The Zongshen TT 250 is Coming

[oddthought]

Well, I decided to ride up to the Bingham Canyon Mine overlook Tuesday, and I finally got around to posting the pictures online. Here is the link to the gallery where I posted all of the pictures I took. It's really annoying to upload them to this site, so I'll just direct you there. After that trip and commuting yesterday, I am up around 579 km (360 miles) and the bike is still doing well. I don't think I mentioned on here that when I adjusted the valves a while back, the intake was very tight. Both are adjusted now and the combination of valve adjustment and 17T sprocket on the front has me running a bit quicker now than I was. I've noticed the difference a lot more on the low end. My first and second gears stretch a lot further now than they did with the 15 tooth countershaft sprocket.

My top speed so far, downhill, has been 64 mph (GPS). I'm hoping I can raise that a bit, but the motor seems to be the problem rather than the gearing when I'm heading uphill. I am not opposed to trying a 47 or 43 tooth sprocket, but it feels to me like the engine can't keep up at 55 mph up the hill near my home. Maybe with a 47 or 43T rear, I could gear down and make it happen anyway. We'll see. I'm still planning on waiting until at least 500 miles before making any substantive changes to the engine itself. Of course, that's only 2 days commuting! If I do feel like I need to modify the bike to get better performance out of it, I plan to follow the "Mrs. 2LZ Phoenix" method.

So far, the only problem that wasn't my fault was my speedometer cable breaking at 341 km. I pulled it when I first got the bike, greased it, rerouted it, but it still didn't last. I'll probably replace the speedometer/odometer with the mjstef model once that's out. I want a tach anyway, since I like to have more evidence than just my finely calibrated ears can provide. Other things I've encountered was a drop on the right side that broke the front brake lever mount/front brake reservoir ($30 with the new lever) and a drop on the left side that broke the clutch lever ($10). I've thought about picking up a few extras (top case, saddlebags, tank bag, heated grips, quick drain oil plug, etc) but haven't yet done so. This bike has been just what I wanted so far, even if it is a little slower than I hoped.