Introducing myself to this forum group and reporting on reactions to new V-Raptor 250

[Plado]

Hello from sunny Devon in the UK.
I'm new here so really want to say Hi to all and to have a bit of a chin-wag about my new SkyTeam V-Raptor 250
Best if I give a little background first. For the last 10 years or so I've owned and ridden Yamaha TDM 850s (had 3 of them in a row between 1996 and current times) Before that I owned four consecutive BMWs not because I genuinely wanted to but because I won a BMW R80 in a prize draw competition and hated it, so traded it for a used K100 RT and then liked that much better but not the stabbing pains in my wallet running it. I was a devil for punishment as I came to rely on the big tourer to get around my area as a Piano Tuner. But after owning 4 of the K series, the last one an LT with ABS brakes it got simply too expensive and a drain on my income.

I switched to Yamaha and was staggered at the improved handling of the lighter bike and more so with the power and the lower cost of spares. But now I've retired and found myself doing no more than 200 miles in a year which was a waste of a good Yamaha, so thanks to good old online auction site that shall be nameless. I sold it 2 weeks ago and downsized to a V-Raptor 250.

There's a dealer just a mile from my home and I walked into his shop and there was a V Raptor 250 in the colour I wanted Yellow. The bike with its white mudguards looks like a lemon mousse with whipped cream!

I bought it. I had a back box put on it and I have a Custom Air Blade screen on order as I like a screen especially when it's raining and I can duck behind it to stay a bit drier. Last 4 days have been rain rain rain and so I'm not going out there on brand new tires that have not yet been scrubbed in, so I gloat over the bike in my garage.
Tomorrow I'll be out on it and starting to get 500 miles of running-in under my belt because that gets the boring bit over with. It does seem a very clever little design but can anyone tell me how do Sky Team in China get around the copyright laws over copying a dead-ringer for the Suzuki Van Van? Will a Police cop stop me and say "You're riding a copyright enfringment sonny and I will have to confiscate this bike and arrest you for impersonating a Japanese motorcycle? Surely there must be some agreement between China and Japan to allow such a blatant crib?

If this is not the place to ask such questions maybe some kind person will advise me what part of these forums to ask such a question or can direct me to where I should be. Thanks.

I would like to post some pictures later and maybe even give a running report once a month throughout my riding season so I can tell if anything has dropped off or gone badly wrong.

So I think that will do for one marathon posting for now. I'm pleased to find this forum and hope I can give and receive some good advice here.
Cheers and Beers
--
Plado

[ZMC888]

Hi Plado, welcome to the forum!

I'm often in Devon around the Kingsbridge area, when I'm not in China, was last there a few months ago. Great place to live live and ride, except the bucket loads of rain the UK has been having this year. Lucky for you to have a job where you could ride a motorcycle to get around, how fantastic!

Anyway interesting you've taken the plunge into a Chinese bike, I thought you would be a Yamaha devotee if you are a former piano tuner. Anyway the Skyteam isn't a bike I know anything about, but I'm sure there are some very knowledgeable people in the realted threads, seems a fairly reliable machine if you keep on top of the maintenance and keep it out of the salty Devon seaside air and garaged when not in use, it may serve you well.

[culcune]

Welcome! We have been having a few people with your bike joining us on chinariders.net This is ironic for 2 reasons: 1. The majority of chinariders members are N. American and 2. The V-Raptor is not available in the US or Canada--one prominent member is from Bulgaria and the other 2 or 3 are from Australia.

I suggest to join us on chinariders, too, just for the knowledge the V-Raptor owners can impart!

From what I understand, Skyteam obtained the license for the likeness to the Van Van and the RV90/RV125. We can get the RV90-clone bike in the US, but only with a 125cc engine (I know you guys get those in the UK, too). Skyteam seems to be more of an up and up company, so I am quite sure the design likeness is legitimate! Personally, I just wish Skyteam sourced their engines from Qingqi who make a licensed copy of the 125 and 200/ 250cc Suzuki engine. Instead, I believe they use Zongshen engines which copy the tried and true Honda cg125/cg200 engines.

From what I understand, and have gotten an answer to from Skyteam on Facebook, we are supposed to get the 223cc V-Raptor and the enduro in the US, which will be my next bike, or depending on how long we get them--my next, next bike.

