Don’t ask what’s wrong with me, because I can’t really say. Notwithstanding, I can give you a reason (excuse) as to exactly why I chose to sell my Husqvarna. My original intent upon purchase of the bike was purely to have a street option available. It made sense having one for the track, and one for around town.

After the 300 or so miles I ended up putting on the bike, 2/3rds of which were ridden in the first week of ownership, I had an epiphany. I realized and agreed with the fact that street riding just isn’t for me. Given how little I actually rode, I found that having to gear up just to ride from stop light to stop light wasn’t worth it. I really think that after going to the track, I got desensitized. One may argue that riding in the twisties will offer more fun and excitement, but even then you can never ride past half your potential (safely, or rather, smartly).

Going about on the streets is mostly point A to point B for me, so I rather just hop into a car.

Granted, deciding to sell the Husqvarna and eventually letting go of it wasn’t easy, because I was particularly pleased with how the bike turned out after all the work. What did make the motivate the sale was having a buyer after only 3 days of posting an ad, and a buyer that didn’t haggle with me and paid the asking price… I couldn’t argue with that. I think I got lucky.

In the end, I’m happy it went to a good owner, someone who has years of experience with motorcycles and has been to the track numerous times. He was also excited about it, and that’s what counts.

Check out the buyer’s tow-rig, a Mazda Miata! The bike is practically the same size as the car…

Loaded up:

And thus concludes yet another chapter.

With the day off today, and not having ridden in a while, I took the opportunity to seek out the latest challenge in the game… a Karate Studio.

After bleeding the CBR’s front brakes twice, the brake lever still had a very soft feel to it. It still braked, but the lever had too much play before there was any feedback. I figured there was still an air pocket trapped in the calipers that I couldn’t bleed out, so I unmounted the calipers and compressed all the pistons. This let me bleed out the remaining air, and I think it did the trick. The brake lever has an improved feel now, finally.

Regardless, this let me take the bike out for a spin… the first time since finishing it up. I rode it around the neighborhood a few times to test things out. Everything seemed to be in order, although the front brakes don’t have the best of feel, the stopping power is definitely there. I’ve almost completely forgotten the riding position and pull of a sportbike.

Here is a picture of my stable…

The new brake lever for the Husky finally got resolved today. I went with a full length CRG foldable unit. Although AGV levers are well made, my personal preference is with CRG. The machining and details are a lot more thorough in my opinion.

And so the work continues… I spent hours and hours alone scrubbing down the bike and cleaning up all the old grime and grease. I already know I’m partially psychotic.

There was a section of the tail pipe that was left open, and when you sat on the bike, your leg would be right next to it. My pants would surely catch on fire some day if this was left alone, so I bought some titanium colored heat wrap and taped it up.

Sometime around here I drained the oil and poured in fresh Amsoil 20w-50. I also flushed the radiator, only to find out that the bike’s coolant was previously changed with Engine Ice. That made it a bit easier for me, I got a jug of Engine Ice and filled it back up.

I had noticed that the stock Regina chain was very dry looking, probably from sitting for a while. The easy way would have been to simply clean the chain and lube it up. I decided to cut it off and install a new chain all together. After installing the DID 520 ERV3 chain on my CBR, I really liked its quality and decided to buy it again for the Husky.

I’m actually glad I shelled out for a chain tool kit now. Here is the new chain installed, not tensioned yet of course.

One thing I disliked was how cluttered the handlebar was. The stock bar was a 7/8″, I decided to upgrade to a fatter 1 1/8″ clamp ProTaper bar with Scott’s Steering Bar Mounts. I ended up having to buy 2 of the same ProTaper bars, because the first one was supposed supposed to be silver-ish but turned out to be blue hued. After I put on the new throttle side Renthal grip, and removed the stock bar, work was unfortunately halted in that area. I had bought a Yamaha FZ1 clutch perch, and an AGV C5 shorty clutch lever for it. The lever was supposed to go on next along with the ProTaper bar, but as I was about to put the clutch cable into the lever, I realized that the cable’s anchor/head thing was too big.

I called Barnett Clutches and had them make me a new clutch cable with a different head to fit in my lever.

Fast forward a few days and I eventually got the whole controls area situated.

Nice and tidy now.

I did order a brake lever with the clutch, but unfortunately that part had to be manufactured. I waited 2 weeks for it to be made and shipped, and then once I received it, the lever ended up being some random hydraulic clutch lever. Not sure how that could get screwed up so badly, so now it’s back to square one for the brake lever. I have the stock one on there for now. This did let me do some thinking, and I’m probably going to mismatch the levers on purpose and go back to CRG and full length for the brake side.

The new clutch cable, I took the opportunity to go with a stainless steel braided one. It was a bit of a pain to get adjusted because the Barnett cable was a bit shorter in length than the stock one.

