Top speed on a Strada?

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72degrees
Posts: 1549
Joined: 31 Aug 2007 21:24
Location: West Midlands

Re: Top speed on a Strada?

Post by 72degrees »

harrymuffin wrote:What rear chain wheel have you got fitted? If you are in top with too small a cog you will be below the power band. Have you tried droping into 5th and letting it rev up to around the 8000 mark then dropping into top for a bit more? May be of interest to you, but a bloke rode his Strada up from London the scenic route, the first section on the M4 and holding up lorries, then proper roads with a couple of big down hills and complained to me on arrival that the bike would not rev with a top speed of 60ish. Checking his gearing, he had a 34 back sprocket fitted. Whomever he bought the bike from had a misguided notion that the higher the gearing the faster the bike would go! I put the correct 38 toothed cog on and had no problem in breaking the speed limit and more.
Good point about changing up too early. That is even more of a factor on a Sport. Perhaps it has had a lumpy cam fitted at some time in its history?

In fairness, my claim to the 80's two up was back when my first Strada was almost new, and I and SWMBO#'1 were both fairly svelte.

Vagueliers have earnt their reputation, but it could be that this one is erring on the side of pessimism, not optimism. I did have the speedo on my R90/6 sort of officially calibrated by Thames Valley Police not long after that. Three figure speeds on that were genuine.

I run the 2C/375 on 14/38 (IIRC, must check). I tried a 13T front for a while but it was too 'busy' at motorway speed.
mbmm350s
Posts: 666
Joined: 22 Jun 2018 10:18
Location: Reading UK
Location: Berkshire UK

Re: Top speed on a Strada?

Post by mbmm350s »

14/38 standard 350 Sport on the A34 88mph (GPS) with a little more to come, speedo reading somewhere between 70 and 100 who knows...
Electric Tacho reliable and calibrated, over 7500 rpm. 80 mph is easily achievable.
Strada may be a few mph slower?

standard 250-2C will go a little beyond 75mph but you need to ignore the tacho, a strada shouldn't be slower than a 250 2C

What kind of exhaust? What air filters?

If you don't have satnav there are free GPS Speedo apps you can get on your phone that record top speed.

Mark
harrymuffin
Posts: 292
Joined: 07 Apr 2014 16:06
Location: west midlands

Re: Top speed on a Strada?

Post by harrymuffin »

The K2 I had in everyday usage was good for 75ish and on a long flat straight would go up to 80ish+ and on long down hills and then flat would hold 90ish. That had restrictive silencers and pretty much no more than a tarted up Strada/Sport. Don't forget, although you have 35 Italian horses at the crankshaft you will have considerably less at the back wheel, maybe 28 horses if with about 5000miles on the clock. You lose at least 10 - 15% going through the transfer gears and gearbox. If you consult any learned motorcycle tuning publication with about 30bhp at the back wheel your top speed is only going to be 100 and that is for a medium weight road racing machine with the rider in leathers and prone behind a dolphin fairing, so for your bike in heavy bulky Barbours, big heavy flying boots, sitting up and begging, you are doing well to get 70 out of it.
BumbleBee
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Joined: 13 Jun 2017 21:10
Location: Reading

Re: Top speed on a Strada?

Post by BumbleBee »

Remember also our 350's get less power out of a gallon of fuel these days, because it's not made of the same ingredients as it was back in the day. If you have to use unleaded then it's probably best to use "super" instead of regular, for a number of reasons. And your 350 really does get less power out of "regular" grade unleaded.
G&A
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