Motorcycling has always been a big part of my life. I started riding in kindergarten on a Honda CB50. Over the years I progressed and eventually I bought a 1985 Honda Nighthawk 700S when I was 16. It wasn’t the best bike–but it was a good price and served me well for three years.
Last summer my Nighthawk finally broke one too many times. I decided that it was time to upgrade to a newer bike and started shopping. My mission really falls in the sport-touring category. I want a bike that is fast but capable of long distance riding. After looking at several bikes and checking insurance rates I settled on a 2001 Suzuki Bandit 1200S in silver.
As the summer unfolded it became obvious that I was wasting my time with employer and decided that a new job had to happen. I had no desire to remain in Minnesota. I ended up stumbling into the perfect position and moving to Nebraska. Long story short–I didn’t get much riding done last summer.
The Bandit is a pretty generic motorcycle when you get it. This is cool because you can make it into whatever you want. After riding the Bandit on several short couple hundred mile rides I decided there were several things I absolutely have to address:
- New tires
- Music in the Helmet
- 12V Power Outlet
- Heated Grips
- Luggage
- Comfortable Seat
As you may know I am planning a four day 2,200 mile motorcycle ride. There really is no way that I could do the ride without the above features so I set off out on doing the upgrades.
New Tires
The first step was to replace the tires. I had a hard time deciding which set of tires to place on my bike. After a lot of internet research I finally settled on the Continental Road Attack. I bought the tires from BikeBandit with no complaint.
The first step in replacing the tires is to get the wheels off without busting your motorcycle or your ass. My method is to place the bike on the center stand and then lift the handlebars up by attaching tiedown straps to the ceiling. After that place a jack underneath the motor in case the straps let go.
After the motorcycle is stable on the center-stand with neither wheel touching the ground remove the stock wheels. This is a pretty easy process on the Bandit and most other motorcycles.
I don’t have a tire machine and don’t much care for trying to get a tire on a rim with nothing but screw-drivers. I always take the wheels and my new tires to the dealer so they can swap them. The dealer swapped them out and the next day I put them back on my motorcycle.
As soon as I took the bike off the center-stand I noticed something odd. The rear tire was flat. I pumped it up thinking maybe they forgot and it seemed to hold air. The next day it was flat again. Crap. I pumped it up again and rode it to the mall to look for tire tools at Sears. When I left the store it was flat again and I had enough of that. I took the entire bike to the dealer and asked what the deal was.
The dealer removed the rear wheel and showed me the bead on the tire. It was completely destroyed. This was no good. The $120 tire was junk. I had a problem–I couldn’t blame it on the dealer because I didn’t buy the tire from them and I couldn’t blame it on the tire vendor because they didn’t put it on. I talked to a guy in their service department about it and he offered me a pretty good deal on a $150 Dunlop tire. They installed the Dunlop for me and charged me a total of $100 for parts and labor. This is how a business should work. My future relationship with this company was on the line and they helped me out. I suspect that they killed the first tire but I was willing to take the hit for buying the tire online.
The new Conti front tire and Dunlop rear tire appears to be a combination that works well. I’ll be buying Dunlop tires at the dealer from now on to avoid all this hassle. I will still take the wheels off myself as it gives me a good opportunity to look the bike over closely.
Music in the Helmet
If you have ever ridden for 20 hours straight on the interstate you know that it can become *extremely* boring. It is amazing how much a little music can pass the time. There are a lot of options for listening to music on the motorcycle. Some people mount really loud speakers on their bike and piss everyone off. Other people get speakers in their helmet or just wear earphones.
The Bandit has some wind protection but not a whole lot. 80 MPH tends to be pretty loud so speakers in the helmet aren’t a very good option. You end up hurting your ears from all the noise. I prefer to just wear earphones under my helmet as they cut down on *all* the noise while delivering good sound.
One problem with wearing earphones is the lack of volume control. You set your MP3 player at a certain volume–jam it into your jacket–and hit the highway. All of the sudden some crazy loud song comes on and your ears are screaming in pain. You generally just ignore it and hope the next song isn’t as loud. This is a problem that I wanted to solve.
The design requirements:
- Input / Output on the bike
- Volume Control that can be ran with gloves on
I went to Radio Shack and bought some stereo headphone jacks along with a potentiometer. After some soldering I came up with:
The next step was a bit scary and involved my motorcycle and a drill:
Now lets make it pretty:
My first test of this didn’t go so well. The Radio Shack potentiometer was basically a piece of crap. It didn’t work well for stereo sound because it wasn’t very balanced (in one spot the left would be louder than the right, in another vice versa). I ended up ordering a Panasonic EVJ potentiometer from Digi-key with way better results.
12V Power Outlet
I’m a geek. I can’t live without my electronic toys and I need a way to charge them. I scoured the local stores and couldn’t find any outlets that were weather proof. I ended up ordering one from Aerostich.
I am forgetful sometimes and I don’t want to run my battery dead because I had something plugged in over night. So it is critical that the power to the outlet switches on and off with the ignition. I dug through the factory service manual and looked all over the bike. I couldn’t find any existing circuits that I felt could support my power outlet and the heated grips I wanted to install. The only option was to run a new line of power from the battery.
You really need to be careful when you start pulling new powered wires through your bike that are hooked up directly to the battery. Way too many motorcycles have started on fire because people were too stupid to add an in-line fuse.
