#parts

The more stuff you know how to fix, the more things fall apart. Before I started keeping not one but two flat tire repair kits on hand and a shiny new air compressor, I never got flats. Now I seem to pick up about one nail per vehicle per week. I took the old Ranger truck in to have a tire patched the other day when I couldn’t make a plug work. The next morning, the same tire was flat again. Oh, said the dude at Pep Boys upon my return, after a little investigating – there were two nails in there. Sorry.

For those of us who own older sportbikes but don’t usually feel the need to keep up in the unending performance wars (after all, many bikes exceeded necessary streetable power years ago), the march of technology still gives us other temptations for updating to more current bikes. These days, it often feels like all of the new bikes come with cool electronic trickery that makes riding easier – and cooler. A quick shifter is an item that drastically increases the fun factor of performance riding. Yeah, they help shave fractions of seconds off lap times, but the real fun for most street riders is the sound of a full-throttle upshift – or three – as they rocket down the entrance ramp or along a remote mountain road.