Riding X too hard??

I guess I ride my X pretty close to if I stole it: full throttle always (except for the first mile or so warming up), rev close to limiter most of the time, ride over 75mph whenever the road is clear, & use brakes hard.
I keep worrying that I'm over-stressing things too much of the time, & that either she'll explode on me, or just start falling to pieces/waring out. Bike now done 10k miles, am thinking of keeping her to maybe 20k miles: should I ride less hard or quit worrying??

QUIT WORRYING.

motokid wrote:

QUIT WORRYING.

+1

trav72 wrote:

motokid wrote:

QUIT WORRYING.

+1

+2, just keep up on maintenance and ride how you want, that's why you own it.

+3 that's what they are made for

I dunno.... I'd slow down, ride about 50. maybe 55 at most.

Maybe do a 14 KMi. premature valve adjustment. Maybe think about retirement for the old gal.

I'm thinking of starting up a WR "put em out to meadow" farm, so change the oil and bring her on by.

Even though she's almost worn out, I'll take good care of her for ya.

X-Racer wrote:

I dunno.... I'd slow down, ride about 50. maybe 55 at most.

Maybe do a 14 KMi. premature valve adjustment. Maybe think about retirement for the old gal.

I'm thinking of starting up a WR "put em out to meadow" farm, so change the oil and bring her on by.

Even though she's almost worn out, I'll take good care of her for ya.

OK, OK, enough already! I'll continue to thrash the hell out of her!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for all the replies though

After 1 mile of cold riding I would not consider it any close to normal riding temperature. Does yours run and rev smoothly after such a short warmup?
I would probably expect it to burn oil within quite a short period of time. Not a good condition for passing it on.

Phil

Yeah......Shut up and ride the thing.....Hard.
As advised: Keep up the maintenance.

Flatboarder: ....but with "Normal" being a relative term, Mash's bike, at just under the rev limiter is REALLY warm !

X-Racer wrote:

Flatboarder: ....but with "Normal" being a relative term, Mash's bike, at just under the rev limiter is REALLY warm !

Well, I realized the term 'riding the hell out of it' also seems to be a relative term, given a recent post of someone "riding the [hell|shit] out of it", who posted a short video showing someone (himself?) riding back and forth at some short gravel road. I was wondering about this, recently. But just in case this thread has got some serious background (which I cannot tell due to my poor knowledge of English language) I would indeed try to spend some more miles of warmup before using upper rev range. Even if I do not care myself, I believe this should be considered if there is an option of selling the vehicle to someone else at a later time.

Phil

flatboarder wrote:

After 1 mile of cold riding I would not consider it any close to normal riding temperature. Does yours run and rev smoothly after such a short warmup?
I would probably expect it to burn oil within quite a short period of time. Not a good condition for passing it on.

Phil

Hey Phil: just for clarity, I DO NOT get anywhere near the rev limiter during warm-up. As per a post elsewhere on this forum, I take it easy at first. When the bike stops 'bogging down', I then progressively open her up. I agree with warming stuff up, particularly oil & tyres, which obviously takes a bit longer in winter. As for engine condition for someone buying secondhand: that's a whole other discussion. Why should I take it easy for a future user? Not wanting to be selfish, but where do you draw the line on this??

mash100 wrote:

Hey Phil: just for clarity, I DO NOT get anywhere near the rev limiter during warm-up. As per a post elsewhere on this forum, I take it easy at first. When the bike stops 'bogging down', I then progressively open her up. I agree with warming stuff up, particularly oil & tyres, which obviously takes a bit longer in winter. As for engine condition for someone buying secondhand: that's a whole other discussion. Why should I take it easy for a future user? Not wanting to be selfish, but where do you draw the line on this??

I just wanted to point out the mentioned 1.5 miles may not be enough of warmup before going full throttle. I can not tell from your post whether you are doing so. That was just something that came to my mind when reading. It may take considerable longer for a liquid cooled engine to warm up all of its engine oil to the level of normal operation.

As to the future user, I need to say, this is definitely something I do consider for my motos. I have been selling several of them and I have always been trying to make a fair deal where both of us came out happy. Or put it the other way round: in case you get a used WR like many others here, and you are very happy with it until you find out it probably has got engine wear maybe due to previous abuse by lack of engine warmup, this is something that may be a big issue and lots of trouble for a new owner who could not afford a brand new bike and who got the WR just because people say it is undestructible.

