Ever since I got the Yamaha WR450 I've been needing a package rack on the back of the motorcycle to carry a few odds and ends when I go riding. I might want to carry a bottle of water, or a small bag of tools or maybe even a little extra gas. The Yamaha only has a 2 gallon gas tank which can disappear fairly quickly if you're flogging the bike hard while you're riding off road. And even though my flogging days are over a spare half gallon of gasoline is still good for some peace of mind.

There's a lot of package racks for sale on the Internet but for the most part they're outrageously expensive for what you're getting. If you look at the average package rack made for a dirt bike you would think $50 should more than cover it, but in general there in the $150 to $200 category. Those prices have caused me to put off buying one until I could find something more reasonably priced.

The price problem finally got solved when I found a Fuse Rear Rack that cost $100. Even though I still think the things should cost 50 bucks, it looks like a C-note is the best you can do to get one with any quality.

This one does look nice, it's sturdy, has a nice powder coat, and is easy to install or remove. So far my only complaint has been that it's a little bit heavy, and for me in my situation every ounce is more for me to have to push up the ramp to load it on the Arctic Fox.

                   theboondork

I know I was supposed to post pictures of the Yamaha's new tires yesterday but for some reason I didn't. it could have been been laziness, or senility, or more than likely, just decided to do something else. But today I will do what I should've done yesterday.

It's amazing how much that last sentence sounds like the story of my life, seeing as how I'm the Prince of procrastination. If you look up procrastination on Wikipedia you'll see a picture of me, as soon as I get around to sending them one.

But I digress, I'm not here to talk about my failures, foibles, and eccentricities because there's not enough ink in all of the pens in the world to clearly explain my foibles much less my failures and eccentricities. I'm here to talk tires.

The Motoz rear tire I bought is a 100x110x18. The WR450 comes with a 100x120x18 which is supposed to be about 1/2 inch wider than the tire I just bought. When I checked the Motoz website I found out that the Motoz 120 tire was a little bit taller than the 110 and the last thing I wanted to do was make the Yamaha any taller than it is right now. Fortunately because of the Motoz tread design it had the same width as the WR450 factory tire so I didn't have to give up anything in terms of rubber on the ground.

The Continental TKC 80 is a fairly standard 90 x 90 x 21 front tire and appears to be very much like the trials type tires that were standard on enduro bikes back in the day.

I haven't had a chance to ride the Yamaha WR450 in the dirt seeing as how Denver has a lot more pavement than dirt, but the new tires behavior on the streets is just what I was hoping for, there relatively quiet, don't vibrate, and has a more stable feeling going around curves than the squirmy knobby tires that were on it.

So far I'm happy with my choice of tires but its going to take some more time and some different riding conditions to determine if these are really the best tires for how and where I ride.

                  theboondork

I went to a motorcycle accessory store and bought some tires for the Yamaha WR450. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a motorcycle accessory store. I normally bought motorcycle stuff from motorcycle shops whose main business was selling motorcycles but would also have a few motorcycle related items. But Performance Cycle is a completely different animal.

Performance cycle doesn't sell motorcycles at all, but sells everything related to motorcycles that anyone could possibly need. Since I was interested in some tires I was amazed at how many tires they had, instead of a large rack of tires like most motorcycle shops have they had a whole room full of tires that were on racks so high that the sales guy had to climb up on a ladder to get my tires down. I was impressed to say the least.

I was looking for a Motoz Mountain Hybrid rear tire and a Continental TKC 80 front tire. I had looked at the Motoz front tire before and felt that it was a little too gnarly for street use because what I'm trying to do is change out the street legal knobby tires that are on it now for street legal tires that don't vibrate as bad while driving on pavement. And from what I've read on the Internet, these two tires will give me decent traction in the dirt and a smoother ride on pavement.

Since flat tires are the scourge of motorcyclist everywhere I decided to bite the bullet and put Tubliss liners in both tires. I've never used them before but I've read, and heard, a lot of good things about them. Riding in the southwest desert areas where I usually spend my winters cactus abounds and flat tires are a way of life, but I'm hoping the Tubliss system will at least give me some peace of mind and maybe prevent some flats.

Tune in tomorrow and I will put up some pictures of the Yamaha's new shoes.

       theboondork

After lowering the 2016 Yamaha WR450 two inches this is what it looks like. It looks a lot lower to me now and I guess that makes sense because it's about 4 inches lower than when I bought it. I haven't measured the seat height since I had it professionally lowered but I measured it a couple of months ago and it was about 36 inches from the ground so I guess it's safe to say the seat height is now 34 inches.

I think a 34 inch seat height is pretty much what it was back in the day. My memory is that when I was younger I could hop on anybody's dirt bike and put both feet solidly on the ground. I also remember going anyplace I wanted to go on a bike that tall.

The feel of the Yamaha WR450 now is more like sitting in the bike instead of on it. Before I started lowering it I felt like I was perched precariously on top of the motorcycle and the least little thing was going to topple me over. Now sitting on the bike with my knees bent and both feet flat on the ground I feel more solidly attached to the motorcycle.

