With that portion of the bracket done (which was definitely the "crap, how am I going to do this?" portion), I'm pretty sure I can get the rest of it built by the end of the weekend. Hooray! No guarantees it'll get completely installed, but I bet it'll be finished.

I'm glad I have a drill press, but it sure would be cool to have a mill.... And Harbor Freight sells one for $500 that would fit nicely in the basement without being too massive.... So many expensive temptations!

Posted at 08:55 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sat, 28 May 2005

The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it seems to keep the
Le Mans. I just got back from a nice little jaunt down to Kent and back to visit Harbor Frieght and Boeing Surplus with Jesse, and I rode the Le Mans. It was quite nice, and I love riding the bike. But. I almost never ride it.

In the last three months, I've pulled the Le Mans out to ride four times. Three of those were in the last week, as I started feeling guilty about how long it'd been sitting there, unused. That doesn't seem right, particularly when the Le Mans is the only bike on which I'm making payments, and has the highest insurance premium of all of them.

Part of the thinking is that if I'd done this trip to Kent (which is not a real trip-worthy place, if you're not familiar with it, it's just where I happened to be going today) on the Ninja 250, it would have worked just fine. The bike's a little light on weight and horsepower to make a really good freeway cruiser, but it does the job very well in any case. What I would have missed from the Le Mans is mostly the ease with which I could pass any traffic I wanted to.

The thing is, I very rarely go long distances on the freeway. I got the Le Mans to be the long-trip bike, but have so far taken exactly two longish trips on it: one to Ocean Shores (for which the Ninja would have admittedly been marginal) and one to Portland (for which the Ninja was fine when I did the trip on it a few months earlier). Now that I have the Goldwing rig, I have far more carrying capacity with the sidecar than I ever could with the saddlebags on the Le Mans, and the Goldwing is certainly a capable distance bike. It's not "riding a motorcycle" in the sense of being able to lean gracefully through curves, but it has its own joys.

Bottom line is that after today's ride, selling the Le Mans sounds like a better idea than it has in a while, where I had thought the opposite would be true. That surprised me. I had expected that taking a trip on the Le Mans (even a short trip to an otherwise unremarkable destination) would remind me just how much I like it, and how worthwhile it would be to keep it. Sure enough, I was reminded how much I like riding it, but I was also thinking a lot during the trip, "gee, this would be fine on the Ninja."

If it sounds like I'm trying to convince myself, that's partially because I am. Logically, I should probably keep the bike. It would lose me a fair whack of change to sell it, not to mention the tens of hours I've invested in working on it, installing new handlebars and intercom/radio, etc. But emotionally, every time I see it sitting there, thin layer of dust covering all the bodywork, I cringe a bit and wonder why I'm still holding on to it. I'm trying to work the logical and emotional together into the same place. I thought I'd done that earlier, when I decided I'd hold onto it through the summer and see again what I thought then. Now I'm not so sure that's the right plan.

Jesse mentioned that something I could do would be to post an ad on Craigslist listing my "ideal" price, and if I got any action from that, go ahead and sell it. If I didn't then it's probably still worthwhile to hold on to it. That's a pretty good idea, and I have a feeling I'm going to pursue it.

*sigh* "Motorcycle angst."

That evening....

I just sat down and made a rough draft template for the headlight bracket I'd like to put on the Goldwing:

This is my first try, so I don't know that it's what I'll finally go with, but it's probably close. The height has to remain at least that large, unless I switch to a side-by-side design, which is unlikely. The vertically stacked design is just too convenient as far as attaching the whole assembly to the existing bracket. Since I don't have extensive metalworking facilities, it's got to stay pretty simple or I won't be able to make it. Although it's tempting to try to find someone who can make something prettier, that sounds beyond my (very meagre) budget. Also, I really want to get it done soon, so I can drive the sidecar rig again. It's been sitting for far too long.

I also took some detail pictures of the EML front wheel brake carrier and caliper for someone who requested them:

Posted at 20:53 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sat, 21 May 2005

How frustrating: I had to take trip number four to deal with
bearings today. I got the bearings installed in the sidecar's wheel with relative ease, but discovered that I'd pounded them in too far. This bound them against their spacer, which would have lead to a toasted bearing in short order. So, I pounded the offending bearing out (thus destroying it) and went out to get yet another. Fortunately, it's a common bearing size, and I found one quickly. $7 more than I would have paid at the bearing house, but I have it today (the only free time I have for the next week -- sigh).

So, I'm now passing time while the bearing cools down in the freezer. That's frustrating too, since I really wanted today to be as productive as possible. I have all the parts I need, I should have been able to Just Work.

I did take a moment to install the new wire brush wheel in the grinder I got this week. I may have to trim it a bit, since it seems to be brushing against the guard to some extent. Not badly, but it's certainly not a clear fit.

So, with a bit more care, soon to be pounding in the new bearing. Maybe I'll use a smaller hammer this time...

Mere moments later...

I just discovered that there are two 6003 bearings in each brake caliper carrier. They feel like they've got sand in them. I had thought I was going to have to wait until Monday to deal with this, but I just called Seattle Cycle Center, and they have "lots of them." Woo!

Hours later...

Actually, upon closer examination, those bearings don't need to be replaced. They never spin (which probably explains why they're in such horrible shape). But as shaft spacers, which is all they're doing, they're in great shape.

Finally finished the brakes and the front wheel. That was about five jobs all going at once. I'm really glad I finally got that part finished. "All" that's left now is the headlights and the turn signal. Some other day.

Posted at 16:42 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Wed, 18 May 2005

The headlights have arrived, and are pretty cool. A bit bigger
than I was imagining, but my bracket plan will still work fine.

The bearings for the front wheel have ended up being a big pain in the butt. I went down on Monday to buy replacements, having called around until I found a bearing shop that had them in stock. I picked up the new bearings and a new dust seal for the side that has one (the other side has the speedo drive). I went to Sears and got a socket that appeared to be about the right size to drive the bearings in.

I put the bearings in the freezer to shrink them down a little bit, and went to check the socket's fit. Damn! Too big. I'll have to grind it down (and finally got a bench grinder last night, which I've been wanting for years now). Ok, well, maybe between the freezer and the heat gun, the bearing will go in without the socket.

I grabbed the bearing from the freezer, and walked out to the garage. I put the bearing in place, and it was waaay too small! What the heck is going on? I actually wondered for a second if the cold had actually shrunk it that much. No, no chance. But yes, I did in fact get the wrong bearings. Argh!

It turns out that I wrote down the wrong number when talking to one of the bearing houses. I had a 6303 bearing in my hand, pulled out of the bike, and I ended up writing down 6302. Ooops. So naturally, when I got to the actual store where I was buying the bearings, I read off what I'd written down, rather than reading the number off the bearing itself. *sigh* It turns out the 6302 bearing has a 41mm outer diameter, and the 6303 has a 47mm OD. Yeah, that's a lot of shrinking.

So, I went back yesterday to exchange them. No luck -- they had a set of 6303s in stock, but they were of Chinese manufacture, and when I looked at the guy behind the counter and said, "would you trust your life to these bearings?" he looked down and replied, "yeah, I guess I would" after a pause. Not a ringing endorsement. He called his Tacoma store, and determined that they had a set of Japanese bearings (which I'm much more inclined to trust) in stock, and had them transferred up.

