[VijayAnand1]

Congratulations Rachit. That's one of my favorite color schemes, (after reading the comments, seems it's the favorite of most) way better than black either. The 650 you had should have tamed you well for this lunacity that you have under your legs. Be extremely cautious with this one, this does have a tendency to make the rider carried away at scenarios that you least expect, and it BITES back hard with no mercy. Do keep us entertained, suo moto.

And here's a humble one from my side. If there is one bike that doesn't make me want to upgrade, that would be this humble gem. I still feel I haven't yet used this machine to its full potential, and every day, is just like the first day. Being a total sucker for this color scheme, shame Yamaha couldn't deliver these days.

Edit: TBHP stickers do add swag.



Cheers!
VJ

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Originally Posted by RMN

Congrats! Unlike some of the Japanese bikes from this era, the R1 still looks fantastic even today. Its a beast, if you can tame it while pushing it, then you can ride any superbike with ease

Thank you so much!! I do want to spend the time and effort in getting better with it.

Originally Posted by VijayAnand1

Congratulations Rachit. That's one of my favorite color schemes, (after reading the comments, seems it's the favorite of most) way better than black either. The 650 you had should have tamed you well for this lunacity that you have under your legs.

And here's a humble one from my side. If there is one bike that doesn't make me want to upgrade, that would be this humble gem. I still feel I haven't yet used this machine to its full potential, and every day, is just like the first day.

Cheers!
VJ

Thank you so much VJ!!
Like most middle class Indians I used to think that I will get just 1 shot at buying a big bike and I might as well try and straight away go for the biggest prize (Litre Class). I used to read suggestions on internet on upgrading gradually, but I felt I will get only 1 shot and I should go for the big one. I couldn't because of financial reasons but now I also firmly believe that one should upgrade gradually.

The 650 taught me so much about owning and the maintenance of big bikes. It helped me build reflexes and develop skills and comfort with the significant big jump in performance. Most important of all it makes you learn throttle modulation and the discipline to be within your limits. I would say all these things are crucial and help a lot before one jumps to a litre class.

That is a lovely bike you have their friend. One of the finest handling bikes and a well ridden one on narrow twisty roads will still be hard to catch. I need to add some Tbhp stickers on the R1 too.


CHEERS!!
Rachit

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

@Mods: Kindly change the Title to:
Dreams do come true | My 2010 Yamaha R1!! Updates on Page 3.

So far, I have covered close to 3K KMs on the R1. I am getting more comfortable with the bike and learning and understanding her more.
R1 is quite unlike any other inline 4. Where in an inline 4, typically the sense of speed and ferociousness rises with revs, I feel R1 is totally opposite. It is hyper alert at low revs, the power and torque are too instant and in general the sense of speed is higher, but as the revs climb and speeds build up, it becomes smoother and more linear. For the rider that can take it beyond that threshold, it is a wonderful machine, but below that threshold it just keeps begging for more speed. Plus the shock of so much instant torque at mid revs scares and you are less tempted to take it beyond, where actually beyond is where it gets better.

About a couple of months back, I was riding and was left behind my friends. I was at a familiar stretch of road and new an oncoming intersection. However visibility was good and i was prepared. In 2nd gear, I gave some throttle and as soon as I did, a bike came crossing the intersection without looking here and there. I was prepared, and I chopped the throttle and went on the brakes. I had good 100 mtrs or more and I had not yet attained high speed, but the bike did not slow down. By the time, the acceleration momentum was cancelled and bike started slowing, I was getting quite close to that bike and it became a hairy situation. Nothing happened and I know if it would have been my CBR, the situation wouldn't have been even this close. But I did realize one thing, we need better brakes. The problem with these litre class bikes is that the momentum of acceleration is so huge because of the torque that it needs a lot of braking force just to cancel it.

Plus @Krishna has been teasing everybody with some Brembo goodness was also on the back of my mind. As luck would have it, same week my friend Arjun called. He had found a complete set of used Brembo RCS19 Corsa Corta Master Cylinder and clutch lever at a pretty steal price. We suspected it to be fake and the next 2 days were spent on internet looking at many pictures in detail and comparing. We finally decided that it seemed original and we bite the bullet. To complement, I got HEL steel braided lines and a new set of EBC sintered pads as well.

