Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128389
our calibration proceslrmuah easier. We simply did some radar readings on the street in front of the office and determined the variance, and probably made everyone in the area's radar detectors go crazy. We determined that the bike's speedo is 6 percent optimistic. After installing the SpeedoHealer and calibrating to negative 6 percent, we went back out and did a series of radar runs and determined that we had corrected our GSX-R's speedometer completely. Now when I'm speeding, at least I know by exactly how much. One bad thing about our GSX-R I000 is that it has an insatiable appetite for tires. It was once again time to change tires, so we decided to try something different. The guy from Tomahawk tires had recently dropped off a set of the blue T I tires you see advertised in all of the magazines, including ours, and my curiosity got the best of me. To be honest, I haven't heard anything at all about these tires' performance - not a Single bit of feedback. That's all it took for me to give them a try. I know a thing or two about tires, so I felt that I could be a fair judge of their performance. One thing that BUTnlng the 'Q.!~~s t is well documented that the 2005 Suzuki GSX-RIOOO is an awesome bike, even winning this year's Cycle News Open-class shootout by a landslide. That position has been repeated over and over in magazines from around the world. not to mention the success that Suzuki has had actually racing the bike. So far this season (pre-Mld-Ohio), Mat Mladin has won seven AMA Superblke Nationals. and young Ben Spies has grabbed a victory as well. In the World Superblke Championship, Troy Corser has reeled off seven victories and is a sure bet for the title. As such, the GSX-RIOOO is without a doubt the bike of the year in our opinIon. So why on earth would we take a near-per1ect motorcycle like this and mess with It? Well, there Is that pan about only being near perfect. I more attention to the fact that we were ripping around on a 154-hp missile that is most likely only on the rear wheel. One thing that has always driven me nuts while commuting on Japanese sportbikes is that the speedometers are notoriously inaccurate. For the most part. they all seem to read very optimistically, and knowing this, I try to estimate the variance and ride close We decided right away that the GSX-RIOOO doesn't need much In the way of performance enhancements, especially for street duty. We also decided that we are quite fond of the Suzuki's exhaust canister (although we l'eIlIize that not -..yone Is). so we decided not to order up a louder aftermarket unit. Besides. we didn't I'eIlIIy need to draw any 58 AUGUST 3,2005 • CYCLI N'WS to what I feel is accurate. The problem with this entire practice is that I really never know how fast I am going, and the fact that everyone in Southern California drives so fast makes it even harder to judge. The seatof-my-pants estimate dictates that I normally ride at least an indicated 5 mph faster than the speed I want to go. But wouldn't it be nice if they were just accurate in the first place? Well. there is now a cool product that will calibrate your speedometer, converting it to either kilometers or miles per hour and recording your actual top speed into its memory. The product is called the SpeedoHealer v.3.0. The SpeedoHealer took me about half an hour to install and calibrate, both of which are straightforward processes. There are a couple of different ways to determine how far off your speedometer is. First, you can go on to SpeedoHealer.com and enter a bunch of information into the site's online calculator. It will give you a calibration factor, which is called the estimated method. Having a Stalker radar gun here at the office made Messing with a nearperfect sportbike isn't always a great idea Tomahawk told me up front was that these tires are for street use only and not meant for racetrack use. They can't handle the heat generated at those speeds because, among other things, the tires don't have much if any carbon black in them, a key ingredient to a tire's durability. The reason that these tires don't have any carbon black should be pretty obvious: If they did, they would be blackl So the colored tires that you see here are primarily made of a silica compound, which wears qUicker than your average black motorcycle tire. PARTS , Speedo Healer v3.0 $89.99 Available from: Cal-Sportbike www.calsportbike.com 760-249-8890 Tomahawk TI colored tires 190/50ZR17 (rear) $209.95 120/70ZR17 (front) $139.95 Available from: Desser Tire & Rubber Co. www.cycletires.com 800-321-9717