So, today, I made trip #3 down to South Seattle for a pair of simple bearings. What a pain. But at least I finally have the right ones. Of course, now, I don't have any time to work on it until Saturday. D'oh! I blame my busy schedule.

On the positive side, I now know many times more about bearings than I did in the past. I mean, .01 times 4 still isn't very much, but at least it's more. I now feel comfortable removing bearings, and I have some ideas of the nomenclature and variations of bearings. I think I was scared off by the idea of having to heat the wheel and wield a big hammer. I guess I got over that.

On the headlight front, I was able to determine that the headlights will in fact fit in the space I have, and fairly handily, too. It's going to look pretty cool when it's all done. The aluminum stock I got at Boeing Surplus will work perfectly, and is plenty strong enough for the job. Fortunately, the light modules are quite light. With any luck, I can get it all done in under about 10 hours of work. I'm hoping for less than 5 hours, but 10 is probably more realistic.

Posted at 17:11 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sun, 15 May 2005

I have successfully changed the front tire of the sidecar rig,
although it's not back on the bike yet. As long as I had the wheel off, I decided to check the bearings, and sure enough, they felt marginal. Since bearings are cheap, and removing/installing them isn't very much work once the wheel is already off, I wielded my borrowed heat gun and pounded them out. Interestingly, once they were out, they felt fine, but once you've pounded them out, they're toast. S'ok, it's cheap insurance, and I'd much rather not find out the hard way my bearings are finished.

On my way home last night, from a late-night theatrical thing-bobber, I stopped counting drunk drivers after I got to 5. Nothing untoward happened, fortunately, but I was riding in super-paranoid mode. It was really scary to watch the person in front of me weave part-way out of their lane, while the person behind me comes up too fast, and the person to my right is just hanging out in my blind spot, doing god knows what. Ick. All this was in the space of about 5 miles, from downtown Seattle to North Seattle. This is one of the reasons I don't end up staying out for a lot of late-night events on weekends.

Anyway, on the sidecar wheel, it was surprisingly hard to get the tire off the wheel, considering how little the bead actually seated. No "snaps" at all. I suspect that if this tire deflates, it'll come right off the rim, unlike a "real" tubeless tire. So for all that it's holding pressure with no tube, it doesn't offer all the advantages of a better-produced tubeless rim. I guess it was also very hard to get the bead broken, so maybe I'm worried over nothing.

I've picked up the aluminum sheet I need to build the headlight bracket for the Goldwing, but I still don't have a saw blade for cutting aluminum. That'll probably be the same trip when I go to get replacement bearings. All I can say is that Boeing Surplus is a wonderful place. I spent about $8 on aluminum sheet that would have cost me about $80 if I'd bought it at Lowes. Lowes isn't the right place to be buying sheetmetal, but it's an interesting reference point.

Hopefully, the headlight modules will come in on Monday or Tuesday, and I can start figuring out how it's all going to fit together.

Posted at 12:46 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Fri, 13 May 2005

I know this isn't strictly motorcycle related, but I'm very glad I
finally got my truck listed for sale. Feel free to buy it from me, I don't want it any more. I am not a big truck person.

In actual motorcycle news, the brake parts for the sidecar are trickling in. I hope that I'll be able to get the brakes assembled by the end of the weekend, although that still leaves the headlight and turn signal to be dealt with. Apparently the headlights shipped out on the 10th, so I'm hoping I'll see them come Monday or Tuesday. I have a clever plan to mount them:

I'm going to get some aluminum at Boeing Surplus (being a cheap bastard like I am), and make up a bracket that looks kind of like this:

It will bolt on where the "inertial damper" weight was attached before, and will be constructed of three plates bolted to angle stock. It should look pretty good, and will be a decent mounting solution for the lights. Here's hoping they're not super heavy for some reason. But that should allow me to get the headlights mounted up with a relative minimum of fuss.

My tasks now are to get myself to Boeing Surplus for some aluminum, to Tacoma Screw for some black oxide metric bolts (I hate mixing SAE and metric parts if I can possibly avoid it), and to figure out whether I need to get a different blade for my mitre saw to cut aluminum. I probably do, but I'll get plenty of use out of it if I get one.

Posted at 14:23 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sat, 07 May 2005

Today is my next big "get the sidecar running again" day. It's
only about 1 pm, but I've managed to get some stuff figured out.

For one, my new brake lines came yesterday, so I'm that much closer to having the brakes done. Of course, the banjo bolts they sent along with the lines are all wrong, for various reasons. The master cylinder bolt is wrong because the bolt bottoms out before it can compress the banjo fittings. That's a relatively easy hacksaw job if it comes down to that, which it probably will.

Apparently Galfer's banjo fittings are slightly narrower than those of most other brands, so they have their own special banjo bolts. I called Cyclebrakes today (they're open from 9 to 12 on Saturdays, woo!) and discussed the situation with them: I guess they sent me the one and only type of double-banjo bolt in fine pitch thread they have. So, they probably won't be able to get me a different one, thus the hacksaw remedy.

They also sent fine-pitch bolts for the calipers, and it turns out the calipers need the coarser thread. I'd just use the bolts that came off them, but wa-hey, the Galfer banjo fittings are too narrow. Boo! So, they probably do have those in stock, so I'll get a new set sent out on Monday. As soon as those come in, and the bracket kit comes into Moto International, I'll be able to put it all together.

Also today, I removed the last vestiges of the big Goldwing fairing. This was much harder than I was expecting, because it involved partially disassembling the sidecar mount(!) to remove the support bracket for the fairing. But I got it all off, and although there are some rubbed spots where the fairing and bits were hitting the bike and moving, it looks pretty good. I'm really looking forward to riding the rig without those freakin' leg deflectors that were keeping moving air off my legs. I was boiling, with the engine right there!

My friend Jesse thinks I'm kind of crazy for removing all the fairing pieces, but he also looks at a Goldwing and sees a potential nasty-weather commuter that'll keep the rain off him. I agree, it does have that side effect, but I ride the Ninja year round without minding the basically non-existent weather protection there. I think I prefer to have the weather hit me, because the trade-off of being too warm in summer would literally keep me from riding. Getting wet in winter doesn't bug me so much.

On the headlight/electrical front, I got the last piece of fairing-related wiring off the bike (well, excepting the big antenna, which is going soon, but that's easy). I also finally have a Plan for the headlights.

I'm going to use the bracket that's there, which was holding up the 3 pound "inertial damper" weight, as the basis for my bracket. The bracket itself will be based on a plate which coincidentally covers up the mass of wires hiding behind that weight, and will support the two headlight modules in a vertically stacked arrangement. It'll take some time to build, but I think it should be a good solution.

I think my next task is to get the handlebars finalized. To do that, I have to drill some locator holes for the switchgear (which has little studs that go into the holes to keep it all from twisting or shifting on the bar). Once that's done, I can bolt it all together, which will be one more task accomplished. Hooray! Then, it's just brakes and headlight to get the rig legally rolling again.

Later...

Cool, finished the handlebars up. Bar-end mirrors, and everything's hooked up. There's some clean up that could happen, but it's good enough to ride on now, so I'll call it good on that front.

After doing that, I decided I'd had enough for the day, so I cleaned up, and pulled out the rig to reposition the Le Mans (I really need a better/bigger storage space). Figured as long as it was out, I'd take some pictures:

If you look closely, you'll see that the new master cylinder is in place, but the brake lines aren't attached yet. Since I'm still waiting on the very important attachy-bits, it seems silly to even bother with trying to hook anything up.

