A 2 Year Hiatus
 

After 2 years of neglecting my beloved Superhawk, she's back. It's been quite a while since I posted on this forum as well...like a year or so, and longer since I rode the Chicken on the street.

A little history: After buying the '02 RC51, I let my wife ride the VTR and I used it on occasional track days. A minor spill in the mountains followed by several moto-x-style off road excursions by my wife caused the poor girl to be relegated to track only status after fixing the mechanical parts. I still had Sharkskinz for it. Then in '04 I bought the CBR1000RR and sold the RC51. I ended up selling the 'Skinz to a buddy of mine and bought some track plastics for the RR. The lonely VTR sat in the garage for months without attention, short of being started every 2 months or so. She still has 208GPs on the rims from 2 years ago for chrissakes! So now I have a fresh set of Qualifiers for her and I just drove her plastics up to EmpireGP (www.empiregp.com) today. Her wounds are getting patched up and she will be getting a fresh coat of paint. I'm not going to give up the surprise, but let's just say that I've only seen this color on one other Superhawk, and that bike's pics are on my site.

I'll be doing some tune up stuff, a new rear sprocket, new battery, and lot's of cleaning soon. I'll do my best to take pics of stuff along the way. I have "before" pics that I have to resize and upload in a few minutes.

So she's going to become my commuter and I'll keep the RR for spirited rides at the track and on the occasional weekend ride.

I can't wait to get acquainted with my old friend again!!!

Good to be back on the board again as well. I'm impressed at how much it's grown. Congrats Mamisano! You've done a super job!

WOW Greg,

Long time, no read. hee-hee. Rare color huh? Hmm, red? LOL.
Welcome back.

Ummm, no. Not red. I have the RR if I'm in the mood for red, and my wife has the silver '05 600RR, so it's not that either. :)

BTW, if any of you guys have my page bookmarked, I recently moved to upstate NY and my site address has changed. Please update it in your favorites. The link in my sig is correct.

Welcome back Greg! I had wondered where your website of great info had gone. Thanks for all the great info.

Welcome back, your site was one of the first I found for the Superhawk.

Thanks for the warm welcome back, guys. Here's those pics I promised. I know...it's sad, ain't it.

I've got another surprise in store that I'm working on, if I can manage the parts. No, it's not a fork or swingarm swap. I'm going to try to do a single exhaust off the right side. I have a Moriwaki P-Zero rainbow anodized Ti canister than I bought off eBay a couple years ago with the intention of making it work somehow. Now's the time to try. I have an extra set of headers already. Just need to find a good welder. I can use some of the tubing off the left side to patch the hole when I hack it off. All I'm worried about is the midpipe and the hanger availability. I've already email Moriwaki Engineering in Japan. The header will get ceramic coated as well when all is said and done.

The Hindle exhaust is hurting on the right side and I think it'll actually be cheaper to do it this way than to try to get parts or a new can and midpipe.

Welcome back to the forum! Wherabouts in NY are you? I am in a suburb of Buffalo...

Rick B
02 SH

I'm a little farther to the right, north of Albany.

Depending on who you speak to "upstate ny" can mean either western ny where I am or the east coast... welcome back.

Rick B
02 SH

Hey I have to thank you. Your site was instrumental in helping me get to know and "get into" my bike. Good to see you back.