A new Silverwinger from London, hiiii!

Bonjour a tous,

I am a 30 years old french man living in london who recently acquired a swing and is loving it! I have been browsing loads of topics here and have learnt so much, it is an incredible source of information, so thank you to all who contributed!

I own a 2005 model with abs around 13000miles with heated grips, givi tall screen and stebel horn. See pic attached (from previous owner).

My swing is also sometimes suffering from the slight belt squeaks when I drive slowly because my wife is quite scared on it. On my own my dynamic riding seems to cure it.

I am wondering what kind of mileage you guys achieve when riding in town, such as London, with loads of stops and start, it seems that 12liters of gas would only take me about 80miles, which doesnt seem that much... what do you guys think?

I was considering changing the variator (J costa as you guys advised) however I am worried gas mileage would decrease even more and I also have a friend who told me it would decrease the scooter reliability, not sure if he's right though.

So in the end I might just change the sliders for lighter weights maybe 16g since I don't wanna lose too much top speed, which is currently around 110mph, what should I expect with that change? I just feel the scooter needs more torque between 0 to 20mph, it sometimes takes too long to accelerate.

I live in a small flat in central london and would love to be hands on and follow tutorials from your site on my scooter. So I am wondering if there is any fellow swing rider in london with a garage or workshop which he wouldnt mind sharing with me, so we could work and help each other. I would be happy to contribute by buying necessary tools which you may not have and other things you might suggest.

well that's it sorry for the wall of text and have a great day guys!

Hello and welcome from an ex-Londoner!

The tutorials and help here are second to none.

There's a very friendly group of max-riders (Swings, Burgers, etc.) who meet almost every Saturday morning for breakfast (9.30/10.00 o'clock) at the Ace Café in Wembley.

I'm not sure is any of them has a garage or workshop but they are very knowledgeable about their scooters and have done lots of mods, mainly electrical.

Darek, a member here, hooked up with them through this forum.

SwingLondonUk

Welcome to the forum - enjoy the ride.

I do not think that the JCosta Variator will affect the reliability of the SilverWing (disclaimer - I do not have one installed on either of ours).

Welcome 30 year old French man living in London!!

You have found the best Silver Wing site on planet earth.

Thanks for the warm welcome guys!

I will definitely try to meet other swingers in london, hopefully there are some since I have only seen an other one on the road, here riders tend to go for much smaller ccs to zigzag in traffic or actual motorcycles... ... there is just no comparison how many more maxi scooters there are in Paris, just everywhere...you know london weather

I know I have found the best swing forum in the universe, what a wealth of information!

For now I will put on hold my engine upgrades and first solve the slight consumption issue (other posts have specifics about that) or just change the sliders for the Dr Ones slightly lighter than OEM ones maybe 26g.

see you around guys.

Hugo

Welcome from South Texas......

Welcome from north Texas. Any more limeys on here and we'lll have to move the "latest topics" to the right side. It's truly becoming a Swinging world.

Hello from the 'Italy, me and my friends this summer, perhaps, we take a ride in London with our silver wing.


ciao dall' Italia, io e i miei amici quest'estate, forse, veniamo a fare un giro a Londra con i nostri silver wing.

howdy from Arizona!

Bonjour ami, Bienvenue dans notre forum web peu ! Son fantastique d'avoir un autre rider Rejoignez-nous ici - désolé thats la limite de mon français:)

I hope I got most of that right?? Anyway, welcome to our growing community. I have friends in London, one of whom rides a Burgman 400, I'll ask him about the sort of fuel consumption he gets. I have to say that 80 miles to a tank full is not good. The other day my pillion and I did 60+ miles and used about 1.5 litres of fuel!!!!!

PLease post a 'user name' - its more pleasant to address messages to a person rather than a 'nome de plume'


Skip.

welcome from another uk rider..

it's great to see so many different nationalities together! I didnt realize I was gonna learn other languages as well
Great job on the French skippy, how did you learn?

I have to admit that I might be driving the scooter a bit to hard and accelerating at max very frequently at every light but it would still not account for such a bad consumption... I am gonna start by following advices seen on an other thread on the forums...

Always makes me smile to see big motorcycle riders getting owned at the light by the Swing what a machine!

You may call me Hugo if you dislike the dull name I chose to register.

take care guys, and once again, thanks for the welcome

Hey Hugo My buddy in London first told me - Don't accelerate like mad away from the lights, the bike is still fast enough anyway! But also it will reduce the life of your drive belt drastically.

How did I learn French??? Easy - with Google Translator LOL My second language used to be German, I say used to be because like everything; 'you either use it or loose it!' and I haven't had cause to speak much German for the last 5 or 6 years now.

Hi Hugo,
Let me add my welcome too.
I live in Central London, and 80% of my activity is in Zone One & Two. I've kept records for the last 8,000 miles and have averaged 53 miles per (UK) gallon. About 50% is with my wife on the back.
Hope this helps.
Bob

Hugo:
Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your Swing. A Frenchman in London - C'est bon. You mention concern regarding your miles per gallon of fuel. Obviously, your mpg will depend on your riding style, but it seems like most people on here average somewhere in the 40 to 50 mpg range. If your bike is averaging significantly less than that, then it may have some sort of problem. You might start with making sure the air filter and fuel system are clean and operating correctly. Also, make sure that your variator isn't slipping too much as that could cost you mpgs. Good luck with your new bike and have fun in London.
DCC

Howdy! Welcome to virtual Silverwing-land!

@ skippy: you made me wonder if my riding style isn't too aggressive... I have to admit I quite like speed and I have been quite excited it's barely been a few weeks since I purchased my Swing... so I am in the process of trying to get the most miles out of my latest tank, in order to have a best case scenario benchmark and report back here...

@Rasherman/bob: thanks for the info, my riding is also like you about 50% with a passenger, I will report back my findings in a few days!

@thescootist/dcc: great advice, first I have bought a bottle of some generic fuel/injection cleaner (redex) as I couldnt find the seafoam recommended on the forum. The last maintenance has been done 10months/almost 2000miles ago, also the scooter has been sitting in a garage for a few month with the previous owner. I might just change the sparkplugs and analyse the color of the old ones.

do you guys know of a good site which could ship at a fair price to the uk in order to buy a performance air filter, sparkplugs , xenon bulbs and the Dr Sliders (not sure what weight yet) all at once?

thanks again guys!!!

edited to add xenon bulbs to the "wish list"

Not sure about the sliders, but the rest you should be able to pick up off ebay.uk for a decent saving.

I'm sorry to say that virtually any saving you may make by shopping out side the UK will be swallowed up in exchange rate fees, import duty and VaT charges.

Odd as it sounds, sometimes it really does pay to shop around a bit further than the usual places (like ebay etc.) I managed to find quite by accident a Givi Backrest at 2/3rds the list price from a independant dealers website!

If you do manage to find a K&N Filter at a value price let me know too