I was pleased to find that the custom, unreturnable lines I'd ordered were in fact long enough with the new master cylinder and with the suspension fully extended. It was a bit of a gamble, since I ordered the lines before I had the new master cylinder in hand, and I hadn't owned a jack at the time I placed the order. Of course, I got a jack a day or two later, and it would have been far less risky to wait for that to order the lines. Ah well. It all worked out.

Posted at 17:40 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Thu, 05 May 2005

I just picked up a new Brembo master cylinder from Moto
International. There's still one piece missing (the remote reservoir bracket kit), as I opted for the remote reservoir system rather than the built-in reservoir. There are more pieces for the remote system, but it allows for installation in all kinds of crazy angles to gravity without having the reservoir tilted way off center. It's going to be so very nice when it's all done.

I finished rebuilding calipers last night, and I can safely say that they're in far better shape now! The old seals were actually working fine, but the pistons and chambers in the calipers were pretty gross. There was a lot of evil-looking crud built up in there. I'm glad I got it all cleaned out.

The calipers "float" from side to side, so that they can meet up with the disc precisely, and the float pins were all dry and clearly not lubricated like they needed to be. Fortunately, getting them out wasn't too hard, and I didn't have to resort to heat or drastic measures to free them. Steel bolts in aluminum calipers -- very easy to get them seized up. All were reassembled with antiseize compound so the next person who has to do that doesn't end up cursing my name. It's a decent chance it'll be me doing that work, and it would be a horrible thing to have to curse myself.

Anyway, the whole thing has been put back together with proper lubrication everywhere it's supposed to be, all the grunge cleaned out, and all made as beautiful as 23 year old brake calipers can be made.

Now I just have to wait for the new brake lines and the reservoir bracket to show up, and I can hook the brakes back up. Yay for functional brakes!

Before everything goes together, though, I have to sort out what the heck I'm going to do about the headlight situation. Everything else is pretty straightforward. I mentioned before about the Hella lights from rallylights.com, and I still think those will work, but it's going to be interesting getting them mounted and set up.

Where the headlight would normally be mounted, there was a weight attached to the forks, which helped prevent a headshake when the fairing was attached. With the fairing gone (particularly with a huge sidecar steering damper attached), it's no longer needed, but that leaves this big nest of wires exposed. The new headlights will be in front of that spot, but what to do with the wires is an open question.

Apparently, some of them are just extensions to the connector that went to the fairing, but there are far more there than those that went to the fairing. I'm going to have to spend a few hours tracing through them all to figure out what they do, and what I need to do with them. Should be an interesting exercise.

Posted at 13:01 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 03 May 2005

I've spent the last two nights working on the Goldwing's brakes. I
got the new brake lines ordered today, although the spare master cylinder Aaron gave me is a bust. I'll order one, probably through Moto International, in the next few days.

Rebuilding and cleaning the calipers has been very satisfying yet also frustrating. I don't really have the right tools to clean all the crevices as I'd like, although I was able to get one side finished today so that I'm fairly confident it's back to perfect health. The only thing I couldn't clean up was some slight rust pitting on the exposed ends of the pistons. Fortunately they're, well, exposed, so it's not a big deal. At $30 each to replace, it would make more sense to simply buy new calipers than replace the pistons.

Anyway, it's nice to make some progress on the brakes, finally. There's still a lot of work to do on the Goldwing before it's roadworthy. I pulled off the "inertial damper" (ie, 3 pound slug of iron) from the front of the forks today, to reveal a rat's nest of wiring that'll have to be sorted out and dealt with before I can get the bike back on the road again. Not quite sure how I'm going to deal with all that.

But, progress is progress. Slowly but surely, the Goldwing is improving.

Posted at 23:20 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sun, 01 May 2005

This weekend was chock-full of motorcycle maintenance and stuff.
Saturday, I spent way more time than I wanted patching the Ninja's rear tire. It picked up a nail that I noticed Thursday night, and I put a temporary plug in on Friday morning (using my lovely new tire patching kit). Saturday morning, I gathered together the tire changing stuff I'd been slowly accumulating, and tried it for the first time. It was difficult, but not as bad as I'd been fearing.

Using a C-clamp, I got the beads off the rim, and took the tire off using some borrowed tire irons (have to get some of my own very soon). I located the plug on the inside, and noticed that it wasn't quite perfectly installed, with the mushroom lip a little bit pinched in two places. Not bad at all, but I probably could have pulled on the plug even harder when I installed it.

It was a simple matter to push the plug out, and I prepared the hole for one of the mushroom plugs (the big kind) I'd purchased. I abraded the area around the wound, applied rubber cement, and let it dry. I pulled the patch/plug through until it was seated, and stitched it from the center out (stitching is done with a kind of lightly toothed wheel called, interestingly enough, a stitching wheel). When I was stitching it, though, the patch seemed to be awfully mobile, and not really sticking at all. I decided to see how it'd worked anyway, and remounted the tire to the rim.

Remounting the tire was almost more work than dismounting it. Just getting the tire over the edges of the rim was a lot of work. Seating the bead was remarkably easy, since I had the valve core out, and the air chuck was able to pass a lot of air very quickly. The beads seated with twin BANGS! (although not as loud as I was expecting), and I reinstalled the valve core and filled it up to 40 PSI. When the air compressor shut off, I was admiring my work when I heard a faint hissssssss. Crap!

I located the hissing noise, and sure enough, it was the patched hole. Muttering to myself, I dismounted the tire again (C-clamp, lubricate, levers, rim protectors, dammit, rim protectors again, levers, pull! move! urrrrgh! argh, different lever so I can use this one over here, mutter). The patch hadn't really stuck down at all, there was just one tiny spot on the patch that looked like it had been vulcanizing.

I followed the instructions pretty closely, but it really wasn't working. I grabbed the second patch (I'd bought a set of two: one medium, one small, and had installed the small) and looked it over. It was going to be a really really tight fit, but I figured I could make it work.

Long story short, it worked, but it didn't feel much like it was sticking any better than the first one. The plug part was a bit oversized for the hole, and I suspect that it's that oversized-ness that's really sealing the hole. The patch didn't seem to be sticking. I suspect it's going to fail at some point, and when the new patches show up I'm probably going to redo it. I suspect that the patches I bought were old, like 5ish years old. I'm kind of annoyed by that, since self-vulcanizing patches like this are pretty much dead after 2 years.

Anyway, I feel pretty good about the whole tire-changing routine, and no longer need worry about finding a shop to do it.

The rest of Saturday was spent getting the fairing off the Goldwing, which was far more involved than it should have been. That thing is indeed heavy, and I bet by the time I'm done, the Goldwing will be 70ish pounds lighter.

Today (Sunday), I pulled off the handlebars on the Goldwing and tried fitting the spare handlebars. It looks that will work pretty well. I still have to figure out what kind of fairing I want to put on, although I think for now I'll just run without a fairing at all. I'm going to get some very neat-looking Hella headlights from rallylights.com, which will require some fabrication to get it all mounted up.

And, finally, I was able to figure out how long the new brake lines need to be. That was the whole purpose of this days-long exercise, so I'm glad I got it done. I can order those lines as soon as Moto International is open on Tuesday, and hopefully it won't be more than a week or two before they arrive.