There were a few things that we planned to do:
Complete brakes overhaul.
LED headlights to reduce the load on battery.
The customer Cooling Mod with coolant flush, which I will explain below.

It took us good 3 days to complete everything as we did each and every step slowly with as much thought we could give.

We chose a small enough LED bulb which could fit in the factory housing and the cover could be closed so that no weather protection was lost. Very happy with the result and headlights have definitely improved significantly. R1 being a projector setup definitely helps with the correct focusing and brings the best out of these LEDs.


The new Brembo cockpit. The brake lever did have some scratches but considering what were getting at that price, we chose to look beyond it.






Impressions of braking:
The braking has improved significantly. Corsa Corta gives you 6 settings between directness or feel of braking and I tried each and everyone. Each setting does feel marginally different and you can feel the difference in directness vs a slightly softer lever aiding feel. Braking is a 1 finger affair now and most of time you wouldn't even feel that the bike is braking. I am somebody who is anyways gentler with the brakes.

I wouldn't say the brakes can compete with the best on the market today, but it is a giant leap. We are still using a 10 year old 6 pot calliper which was never known for very good braking performance. But overall I am pretty happy and like the way the brakes are. Not too sharp, as this bike does not have ABS. Bit still good power and enough feel.
Bleeding the Brembo Master Cylinder was super easy. Just kept the fluid reservoirs CAP open, pumped the lever for half an hour and it was done. Super easy and totally doable at home.

The next was the custom cooling mod and flushing the coolant again and putting fresh engine ice again. Although we had done a coolant flush earlier and had switched to engine ice but we felt there was either some air in the system or some residual old coolant was left as the last time only 1.8 litres of coolant went in and the capacity is around 2.3 litres.
The customer cooling mod is basically bypassing the factory trigger for fans to start kicking. The biggest issue with R1 is that the fans trigger at 105 degrees which is too high. We wanted to bring it down to around 95. So in the cooling circuit, a new temp sensor was fixed and it was connected to he fan and headlights so that it only gets on, when the bike is started.

This time around 2.1 to 2.2 litres of coolant went in.


The new temp sensor on the outflow side of Radiator.


My daughter got a new victim whom she could pester!!


Overall I think the new Coolant flush helps. I do feel that now the bike does take a bit longer to reach its peak temps. However, it is only a bit longer. This bike still heats up a lot pretty fast. 1 traffic light is all its needed. You need to keep moving and at a good pace to keep it around 80-90 degrees.

The cooling mod did help us bring down the fan trigger point to 101 degrees. I think we would need a different sensor which has an even lower trigger point for our goal. Arjun told me he has found one, we just now need to change the sensors. Earlier the highest I had seen the bike go was 110 degrees, now it does not go above 106. Tested it in full afternoon, almost an hour of stop and go traffic.

Now only 2 issues remain:
The cone set of the bike is gone and the replacement is here. Just need to take out the time to get it changed.

My bike had cold start issues. A brief internet search shows that this is a very typical R1 issue and the rout causes can be few. So when cold starting, it takes 4-5 cranks for the bike to start. Once started, it is fine. But these cold cranks sound and feel very bad. We tested the battery and it is in good condition. We have a couple of directions to troubleshoot, will be doing it hopefully soon as well, as the Internet says it gets worse in winters.


Overall, the journey has been fun. The bike looks a million dollars, sounds a million dollars and make you look like million dollars too. For me, the biggest draw is the handling and boy this thing corners. All I wish is that I was more talented, but hopefully will reach there someday. But it is quirky especially for our riding conditions. Its quirks make it fun some days, but some days you just wish for a calmer and a smoother cruising motorcycle.

Some Riding Pictures. Credit for these 2 goes to Nitin Gupta, our friend, who is a professional photographer and braved the crazy humidity to click our pics.










