GuzziMoto

I have never drilled the rubbers. But I did try running with half the rubbers installed. It did make for smoother shifts. But it was not really a rough shifter with all the rubbers.

A note about the "running lean" comment vs cracked intake boots. If the intake boots are cracked to the point they leak, that air leak could make it run lean at and near idle. But as you gave it more throttle any intake leaks would become less and less a factor. By the time you are giving it enough throttle to ride it down the road the intake leaks from any cracks would be all but meaningless. As mentioned, if it is indeed running lean you should probably look into that. Your intake boots may be cracked, but if it isn't running well you likely have other issues. Also, the boots are notorious for having extremely nasty looking surface cracks without actually being cracked all the way through. A common test to see if it is leaking would be to spray a flammable fluid like starting fluid or some types of brake cleaner around the suspected area while it is idling and see if the idle increases.

That certainly could be how it plays out, but I don't think it will go that way. I suspect Ducati will have lost some of its dominance, not gained more. The loss of their best team along with a couple of their best riders will make Ducati less likely to dominate in my opinion. And I am not sure Marc Marquez will win even one more title, he could, but I would not say "It is a given". I would say it is possible, but not a given. Sadly, the spec tire is back to being one of the dominant story lines in MotoGP, much like it was back in the Bridgestone days. It will be interesting to see if the tires are locked in along with the bikes / motors (I had only heard the motor development was frozen, but I wasn't paying super close attention). Imagine if the bike development is frozen and Michelin throws a new tire into the mix. But spec tires and aero rules making passing harder aside, things have not been this good in MotoGP in a long time. It is almost as good as the late 80's / early 90's with the 500's.

They bring in more money then they spend to promote the brand. Spending all that money as they do makes them even more money. They have built themselves into a 10 billion dollar, that billion with a B, company. They have done that by spending money to market themselves. As they say, you gotta spend money to make money. They don't lose money on all that spending, it is marketing and advertising. It leads to more sales of their product, and that makes them money. I don't know the numbers, but no doubt each dollar spent on sport brings back more money from product sales. All that spending has made them the number one energy drink in the world, and as such they are making lots of money by spending relatively little money. They spend a lot on sport, but compared to how much they make back what they spend on sport just isn't that much. They make back more.

A good friend of mine had a Fiat Dino that he restored from junk. It was a great car when he was done, very pretty to look at and huge fun to drive. His was a convertible.

By the way, KTM is finally coming out again with a sportbike they can sell based on their MotoGP efforts. https://www.ktm.com/en-us/990-rc-r.html Sadly, it still has that origami look like the first KTM sportbike. But it is not as bad as the original RC 8C. If they sold it with the camouflaged paint job of this one it is actually not bad looking. https://www.cycleworld.com/bikes/ktm-990-rc-r-first-look/

I did not hear about trying to use the subscription based features model for KTM. That would be a deal breaker for me. I can understand how some people would like that option, to only pay for features when they need them and cancel them at other times. But I don't need that. All I see it as is a way for them to milk more money out of me. If I am buying something, I expect that it is mine after I buy it. If it is not, I will not buy it. Maybe I am just too old, but I am who I am. As to KTM and Red Bull, KTM is part of one of the largest European motorcycle groups with almost 2 billion a year in revenue (not profits but sales). And Red Bull is even larger, with over 10 billion a year in revenue / sales. All of Red Bulls marketing, including sponsoring the KTM race teams and owning their own Formula One team along with all their adventure sports and whatnot, help them sell 10 billion worth of sugary energy drinks. Red Bull, and KTM, do not make money by racing. They spend money racing to promote what they sell, energy drinks for Red Bull and motorcycles for KTM. And it works, perhaps more so for Red Bull then KTM, as KTM sales did struggle this last couple years it seems. But that may be due to a variety of reasons, including a possible subscription based sales approach along with a gap in their range that they are just now filling. They have also had some well publicized reliability issues with some of the motors, including the mid sized parallel twin (790, 890, 901). And they may not have handled it very well at first, originally denying warranty coverage for these failures if the customer did not have a full dealer service history (meaning, you do your own oil changes and you might be SOL). But they have since correct their attitude, and are even offering reimbursement for people with failures that were originally denied warranty coverage. That is good news, but some damage has already been done to their reputation. You probably can't treat your customers like that and not hurt your reputation. They are also subbing out building of various KTM models, with the build quality ramifications that brings. A number of KTM models are now made elsewhere, including India and China. It may be harder to justify a European price tag on your European motorcycle when it is actually made in India or China. It makes some sense with intro level models, but they are making higher end models in those places as well. I ain't buying a Chinese built motorcycle for a KTM price. But I am old, as mentioned earlier.

That is a lot of debt. But consider they have near 2 billion dollars in revenue each year it is probably not that bad in the scheme of things. One thing KTM have that other companies like Stellantis don't have is a CEO who actually cares about the company. Sure, the CEO has arguably made some serious mistakes of late. But I have always been under the impression that Stefan Pierer is a KTM guy who cares about the long term future of the brand.