I got the newer master cylinder taken apart and cleaned up, too. It looked fine inside, and the seals appeared to be alright. It was nice to get it all cleaned up and inspected. I still have to figure out what size of banjo bolt to order for the new master cylinder, although I measured the threaded section of the banjo bolt at 18mm, and I'm pretty sure a bolt with a threaded section of 15mm would fit right (18mm bottoms out with about 2mm to spare).

Posted at 22:19 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Fri, 29 Apr 2005

As I was passing a few idle moments last night, I happened to look
down and notice a light-colored spot on the Ninja's rear tire. Thinking it was a rock (please be a rock!) stuck lightly into the tire rubber, I tried to brush it off. No such luck. A slightly closer inspection revealed the head of a nail, buried a few mm below the surface of the tire. Damn!

I rode home in that state, gingerly awaiting the explosive decompression of the tire that was sure to happen, now that I'd noticed the problem and acknowledged it. Fortunately, nothing untoward occurred, and I made it home unscathed. I had a few dicey moments when I was following a couple hundred feet behind a semi, and it felt like the rear tire might have gone half-flat, but it was just wind currents eddying around the truck.

This morning, I decided I'd better fix it before continuing in this dangerous condition. So, I pulled out my unproven Stop-n-Go Pocket Tire Plugger kit, and Ultraflate CO2 inflator for their initial test. If they failed, I'd ride the Le Mans in, if they worked, I'd ride in on the repaired Ninja.

The instructions on the Stop-n-Go are fairly straightforward. The one that caused me some consternation is where you're supposed to insert the plug into the insertion tool, and ensure that it's centered. Well, I couldn't get the plug in there and centered for the life of me. It always bent off to one side, and never inverted right. Eventually I decided I'd just have to work with it like that. Fortunately, it doesn't appear to have been an issue.

The rest of the plugging operation worked pretty well. I was worried, in pulling the plug back out to seat the mushroom head, that I might accidentally pull it back through the tire. I needn't have feared, it was definitely going no further than the head.

So, for the first-time use, I give the Stop-n-Go a thumbs up.

The Ultraflate gets a kind of middling-thumbs from me. It actually works quite well, but it's plain that their marketing division got hold of the inflation guidelines, rather than the engineers. The packaging says that you can expect to use 4 CO2 cartridges to fill a 180/70R17 motorcycle tire to 25 PSI. It took me 6 cartridges to fill my little 145/80R16 tire (probably 2/3 the volume of the larger tire they mention) to 25 PSI. After 4 cartridges, it was at 16 PSI. 5 brought it to 20 PSI. After 6, I gave up and grabbed the compressor hose, since this was only a test, anyway.

For all that it took more cartridges than I'd expected, it's a great device. I loaded a cartridge in there when I first got it, to see if it would leak at all. All indications are that it maintained excellent pressure in the loaded cartridge. Its method of attaching to the valve stem was good and secure, and meant that I could swap out cartridges without removing it from the tire. It was very easy to use, and far less effort than a manual pump (although on a long trip far from gas stations, I'd definitely want to have some kind of supplemental pump with me).

So, the results of the test are that I'm actually well-prepared to deal with a tire puncture on the Ninja or Le Mans. 25 PSI is enough to safely ride even 100 miles to find a gas station with a compressor, as long as I wasn't going too fast. The plug seemed to hold fine, although the real test will be this evening when I go down to ride home.

I like the Stop-n-Go kit a lot. The Ultraflate is actually fine, it's just going to take a lot more cartridges than I expected. Despite the urgent warnings to only use their branded CO2 cartridges, Crosman airgun cartridges worked fine (and I wouldn't want to use the thing if I was tied to their $2 per cartridge prices, and couldn't use the $.64/cartridge examples one can procure at any sporting goods shop). I'll be getting more, since I used up 5 of the ten I'd gotten plus the one cartridge that came with the Ultraflate in my test.

I got both these items at the Aerostich website, although I believe the Ultraflate will be available at many bicycle shops, and the Stop-n-Go is available from a variety of sources. I like Aerostich, as their customer service is top-notch, and their prices are about as good as any other shop. I definitely recommend against paying the Ultraflate company (which is called something goofy like Total Innovations or somesuch inane name) for their overpriced CO2 cartridges.

Posted at 10:54 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Thu, 28 Apr 2005

Hmm. The brake failure on the Goldwing is turning in to a Project.
It goes something like this:

I don't want to rebuild the old master cylinder, I want to use the newer one Aaron gave me.

The newer master cylinder pretty much requires new, flatter handlebars, which I want to do anyway.

I can't put on lower/flatter handlebars without removing the fairing.

I can't order new stainless brake lines until I decide what height the handlebars will be, so they're sized correctly.

I don't want to do all this brake work without replacing the brake lines, which are probably 23 years old and full of goo, on top of being expand-o-matic rubber lines in any case.

I can't remove the fairing without replacing the headlight and one turn signal.

So, the final work order to rebuild the front brakes looks like this:

• Remove fairing (free)
• Replace handlebars (either free or $20)
• Order new SS lines to fit lower handlebars ($150ish)
• Order new headlights ($160ish)
• Rebuild newer master cylinder ($10?)
• Rebuild brake calipers (already paid for, $50)
• Find new left front turn signal (unknown)

I had been hoping I could do the brake overhaul without doing the fairing and handlebars (since that's a relatively large job), but I really can't do it correctly otherwise.

I'm excited about the headlights, those Hella 90mm units look really neat. They're not even all that expensive. Yes, I could probably find an old Honda headlight bucket to throw on the front of the bike for $50, but that would get me the same crappy light throw I have now. That's an area of the rig that desperately needs improvement, and I was already planning on doing something drastic with it. This looks like just the ticket.

Posted at 12:02 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 26 Apr 2005

Had some sidecar "fun" today. But first, the backstory.

I invited Jesse to ride with me down to Fry's for some unrelated stuff-lookin'. He hadn't ridden in the sidecar yet, so it seemed like a fine time to take a ride. We drove down, perused devices and books, and prepared to return home. Before we actually left, I looked down and asked him if he was interested in doing some "playing around" with the sidecar (which I hadn't really had time to do since getting it). He was game, so we occupied the enormous "extra" parking lot at Fry's.

I practiced flying the chair, which was surprisingly hard to keep in the air. I need more work on that. I let him drive it around a little bit, and told him to stop quickly and note how there was no nosedive. He was duly impressed.

I took over again, and we did a bunch more chair-flying. At a stop, I told him about some of the other curious properties of sidecars, like the fact that a locked up wheel when braking isn't that big a deal. To demonstrate, I took us up to 15 MPH or so and locked the front to a stop, then the rear/sidecar, then all three. I learned that the sidecar swings toward the front with all wheels locked, which is good to know. I don't intend to lock all three (or any) wheels in normal riding, but I'm glad I know what'll happen if I do.

Finally, after about 20 minutes of farting around in the parking lot, we were both satisfied, and turned back toward home. We both noticed on the way home that the bike seemed to be struggling to get up to speed, and then to maintain it, but I logged it off to the greater than normal load and wind resistance of having Jesse in the car. I dropped him off at home, and made my way home. I had noticed the faint smell of hot brakes, but thought it was probably other cars, since smells on a motorcycle almost always whip backwards so fast at speed that the rider never gets a whiff of them.

Fast forward to today, when I had ridden the rig into work, so I could get a spare key made on the way in (I tried last night, but the key shop closed 20 minutes before I got there). I had an errand I had to run midday, so I took the sidecar out.