Ever since I bought this bike, I wanted one of my friends Shekhar to ride it. He is an exceptionally gifted rider and has done CSS level3. Watching him ride is like poetry. That day finally happened very recently and it was as beautiful as I had imagined it to be. Seeing him do things on the R1, the way she danced, was magic. He of course at the end was all red and shivery, but in his words, this bike deserves a track. So hoping for that to happen soon.

Hopefully will have the next set of updates very soon. I do have one very tasty upgrade already on the way.

CHEERS!!
Rachit

[krishnaprasadgg]

Originally Posted by Rachit.K.Dogra

We chose a small enough LED bulb which could fit in the factory housing and the cover could be closed so that no weather protection was lost. Very happy with the result and headlights have definitely improved significantly. R1 being a projector setup definitely helps with the correct focusing and brings the best out of these LEDs.

Awesome stuff. I'll ping you soon, if the lights do have better throw then I think I might be super interested in the swap, especially since you mentioned we don't have to mess with the dust cap. I refuse to ride the R1 at night because of how bad the stock headlights are.

Originally Posted by Rachit.K.Dogra

I wouldn't say the brakes can compete with the best on the market today, but it is a giant leap. We are still using a 10 year old 6 pot calliper which was never known for very good braking performance. But overall I am pretty happy and like the way the brakes are. Not too sharp, as this bike does not have ABS. Bit still good power and enough feel.

This is music to my ears, can't wait to get my hands on mine and feel the same.

Originally Posted by Rachit.K.Dogra

My bike had cold start issues. A brief internet search shows that this is a very typical R1 issue and the rout causes can be few. So when cold starting, it takes 4-5 cranks for the bike to start. Once started, it is fine. But these cold cranks sound and feel very bad. We tested the battery and it is in good condition. We have a couple of directions to troubleshoot, will be doing it hopefully soon as well, as the Internet says it gets worse in winters.

Posting this for anyone else who might find this helpful. Here is a possible culprit for the cold crank issue and a very easy solution for the same. Had already shared with Rachit, but felt it might be helpful to others too so sharing here again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfcY3cAW8-8&t=219s

Cheers
Krishna

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Originally Posted by krishnaprasadgg

Awesome stuff. I'll ping you soon, if the lights do have better throw then I think I might be super interested in the swap, especially since you mentioned we don't have to mess with the dust cap. I refuse to ride the R1 at night because of how bad the stock headlights are.

Yeah, I think the projector setup and this particular LED combo came out really well. They aligned well which helps in the gains in headlight. I am told that finding the right LED can be many a time a hit and a trial method.



Rachit

[greyanaroth]

Congratulations! I was eyeing this bike as well, and one of the first things, of course, was to see what dave moss had to say about this. And his observation was very interesting, worth considering I suppose: this gen came with progressive springs up front, so perhaps switching to linear springs and getting your suspension setup properly might be a very rewarding exercise. I highly recommend getting even a 1 month subscription on the dave moss tuning site (it's just 10$) and going through his r1 setup videos for your generation. I guarantee you, it'll be the best money you've ever spent. You may want to adjust sag front and rear (enlist some friends!) to a total of 35-40mm rider/fully laden sag as a starting point, check that you don't have a tip over bounce on rebound and throw the compression adjusters to the middle of the range setting as a starting point and go on from there. Adjustable suspension is the best tool on your bike. If all this scares you a bit and you're in Delhi, I would be more than happy to help you setup your suspension over a morning coffee/Chai and follow you to get a dose of that lovely cross plane roar through the Akra+dB killer setup

[Nitish.arnold]

Originally Posted by Rachit.K.Dogra

Dreams do come true | My 2010 Yamaha R1!!

Kudos to the mods Rachit Bhai,
I was present when the brake work was done by Arjun the Genius.

I agree with you on the braking point, these things accelerate like crazy & we do need better pieces of equipment to shed all that in seconds.
Had a close shave on Busa as well.

Looking forward to riding with you soon.

Cheers!
Nitish

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Originally Posted by greyanaroth

Congratulations! I was eyeing this bike as well, and one of the first things, of course, was to see what dave moss had to say about this. And his observation was very interesting, worth considering I suppose: this gen came with progressive springs up front, so perhaps switching to linear springs and getting your suspension setup properly might be a very rewarding exercise. I highly recommend getting even a 1 month subscription on the dave moss tuning site (it's just 10$) and going through his r1 setup videos for your generation. I guarantee you, it'll be the best money you've ever spent.