ZCM888 is right--I thought you would have be a Yamaha owner for life due to your piano connection; my father gave my sister his long-owned Yamaha baby grand when he finally got his dream Steinway piano 4 or 5 years ago (he was born and raised in London, btw, but has lived in the US since '68).

[Plado]

Thanks for your kind welcome.
Yes Kingsbridge was the place I used to work quite a lot but I have to say I'm now retired and no longer need to visit customers. So the 30k miles per year is all over for me on bikes.
However, I would say that I have been a Yamaha bike devotee and piano also but when I came to retire I decided I wanted something much more rich than a Yamaha piano and so I found a German Schimmel just 20 years old and a 6ft long grand. It was at South Brent and on ebay for a mere £6,000 but that was a good price since the piano when new was 15k and by the time I bought the 2nd hand one the new ones were up beyond 30,000 pounds so I reckon I got a bargain.

I had to build a piano room or music room extension onto our bungalow to make room for the big piano but it was worth it. An architect designed "green" building timber framed and the piano sounds magical in there.
Anyhow back to bikes and my high mileage that was on a par with Police riders took its toll and I was ignorant enough not to use ear-plugs so that the wind-noise in the crash helmet at 90 or 100 decibels sustained in high speed riding, along with the impact noise at point blank range when thrashing pianos into tune, ended up giving me hearing-damage and permanent tinnitus from 1993 onwards. I carried on tuning pianos until 2001 and then it got too difficult to "fine tune" due to my losses. I packed it in and luckily my mother left me some money when she died in 2000 so I took early retirement and from that moment on was still a strong fan of Yamaha TDM 850 my all time favourite bike. If you'd like to see my 1950 Douglas 350cc rebuild I did in 2003 then please do visit my website. Not sure if I'm allowed to put a link here but it's priorfamily dot co dot uk and you'll see a page all about how I rebuilt with help the bike I'd seized up in 1967 in Dorset only a stones throw from Three Cross motorcycles. The machine had lain in my brother's sheds at various residences for 33 years so I was determined to get it back on the road. After it was completed I sold it to a man in his 80s who was desperate for a Mark IV sport and wanted to show it. I'd got fed up with the old thing which was a bit of a tractor! OK I'm going to answer the contribution from culcune now.

I have had some cold starting trouble with the SkyTeam 250 but maybe this forum may help with that from others experiences.
Cheers

Hi Plado, welcome to the forum!

I'm often in Devon around the Kingsbridge area, when I'm not in China, was last there a few months ago. Great place to live live and ride, except the bucket loads of rain the UK has been having this year. Lucky for you to have a job where you could ride a motorcycle to get around, how fantastic!

Anyway interesting you've taken the plunge into a Chinese bike, I thought you would be a Yamaha devotee if you are a former piano tuner. Anyway the Skyteam isn't a bike I know anything about, but I'm sure there are some very knowledgeable people in the realted threads, seems a fairly reliable machine if you keep on top of the maintenance and keep it out of the salty Devon seaside air and garaged when not in use, it may serve you well.

[Plado]

Thanks I will investigate the Chinariders forum. One thing I need to gen up on is the way to successfully start the V-Raptor 250 when cold. Also the knack to using the kick start because I've had trouble with both.
When the engine is warm it fires up with the greatest of ease. It's only done 60km so is running-in and everything is a bit tight. But on the choke in the morning in my garage, I press the starter with choke full on or half on or one third on - makes no difference- the engine fires and cuts out.
Fires and cuts out. Twiddling the throttle doesn't help. Though my dealer who sold the bike to me, said open the throttle to squirt a bit of fuel into the inlet as it has an injector system on the carb that gives a little boost shot. So I tried that - made no difference. I have to try several times which is not good for the battery or the starter-life for that matter.

Eventually after about 4 to 6 attempts it starts and I can catch it. Then I rev it a bit and try to keep it going and sometimes it conks out and I have to try again. All very frustrating. It should start first pull. Using the kick start I just cant whack it hard enough with the compression being so new and 9:1 it takes a lot more power of the leg to whack it over than I would expect from a 225cc bike. I never did like kick starting ever since kick-back used to sprain my ankle on BSAs

Anyhow once it's warmed up and left parked for a while it starts perfectly with one little push of the button. See my reply to ZMC888 for info about the Yamaha bikes and Pianos.