On the way back, I decided to take Elliot back to work, rather than go up Aurora again. I mistakenly stayed in the right lane, forgetting that it would force me onto the Magnolia bridge. The truck in front of me made the turn, and I was suddenly confronted with a barrier forcing me to turn unexpectedly. I grabbed the brakes, and accidentally locked the rear brakes for a split second, but made the turn with no problem. However, now, the bike seemed to be really struggling against some kind of friction.

I had a feeling what it was, and pulled over near the marina to check it out. Sure enough, pulling in the clutch resulted in a rapid deceleration: one of the brakes was sticking.

I got out of the hot riding suit, and looked the situation over. I rocked the rig back and forth, looking at each wheel. The rear and sidecar wheels (which share a brake system) rolled freely, but the front wheel was constricted. Without touching them, I felt for heat coming off the front calipers -- indeed, blazing hot. The front brakes were dragging something fierce.

Having no tools along with me (haven't had time to construct a tool kit for the Goldwing yet), I sat back and waited for the discs to cool down a bit. Whatever was clogged up was doubtless being made worse by the heat coming from the calipers, expanding the brake fluid. I tried tapping each caliper with my boot, on the theory that they might be sticking, but no luck.

Finally, knowing I had to get back to work at some point, I pulled back out onto Elliot. I had in mind to get the rig home and switch to the Ninja, and I'd deal with the brakes later. However, the bike had a different idea, and by the time I made it to the Ballard bridge, it was dragging so hard I had to apply lots of throttle to move once stopped, and actually killed the engine once trying to start moving.

I looked for a place to pull over and let the discs cool some more, and much to my amazement, found that I was 100 feet from the driveway for a brake and tire shop. What luck!

I pulled in and stopped (a simple matter of releasing the clutch, and the bike pulled to a stop in a few feet). After a quick exchange with the guy behind the counter, who had to deal with customers, I went back to the rig and called Aaron, who sold it to me. He'd done a lot of work, and I wanted to confirm that he'd put in new brake fluid. He had, and had even cleaned the system out at the same time.

While we were talking, the shop guy came over with a wrench, and casually unscrewed the bleed valve on the left front caliper. A bit of fluid spurted out (releasing the pressure that was making the brakes drag), and he closed it back down. I borrowed a rag to wipe off the excess brake fluid and thanked him profusely.

That very pleasing interaction out of the way, and with the problem temporarily solved, I headed back out. I drove the rest of the way home very consciously not grabbing the front brake lever when I needed to slow down. It would have worked, but presumably every time I used the front brake, I was risking it binding up again. Fortunately, the trip home was completely uneventful, and the rear brake was well up to the stopping tasks I laid out for it.

So now, I find myself forced into the front brake overhaul I had been planning anyway. I already have most of the pieces, and just have to order the stainless steel braided brake lines I was already planning to order. It's just a few days ahead of schedule is all. I expect the new brake system will provide much better feedback, if not improved braking performance. The pads that are on there now, combined with the 23 year old rubber hoses, conspire to make the front brake about as unresponsive as you could imagine, although it's still got plenty of power to stop the bike.

As far as diagnosing the cause of the failure, my best guess is that a flake of crud got stuck in the master cylinder's return valve, which is this miniscule (like, .2mm diameter) hole. I pulled off the old master cylinder and lever in preparation for putting on the much newer one Aaron gave me (he had a bunch of different master cylinders sitting in a box), and when I did, I noticed a huge mass of evil-looking brown goo coming out of it. Sure enough, some of it was pretty particulate, and one of those particles could have easily clogged the return valve. S'what I get for my hooliganish riding, I guess.

Here's to new SS brake lines. Let's hope they arrive soon.

Posted at 23:03 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Thu, 21 Apr 2005

I'm going to go to an exhaust shop today, to see what they think of
the idea of fitting a car muffler to the Goldwing. It seems like a logical solution to the problem of the bike being too loud, but not wanting to spring for the $1000+ replacement exhaust system from Honda. Even semi-decent (ie, only moderately rusty) stock exhausts on Ebay go for $300. Seems like I could get quite a decent setup in a car exhaust for that much. Have to see what the shop thinks.

That afternoon...

It sounds like finding a decent used stock exhaust will be easier than getting a new one fabricated. I'm not surprised by that, but it's good to know one way or another. The guy in the shop, who looked like he'd been doing automotive exhausts for 50 years, eventually decided that the best way to approach it would be to make new Y joints and put a glasspack on each side, rather than running all the exhaust pipes over to one side.

Doing that would cost about $100 per side, plus the cost of whatever muffler I decided on. Plain ol' car oval mufflers would look goofy on both sides. Although I'm not super attached to the appearance of the sidecar rig, I don't want it to look goofy. Glasspacks would look better, but might be just as loud as the current exhaust, which pretty much defeats the purpose of this whole experiment.

An alternative plan might be to run the four exhaust pipes out under the car, and use all that space under the car to deal with the piping necessary to go 4 into 1 like that. We didn't talk about how much that would cost, but I have a feeling it'd be around $300-400 before adding any muffler(s).

So, I guess I'll spend my time cruising Ebay and hope i can find a stock exhaust in decent shape. If it's really a fruitless search, I may go back and talk to him again about doing the 4 into 1 and car muffler approach.

Posted at 16:36 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Wed, 20 Apr 2005

Yow. Just ordered new tires for the Goldwing (135R15s are
surprisingly hard to find). Because I'm unclear on whether or not these wheels need tubes or not, I ordered two tubes as well. With all that and shipping, the new tires are setting me back just shy of $200. sigh And I was hoping that having car tires would mean they'd be cheaper than motorcycle tires...

Posted at 11:58 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 19 Apr 2005

I discovered a cool thing about the Goldwing the other day. I was
filling it up with fuel at the gas station, and started wondering about the auxiliary fuel tank, which is installed where the right saddlebag used to be. When I got home, I measured the height to the main gas tank filler, and the height to the aux tank filler. They were either the same, or so close that I couldn't tell the difference.

Next time I passed a gas station, I opened the aux tank valve and filled it up, although not in that order. It took almost exactly 5 gallons, so I now know the size of the tank (I'd figured it was 3-4 gallons, so I was pretty happy to see it was so large).

The cool "aha!" moment came when I realized that with the valve open, the main and aux tanks formed "one tank" via the fuel supply lines. Those lines are too small to allow filling one tank to fill the other at any reasonable rate of speed, but they'll equalize over time. Since the engine can't draw fuel out of those lines any faster than they can equalize (actually, the engine can only draw half the flow rate both tanks can provide together, since they T into one line going to the fuel pump), that means that the fuel gauge in the main tank actually measures the fuel in both tanks. How cool is that?

It also means that, with the 5.85 gallon main tank, the Goldwing has a total fuel capacity of 10.85 gallons. That's more than 300 miles. Pretty good, and also coincidentally within the Iron Butt regulations for total fuel. Not that I'm going to take this thing on an Iron Butt ride, but it's interesting to note.

Posted at 01:15 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sat, 16 Apr 2005

Finally, I have the blinkers working on the sidecar. I got the new
LED lights physically installed and wired two days ago, but I didn't have a functional blinker relay until a few minutes ago (it being half past midnight now). Fortunately, when I plugged it all together, it worked on the second try. I had to hook up a curious pigtail wire to ground before the blinker would go.