Thank you so much!! That video has caught my attention too. The next thing for us to work on, is front forks service only. I think it is time, I should watch that video. I did remember him mentioning change of springs in the trailer. Will have to figure out, how to source them.

I would be really happy for any kind of help on suspension adjustment. I have been reading a lot lately as we are about to start working on servicing the forks. Plus I really feel in my case, I might just be 1 step away from Goldilocks and that could be suspension. Let us service the forks and then lets plan to catch up for the tuning session.

Originally Posted by Nitish.arnold

Kudos to the mods Rachit Bhai,
I was present when the brake work was done by Arjun the Genius.

I agree with you on the braking point, these things accelerate like crazy & we do need better pieces of equipment to shed all that in seconds.
Had a close shave on Busa as well.

Looking forward to riding with you soon.

Cheers!
Nitish

Thank you so much brother!!
And Yes, we need to ride together soon.

I hope everything well after that close shave. Traffic manners on our roads are sketchy and one needs to adopt a very defensive riding style no matter what one is riding.

Hoping to catch up soon!!


CHEERS!!

Rachit

[greyanaroth]

Originally Posted by Rachit.K.Dogra

Thank you so much!! That video has caught my attention too. The next thing for us to work on, is front forks service only. I think it is time, I should watch that video. I did remember him mentioning change of springs in the trailer. Will have to figure out, how to source them.

I would be really happy for any kind of help on suspension adjustment. I have been reading a lot lately as we are about to start working on servicing the forks. Plus I really feel in my case, I might just be 1 step away from Goldilocks and that could be suspension. Let us service the forks and then lets plan to catch up for the tuning session.


Rachit

Any time man! I am ALWAYS happy to sit with fellow geeks and demystify suspension. IMHO, if its adjustable, let's note where we are, and adjust it! And when in doubt, Moss uncle is always there to hold our hands haha

Regarding springs, I'm sure you can get k tech or racetech linear springs for this generation, set to your weight and the bike. Moss did say due to the progressive springs you can't get the forks down all the way, which would potentially make the bike not turn in as fast as it ought to. The rear shock is a thing of beauty with tons of adjustability. Please do drop me a dm and let's meet up over coffee or tea.

The moss subscription is literally the BEST money I've spent, ever. Apart from your particular bike, there's so much to learn from SO many situations, bike maintenance tips and techniques, tyre reading (still total voodoo to me, tbh.) it's just the best value for money for your motorcycling journey.

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Originally Posted by greyanaroth

Any time man! I am ALWAYS happy to sit with fellow geeks and demystify suspension. IMHO, if its adjustable, let's note where we are, and adjust it! And when in doubt, Moss uncle is always there to hold our hands haha

Regarding springs, I'm sure you can get k tech or racetech linear springs for this generation, set to your weight and the bike. Moss did say due to the progressive springs you can't get the forks down all the way, which would potentially make the bike not turn in as fast as it ought to. The rear shock is a thing of beauty with tons of adjustability. Please do drop me a dm and let's meet up over coffee or tea.

The moss subscription is literally the BEST money I've spent, ever. Apart from your particular bike, there's so much to learn from SO many situations, bike maintenance tips and techniques, tyre reading (still total voodoo to me, tbh.) it's just the best value for money for your motorcycling journey.

Thank you so much!!
I did try Dming you, however I think you need to reach 25 posts for that functionality to get enabled.
If you can DM me, I can share my contact number and we can definitely coordinate catching up. The bigger the brigade of like minded people, the better.

Rachit

[greyanaroth]

Originally Posted by Rachit.K.Dogra

Thank you so much!!
I did try Dming you, however I think you need to reach 25 posts for that functionality to get enabled.
If you can DM me, I can share my contact number and we can definitely coordinate catching up. The bigger the brigade of like minded people, the better.

