That is a great looking bike. I like the blacked out look. I`ve had my 919 for about five months now, and like it more with each passing mile. Excellent power, good handling, and looks good too.
WoIf What bark busters ya got there? Got my friends 919 in teh garage he is re-doing after the original owner did a fabulous full body sticker job. Looks good
Thanks thisflatearth They are Trackside from Cycle Gear. They are on sale from 89.99 to 44.99. My friend test rode it in the parking lot and dropped it pretty hard. The metal held strong and I took a lighter to the scuffed plastic. Doesn't even look like it hit anymore.
at the LEAST a thanks. JUST by your description of them, I went to the cyclegear website, read the other reviews, and am SOLD! I had "wind deflectors" on my Buell, and when it went down, the "deflectors" did NOTHING but move (and yes, they were installed correctly, and tight) thus destroying my clutch lever. And yes, it was a tip over at zero mph, thanks asshole cage driver against my PARKED bike. Wolf, go get a sales job now if you don't have one.
From this: To this: And on to this: I have more to do to finish the paint, like wet sanding and such, but it's too cold for now. I took my wife to Home Depot and told her to pick out a color and this is what she chose. I took the old stickers and shitty paint off and laid on some primer. After sanding and smoothing it out (which included removing some runs) I sprayed on many very thin coats of color until it was uniform and complete. Then it was many coats of matte clear to build up a thick layer. Now I just have to wet sand everything smooth because of the heavy orange peel and spray on a final coat of matte clear if the 6 micron paper doesn't leave a uniform frosty finish. I would like to say I would get a HVLP gun if/when this happens again, but I'll probably do the same thing. At $4/can I have under $40 in the primer, paint, and clear. The PO painted the gauge buckets black without prepping the chrome so it was flaking off. I figured I'd glass bead it off and paint it up again. This was a good idea poorly executed, resulting in this: A little bit would have been great and I would have left it a frosted chrome look. I guess I either sprayed too much, too long, too close, or all of the above and it looks like the copper stretched from the peening and separated from the plastic. I had to peel it all off and now have to prime and paint it too. I think I'm going to order those hand guards. They look sweet. I'm looking for a stock rear fender/plate mount/plate light/blinker mount if anyone has one lying around collecting dust. I have the resources at work to make an aluminum or stainless undertail to mount everything, but I don't have the drive right now and am just trying to focus on getting it road ready for the spring. I'm all ears if anyone has history on the bike. It came from the Clinton, Lebanon, Round Valley area area of NJ. Feel free to PM me.
Check out http://www.wristtwisters.com/ for parts. Someone there also might just chime in: "Hey, that's my old bike."
Short Video: http://youtu.be/rXz2F1_eqJA <a href="http://s1267.photobucket.com/albums/jj542/iJamesLopez/?action=view¤t=f7873325e1b2cf25be69b3d12b3ce356_zps443a1cca.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.advrider.com/advrider-photobucket-images/images/i/iJamesLopez_f7873325e1b2cf25be69b3d12b3ce356_zps443a1cca.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos" /></a> <a href="http://s1267.photobucket.com/albums/jj542/iJamesLopez/?action=view¤t=36b1f84d08d0ecd69b384995d10665ca_zpsb02667e5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.advrider.com/advrider-photobucket-images/images/i/iJamesLopez_36b1f84d08d0ecd69b384995d10665ca_zpsb02667e5.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos" /></a>
Beautiful! Congrats! Great video too. How do you like the trail-attack tires? I just installed the sport-attacks on mine (free from a friend) but I may want something a little more touring oriented. I'll see how they do in about a month or so.
Thanks! I love them but I haven't seen as much off road as I thought I would. I have put 4500 miles on them and they're at 50-60% tread left. They are great in the corner even with all the added weight. The road attacks may be my next buy.
Sweet!! I just found this thread. Here are a few pics of mine and my wife's '04 919s. Love these bikes! We made a 5000 mile trip down around the Grand Canyon in '05 and a trip to Banff, Canada in '06. Then we had kids.