I ended up getting a Grote 44891 relay from CarQuest for about $20, which claims to be rated for LED usage. You have to use an electronic relay with LED lights, since they draw so little current that traditional thermal relays won't work. This one works like a charm, with the same flashing rate on the all-LED side as on the all-incandescent side.

I'm planning to replace the Goldwing's taillight with an LED running/stop light and turn signal indicator, eliminating all incandescent from the back of the rig. However, for just right now, I want to get it all buttoned back up so it's rideable. Putting on the new lights won't require tearing the rest of the bike apart, just getting the old taillight out of there.

It's pretty exciting to see the LEDs on the car side. They're quite bright (a lot brighter than then lensless fixture they replace), and only draw 220 mA each on full power, or 50 mA each on "running light" power. That's seriously low draw, compared to the nearly 2 A (or 2000 mA) drawn by just one 21 watt stop or turn signal bulb. Having both brake LEDs and a turn signal going will only draw 660 mA. Amazing stuff.

I got the LEDs from buytruckstuff.com, which, despite the goofy name, has some cool stuff. The particular lights I got are American Superlights, and cost about $25 apiece for the 4" flange mounts with colored lenses. They're very pretty looking, an almost floral pattern molded into the lenses. I pondered the clear-lensed models for a few minutes before realizing that it was a terrible styling choice for the sidecar.

Granted, the sidecar's style is best described as "early 80s eclectic meets ratbike" at this point, but that's fine. Adding "early 2000's bling bling" to it would be completely unharmonious.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the new light setup. It's a huge improvement on what was there. I'll try to take a picture or two tomorrow to show what they look like. But now, I must sleep!

Posted at 00:54 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 12 Apr 2005

The replacement gas cap for the Goldwing is CarQuest part number
34013. It fits Ford trucks, among other things. Just so the search engines have some good stuff to work with:

1982 Honda Goldwing Aspencade GL1100 aftermarket gas cap fuel part number replacement cross-reference fitment. Nyah!

I'm sure you can cross-reference that CarQuest part number with a bunch of others in whatever auto parts store you find yourself in. In case you can't, it's a 1.5" vented, anti-surge gas cap with two narrow tabs. I'll take a picture and post it here if I remember, so you know what you're looking for. I can only assume these gas caps go AWOL every so often, and no one has bothered sticking this little tidbit of information online yet.

I did notice a bit of power reduction on the freeway which could have been the gas cap not venting fast enough. It could have also been something with the electrical system, since it was raining at a fair clip by the time I noticed it.

Almost entirely unrelated...

I've often said that at some point I should really own a Honda motorcycle. Now I do. Major brands left: Suzuki, Yamaha. No interest in owning a Harley at this point. I'd also like, at some point, to own a Ducati, MuZ, Aprilia, maybe a modern BMW.

The obvious Suzuki for me is the SV650. No idea which Yamaha I might like, although the FJR1300 has gotten good reviews and might be a good choice if I actually find myself taking long trips. I wish there were more companies making cool, small bikes. Other than for sidecar use, that's where my interest really lies at this point.

Posted at 14:36 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Mon, 11 Apr 2005

I'm having a terrible time finding useful information on
aftermarket parts for Goldwings. Like, front brake calipers. The ones that are on the bike are fine, but how cool would it be to put a Hayabusa's Nissin calipers on the bike? Unfortunately, no one seems to have listed obvious compatibility. I did discover that the 1982 CB750SC Nighthawk uses the same brake caliper, so that expands the search in terms of what will fit. Still no interesting information, but I'll figure something out. If nothing else, I could go to a machinist and have them mill up a new set of brake brackets for me, but that's probably a $500 job.

Likewise gas caps. I'm just sure that there's some $7.99 Stant gas cap out there that'll fit a 1982 Goldwing, but I haven't been able to dig anything up yet. That one is fairly conducive to just going to a parts store and trying different caps until I find one that works, though. I'm going to start a page of part number cross references as soon as I start finding them.

Posted at 11:52 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sun, 10 Apr 2005

I picked up the sidecar today, which was pretty much a non-event.
I had made the mental shift on Wednesday, and knew I was buying it, so there was no "the purchase has been made" feeling. That's fine, although it's different than the last few vehicles I've purchased.

Before I drove off, Aaron helped me move the front swingarm to the other position, which increases front end trail. This results in heavier steering, which I actually find to be very pleasant. In the further forward position (where I first drove it), the steering is very light, and actually kind of uncomfortable. The rig just steers so easily that you can't really drive straight for the sensitivity. It's a bit like driving an American car from the 70s, where the steering just had too much power assist. The heavier steering means that you have to really want to go a direction to do it. It also feels more like a sidecar "should," which makes me happier. Strange that I'd want it heavier, I suppose, but it's helpful. Aaron actually had the same comment, that the steering was too light, when he drove it to work last week.

I've already started working on it. I dropped the duck-quack horns in the garage within a few minutes of getting it in the garage, and after some screwing around with both horns, ended up just installing one horn. Apparently the horn circuit won't pass enough current to power both horns. Ah well.

I've fabricated a little bracket to allow me to use the Le Mans' old mirrors to replace the wobbly mirrors that were on the bike. I've only done the right side so far, since the right mirror was actually a left side mirror installed upside down. It really couldn't point in any useful direction, so I had no problem taking it off and messing around with it. I have to get some nuts to fasten the Le Mans mirror to the bracket, but it'll be a huge improvement when it's all done. I'll probably do it on the left side too, since that mirror, although it points in a useful direction, won't stay pointed there. There are aftermarket mirrors that'll work on the Goldwing, but it seems silly to spend the money when I can make these work.

I also got busy with the shopvac and a big sponge. It's strange to think I have a motorcycle that needs to be cleaned out like that, but indeed, the sidecar and the remaining saddlebag had dirt gathered at all the corners. Much better now.

The next big and obvious thing I need to do is synchronize the carburetors. I'll be interested to see if I can do that with my lovely two-port water manometer. I'll probably talk to a few mechanics to see what they have to say about it.

Posted at 22:59 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sat, 09 Apr 2005

I spent about two hours today, cleaning and rearranging the garage
in preparation for the sidecar tomorrow. The cleaning part was pretty cool, if only to see the months of benign neglect be rectified. Unfortunately, when I got it all cleaned up, all the extraneous stuff exiled to other storage spaces, it took a few test fittings to realize that it's actually going to be difficult to keep both bikes and the sidecar in there.

I think I have an arrangement now that will work well, but I don't know for sure. In any case, "work well" is probably the wrong term. "An acceptable compromise" is a better description. It'll leave the Le Mans basically unaccessible without taking out the sidecar, but I think it'll leave the Ninja and sidecar both accessible without moving anything else.

It involved a surprising amount of rearrangement to get it even to that state. There's no way to have both bikes and the sidecar all available, that would simply take a two-car garage. As it is, the table in the back will be difficult to get to, and certainly not with the access I used to have. The best solution will probably be to get one of those cheezy temporary carports, made out of a tarp stretched over a framework of steel tubing, and park the sidecar there. It won't be as secure as having it locked in the garage, but with the truck gone, I can put it far enough back that people passing on the street won't see it unless they're carefully looking into driveways.

I'll have to see what it's all like once I finally get the sidecar in there. Certainly, doing any work to any of the bikes will involve removing one or two of the others, where before I had been able to do simple maintenance with either bike in its normal parking spot. That may be the one thing that pushes me over into figuring out some kind of external storage for the sidecar.

