Slyboy, sprocket / gearing change 04/2004
For those of you who may remember I changed the gearing of my SV1S to 1 tooth less on the front and two up on the back (16/42). Now here in the UK the weathers been pretty cold, however yesterday was the first decent day for months and I took the bike to the British Superbike race at Brands Hatch with a few mates.

I knew that down gearing should help my bike accelerate much faster, so I had a bit of fun testing the bike head to head (on a quiet bit of road of course!) against my brothers 2001 Fireblade from standstill. The most interesting thing about this is that now my SV pulled out a 5 yard lead from the start and held it comfortably to over 140mph (indicated) before we had to shut off. The hardest thing was keeping the front on the ground in the first two gears, but we did another run and the result was the same.

So if you want to have Blade acceleration (alright - I know he would have beaten me on top speed over 140+, but here in Blighty we don't get too many chances to do more than that!) try changing the gearing. I have to say that this is the best mod I have ever done to a bike - much better in traffic commuting to London, and much faster when hacking about.

The added bonus is that if you like wheelies, second gear power wheelies are a cinch - just pin the throttle and ride the wheelie to well over 90mph!

I have yet to get my speedo and milometer sorted with the yellow box of tricks but that's next on my list!

One reason I went for the one down and two up change was that there is very little difference in chain length since the changes to front and rear sprockets almost equal out. I had already about 6000 miles on the original chain.....and the sprocket change made very little difference to the chain adjustment.

Like I said before - the speedo is out (ie reads higher) by about 15% but I find that's no bad thing as I end up slowing down a bit because first glance you always appear to be going too fast.