Apollo Has Landed! I Repeat-- Apollo Has Landed! :)

[Jim Rogers]

My Apollo DB36 landed last Tuesday! I got the last one Orion had in stock due to the virus. Pulled it off the pallet right away:



Paid for the full setup (just add gas and GO!), but it was raining all day so I could only ride it up and down my (~60 yard long) driveway a few times. I'm brand new to the off road riding hobby, so I was pretty excited. And after several passes up and down the driveway I was.... pissed!

The thing ran like crap. Terrible bogging from about half throttle on up. I mean-- it wasn't even ridable. And that's after I paid Orion to do the run in, oil change, etc. I know the carbs on these Chinese bikes are notorious for needing adjustment, but I was pretty pissed that Orion would deliver a bike to me that was so bad that it wasn't even ridable!

Today was the first day in a week that it didn't rain, so I decided to take it out again. I live on 10 acres of land and intend to create my own single track through it. Since I'm brand new at the hobby, I probably looked a little dorky going really slow and bobbing around to keep my balance on the uneven ground.

However, after about the fourth loop around I was getting a feel for the bike and the terrain, gaining confidence, and going faster. The bike seemed to be running fine, so I took it out on the road for a quick spin. There was no bogging at all and it ran great at all throttle levels.

I'm thinking that I didn't properly heed the advice that these bike take a while to warm up. When I test rode on Tuesday, I let it warm up maybe 5 min and rode maybe 10 minutes. I'm thinking that wasn't enough.

Here she is after that first off-road ride:



So, tonight I'm really happy. I think the bike is fine, I really like it, and I had a blast riding it off-road. My plan is to ride every day I can (pretty easy since I'm doing it on my own property!), develop my riding skills, create a nice track, and probably crash plenty in the process. I would like to become a skilled off-road rider, and I'm starting with the Apollo.

Not sure I'm going to do any significant mods (though the pumper carb sounds tempting), but I do think I want a lower final drive ratio. My land is bumpy and I don't ride that fast (at least not yet!) and I think I'm slipping the clutch a lot.

I also want to learn more about this bike, so I'll probably post questions on this thread as they come up. I've been following this forum for a couple of years, so I'm pretty happy to finally have one of these Chinese bikes that I've read about for so long!

[culcune]

Congrats on the bike! I like the green color scheme Does the carb have the three settings for the choke? Sometimes having it on and forgetting to turn if off will cause the bike to seem like something is wrong. Or not turning it on. Or having it on half choke...I am attempting some humor to make a point to learn your choke positions.

[Jim Rogers]

Originally Posted by culcune

Congrats on the bike! I like the green color scheme

Thanks! Can't say I had any role in the color selection as I took this bike because it was the last one they had. The "color" just comes from stickers that are on black plastic. I don't dislike the color, but I'm considering taking the stickers off and just having it be black. We'll see.

Originally Posted by culcune

Does the carb have the three settings for the choke? Sometimes having it on and forgetting to turn if off will cause the bike to seem like something is wrong. Or not turning it on. Or having it on half choke...I am attempting some humor to make a point to learn your choke positions.

The choke does have three positions, and it wasn't clear to me which way was "on." The bike ran so bad, I was assuming that I had the choke in the wrong position, but it ran with almost the same crappiness with the choke in any position.

That's kind of weird, and I even jumped on this thread to ask for confirmation as to which position is on/off.

[Note: I had searched a fair amount to find the answer before I posted the question, and (of course!) I found the answer to it about 10 minutes after I posted. Murphy's law in action....]

On that first day, it would only run half decent (and I emphasize half-- it was still pretty bad) if I had the choke in the middle position. I found a number of posts with people saying the same thing, so I assumed it was the normal factory lean problem that results from achieving CARB approval.

But CARB approval is one thing-- making a bike that won't even run because of it is quite another! Either Apollo was selling a bike that literally wouldn't run in order to say they met a smog standard, or Orion didn't check or make any of the adjustments promised with the $139 set up/run in option. Either way, I was not a happy camper!