Posted at 17:19 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Wed, 06 Apr 2005

Just took some pictures of the
Goldwing. More to come, but the short answer is that after driving it in this morning, I still like it.

Late that night...

Still like it. I rode back to Aron's house tonight, after attending a long amateur radio meeeting, and agreed to buy it. Nothing more than words have changed hands yet but it's pretty well a done deal. Something significnantly freaky would have to happen at this point to make me back out.

Riding around on the sidecar today was interesting, to say the least. It's a weird size, as wide as a car, but only as long as a motorcycle. I don't like the handlebars at all, they angle back too far, hurting my wrists. The fairing is equal parts annoying and really cool -- I love the radio, but I want the whole thing to be the size of a BMW R90S fairing. Sitting in that bubble of still air is quite freaky, and leaves me unable to tell how fast I'm going. The seat is very comfortable, but needs a new cover in the worst way; I'll probably see what Rich would charge to cover it in plain black leather.

The bike needs some immediate work before I'll be happy with it. Things to do immediately:

• New horns
• LED taillights all around
• New mirrors
• New gas cap
• Install RAM mount base

Things to do before about 500 miles:

• Replace current exhaust with stock units
• Stainless steel brake lines
• New lower handlebars
• Bicycle computer for speedo and clock

Things to do before about 2000 miles:

• New tires
• Different fairing?
• Better headlight setup

Long-term goals/ideas:

• Install deep-cycle marine battery in sidecar
• Install fog light/driving light setup to replace headlight
• Cargo box to replace passenger body

If this stuff doesn't make sense to you, gentle reader, I apologize. These are pretty much notes to myself. I'll probably explain all this in later entries.

Posted at 00:01 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 05 Apr 2005

I've got the Goldwing/EML sidecar home now. Again, it's like I'm
spinning in circles. Riding it home, with earplugs in, and knowing I was going to suck a bit, I really liked it.

I'se confused!

Well, this is why I have tomorrow to ride it around and see how it behaves in my daily grind, which is where it's most likely to see action.

Storage will be very interesting. With just the Ninja in the garage, the Goldwing fits, but juuust barely. I can see that if I took a bunch of crap out and rearranged a little bit, I could actually store two bikes and the hack in there, but one bike would be in the "semipermanent storage" spot, hard to get out without moving the rig out off the way first. I'm not so sure that's a terrible thing, as the Le Mans seems to be in semi-permanent storage anyway. And really, it could also be arranged such that the sidecar is the one that's hard to get out, if I wanted to have both bikes accessible. Hmm.

So I guess the kicker will be tomorrow, riding it to work and back, and hopefully out to some kind of errand.

For this riding I'm doing, I have 20 gallons of water (about 160 pounds) in the chair, providing ballast. $35 worth of collapsible water jugs. Not a bad investment, particularly if I end up getting the combination, as water jugs make excellent, expendable ballast (dump water when you get a passenger, fill 'em back up when you need the ballast again).

By the way, words for sidecar:

• hack
• rig
• combo/combination
• sidehack

There are certainly others, but I can't think of them right now. Too late for me to do all that thinking.

Now, for sleep.

Posted at 00:06 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Mon, 04 Apr 2005

Motorcycling should get more interesting very soon. Today, I'm
planning on going and looking at the Goldwing/EML sidecar combo that Aron from Moto International is selling. It's supposed to generally be a very nice setup, the bike being plenty powerful enough for the task, and the EML gear being high quality and well designed. I helped him work on the bike a few weeks ago, and he finally got it all back together last weekend.

I'm going to go ride it today, and unless there's something that makes me worry, I'll probably own it within a week or two, paperwork and suchlike being the only impediment.

However, this raises Questions. Obviously, the truck has to go, for one thing. That's been clear since a day after I bought it -- not that there's anything wrong with it that a tuneup wouldn't fix, but I'm just really really not a big truck person.

No, the big question is, what on earth would I do with three bikes? I already know I ride the Ninja for 95+ percent of my riding, with the Le Mans literally collecting dust in the garage. This is a silly state of affairs, since I bought the Le Mans with a loan, so I'm making payments on it. On top of that, the insurance on the Le Mans is more than double that on the Ninja.

I still like the Le Mans, and I really enjoy riding it. But I'm not riding it. It doesn't make sense for most of the riding I do, which is the real issue. I ride in-city for the most part, and I tend to park places where I believe theft to be a real possibility. These reasons add up to riding the Ninja, which is a cheap, small, efficient bike. If it were stolen, I would be upset, but it wouldn't represent the kind of problems the Le Mans would. The Ninja gets 45-50 MPG for my in-city riding, and is capable enough that I can ride it comfortably on the freeway at up to about 85 MPH (which is just keeping up with traffic, some of the time). I've proven to myself it can go on long trips, although it doesn't have the comfort or sure-footedness of the Le Mans when speeds get higher. It also doesn't have the storage of the Le Mans when the sidecases are mounted, but I've only seriously used those sidecases twice in the years I've owned the bike.

All this adds up to me thinking seriously about selling the Le Mans. It's incredibly hard to justify owning three motorcycles, since I'm not into collecting bikes or having one for every day of the week. I admit that attitude might change if I had a safe place to put them, but I don't. My little garage comfortably holds two bikes, and will probably uncomfortably hold a bike and a sidecar rig, but two bikes and the car will be so tight as to prevent actually getting to any of them without clambering over motorcycles.

I'll probably find out just how tight it will be, because if I sell the Le Mans, I'm not going to make the decision until after this summer. Summer is when I use the Le Mans more, and if I find myself thinking regretfully of losing the bike, I'll figure out a good way to keep it.

This all makes me think of the afterschool specials we love to hate. What lessons do I need to learn from this? Well, the big one, when you take a sufficiently wide perspective, is to only strive toward goals I actually have.

Allow me to explain. When I bought the Le Mans, it was with the intention of having a distance bike. I wanted to be able to take trips. Multi-day rides to wherever, but with a bike that had character and the ability to get me there and back in comfort and safety. The Le Mans definitely has character in spades, and it meets those requirements quite handily. I wish the mirrors and sidecases played a bit nicer together, but that's a minor quibble.

However, for all that the bike meets these requirements, it was in service of a goal I didn't actually have. I didn't then, and don't now, have plans for a long trip I want to take. When I got the bike, I was in a serious relationship which precluded taking multi-day trips for the most part. Now that I'm single, I don't find myself with any greater desire to ride great distances and see wonderful sights.

What a silly thing, to spent all that money in service of a goal that didn't exist! I ended up riding the bike to work and back every day, getting atrocious gas mileage. The sidecases collected dust when they finally arrived. I spent over a year gradually putting together a radio system for the bike, and don't really find myself using it (ignoring that it needs to be repaired for some vibration-related damage). All this cool stuff to do something that I don't actually seem to want to do.

But along came the Ninja, which I got to meet the goal of riding in-city to and from work. Fits the bill beautifully, and lookit that, I'm actually riding it every day! Likewise, the sidecar will be there for when I need to carry another person who doesn't want to ride on the back of a bike, or (more likely) when I need to carry something that's simply too large for the Ninja's shrimp basket. That's what the truck is for now, but the truck is massive overkill now that I have no further need to carry sheets of plywood or large appliances.

So, we'll see what the summer brings, but I'm guessing that the Le Mans and I are likely to part ways. Pity, the motor just started loosening up. Someone's going to get quite a bike. I hope it meets their goals.

That evening...