Does anyone here have a knocking sound from around 2000-6000rpm under light acceleration? It seems to go away under hard throttle. Mine is worse than my wife's, but it is definitely there in both of them. Mine has had it since new. Just curious what it is. It hasn't gotten worse in the total 12,000 miles.
Some have it and some don't. My 06 that was ran hard during break-in didn't have it. My 07 was broke in "by the book" and had it at times. Personally, I think it is piston slap since mine did it worst when cold. Nothing to worry about, there's a thread over on Wristtwisters.com about it. Do you notice it all the time or just when the engine is not up to temp?
It is there all the time, but definitely notice it more when cold. I figured if it was gonna get worse, it would have done it by now or let loose. Thanks for the response.
Picked up a red 05 in mint condition with 9000km on the clock a couple of days back. I've had my eye on the 919 - Hornet here - for a few years as they tend to sell for way less than what they should. I've been riding a long while, have owned about 60 bikes and have pretty clear ideas on what makes a good one, and the Hornet ticks the boxes. About 18 months ago I bought a Bandit 1250S, put 16,000km on it in the 6 months or so I kept it and hated just about every minute of it. The engine was lovely, but it was incredibly uncomfortable, useless for pillions, had a dreadful rear shock, was too porky, handling was heavy, the brakes were marginal and it ate front tyres. The screen on the S wind-blasted your head off at highway speeds and the throttle used to slowly creep back, requiring constant attention to keep it on a set rev mark on a long cruise. I spent a lot of money on it tweaking things to fix the shortfalls then just gave up and sold it. The Hornet is everything the Bandit should have been - light - fuelled up it actually weighs the same as my Kawasaki W800, the motor is torquey, it holds revs, handling is light, suspension is fine for my weight, it fits me like a glove and my regular pillion likes it. It also goes well up in the rev range in the lower gears in the twisty bits. I've put around 1000km on it the last 4 days and even caning it has given good fuel mileage. I've bought the Hepco & Becker racks as I have a full set of H&B luggage for my other bikes. In the next week or so I'll wire in an Eastern Beaver fuse box, Oxford grips, add the H&B racks and a twin set of LED spotlights. I've got a good Givi "naked" touring screen for the winter, so the Hornet will be my new highway bike. Handles gravel roads nicely too. No pics as yet, but will add some when I can dig out the camera.
I had the same experience, the Bandit was scary compared to the 919. The head shake on the Bandit taught you to maintain a good grip. My 919 gave a real confidence at speed and allowed a lot more comfortable cruise. My mistake was selling both at the same time for a more comfortable ride for my wife. She never held up her end of that bargain. I am looking for another good example of a 919 to have around. Glad you found one.
I saw your earlier comment on the 1200 being roomier - I found the 1200 to be a lot more comfortable than the 1250S which was very cramped for me - 5'10", 33" inseam and lightweight. I never had any head shake problems with the 1250S and putting Pilot Road 3s on it made the handling a lot sharper and they lasted well, but it was still a dog of a bike all said. Quite unlike the 1200, which was a beauty. If they'd simply dropped the 1250 engine into the 1200 rolling chassis unchanged it would have been a great bike. One thing I did like about the 1250 was the absolute silence of the exhaust and engine on the highway; like my old Beemers. Exhaust drone gets old very quickly on long days at speed. I've got buzzy bars as well around the 4000rpm range, but compared to most of the bikes I've owned the vibes aren't bad and if I didn't suffer the aftereffects of 40-odd years of vibration in my hands it wouldn't even rate. Unfortunately you can't mod the bar mounts with rubber spacers like you can on some others, but it's easy enough to keep it outside the vibration band. One thing that is lovely is the induction/exhaust roar when caning it. It growls just like an early K series CB750 with the baffles out of the 4 into 4 pipes.
I find a stock exhaust is good for me. I did feel the overall build quality of the Suzuki was just not up to the expectations I had from running Honda's. I almost bought a 650 Strom over the NC700X. It just had so many little misfits. The Strom is still a great bike and my old Bandit was better than nothing. Just a soft spot for the 919 and Honda in general.
