Anyone still ride? First bike: 2004 Black and Gold Honda Super Hawk 996
 

Hello, I'm new here and just wanted to see if anyone was still active. I love to work on my own things but know enough to seek support from people who have already been down that road.
My Super Hawk has a little over 68,000 miles. I just added a set of Michellin Road Pilot 4s and modified my air filter so that I can find a replacement easier and cheaper. I will be doing my first oil change and replacing spark plugs soon.
1 Any recommendations on oil or plugs?
I would like to make some adjustments to my seat as its position is constantly throwing me forward. I'm 5'11'' and 140lbs I would like to stay farther back.
2 Does anyone know of a place with different style seats? Or a customer seat shop?
Thank you in advance for any help

1- Oh boy. No one wants to go down that road again. Plenty of oil threads here to keep you reading for weeks. As far as plugs go, it's always the same one. NGK BR9EIX Iridium.

2-It's a sports bike, that's what they do, stick your nuts to the tank. You can have the seat upholstered to your liking if you wish, but the stock seat is very limited in comfort. An after market seat like Sargent or Corbin are the most common replacements, however, finding one may be difficult, since they only come used, and no longer available new.
Check the classifieds on here, I think there's a Corbin flying around.

3-Oh yes, almost forgot. Welcome. :)

Jack and Ghost, FYI Corbin does still makes seats for the VTR. At least they did three weeks ago when I made the 650+ mi. round trip to pick one up in Hollister, CA. (I'm impatient) They offer them in perforated leather as well as Basket Weave Vinyl. The ride home on the Corbin was definitely more comfortable than the ride up on the stocker! It was a long day, but worth every mile.

650+ miles in a day for a seat, does anyone still ride? Hell yeah! Every chance I get! Turned 61 today and went for a little 278 mi run to bed in my new caps on my rear wheel. Ha, Ha! It was the only reason I could come up with as last weekend I did 400+ to make sure all the fun roads were open. They were but, next weekend I'll have to go verify that.

Even with a Sargent seat, and three inch risers, I want to shot myself after riding 200 miles. Can't even begin to think what 650 miles would be like. :shock:

Welcome!!!
The oil question raised eyebrows, but so will this:

".....modified my air filter so that I can find a replacement easier and cheaper."

Some have had luck modifying the pressure drop/flow across the air filter. But many others have not and have found that the best way to make these engines run right is to go back to the stock filter. You will likely read the threads as you do more research.
There. Did I state the above in a non partial way?:)
I like my Corbin Smuggler, but it has hard foam, doesn't attach as well as the original and weighs a ton.
Again, welcome to the forum.

Yeah Jack, I'm just an old numb ass! Some would say Dumb ass! Last spring when my mom was ill I rode from Orange county to north of San Francisco on Hwy 1(1052 mi. round trip on the best road in CA) every other weekend for 3 months on my '98 SH w/ Corbin, rear sets. My original Corbin got destroyed (in a tragic shop accident) hence the trip for a replacement.

You could always take the seat to an upholstery shop and have them re-cover the seat and replace the foam with something that's more comfortable, like memory foam. Or do it yourself, but it's a lot of work.
If you're moving forward too much, you need to work your legs out more.

For the seat, this is the option I'm going to use,
Page 1

As far as Seat re-covering and foam modifications, there's a place in Mooresville NC called Mean City Cycles that offers lots of options for lots of different costs.


I have not used them, but have heard good things.

Yes I've been looking at that guy as well, when are you hoping to do yours?

I picked up an Airhawk2 seat pad for around $85. It comes with a 2 month guarantee, so if it doesn't work for you, you can return it.
It's totally worth the money- I use it on top of my Sargent seat for anything farther than riding around town. (Internet picture, not my bike)

http://carandrider.com/wp-content/up...7-1024x683.jpg

I just had my set recovered using the original foam, and so far it has not been too bad at all. I might not go cross country on it, but for medium distance rides it works fine.

Sargent has discontinued the seats for the Superhawk and has no more bases. They will however recover the stock seat and will also alter the foam including widening. There is a price list on the website. It looks like you could get the equivalent of a Sargent seat only on the stock plastic pan. This might be worth considering. They will also recover their seats if anybody has one with a bad cover.

I have read articles talking to iron butt participants. They almost all swear by the airhawk. DG, did you do the 650 miles in a day or 2 days? Either way that's some serious miles.

For me when I have done that kind of mileage it kinda knocks the fun right out of it. Especially the time when it was at night and it was a downpour for the last 3.5 hrs.

Hope you have a vista cruise on there.

650 in a day. Not the longest I've done but, I'm in my sixties and it's getting a little tougher.
I couldn't do it without my Vista Cruise. I've broken my wrist multiple times (off road and skate boards and had my scaphoid removed and replaced by some cool looking S.S. hardware. Which I promptly broke! So my throttle/brake hand gets to hurting after a while.

I'm in agreement with Xeris and Ren. Do the Spencer mod, it's the best bang you can get for your buck. I did it on my FJR and really like it, and I do IBA Certification rides on it. I am planning on doing a Saddle Sore 1000 on the VTR this spring, after I send my seat to Spencer. I also added some VFR 750 handlebars to get 1 1/2" rise. Lastly, I'm doing easy 500 mile Saturdays on the VTR at this point.

I rode my Sargent seat 150miles day one, and followed that with 1300 or so miles for my Iron butt to Indy. While I was tired of riding when i got to Indy, it was not the seat tired I would have been and used to get with 100 miles and the stock seat.
Having tried the Corbin, a recovered and foamed stocker (local place) and the Sergeant, I liked the Sergeant best of all.
THink I'll have them recover / re foam mine now while that is still an option

Didn't see your post (would have if we still had the recent posts page, just saying).
I now have a small split in the seat cover (PO left it on the side of the Highway for about a year trying to sell it) from sun damage. So before I send it off to get refoamed I have to now figure out how to deal with the cover. I thought I would recover it myself, but without having the material in front of me, it's hard to know what I'll be getting.
I see that further down the thread that Sargent does recovering and foam so maybe that's the option I'll go with.

The SuperHawk is designed to keep your nuts to the tank so you put more weight on the front wheel.