water/soap mixture over the panel and float the decal into place, use the rubber squeegy to remove excess water.
In places with compound curves (two directions) you can use gentle heat from the hair dryer to assist with getting around the curves, you’ll see in one photo I removed a bubble by using the pressure and heat from my thumb.
Ventureshield is a great product and my bike is as new after 4 years.
Haven’t previously document the CB, I bought it new after selling the GSXR and whilst recovering from more shoulder surgery in 2018.
As soon as I got it home I stripped the wheels and swingarm/shock out to ensure everything was greased correctly and then coated it ACF50.
The CB has been a great bike for most things, you’re never going to call it exciting but its great to commute on, comfortable on long motorway trips and there’s not much else to say other than the stock suspension is rubbish.
I appreciate the bike was built to a budget but at £6k it was a pretty good budget and Honda completely missed what people were looking for, NO ONE wants an A2 bike they wanted a mid sized bike that was fairly light with about 60 -70 HP. I’m pretty sure they could have done that easily but instead have ended up going down the same route KTM did with Adventure models after the 990 they’re all massive. The latest CB500X is now even bigger, wider and heavier, but still with 50HP 9on a good day). They should have restricted the bike through the ECU for A2 and offered a full power option fitted with CRF250L (slightly lowered) suspension and it would have been awesome. The 2019 model was better with a 19″ front wheel, but still not enough power or good enough suspension.
I did have plans to fit revalved CRF450 forks using conversion bearings and a CRF250L aluminium swingarm, you would not believe the weight of the stock one. Swingarm would need different bearings and spacers but would be doable. I bought a swingarm and crf yokes and measured it all up but lost interest.
I did several few mods – Black Widow full exhaust (poor fitment), K&N filter, folding levers, Evotech crash bungs and radiator guard, had a ventureshield paint protection kit designed by Invisible patterns, replace stacks of bolts for stainless ones, renthal bars (pitbike bend, bit narrower but about the right height) and grips, a litium ion battery, a wider and taller screen plus an adjustable extension as I found the wind noise still an issue and a 16 tooth front sprocket.
To sort the useless front suspension I fitted a YSS spring and emulator kit, which a huge difference.