I also bled the rear brakes and put in ATE SuperBlue fluid. While I was in there, I changed out the reservoir’s line to tygon tubing.

Another task I had on my hand was to redo the exterior and look of the bike. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t particularly fond of the SM610’s aesthetics. I decided to revert back to an older style from a more race oriented bike, the SMR570. The chassis were similar, so the body panels could be interchanged… for the most part.

The left rear side panel probably required the most modification. I’ll skip on all the details of what I did with the panels.

With a new tail piece, I redid the wiring and installed a set of sleeker DRC turn signals and LED rear tail light.

Moving to the front of the bike, I actually went with a headlight and mask from a ’08-’11 KTM EXC-R. It looked much better in my opinion and had a slim profile. Although purchased new, the headlight mask had scratches on it. Not realizing the gloss black was only a base coat without clear, I tried buffing out the scratches with rubbing compound. This smeared the paint and made everything cloudy and worse…

I have to be thorough with what I do, so I took the mask to a nearby body shop where they promptly ripped me off. $50 later, I get a paintjob that had runs and didn’t even stick. One crevice had the paint bulging up, and picking at it revealed that there was basically no prep work. The entire paint job peeled off like a sticker. The base was only lightly sanded and was still very smooth and slippery. I then took the mask to the body shop that painted my CBR’s SharkSkinz, and they returned quality (although it costed me another $100). This is probably the most expensive supermoto headlight ever now, but at least the install wasn’t too bad. I’m happy with the end product.

While I was at the second body shop, I had them clean up the holes I drilled into the air box cover. Getting these holes to look uniform and clean like this was no easy feat, the drilling itself ate up my drill’s entire battery charge:

Finally, I am now near the end. Only a couple more small items to take care of, and then it’s time to ride. Hopefully I can get that and the brake lever taken care of soon.

Alas, after grueling hours of work and unmeasurable amounts of stress later, this is the Husqvarna now. Black is the color of choice.

And the box of junk of stuff that was either removed or replaced.

I must say, it was over ambitious of myself to tackle another project like this right after barely finishing the CBR… I am spent. I’m happy that it’s all mostly finished now, and fingers crossed that this is going to be the last time of I have to do this much work in my garage for a while.

I started by taking off the fenders and body panels, and then discarding unwanted weight – such as the rear bag holder rack, passenger pegs, and the mirrors that were as high as the moon.

I’ll be the first to admit that the SM610 isn’t exactly the best looking bike. I’m not a huge fan of what Husqvarna did with the design of the panels, everything is sharp and straight. The front headlight is bulky and looks like an eagle eye or something.

Anyway, after researching and reading up the on the bike, I placed a couple orders… Those couple orders turned into this mountain of packages.

Still waiting on a few more items, but at least I could start. I put the kickstand back on to the CBR and borrowed its rear stand to get the Husky into the air.

I probably could’ve lived with the design of the body panels, but my biggest complaint with the bike’s aesthetics were the boring silver rims. Husqvarna also decided to go with a comparatively useless 4.25″ rear rim. Those items posed a big enough of a “problem” for me that I opted to rebuild the wheels entirely. I went with a pair of Excel Takasago 17″ supermoto rims in Black, with the rear being a 5″ rim. I wanted to reuse the stock Husky hubs, but there was a catch. The stock drilling for the rims and hubs follows a European index, while the Excels use Japanese index. The situation was resolved by having Buchanan’s Spoke & Rim make a custom set of spokes that will mate up the Euro hubs to the Japanese Rims.

Since I was redoing the wheels, I took the opportunity to ditch the junk stock Dunlop’s and go with something more proper. The tire combination I chose is relatively unorthodox, with a race tire in the rear and a rain tire in the front. The rear is a 160/60 Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa take-off I got off of eBay, and the front is a new 120/70 Avon Pro Extreme Rain. The Avon may be a rain tire, but it is soft and sticky, and works great in the dry too.

Today I took all my wheel stuff to Zoom Cycles in Santa Clara and had them lace everything up and mount the tires.

I went over to San Ramon yesterday and checked it out, and it was a solid bike. Didn’t show any signs of being dropped, etc. well… I take that back. When the seller turned on the bike, he accidentally still had it in gear and let out the clutch. The bike lurched forward and fell underneath his truck. Fortunately, the only real damage was to the right grip, and his truck seemed alright as well. I think this gave me a little bit of negotiating leverage, and I was able to ride it away for a fairly good deal.

I was really nervous at first because it had been literally months since I’ve actually ridden a motorcycle. The bike was slightly taller as well than what I was used to, but as soon as I got going, things started feeling familiar again. The Husqvarna is a lot of fun, and I think will be an amazingly enjoyable commuter/anything bike.