new rider, first bike.

[GoRacers]

Been wanting to get a motorcycle for a while. Right place, right time gives me this Honda for cheap. Ridden it arounda local school's parking lot twice now. Waiting till it is insured (Monday) to take it around the neighborhood. Then, safety course.


Much shorter bar risers are in the mail. Other than that, great shape and ready to pass inspection.

Definitely see myself getting pretty deep into riding.

[turbinepowered]

Looks good. Shadow?

Definitely a good idea to take the course. Course, gear, smarts: necessary ingredients.

[GoRacers]

Yup. Shadow 500. For now, it has plenty of power for me.

[sucking chest wound]

You are starting off with a good bike and a good plan. Good luck!

[pknopp]

Good for you. A middle of the road, reliable bike is always a good first choice.

Have fun. Just remember, even when someone is looking directly at you, don't assume they see you.

[GoRacers]

Good for you. A middle of the road, reliable bike is always a good first choice.

Have fun. Just remember, even when someone is looking directly at you, don't assume they see you.

Yeah. I've got some experience with bad drivers on my road bike, they REALLY don't see you when you aren't making any noise.

[turbinepowered]

Yeah. I've got some experience with bad drivers on my road bike, they REALLY don't see you when you aren't making any noise.

Don't always assume that noise will help you either. I drive professionally for a living; louder exhausts make it much harder to actually tell where you are around me. Because of the prevalence of loud exhausts around here, for all I know the earsplitter that's poking along in my blindspot could be on a side street or in a parking lot. I don't see anything in my mirrors, I'm moving over...

Better method is to ride alert, do your absolute best to stay out of the dead zone blindspots (where they'll hear you but never see you), and don't hang out beside cars at steady speeds (you'll get forgotten).

[turbinepowered]

Yup. Shadow 500. For now, it has plenty of power for me.

I'm sorta partial to Hondas, if not cruiser types. Looks good, enjoy the heck out of it!

[mrothwell]

I'm not big into cruisers, but the Honda Shadow is a good bike from what I've heard. There's a guy at work with one thats got well over 60,000 miles on his. It gets awesome gas mileage and is dead reliable too. Smart buy.

[blue70beetle]

Yeah. I've got some experience with bad drivers on my road bike, they REALLY don't see you.

FTFY. Pipes have nothing to do with it. It's been proven time and again, and these threads always come up anyway.

The people behind you are the ones who hear most of your noise. You're worried (at least you SHOULD be) about the people making a left turn in front of you, and they won't hear your pipes. Your pipes are just putting on a show for the people behind you.

The only time they'll help you is when you're dumb enough to ride in someone's blind spot...if you're far enough forward for them to hear you, they might be less likely to merge into you.

[Paul@VWvortex]

That looks like a very clean VT500 right there, congrats! I would start on that one and keep it.

[GoRacers]

That looks like a very clean VT500 right there, congrats! I would start on that one and keep it.

I think that's the plan. I thought about selling it on Craigslist when I'm done, I could definitely make some money on it. The fact that it is so easy to ride and 100% complete makes me want to hang on to it to let other people learn on it.

[GoRacers]

Rode the bike outside the neighborhood twice now (rode to work today). Definitely needs some tuning. I don't have any experience with carbs, every car I have built has had EFI. Rabbit had CIS, but that doesn't really count.

Anyway, the idle will slowly fall and eventually stall at stoplights unless the choke is fully on. With 75-80% choke, I can ride it but the idle is HIGH (2000rpm). Sometimes it will stumble if go more than 25-30% throttle when in the 2000-3000 rpm range. I think it is starving.

New plugs, oil, air filter.

I'm pretty sure the carbs need to to come off and be cleaned, but I figured I'd ask here first.

[Paul@VWvortex]

It sounds to me like it would be money well-spent to simply buy as much of a carb rebuild kit as you can for that bike. I cannot recall if it is a single carb to both cylinders?

Anyways it sounds like a good cleaning of the bowl, jets, needles and perhaps the pump diaphragm might be a good place to start. I would also rebuild the fuel petcock while you are in there just because if the bike has sat for any length of time it will be gushing soon. Oh and replace the fuel lines, flush the tank to rid yourself of sediment and get yourself one of those little inline fuel filters while you are in there. The total will be well under $100 and it will be pretty easy to do.

[pknopp]

Anytime the topic of carb cleaning comes up I always recommend this........

Go to Harbor Freight and get a cheap ultrasonic. It's what the shop is going to use if you take them there and they will charge you as much as the ultrasonic will cost you.

You can use (it's what I use) Simple Green in it. Carbs have very fine passages that get glogged over time. The ultrasonic cleans them right out. You'll then find all sorts of things to clean with it. (clean the wife's jewelry).

Most certainly do the same with the petcock.

[GoRacers]

Thanks for the advice so far.

Edit/update: both slow jets were badly clogged, one was almost completely closed. Engine feels like a completely different bike now. Much better.