This little V Raptor is going to be for towing behind our RV on a trailer so as to allow my wife and me to explore areas we hope to tour to and park up the campervan then go off to nearby places of interest on the little bike. It will cope with us two well and I'm trying my best to run-it-in and get to that first service at 500 miles and have the swarf emptied out of the sump!

I hope the V Raptor does come your way and so far it looks to being better quality than earlier examples from China which left a lot to be desired. Also you can apply that to Chinese made pianos too! Some of the recent ones are superb but early stuff was really a joke and I'm told the workers making them were themselves on conveyor belts. The mind boggles as to how such neo slavery could be handled in that when the pianos are built, the instruments are carried round on the belt to a storage facility while the workers who made it are dispensable and get dropped into a pit at the end of the factory and told their term is over !!! A constant supply of new workers are pouring in at the front end none of whom need to be skilled! That's just a joke but it's really an extension of what we used to say about the Japanese in the 1960s who built 500 Hondas for a bag of rice wages. However they had the last laugh because they soon became one of the best makers of engines and machines in the world and still are.

I learned the other day that Honda haven't had one single warranty job on the engine of the Civic car in all the years of production. My wife had a Civic and it went on for 200k miles. My local garage had one for a staff car and it had done 350thousand on the original engine.
That's amazing. Anyhow I'm off topic here. I hope the Chinese made SkyTeam will prove durable on an engine basis and it seems fairly well screwed together in a frame and parts area.

Time will tell.
Cheers
Plado

Welcome! We have been having a few people with your bike joining us on chinariders.net This is ironic for 2 reasons: 1. The majority of chinariders members are N. American and 2. The V-Raptor is not available in the US or Canada--one prominent member is from Bulgaria and the other 2 or 3 are from Australia.

I suggest to join us on chinariders, too, just for the knowledge the V-Raptor owners can impart!

From what I understand, Skyteam obtained the license for the likeness to the Van Van and the RV90/RV125. We can get the RV90-clone bike in the US, but only with a 125cc engine (I know you guys get those in the UK, too). Skyteam seems to be more of an up and up company, so I am quite sure the design likeness is legitimate! Personally, I just wish Skyteam sourced their engines from Qingqi who make a licensed copy of the 125 and 200/ 250cc Suzuki engine. Instead, I believe they use Zongshen engines which copy the tried and true Honda cg125/cg200 engines.

From what I understand, and have gotten an answer to from Skyteam on Facebook, we are supposed to get the 223cc V-Raptor and the enduro in the US, which will be my next bike, or depending on how long we get them--my next, next bike.

ZCM888 is right--I thought you would have be a Yamaha owner for life due to your piano connection; my father gave my sister his long-owned Yamaha baby grand when he finally got his dream Steinway piano 4 or 5 years ago (he was born and raised in London, btw, but has lived in the US since '68).

[culcune]

As far as the starting issues, and keep in mind I am not terribly mechanical but have had a few issues on my Chinese bikes with the same issue--simple as a fouled/fouling plug. These bikes run rich, generally, and they tend to go through plugs. If I remember, someone on chinariders had the same issue, however, and I don't quite remember how it was solved...join us there, too, is my suggestion

Here are some of the more recent threads featuring your bike:

http://www.chinariders.net/showthrea...hlight=skyteam

http://www.chinariders.net/showthrea...hlight=skyteam

http://www.chinariders.net/showthrea...hlight=skyteam

[Plado]

Thanks I will go there and register sounds really useful place. By the way I fitted an iridium spark plug to see if having a fat spark would cure it and the original that had only done 5 miles was fairly black and slightly oily but the new plug hasn't solved it at all so I think I'd best take your advice and go check out that forum. Cheers

[ZMC888]

Thanks for your kind welcome.
Anyhow back to bikes and my high mileage that was on a par with Police riders took its toll and I was ignorant enough not to use ear-plugs so that the wind-noise in the crash helmet at 90 or 100 decibels sustained in high speed riding, along with the impact noise at point blank range when thrashing pianos into tune, ended up giving me hearing-damage and permanent tinnitus from 1993 onwards. I carried on tuning pianos until 2001 and then it got too difficult to "fine tune" due to my losses. I packed it in and luckily my mother left me some money when she died in 2000 so I took early retirement and from that moment on was still a strong fan of Yamaha TDM 850 my all time favourite bike. If you'd like to see my 1950 Douglas 350cc rebuild I did in 2003 then please do visit my website. Not sure if I'm allowed to put a link here but it's priorfamily dot co dot uk and you'll see a page all about how I rebuilt with help the bike I'd seized up in 1967 in Dorset only a stones throw from Three Cross motorcycles. The machine had lain in my brother's sheds at various residences for 33 years so I was determined to get it back on the road. After it was completed I sold it to a man in his 80s who was desperate for a Mark IV sport and wanted to show it. I'd got fed up with the old thing which was a bit of a tractor! OK I'm going to answer the contribution from culcune now.

