As long as you don't yapp on about using me as the model on such a small bike for advertising. I might get upset and have to murder you or some shit. I am thin skinned and easily offended and some jerks around here say I have a Napoleon complex but they're jerks and jealous of my great looks.
I just picked up a used Haibike Xduro RX29. Not as powerful as some of the Luna kits I've put on a few frames, but the torque-sensing mid-drive is a more cycling-ish experience. That Apex is psychotic!
I bought a used one. Great motor (soooo much better than my grom) and the 5sp trans fixes my biggest complaints about the grom. The gears are properly spaced and easier to keep the motor on the boil. Stock it is horriby undersprung and underdamped. You absolutely must ride with precision or the suspension will get away from you. But doesn’t that force you to ride better? The only thing you have to do before going track mad is raise the footpegs a s high as you can. This shortcoming is even worse than a stock grom. it won’t be long before suspension tuning starts because there is tons or room for improvement. Jump to 16:38 for the benelli. You will notice i turn this bike slower than i do the grom in Claudios other clips. The suspension doesn’t yet tolerate faster direction changes. Or i should say i lack the precision to change direction faster without needing the suspesion to make up for the sloppiness. The bike has tons of potential. this is a gokart track in Katy, TX. $350 a year. Ride as often as you can go there. Screw inflation…
Bought one a few weeks ago. A used one. It has mods to the footpegs to move them up 2”. Without that it can’t finish a turn at the track. It can’t carve the racing line without dragging everything and even then you run off the track. The brackets to do the pegs are unobtainium though. I posted on youtube what they are, but unclear how to source replacements when I do something bad. Ground clearnace is no longer an issue though. The Suspension is like a 1970s Cadillac on a speedbump. An adjustable shock from steadygarage has been ordered… I’ll report back in another week or so. No one makes a cartridge folk kit for this i have found. please help if you know of any alternatives. Desperately needs it. I rode a friends 135 trackbike at the TMGP endurance race last week. That bike had an ohlins shock and different fork oil and some spring spacers. Was still too soft. My current plan it to try 75wt oil in mine. Sounds insane but riding it as-is is equally insane. If a $15 bottle of fluid from amazon is the way forward, who am I to argue? I’m sure there will be a setup that works, it just isn’t readily obvious. I’ll share what I find.
Buddy of mine has one. I’ve ridden it and it’s a blast. He regularly rides it 30 miles back and forth to work daily. They are a lot of fun for the money.
Well, i forgot to report back. Been 3 years. I have not ridden this bike much in the 3 years. I have only entered races a few times. To be fair i have about 7 different tiny motorcycles. I only use it for track days. Thisbike remain lightly modified. Unless the mod serves a specific pupose and achieve the intended result. I’d rather have stock parts. So my bike is largely stock. The motor has a stock airbox and only has an obnoxiously loud pipe on it. A pipe the prior owner installed. Seems to be aBenelli official item. It is simple and much easier to install and remove though. Much simpler than the stock muffler setup. Less stuff to get munched in a crash. i had a racing bros shock installed. Should have put a heavier spring on. Even with 1.5” of preload, to get the right sag setting, the spring rate is too soft and the bike squats too much. The fork is mush ville but thecarts in it aren’t revalveable. I had a suspension shop have custom wound fork springs made to get a higher rate. And the oil was changed out to a heavier wt. i am still not too happy with it but I have stopped resenting it for what it isn’t. I just have learned to ride the bike giving it what it specifically needs to be as fast as it can be. Foot controls were replaced. I kept the side stand but had to grind it so it would retract higher and stop dragging. At that point the metal tab it mounts to on the frame would drag in corners on the left side. I just kept dragging it until it ground down far enough that it didn’t any more. But there isn’t much left to keep the stand from folding up when the weight of the bike rests on it. the bike has a front EBC big brake disc on it that was made for a grom. It fits if you do some grinding on the fork. I have a youtube video. It gave the front a bit more braking feel by reducing the lever pressure needed to get the same stopping power. I can stop the bike just as hard with a stock brake but without such a hulkish squezze on the lever. I have the stock master cylinder. If the mc every fails, i would choose a replacement with a larger diameter mc, maybe a 16mm. Only because i don’t like the amount of lever travel it takes now to get the desired braking pressure. That would be a nice to have, not a need. Stock brake caliper is perfectly fine. Pad wear is fine. Upgraded caliper does nothing to make you go faster/slower. No benefit for the $. Saying that because i have ridden the same bike with a brembo on it. Meh… Most of my minibikes have 100/90-12 front 120/80-12 rear. I prefer to have everything using the same tire size (reduced inventory). Tried those on this bike. It works ok but the steering never felt nuetral across the range of lean angles. I switched to PMT slicks (made for the grom) in the stock sizes which are wider. 120 front, 130 rear. Happy bike. Happy rider. Steering isn’t as weird now. I went through 7 different handlebars. Yes, i am picky. Went with a fatbar with a low rise. Also angled such that my hand sit even with the steering stem or just slightly behind it. It is acceptable to me. The bars that had my hands in front of the steering stem only gave me a compete lack of confidence in how the bike reacted to rider inputs. The worst was when I had clubman bars on it. Handled perversely and under braking felt like my body was going to dive over the bars. A change i would made agaian every time would be abandonish the handlebar rubber mounts for solid aluminum ones. Banished that vague indirect steering connection. The bike was 3-4 seconds off my best laptimes on a decently setup grom. With the changes above and more importantly to my riding style on this bike. I am only 1 sec behind now. A huge reason it still is handicapped is the Benelli is 50lbs heavier. (track prepped and on the same gokart scale as the raceprepped grom) everything it does it just that last bit slower. You feel it everywhere. May not make it faster but when you do dum stuff and crash, the bike is a tank. Pegs and levers are about all it needs for spares. I race with my friends team using his benelli racebike that has been around for about 5 years. It has pounded the pavement many mnay times. It is proven. Mine has not and i intend to keep it that way. We did enter the first race this season and used my bike instead while his was still getting its fork reassembled. We still won our class. My teammates both said the same thing. The rear suspension moves a lot and takes more time to settle. Room for improvement..
That license plate holder thing looks like ass. That half the bikes now have them doesn't matter: they all look like ass.
That’s an understatement. When removed it leaves 2 huge welded on mounts on the swingarm as well. Even then it doesn’t clean up the looks because 1/3 is still there! It is a minor consolation but the ugly brackets have threaded holes that are convenient mounting points for swingarm bobbins. Pitbull stand friendly….