Now I understand that I have traded off some things to get that solidly attached feeling that I've been looking for. And those things are decreased suspension travel and decreased ground clearance. For some folks that would be a bad trade. But for me I don't ride in a way or in places where I need huge amounts of suspension travel and 13 inches of ground clearance so I'm glad to trade those things off for the feeling of security that the Yamaha WR450 gives me now.

I ordered a FMF Powercore muffler for the WR450 in an effort to allow the engine to breathe a little better. The stock muffler it comes with really does choke up the bike and creates a lot of back pressure. But I guess that's what it takes to get past California's strict noise requirements. I'm hoping the new muffler is not too loud because I'm not looking for more noise I just want the engine to breathe better. It has a spark arrestor in it which is a good thing since I ride in the national forest a lot. It's supposed to get here tomorrow and I will post some pictures when I get time to put it on.

    

                          theboondork

My Yamaha WR450 [ El Diablo ] was taken apart today so that the shocks on both ends of the bike could be lowered by 2 inches. The Yamaha sure looked pitiful laying there in pieces, but I assured El Diablo that this was all for its own good. That it's kind of like neutering your dog, the dog certainly isn't going to like it but it makes it more likely that you will keep the dog around and give it a happy healthy life. And that's the way it's going to work for El Diablo, yes it won't be as tall as it used to be but it will be more likely that I will keep it around if it doesn't throw me off as much.

I'm glad I got Matt, the owner of RG3 suspension, to do this job for me. I've had a chance to talk to him for a while now and he's not only knowledgeable about motorcycles and how they operate but he cares about his business and wants people to know that everyone he deals with gets treated fairly and honestly and rides away not only a customer but a friend.

I made it safely to the Jefferson County Fairgrounds in less than 30 minutes since their was hardly any traffic at 10 o'clock in the morning. I got checked in, lead to my site and unloaded the Yamaha even before I unhooked and set up the Arctic Fox.

 I Rode the WR450 down the street to RG3 Suspension, the  shop that's lowering the Yamaha, and chatted with them a while explaining what my needs were. I was very impressed with the shop. From the outside it looks like not much of anything is going on but on the inside it looks busy, functional, and obviously has a lot of motorcycles coming and going through the shop. I was impressed that there was no up selling going on, trying to sell me things that I didn't need or want. In fact it was the opposite, they had ordered some springs they thought I would need but when they realized that my style of riding [ Low and slow ] didn't require those springs they removed the cost of them from the estimate. The owner Matt is the one that does most of the work which means to me that he wants the job to be done right because his name is on all of it.

                          theboondork

I did a couple of things to the Yamaha WR 450 today. first I put some new Knight Design foot pegs on it which are 1 inch lower than the factory foot pegs. When I lowered my seat 1 inch that put me a little too close to the factory foot pegs and my knees were bent too much so by putting 1 inch lower foot pegs on it that made the seating position normal again. It was an easy installation but required adjusting the rear brake pedal and the gearshift lever down a little bit but that's not hard to do.

The other thing I did was put higher handlebars on it. They're not much higher only about an inch but it does make it a little more comfortable when I stand up on the Yamaha WR450. I would actually prefer higher handlebars like dirt bikes had back in the day, but high handlebars for dirt bikes are hard to find nowadays. These Pro taper bars with the Pastrana bend are the highest ones I could find in the kind of bars that fit the 2016 Yamaha WR450, which is a 1 1/8 middle diameter and 7/8 diameter on the ends. I don't know if low bars are just a style or they actually make you a better rider but it seems like professional motocross riders and enduro riders back a long time ago did everything they needed to do with high handlebars and I always found them very comfortable.

I finally gathered all of the plastic pieces to turn my 2016 WR 450 black. Well almost all of the pieces.



I couldn't find the white plastic cowl, fairing thingy that the headlight mounts to. All the ones I found in black had a headlight attached to them and they were very expensive so I decided just to paint the thing with Krylon super Maxx in gloss black and its worked out okay.



I had been looking for a kit that had all of the parts in it and that's what I couldn't find anywhere but once I found out there were black plastic pieces out there I just had to buy them one at a time I started looking for a place that had the most of them in stock and That place turned out to be "Rocky Mountain ATV MC". so I ordered all of the Acerbis pieces from them. The piece that I couldn't find besides the headlight thingy was the rear fender. I looked high and low for a black rear fender and was about to give up when I figured I would just buy a YZ450 fender and make it work. I did make it work but it was far from perfect, the way I had to mount the tail light was kind of ugly but the biggest problem was the battery compartment and all the electronic gadgets there are attached to the metal plate the battery sits on. The YZ fender is a completely different shape in that area and takes up a lot of space where the battery should be. The only thing that saved me was I had just bought a Shorai lithium iron battery and it's so tiny it fit in that limited space.



By the way I weighed the batteries on my postal scale and the factory battery weighed 4 lbs. 8 oz. and the Shorai lithium iron battery weighed 1 lb. 7 oz.



I'm really not liking the way the whole rear fender turned out so if I ever find a black one for a WR450 I will replace the cobbled together thing that I've got now.



All the other parts fit like they were made for it and went together quickly and easily. The weird thing is each part came in a bag with a label that said it was for some other model or some other year or some other size, the only thing that was labeled for my motorcycle was the front fender, But everything fit just fine.