Is it detrimental to a 650cc to be mainly used urbanly?

Most of my riding is in London, and I simply don't have time to ride for leisure out of town because of studies/uni etc, which is a real shame.

This perhaps may be a daft question, but then again I know nothing about engineering. Is it slighty detrimental to the mechanics of a bike with a larger engine to mostly only ever be in the first 3 gears and rarely go above 40mph?

Perhaps not, but my bike (er6) hasn't been operating as smoothly recently, and thought mayb the bikes throttle needs to be opened up every once in a while to feed it some juice.

edit: sorry mods, was meant to post in the bikes talks section.

I dont know if its one of those things which is in my head, but I often felt that if the SV was been a bit poor I'd take it for a mini hoon and the next day it always seemed that little bit happier. smoother etc

[BanannaMan]

Not sure about the bike but ....

I know it's detrimental to the rider!
Make time!

I would say just go everywhere in first gear but even then you won't get to properly open it up in London.

Not sure how true this is but, ive heard and been told many, many times that opening an engine up once in a while, does help it, it just flushes some of the rubbish out. I find mines always a bit smoother after a good ride, but that might be me just imagining things again hehe

[yorkie_chris]

They run loads better with a bit of a kicking every now and again.

yep, they need a good "Italian" tune up once in a while. you get all sorts of crap building up in there. Carbon build up etc. Putting a shot of redex through the tank will also help, but just take the bloody thing out for a lap of the M25 or something if you really don't have time to go else where.

There are some good back road routes to MK too (just looking at your location).

[Jayneflakes]

In my limited experience, a good run that gets the bike up to temperature removes moisture from the cases, charges up the battery properly and puts a huge s**tkicker grin on your face.

My 125 would get all miserable on the short run to work, but a good run down the A370 every now and again would blow the cobwebs away and I swear it released power that had been choked up by never running hot enough, fast enough or for long enough.

My other half swears by the "going for a blast" method of maintenance, it is good for your bike, as is a good service when it needs it.

Yep, my bike was running like a bag of nails after being stuck away most of the winter (couldn't get a 4x4 up my hill to the road, never mind a bloody bike) so I filled it with fresh petrol and took it and opened it up properly and it is running MUCH better since.

Besides, there's that thrill taking it right up to the limiter... what a noise!