I definitely believe this engine is quite durable and does not require special care, but as far as I know, allowing it a good warmup before riding upper rev level does matter, even with current motorcycle engines.

Phil

Phil: Your command of the English language is very good as are your points. ...and warming up a bike IS important in prolonging its end-of-life.

My personal mode of operation is to treat my bike like I am the next owner.

The way I look at it is that if you take care of it, it'll take care of you.

Lucky for me, I can't ride any of my bikes to THEIR ability.

phil,

just my piss-ant opinion...and many may think I'm wrong....but

I think you are way over-thinking and way over-worrying about your WR and it's abilities.

I live by the credo.... ride it like you stole it.

Warm up is about, putting helmet and gloves on, getting out of parking lot, or getting out of neighborhood.

After that, it's no holds barred stretch the fookin throttle cables with every gear and try to lift that front tire off the ground acceleration.

Wring the damn quarter-of-an-R1-engine's neck and let 'er rip.

but again....that's just me.

^ I tend to share that same philosophy.

trav72 wrote:

^ I tend to share that same philosophy.

Rather than worry that I might be hurting the damn bike - I tend to think....push it to it's limits.

I bought it to have fun....not worry that I might be hurting her.

Moto: Not that the comment requires clarification, but I don't think Phil was worried about what others do to their bikes (warming them up, or how they ride them).

He was simply making an observation (which is probably fairly accurate for the time/distance span of 1.5 miles) that the engine probably hasn't reached what is referred to as a thermal equilibrium (i.e. a thermal coefficient of expansion "balance").

So if "one" (not you, or Trav) WERE concerned about the results in the way of thermally induced fatigue (and prolonging engine life), then they MIGHT think otherwise.

For YOU GUYS that are NOT concerned, just keep on revvin' !

Sorry for opening up what could be a rather heated debate!! It would be really interesting to see Yamaha test results on this - I bet they've carried out testing almost to destruction on these bikes!! So: what is the R2 life expectancy 'fully thrashed' v driven like an old woman ?? I suppose if someone had enough money they could buy 2 R2s & do the testing themselves
My two-pence worth: give her a reasonable warmup, then ride hard!

I agree....

Now if you want a heated debate, start one on how to break-in a bike ! * laugh *

I have seen video of destructive testing of pre production motors where they drain the oil on one, the coolant on another, and run 50 octane fuel in another, you would be amazed how long they run at WOT in situations like these

They do test production engines at full throttle for 24hrs in dyno rooms, there is seldom a failure
People break bikes in my opinion, they seldom fail under normal usage

I say change your oil and clean your air filter and run er like ya stole it, it's fairly under stressed to meet EPA regs

0007onWR wrote:

I have seen video of destructive testing of pre production motors where they drain the oil on one, the coolant on another, and run 50 octane fuel in another, you would be amazed how long they run at WOT in situations like these

They do test production engines at full throttle for 24hrs in dyno rooms, there is seldom a failure
People break bikes in my opinion, they seldom fail under normal usage

I say change your oil and clean your air filter and run er like ya stole it, it's fairly under stressed to meet EPA regs

BTW, I happened to ride a 620 Supercomp without coolant (or at least draining it while riding). Although this bike is durable with respect to engine overheat (I owned one that I used for every kind of riding during 5 years, it did never overheat), this ride was a very short one. It ended up with 2 very hard banging sounds from the engine and a sudden full stop. No more internal movement. However, we managed to get into neutral gear somehow, and another guy pushed me back to the camp with his foot where I luckily could take another bike.

Phil

Oh ya, i'm not suggesting there wont be permanent irreversible damage done
The video I saw the engine was practically transparent it was so hot and smoke was billowing off as the paint burned away
She was dumpster fodder after the test

These motors are under stressed, it is 1/4 of an R1 making about 25 hp where the R1 makes significantly more than 4 times the power
At least 150HP per L as opposed to 100HP per L
Now it's hard to really load up an R1 cuz it's so insanely fast so it kind of has an easier life but the R2 is in a pretty relaxed state of tune
Another comparison is that I know a bunch of guys running Turbo Apex's at well in excess of 300hp (Granted a generation older than the R1/R2 but a reasonable comparison)
300 HP per L and they have pile of real hard miles on them, YouTube Yamafest, these guys are freaks