Rachit

Hey! Yea I rarely post, mostly lurk, which might be the reason why I haven't reached the minimum post count haha. You can reach me on my email: it's a Gmail account with the same handle as the tbhp username, and we can connect further

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Some new set of Updates:
Last 2 months have been fun, anxious, satisfying, stressed, frustrated with the R1. We did quite a few things on the R1 and took it for a longish overnight trip as well.

I will get on with the updates first:
The last where I left the story, the 2 immediate things we needed to work on the bike was cone set and front fork servicing. The cone set had 'tak-tak' sound on slow speed bumps and the right front fork also did 'chew-chew' kind of sound on slow speed breakers.

We planned to tackle the cone set first. I ordered a replacement cone set from UK and since we found somebody who could carry stuff, I got carried away and ordered a Healtech quick shifter as well. The reason we went with healtech quick shifter is I have no plans to move to a power commander for now. I want to keep the bike stock, otherwise getting the power commander Quick Shifter works out to be cheaper if you have a power commander on your bike.

Changing the cone set on the bike was a big pain to be honest. The older one had moved slightly off position at the bottom corner and had seated in its new odd position. Which basically made the aluminum frame holder take that awkward shape too. And since it was at bottom end, there was very less leverage for us to be able to apply force to push the new seals through. It took nearly 3 hours of bent over careful hammering to get the new seal in place, and our bodies were broken by that time. But we had a big surprise coming our way.

Bike on the jack.


When Arjun was about to put the forks back in, he was trying to look closely which leg was which side and he was horror struck to see a crack in the fork leg on the piece that holds the axle in place. There are pinch bolts to tighten that piece and it seems somebody had over torqued these and the part had cracked. This was big blow as we had planned an overnight trip the following weekend. I left the bike at Arjun's place for him to do his magic and came home a bit disheartened.

We had 3 main options:
1) To repair this in some way.
2) Get a new/used fork - Very expensive and the bike would have been out of action for long depending upon when I could spare this much money and sourcing of part.
3) Get the fork leg changed - could be an error prone solution as taking the fork out of fork legs needs heat treatment and there is a chance that replacement will not sit perfectly. Still quite expensive.

We did some research and found that this is not a load bearing part and its primary job is to hold axle in place. Arjun worked his magic and came out with a repair solution.



We got a metal piece fabricated and fixed it with nuts to provide support to the cracked piece. So far it has been working well.

While all this was happening we tried to figure the noise coming from forks as well. We tried to compress the forks with hands and opened the top the check the fork fluid. We felt that fork shims are either loose or something and that is where the noise is coming from. Also the fork oil was dirty and we felt that the forks were not providing the damping that they should. So fork servicing was next in our agenda.

Arjun always wanted to take the baffles out of the exhaust to hear the full cross plane thunder. I was a bit skeptical because I did not want a very loud bike. However, we did remove the baffles just to try and boy did it make a big difference on how the bike felt after that. It seems that the bike breathes better now. The low end throttle has become smoother and the low RPM complaining of the bike has also improved. I am planning to keep it this was only. Thankfully the exhaust is only about 10-15% louder and not obnoxiously loud.

We then came down to fitting the Quick shifter on the bike. Since this is a standalone system, you need to plug this to the ignition coils so that spark can be cut for the shift to happen. When were accessing the ignition coils, we discover the throttle bodies just kept on the crankcase. They are supposed to be clamped down by the clamps provided, however whosoever worked on the bike before just did not clamp it and just kept the throttle body and airbox over the intake. This really spoiled Arjun's mood. The intake had a lot of dust around it because of this. And when Arjun checked the intake valves through the opening they had a lot of carbon build up too. We plan to tackle this in the near future by using sea foam cleaner. But back to quick shifter, oh my God what a difference it has made to the riding experience. I still need to fine tune it a bit as it is right now cutting power sometime when I try to blip while downshifting too. But upshifts are butter smooth and the bike feels even more like a rocket now. Plus it has eliminated the the clunky gearshifts that I always felt with the bike.

