I took the Ninja for a good hard ride on Saturday on the local backroads to test the new tail and to test the accuracy of my odometer/tripmeter. The new tail worked great and seems to be very sturdy. My destination was a local motorcycle hangout ( the Livermore Junction ); the brothers and sisters there seemed to like the streamliner. I had some fun and found that my odometer under-reported distance traveled by 9.2 %.
Yesterday, I decided to go ahead and change to the smallest rear sprocket I had: GreenJoe's 33 tooth. I also lubed my swingarm and shock linkage, shimmed the cush drive and shortened my chain by 4 links. I rode the bike to Fremont on some errands and found that the taller gearing was manageable. It starts from a dead stop OK , accelerates at an acceptable pace and brings the rpms way down while cruising. Hills and headwinds now need quick downshifts to maintain speed and often need dropping down 2 gears at a time. We'll see how it goes.
I fueled up on the way home and got ..... 90 mpg !!!
I'm pleased with this and hope to keep the upward trend continuing.