I have had some cold starting trouble with the SkyTeam 250 but maybe this forum may help with that from others experiences.
Cheers

I was fascinated with your Douglas rebuild, I'd love to rebuild a bike in that manner but perhaps a 70's or 80's machine, like a CB750. I'd love gain some extra mechanical skills, hate seeing bikes gathering dust in barns and garages.

[Plado]

Thanks very much for going there to take a look. I'm pleased you enjoyed the visit.
Incidentally I'm just posting this reply as a dual purpose as I think I've solved the cold starting problem.

With the V-Raptor having a fairly high compression ratio the starter motor may not really be strong enough to turn it over without robbing the electrical system of quite a lot of current.
So when I try to start from cold on the starter the spark is quite weak. However, this morning I had one more try with the kick start. I put the choke on about 50% or just less and gave it a couple of good swings on the lever with the throttle very slightly open about a quarter of the way. It fired on the second kick and stayed running.

All I need to do now is find a child's small bicycle handlebar rubber grip and fit it to the horizontal pedal bar of the kick start for better grip. I think having it smooth steel doesn't help confidence when kicking it over as having one's foot slip off it can be very painful. So that's a little mod I'm going to do.

Maybe I should post this up as a separate troubleshoot problem solved but I think I'll wait and see if the revelation holds true over the next few days before I commit it to print as "official"
Cheers

[Plado]

Not sure if it's relevant to post here this late after our previous dialogue was a few months ago. I have posted my latest bad news on chinariders forum but felt I should post here some important info on why my SkyTeam V Raptor was written off in July and how I nearly lost my life,

It is with much sadness and regret that my SkyTeam V Raptor is no more and I will never ride again due to a very serious accident that nearly took my life and put me in hospital for 20 weeks,
As briefly as possible the account is as follows:-
Afternoon of July 26th 2014-
Riding home on a 50 mile round trip to help run my bike in, I was half a mile from home when an old man of 85 with a heart pacemaker driving a Peugeot blacked out at the wheel and his runaway car oncoming headed straight for me head on. I was doing 30mph so was he and apparently I tried to swerve by counter steering, but at a closing speed between us of 60mph there wasn't time or anywhere to go.

His car struck my right side smashing my leg and threw me 30 feet through the air and totally wrote off my bike,

I was air lifted by Helicopter 30 miles to hospital
One month in Intensive Care in induced coma.
Lost my right let above the knee.
Broke my pelvis in two places.
Damaged nerves in neck right arm and right hand.
Lost the top half of the middle finger of my right hand.
Had damage to kidneys and liver.
Had 7 general anaesthetics.

I remember nothing of the accident so no flash backs or nightmares. Hospital attendance was spread over 4 places finally in a recovery hospital that prepared me for getting up and sitting in a chair, then doing exercises to stand but not walk,
When pelvis is strong enough to stand impact of walking I will be sent for training and fitting of a prosthetic leg sometime in 2015.

Luckily I got compatible with a wheelchair and was sent home to my wife just a week ago in time for Christmas.

I wont be riding any more as I am concentrating on having Car and RV converted to special controls for disabled who have lost a right leg.

Luckily my wife wasnt on the pillion as she would not have survived. I was wearing armored jacket and a good crash helmet, so that likely saved my life but only just. Claims for damages are being made. The driver surrendered his drivers license to the police and wont ever drive again. He should have done that ten years ago.

Ive had 50 years of good safe biking but at 68 Im ready to pack it in so wont be able to contribute much to this forum now. After this ordeal I now feel too vulnerable and fragile to do any 2 or even 3 wheeled riding any more.

We none of us know when the cosmic fly-swat will strike next.
Cheers and Beers to you all
Plado (South Devon England)