The bike was running super good those 2 weeks. I was over the moon and all giggly. These 2 weeks showed me what the cross plane R1 is about and I daresay nothing else will ever do it for me again. I am spoiled for life. The throttle response is so electric, the torque delivery is so immediate and the sensations it takes your through with that deep exhaust growl is just pure ecstasy.
I was so happy and giggly that I feared I might jinx it. Well, I did jinx it. As I had shared earlier, the bike had cold cranking issues, one fine day the bike threw an Error Code 12 on the dash and refused to start. 3 weeks or reading, research and diagnosis later, Arjun came down to starter motor. The bike was opened again, starter motor was taken out and he could feel that the motor had issues. Long story short, he repaired the starter motor, added new bushes to it, replaced the starter relay and thankfully the bike was back again. The cold cranking issue also gone. I cant even say, how much I owe it to him. It was a major relief because Error Code 12 in the manual means Crank Position sensor error and our research suggested it could mean quite a few things. He also feared of an ECU issue too. But thankfully, God was kind enough to not take us that route.

As of today, the bike is with Arjun for the fork rebuild. Keeping my fingers crossed on what we might unearth now.


When we fixed that fork leg issue, we knew we will be coming back to forks again so we thought of experimenting a bit. Arjun never liked the stance of my bike and felt it looked raised. So we dropped the clip-ons by 10 mm in front. To make the bike ride a bit better, we went full soft on the front and back Pre-loads. That made the bike drop even further. Now this felt like quite an aggressive seating position. What do you do with such aggressive seating position, you go touring.

We had planned an overnight ride to Dehradun and Mussourie. We finished the bike after the fork leg repair around 3 in the morning. We hardly had any sleep and went touring at 5 on the R1. Any intentions on wrapping some luggage on R1s back seat were destroyed within 5 minutes of riding as the R1s exhaust burnt a brand new Rok Strap. Well, my luggage went on Arjun's 390 ADV. R1 had good company in this trip a 2013 GSXR1000, 2011 fireblade, 390 ADV and a 390. It was a pretty crap trip as it seemed the entire North India decided to show up in Mussourie for that weekend and there we were on these bikes fighting all that traffic. However, the riding was fun in patches. R1 cruising at good speeds on the highways was nice and although the twisties were mostly traffic infested, I did get my moments. Above all, we made it back alive and honestly the bikes performed admirably in those less than ideal conditions.

Some pictures:










Bike all dirty after the trip


Getting some TLC


The end result



In this meanwhile, I went to test ride the CB500. I have bitten the ADV bug and I really like the CB500. If only I could afford it.



While there, met this fancy lady. Boy this things looks good in flesh. The build quality is to be seen on this bike. I cannot say it feels worth the price, but this is one finely built motorcycle.



Some basic maintenance at home:

Stuff for the next round of work:


I feel we have almost reached where I wanted to take this bike in my mind. All I pray now is some luck so that it stays like this at least for some time.

On the whole, my relation with the bike is improving. I don't think I can say I am getting comfortable with its performance, because I am not. It is one scary beast, but I have started to like this feeling a bit more now.

CHEERS!!
Rachit

[vignesh.cv]

Hearty congrats Rachit ! Your bike looks so well maintained and you have chosen a very thoughtful set of mods. The quick shifter is an awesome add-on, makes you wonder what you've been missing all these years. Wishing you many trouble free miles and pleasant experiences !

[akshay4587]

Guess who I met
I was at Arjun's place over the weekend and saw a familiar looking machine.

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Originally Posted by akshay4587

Guess who I met
I was at Arjun's place over the weekend and saw a familiar looking machine.

Ha Ha Ha!! I was told you were going to visit.
I kept telling Arjun that you had an R1 at some point of time but he couldn't recall. If I am not wrong, you did a saddle sore on your R1 too? Right?

I wish I could join you guys for the chit chat!!

Originally Posted by vignesh.cv

Hearty congrats Rachit ! Your bike looks so well maintained and you have chosen a very thoughtful set of mods. The quick shifter is an awesome add-on, makes you wonder what you've been missing all these years. Wishing you many trouble free miles and pleasant experiences !

Thank you so much sir. Yeah, at first I was not very keen on the quick shifter. But now that I have it, I truly agree that it add so much to the riding experience.

By the way love your RSV4 thread and the new updates!!

Rachit