2011 GasGas EC 300e

[Woodsknight]

This is my first GG. I am coming off of KTM's and Husky's. My background is primarily from converted MX bikes. I race harescrambles and enduros but have MX years under my belt. I am 6'3" 210 and expert ability. I live in New England so most courses are tight and rooty with rocks.
The first ride was in snowy conditions that varied from frozen ground to 6inches of snow. Some tight stuff and open terrian. A few roots/rocks here and there but not a technical run at all.

I arrived at the house we were riding out of and put on my trelleborg tires and hand guards. Pulled the plug out of the left side of bar, and removed throttle tube to drill out end cap with a dremel cone bit. My hand guards were for protaper bars and these GG handbars seem to be smaller where the clamp grabs the bar, I got them tight enough to work but have since replaced the guards with clamps for Renthal bars. I noticed that the front master cylinder has a wire for a brake light coming out of it. I just zip tied it up and out of harms way. No sense in removing it. I did not like the allen bolt on the throttle housing. I will soon replace them with regular 8mm bolts like they should be. Also Im pretty sure the brake and clutch perches were allen bolts to. DUMB!! I will seek out normal bolts for these for ease of maintainance. I noticed this bike has a key ignition to it. Im not a fan of this and will be looking into removing it. I will have to find some type of switch for the headlight to shut it on/off when I do away with the key. I am also going to figure out how to replace the bulky electric start switch with two kill buttons. Already have two new yami kill buttons to use. Gonna use one for the e-start and one of the kill start.

Sooooooooooooo... I gear up and pull the bike out of garage. She starts first kick and Im liking the way this thing purrs ;-) We had a large group of riders that were most experts.
After warming it up I am off and running on the trail. The first initial impression in the first few hundred feet is that this bike is a winner. Great handling bike, smooth but very fast motor, shifts great, awesome breaks, killer clutch. I did notice that the front end takes some getting used to. It turns so sharp that you can knife the front end and over cut stuff. Its like a RM250 smoker that turns even sharper. It was a little un nerving at first but I got used to the bike and it mostly went away. Needless to say I will put a damper on this bike for added security and to calm the front end down a bit. I really really like the motor on this bike. It is the best motor that I have ever rode and I have swung a leg over everything from a 86 Cagiva to a 2011 KTM 350. So I know bikes and motors,,, this is the best motor I have ever had. It is super fast but smooth to. I could spend and hour typing about the motor but I will sum it up like this - it makes you a hero and makes you super smooth. The suspension felt decent but I know I need time to break it in and to go up on the spring rates. This bike has the Ohlins shock and Marzocchi open chamber forks. The stock spring rates are .42 up front and 5.2 in the rear. I will most likely go to .44front/5.4 in rear. Even with the new tight suspension and light springs, I was ripping in the variety of terrain we were on. The bike tracks straight through chop and whoops. Like I mentioned before the brakes were great. I could easily make time on people using the bikes carving abilities and strong brakes, factor in the motor of doom and you can run people down pretty quickly.
Ok thats the good part of the story. Here is how the rest of my day went. Im zipping down the trail and encounter a sweeping right hand turn with a small rut. No problemO. I tap the rear and throw the bike into the turn, gas it and lean her over. Destroy the berm but hear a loud WHACK!!! As I came out of the turn I went to stand up and my right foot missed the peg and hit the ground. I then pretty much ran my foot over with a studded tire. Good thing i have good boots!!. I look down and my right foot peg is completely gone. There was only a small stub left to the footpeg. What happened was that I hit a small stump and the foot peg broke off. This is complete BS and the peg should not have broke. Even a quality peg wouldnt have bent never mind break. Sooo I had to ride 10 miles with no right foot peg to a friends house and we put an old honda CR peg on my bike for the rest of the day. We head out onto the trail to meet up with the rest of the group. About 20 mins later I go to start up my bike with the kicker because the Estart seems finicky. I think I have learned that with the current jetting and temps that the bike only wants a crack of the throttle while pushing the magic button. So I go to kick start the bike and the kickstarter broke!!! The entire stopper nub thingy on the starter broke off. Soo basically when you flip open the kicket it doesnt stop, it rotates all the way back paralell to the bike making it impossable to kickstart it. The rest of the day was spent figuring out the E-start, having the Estart battery die and getting bump started buy buddies pushing me. I WAS AND STILL AM PISSED.
Today I am going out to put a ton of new stuff on the bike that I got in the mail yesterday. Included in these parts are a new set of IMS Pro Series pegs from a 2011 YZ250 2smoke, YZ 250 2smoke footpeg pins and a 2011 YZ 250 2smoke kickstarter. The pegs and kicker cost me 200 bucks.
WTF GASGAS?? This is not a 1500 dollar dirtbike. It is super expensive. I have sent the broken parts to my dealor and Im sure he will take care of me. But I am hearing of other guys breaking pegs. Havent heard any other kickstart failures but honestly even if I am sent a new one, the Yamaha kicket is staying on the bike. I cant afford to drive to a race and have a part like that break. I invest too much time, effort, and money to get screwed on bad casting of a important part of the dirtbike. I love the bike and in only 30miles of riding I am very fast on it, but what I went through was complete BS.