Yup, I take my weight off and on periodically depending upon event. For trail riding, I almost always run a weight to slow wheel spin. It also makes a tractor out of the 500 , so getting up any tight knarly switchback/sidehill trail is a cinch, without any clutch work.
It also helps when riding my daughter or wife. We recently spent 9 days camping in Idaho City where the June ISDE was held. I had been told that this years ISDE was really technical, but since I was just coming off my broker collar bone and my son's broker arm, we had to miss. We were looking forward to getting a chance to ride the coarse while camping...daughter on the special rear seat. To my surprise, while the ISDE was technical, I was able to ride Rebecca on all but a couple of miles of trail (she actually rode with me for a total of 20 hours, so covered a lot of ground), most certainly benefited by the flywheel weight. When I didn't have a passenger, the weight kept the power on the ground, and the wheel tracking straight.
The only time I don't like the weight is in the wide open desert races, but those are really only in California anymore.
A suggestion: Now that you have a weight, you can run a little larger sprocket on the rear without getting wheel spin. Top speed will remain over 80 MPH, but no clutch work in the tight and technical.
Good luck.
Rick
