Doctor visit for the XT

I took the XT in to Grand Prix Kawasaki/Yamaha/Suzuki this morning. *sniff*

I’m trying to convince myself (a) not to look at the estimated cost on the invoice and (b) that it MIGHT maybe sort of have taken me “cost estimate divided by my salary” number of hours to have done the work myself. Maybe. If I really took my time. And had a lot of beer.

But what’s done is done and the XT is at the doctor. The dude at the service counter tried to convince me that it didn’t really need its brakes bled (“it only has 1400 miles!”). Yeah, but that 1400-mile-old brake fluid is buh-LACK. That there’s no longer brake fluid. Trust me on this, buddy.

I’m also getting the typical tune-up stuff done: oil change, spoke tightening, idle speed check, etc. The latter is the most important to me, since with no tach, it’s hard for me to set the idle speed right. I think that’s what’s behind the XT’s current issue with rolling off the throttle properly.

(Huh, while I was typing this, Grand Prix called to say the bike is ready. That was pretty fast. Maybe it won’t cost me [cost estimate] after all, given their hourly rate and how long they had the bike.)

Anyway, while we were at the dealer, Peter sat on a couple of DRZ400s, the DRZ200, and the stock XT225 that Grand Prix had sitting around waiting to be adopted.

The good news, from a pocketbook perspective, is that Peter’s “problem” with the XT doesn’t seem to be strictly size-related. We noticed that he felt way more stable standing on the footpegs on both the DRZ400 (no shock there) and the DRZ200 (that one was surprising). After some compare-and-contrast, we determined that it wasn’t really the XT’s size, per se, that was problematic for Peter, but rather the footpeg placement. The pegs on the XT are further back than they are on either of the DRZs, which tips Peter forward when he stands on them. On either DRZ, he could stand on the pegs and feel rock-solid.

When Peter got back on the stock XT (btw, can I just drool on the ’06 paint scheme? It’s my second favorite, after the ’05 colors), he tried putting his feet further forward so that he was almost on his heels on the pegs. This seemed to really help his balance. So, our next step will be to lower the shift/brake pedals so that he can put his heels on his pegs without putting weight on the pedals.

I feel almost vaguely guilty about bringing a filthy dusty dirty bike in for a tune up. But not really. At least it’s obvious that I ride it! 😉

Color schemes (2005, 2006):