Notice how I have an inline fuse as close to the battery terminal as I can. I did end up rerouting this wire later to remove the kink after the fuse. I ran this wire all the way up to the front fairing.
So now I have my power. The next problem was figuring out how to make that power switch on and off with the key. Essentially I needed two things: a relay, and a wire that switches on and off with the ignition to trigger the relay.
A picture of the relay and fuse holder. Both Radio Shack parts.
You are looking at a pair of wires I found above the carburetors. It had a plug on it that I cut off. These wires are for an optional carb-heat that was used in certain countries. This is exactly what I needed to trigger my relay. I ran this hot wire to the front of the bike as well.
I ran all the wires I needed to the front of the motorcycle and soldered the relay to the wires.
Now I had my own run of switched power on the front of the motorcycle. This was some work but was completely worth it. I can go accessory crazy and add new gizmos without having to figure out where to get the power.
The next step was another scary one with the drill.
Now I ran into a problem right away with this. I thought that the place I chose for the hole would work but it turned out that there was a fairing mount behind it. This meant there was no room for the power outlet. I was a little bummed at this point as I had just popped a hole in my dash for no reason
You can see the fairing mount in this picture. I got lucky though. The 12V power outlet has a pretty wide lip on it. I busted out the dremel and made the round hole into more of an oval to the right. This gave me enough clearance to install the power outlet. The end result? You can’t tell.
This is a picture of the relay after I hid it in the front fairing.
Heated Grips
Heated grips are one of the best investments you can make on a motorcycle. It isn’t safe to be riding around with numb hands. I’ve used the Dual-Star heated grip kit on several motorcycles without a problem. The best part is the cost of the kit: $30.
I didn’t take many pictures during this installation so this is going to be primarily just words. The first step is to remove your stock grips. The easiest way to do this is with an air compressor. Shove the end of the nozzle under the grip and throw 100 PSI at it. The grip will expand and you’ll be able to pull it off without damaging anything. Once the grip is off it’ll look something like this:
The kit includes a thin heating element with some type of 3M adhesive on it. Stick the heating element onto the handlebar. Be sure to make sure that the wire off the element can route nicely in the position you attach it. Keep in mind that the throttle rotates and the wire must be able to move.
After I attached the elements I routed the wires to the left side of the fairing and ran another hot wire from my relay we added earlier. It was time to drill yet another hole in my dash for the grip switch. The end result looks like:
The top plug is obviously my power outlet. The switch below that is for the heated grips: HIGH, OFF, LOW. The remaining stuff below that is for my volume control.
Luggage
Going on a motorcycle trip without luggage isn’t very fun. You need somewhere to put all your stuff. The poor mans method is to strip a bunch of duffel bags all over your motorcycle. This works until it rains or they fall off (been there, done that).
Since this motorcycle is basically my baby I wanted to get some real luggage. Most of you know that the best hard luggage is made by Givi. They charge pretty good money for their gear but you get something that is compatible with future motorcycles, looks like stock, and keeps your stuff dry.
In order to avoid eating ramen noodles I decided to add only a top case for now. It took me awhile to figure out which one I wanted. In the end I was trying to decide between the V46 and the V52. The V52 is Givi’s largest model and I decided that it would look silly on my bike.
I ordered the Givi V46 and mounting hardware from Twisted Throttle. I don’t even want to talk about that experience. They messed up several times (didn’t push my order through, sent the wrong part, etc) and I didn’t get any of it by the date I said I needed it.
I don’t have any pictures of the installation of the luggage. But really there aren’t any pictures to take. You bolt the Givi mounts onto your motorcycle and snap the luggage onto the bike. Here is a picture of my Bandit with the Givi V46:
For those of you that are trying to decide if the Givi luggage is worth the money–let me tell you–it is. With one key you can open the luggage or completely remove the top case from your motorcycle. All of this can easily be done in seconds while wearing gloves.
Comfortable Seat
The Suzuki Bandit has a very large seat that looks comfortable. It even feels comfortable when you first sit on it. After about 20 miles–you change your mind. The seat is made out of a very hard foam with no form to it. So all of your weight ends up resting on a specific spot. Ouch.
The best fix for this problem would be a custom seat from Corbin or another such company. The problem with a custom seat is the cost–over $400. I decided that I had to do something about the seat for long trips but didn’t want to invest in a custom seat.
I read a bunch of reviews on the internet about seat pads. Pretty much all of them said the pad was worthless and actually made you more uncomfortable. There was one product though that always got good reviews. The Roho AirHawk.
The AirHawk has a rather interesting design. It is made out of a bunch of interconnected aircells with small passages between each other. As you apply pressure to one cell the air slowly flows in the next. This works great. When you sit on the AirHawk it distributes your weight across the entire surface area of your butt.
The AirHawk isn’t perfect though. It raises you off the seat about 1/2″ which means you have to learn forward further to reach the handle bars. You also feel a little ‘disconnected’ from the motorcycle. I wouldn’t want to use it if I were riding hard through the twisties.
Overall the AirHawk is a hell of a product. It is the perfect solution for the long distance ride. You can easily remove it from your seat when you are planning on staying local. There is no way I could ride on my Bandit for more than an hour without extreme pain without this product. Now I can ride with little to no discomfort.
As you can tell I’ve put a lot of thought towards improving my motorcycle. I really have enjoyed making this bike more ‘my own’. I am sure that I will be modifying it even more in the coming months. I’ll keep you all posted.