My general thoughts on rebound dampening is I want just enough to control the rebound action of the spring and no more. I tend to either start with too little and add it until it feels like it is under control, or you can go the other way and have too much and keep reducing it until you start to feel loose, then add a couple clicks back. You can even get a decent starting point by bouncing the suspension statically, for a starting point you can bounce the suspension and add or subtract rebound to where when you bounce down on the suspension it rebounds back fully but does not overshoot. If it overshoots on the up swing and then settles back to ride height I probably don't have enough rebound dampening. But I don't want much more then what is required to prevent that overshoot. If you do bounce it to see what you have, be sure to do so with you on the bike. You can even sit on the bike while someone else bounces it. My own tastes run to minimal compression and rebound dampening, just enough to control the springs, with springs on the firmer side. I prefer to let the springs support the weight, and I just want enough dampening to control the springs. I tend to prefer starting with too little dampening and add dampening until it is under control. But you can certainly start at the other end and reduce dampening until you find that sweet spot as well.

He was already heading towards the door, his stint was for a designated time. But he decided to leave before he was supposed to, it sounds like he said screw this. As to his time there, he has led Stellantis downward. Things during his time there have been getting worse, with even solid brands like Jeep showing serious signs of struggle. While from a numbers point of view he was successful until recently, from a car company point of view Stellantis has been having issues for a while. A quick search would no doubt find plenty of other people with skin in the game that are saying good riddance to him. He is a classic example of a CEO who thinks he doesn't need to understand the business he is CEO of. He seems to lack real car knowledge and is instead a numbers guy. He doesn't seem to know cars, he knows numbers. He is not alone, many current CEO's of car companies don't seem to know cars. They instead focus on the numbers, trying to drive up profitability. Instead, they should be focused on the product, on the cars. Make better cars and profits will come. Focus on profits and the quality of the cars tends to suffer. That leads to long term issues with profits that initially may have gone up, with profits declining down the road. He has likely stuck around at Stellantis too long already, most guys like him leave before the longer term negatives of their business decisions come to fruition. He is not the only CEO like that. But he does seem to be like that.

Surely none of us were in the room, but it sounds like he quit. As I understand it, Tavares main stick was cost cutting. Cost cutting can be needed, but often it hurts more then it helps. This could be a good thing for Stellantis in the long run. Tavares was driving Stellantis into a ditch.

My two cents. They are in deep issues, but I think they will emerge out of this okay. They have had similar issues in the past. Their biggest issues affect sales of their bikes, things like poor quality control and baked in mechanical issues like cams shaft failures that they tried to bury. There are plenty of KTM owners that had cam shaft failures, and some of them were denied warranty repair despite it being a common known issue because they did not have their KTM serviced at the KTM shop. Imagine being told your design / build induced engine failure is your problem because you did your own oil changes. That doesn't help sell motorcycles. They also acquired a number of other brands that compete against KTM, and they really did not create a separate market for those brands. Currently you can buy a KTM dirtbike, a Husqvarna dirtbike, or a Gas Gas dirtbike, and they are all the same dirtbike with little more difference then the bodywork. That just isn't smart business. They need to separate the different brands into different market segments. I like KTM, we own a pair of Husqvarna 401's and I have an old mid 90's 440 dirtbike. But I would not buy a current gen 790 / 890 / 901. But, as far as MotoGP goes, much of the money to race in MotoGP comes from Red Bull, and the actual MotoGP race team is a separate company. So, as long as KTM doesn't actually fail I don't see them folding the MotoGP team. They may reduce their footprint in other forms of racing, but I would think they will keep racing. If you think about it, KTM likely race more per motorcycle sold then any other brand.

I find that both smaller, lighter, better handling motorcycles and larger, more powerful, motorcycles are both fun. They are different, but I enjoy both. At least half of my motorcycles over my riding career have been smaller, lighter, better handling, motorcycles. But the other half have been larger motorcycles with more power. Then there is the aspect of what sort of power the larger motorcycles can have. Most of mine have been larger displacement twins, that have as much or more torque then horsepower. I have ridden large displacement fours with more horsepower then torque, but I have never actually owned one. But I have not owned one mainly because I don't think I am mature enough to ride one in a responsible manner and worry I would kill myself on something that fast. A larger displacement twin gives me a middle ground, a motorcycle that feels fast without really being obscenely fast. I do look at bikes like the V4 Tuono and think I want one when I grow up. But so far I haven't yet grown up sufficiently. I might add, I have never thought "This is a good motorcycle, but it would be even better if it had less power". Whether it is a smaller, better handling, motorcycle or a larger displacement twin cylinder motorcycle, I have always found that more power is a good thing. Likely that is no longer true once you get to the level of some modern fours that make 200 hp or more. They probably would not be more fun with more power unless you were on a race track. But those motorcycles aside, more power is generally a good thing in my book. YMMV.

All good advice, but I am surprised I have not seen anyone suggest using one of those third party vendors that will sell you a package deal for your MotoGP experience.

I like Jag, or I did. I would not buy one now. They had been sliding downhill, this simply greased the skids. I am not surprised about what Tata did to Jag, but I do think it is funny that they are doing it. Revenge is best served cold.