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It"s winter so haven't had a chance to ride after changing to the 13 tooth sprocket but after seeing comments on this site I decided to change and at the same time added the o-ring chain. As all of my riding with be on dirt here on the ranch and my previous experience with having a CT110 with the upper & lower range gearing I decided that the lower gearing with the 13 tooth sprocket would better suit my needs. Don't ever anticipate any high speed cruising.Best upgrade yet. Haven’t gotten to ride far but I can tell a huge difference. Best $10 upgrade ever. Like a different machine. I think a o-ring chain would be an upgrade too.
What chain did you get and where?
Shorten to your length.What chain did you get and where?
There are also X-ring chains that fit the CT125, lower friction and longer life than O-ring. You're not going to notice a seat of the pants difference on a well maintained chain, but if you don't care to do regular chain maintenance then a sealed chain is going to be smoother and last much longer than an OEM chain that will end up dry, rusty, and contaminated around the rollers without proper care.
That's good information. I thought it would noticeably drag on such a small engine. I'll put one on my shopping list.I took a slightly different approach: if it's sapping power, the engine is going to have to work harder to do the same job at the same speed, and I assumed that would chew up more fuel. Installed the DID X-Link chain, didn't see any difference at all in fuel economy, max speed on the climbs I do every day to work, or any other metric by which I would normally measure power's user experience.
What I did experience was 2000 mi between chain adjustments, which was awesome, and a more difficult master link install, which was less awesome.
I didn't notice any difference in power, but I didn't put it on a dyno to check ether,Just a quick comment on 0-ring chains: There is a lot of commentary on various motorcycle forums (especially motocross, enduro, off-road ones) about the power sapping effect of 0-ring chains. I think it is well proven that o-ring chains are "stiffer" than non-o-ring ones and therefore soak up energy/power. When you only have 8-9hp to play with this could be a significant thing. Does anyone have any experience of this with the CT? Is an o-ring chain really necessary on a CT - Discuss!
I took my first real ride this weekend (since forest roads opened 4/1) and will put on a 13 tooth sprocket very soon. My ideal speed is too fast for first gear and the bike just didn't climb as well as I hoped it would in second gear. Losing one tooth should make second just about right.I went to a 13 tooth sprocket as well. May have lost one or 2 mph on top, but I agree with everyone else - it does help with real world power and speed. However, it will throw off your speedometer a bit more than stock. Using a GPS, I need to be running at an indicated 49 to do an actual 45. With my size and weight, that's nearly all she's got. And just to complicate matters, I put on the Shinko SR 241 trials tires which are larger in diameter than originals. So if you use a 13 tooth with stock tires, your speedometer error may vary.
Sadly, the odometer is run by a signal from the transmission. So the 13 tooth sprocket does throw things off. With the 241s being a bit larger, that does compensate a little. My speedometer error is 8 to 10 percent. With the 241s, your front fender will need a lift. But the 241s do not cancel the benefit of the 13 tooth sprocket.I took my first real ride this weekend (since forest roads opened 4/1) and will put on a 13 tooth sprocket very soon. My ideal speed is too fast for first gear and the bike just didn't climb as well as I hoped it would in second gear. Losing one tooth should make second just about right.
I also have a pair of 241 tires that I have been waiting to put on until after I rode trails with the stock tires. Stock tires are not capable of trails with any mud or loose surface (much worse than the deathwings on my TW200). I hadn't thought much about what those two changes would do to the odometer/speedometer (I haven't actually looked closely but assumed there was a pickup of some sort on the front wheel). If 241's have a larger diameter then it seems to me they would cancel out some of the benefit of the 13 tooth sprocket.