However, yesterday I rode the bike off-road for about 15 min with the choke 1/2 on, but after that I turned the choke off and it ran fine. I then immediately went out on the paved road in front of my place where I could open it up better and do a few hard accelerations. There was no bogging at any speed. It ran fine and power seemed good.

At this point I conclude that either I had some sort of clog in the carburetor that got sucked out during the ride or, as others have said on this forum, this motor is cold-blooded and it has to be fully warmed up (hot, really) before it will run correctly with the choke off.

I'm going to ride again today and will have more information as to which of the above possibilities may have been the case.

Either way, I am now officially not unhappy with the Apollo or Orion.

[culcune]

Being happy is supposed to be the reason for the bike in the first place! Glad to see you sorted it out. Yes, these bikes really wake up once you get it broken in (approx. 300 miles). You probably already know you should do a few oil changes by the time you reach 300 miles, usually when you first get the bike, but I am guessing Orion did this for you. I believe at 100 miles. Now, having the dirtbike edition and no speedometer, you will have to go by hours, so you might consider getting an hour meter. I am guessing eventually you will be doing carb work or change and exhaust. Generally dual-sports owners like to do sprocket changes for street riding, not dirtbike riders, so that will be according to 'taste' for you. Again, congrats and more importantly, stay HAPPY!!

Edit: forgot to mention, these bikes look really mean in black, so as much as I like the green wrap/stickers/whatever they use, the black would look sinister, and I mean in a good way!

[2LZ]

Congrats on the new bike! I'd definitely go over it with a fine tooth comb and check all your adjustments, even though they assembled it for you. My experience has generally been that a ham-fisted chimp may have assembled it.

[Jim Rogers]

Originally Posted by culcune

Now, having the dirtbike edition and no speedometer, you will have to go by hours, so you might consider getting an hour meter.

Can you give me (or point me to a link for) a maintenance schedule based on hours? I don't have a meter, but I've been fastidiously keeping track of the hours using a timer on my phone and a spreadsheet. I've got about 10 hours now and am thinking about when to do the first oil change (that is, the first after Orion's initial run in/oil change).

Originally Posted by 2LZ

Congrats on the new bike! I'd definitely go over it with a fine tooth comb and check all your adjustments, even though they assembled it for you. My experience has generally been that a ham-fisted chimp may have assembled it.

Of course you're totally correct, but I've been lazy and haven't done that yet.

However, I need to make some adjustments to the shift lever and rear brake lever soon and I'll try to check as much as I can when I do that.

However, the 10 hours I have on it so far have been trouble free, so I'm off to a good start! I'm really enjoying the bike so far and the trail I'm creating on my property is coming together.

Another thing to report-- the amount of time needed for warmup before it will run well has been going down. In less than 5 minutes is seems to run fine. I don't know if it's related to break in or if there was something in the carb that was dislodged, but the problem I originally reported is greatly improved.

[Rsrobins]

I put a 13 tooth front sprocket on mine and it works great for putting around on trails! I put a 12 tooth on to begin with. That lowered it a bit more than I wanted.

[Jim Rogers]

Originally Posted by Rsrobins

I put a 13 tooth front sprocket on mine and it works great for putting around on trails! I put a 12 tooth on to begin with. That lowered it a bit more than I wanted.

I'm getting faster on my trail, but still never get out of first gear. So still considering the gearing change. So, thanks for the info!

[Jim Rogers]

A question on the motor in this bike:

From this post, I read that:

here's how it works [...] a 167fmm 1 cylinder 67 bore and m on the end for 250cc class difference is the stroke . 55.1 for the 200cc class and the 250cc class has a 66 mm stroke

Mine is a 166FMM, but I see there are also 165FMM, 167Fmm, etc.

So, my first question is: Why would there be all these variants, different enough that they get different names, with just 1 mm difference in bore?

Second question: Why does Orion list the bore as 67 x 65? Seems like that would indicate that the engine should be labeled as a 167FMM. Also, the post cited above says the stroke on the 250cc class is 66mm, not 65mm. Just rounding differences?