Wow, talk about a complete reversal. I think I've spun around 270° on this whole sidecar thing.

I went to Aron's house, and after a bit of prep work, we rode around in the Goldwing a bit. We traded off, and I drove it for a while. It was interesting, but kind of wobbly. With Aron in the chair, I didn't have any problem with it getting too light, and I was probably being over-cautious.

We came back to his house, and I drove his main rig around, which is a Suzuki Cavalcade, heavily modified to be a kind of ratbike/streetfighter, with a plastic truck-bed box for a sidecar, on a prebuilt frame. It had serious headshake, right where I wanted to ride, speed-wise, and much heavier steering than the Goldwing. In a way, I liked it better, because you knew you were riding a sidecar, and you had to muscle it around.

All this took perhaps 3 hours, trading off, and we ended up with taking the Goldwing out on the freeway. It was fine, not too weak, but not super strong. Certainly it'd be capable of running on the freeway for a few hundred miles.

My impressions at the time were that the exhaust was way too loud, the fairing too big, and the bars too high. Otherwise it seemed alright.

Then I got on the Le Mans to ride home, and almost immediately, my mind was reeling with thoughts of how much I'd hated driving the hack. How it was like driving the truck; it was too heavy; it felt really weird; I didn't like it; it made the Le Mans feel tiny and light. As I was riding home, the phrase "ridiculous boondoggle" kept running through my head as I tried to figure out what I was thinking about the Goldwing hack.

By the time I got home, I was in a complete tizzy. My mind was reeling with the bizarre thought that my months-long plan of getting a sidecar was in shambles. If I had been in a more emotional state, I would have been in tears, I was so frustrated and confused. I knew going in that I was going to ride the Goldwing and love it. It was going to be perfect (or at least a 22 year old version of perfection). When that didn't happen, not even close, it left me completely turned around.

I ended up calling Jesse, and going out to dinner with him to discuss what all was going on with me -- I felt like I was going to burst if I didn't talk to someone about it.

Once I'd spilled all the weirdness in my head, we got to talking about more-reasonable reactions. Maybe I was upset because I wasn't immediately expert at it? (I've been consistently top-of-the-class at MSF classes, which is much like being an honors student at a school for the developmentally disabled -- you might get a swelled head, but it's got little bearing on real life.) Maybe my expectations were too high, or completely off-base. We went through a bunch of possibilities. The bottom line was that I didn't know if this was an accurate first impression or not.

I proposed that perhaps Aron would let me borrow the rig for a day, to see what my longer-term reaction was, rather than the short-term, immediate, "wow, this sucks!" reaction. I actually ended up calling Aron while Jesse and I were still at dinner, to see if he'd agree to it.

He did, fortunately. I'm going to stop by his house tomorrow night, and borrow the Goldwing rig for a day. That should give me a better impression of it, as I work it into my daily life to see how it fits, and how I react to it.

It's quite possible that I'm just not a sidecar kinda guy. I thought I was, but this experience today suggests strongly to me that I don't actually like the practical reality of driving a sidecar. The concept is cool, but actually doing it certainly didn't sit well today. I'll write more after I've had a chance to live with a sidecar for a little while.

Posted at 00:13 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sun, 13 Mar 2005

The clutch on the Ninja had been slipping for a little while, just
on spirited shifting. During normal riding, I didn't really notice it. But the fact that it was slipping at all was disturbing.

So, I poked around the Ninja 250 board, and got some answers. It turns out that the clutch springs usually go first on these bikes, and some have claimed that the friction plates will outlast the motor every time (if only all clutches could make such a claim!). There were one or two people who reported having to replace plates early, but the general consensus was that if something's slipping, it's probably springs.

I ordered a set of EBC springs from Seattle Cycle Center, figuring that I'd get in there, replace the springs, and check out the plates. If they needed to be replaced, the Bellevue dealership had a set in stock. OEM and aftermarket plates seem to cost about the same, and I already know I like the OEM clutch, so I'd probably go with that if it came down to it.

Replacing the springs was surprisingly simple. I've always associated clutch work with major pain, but when the engine is mounted "sideways" like it is in the Ninja (vs. the "normal" way, with the crankshaft aligned with the direction of travel, like every other bike I've owned), it's pretty simple. Take off a cover, undo four bolts, and the springs are out. Pull off a plate, and the clutch plates come out. Very simple.

Fortunately, the clutch plates looked fine, and they were just about in the middle of the "normal" range of thickness, according to the manual. The springs, on the other hand, were all at the "toss 'em" limit listed in the manual. So I did. The old springs measured 31.7mm fully extended, and the new EBC springs measured 35mm. The book lists 32.5mm or something as the normal new spring length, so the EBC are super duper new, I guess.

It all went back together as easily as it came apart (except for the extra 40 minutes I spent carefully scraping the old gasket off the cover, but we'll ignore that for now). I was done and warming the bike up for a test ride within about an hour and a half.

Now that I have the new springs in, it's amazing to feel the difference. I'd thought that the cush drive in the rear wheel, which absorbs driveline shock, was just crapping out. Nope, it was the clutch springs. I'd had terrible trouble for the last 5000 or so miles with engaging the clutch -- I just couldn't do it without the clutch snagging right as it locked up; that was the springs too. I'd noticed in the last few fillups that the gas mileage kept getting worse. Naturally, I suspect that was also the clutch springs (I won't know until I've put another few tanks of gas through the bike).

The bike is much more pleasant to ride now. A well-spent $10, if I do say so myself. It was actually more like $30 all told, since the springs were $10, the new gasket was $15, and a half-quart of synthetic motor oil is $5, practically speaking. Still, quite a bargain, and surprisingly easy to do.

Posted at 21:57 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Fri, 25 Feb 2005

In a fit of randomness, I decided to stop by Ride West BMW today.
While I was wandering around, I noticed a Kawasaki standing on the showroom floor. I walked over to it, and quickly discovered that I was looking at a '93 Concours.

This is a bike that's been recommended to me more than once as being a decent sidecar tug. Out of curiosity, I asked the hovering salesman how much they were asking for it. $3900 came the answer. No, wait, it's actually $2900. Hmm!

I signed myself up for a test ride, and took it around the block, more or less. I was probably out for 20 minutes, but it was long enough to do some slow-speed residential street crawling, one full-power blast onto the freeway, and some more sedate city street riding.

Overall, I was surprised by how much I liked it. Power delivery was probably typical for a 4 cylinder 1000cc engine, coming in a rush around mid RPM and higher. Unfortunately, the way it's geared, you don't get to the rushy part, even in first gear, until you're well past sane city street speeds. Before that surge of power, it's kind of gutless (for a litre bike).

It was heavier than I was expecting, seemingly outweighing the Le Mans by about a hundred pounds. I wouldn't be surprised to find they're about the same weight, but the Concours felt really heavy. It wasn't a problem, just a thing I noticed. It wouldn't be too much of a factor with a sidecar hooked up to it.

The seating position was very comfortable, and I think it had some variety of aftermarket seat. The riding position was clearly more touring than sport.

I realized as I was riding it, though, that if I was going to drop $3k on a Concours, I would inevitably spend about $2000-2500 getting a Ural or similar sidecar for it, and another $1000 or more hooking it up. By then, I would be better off buying Aaron's Goldwing/EML for $5k, which is already set up, even though the bike has 84k miles on it. It's also occurred to me more than once that I could get that rig, and if I liked it, find a less-used GL1100 to fit to the sidecar. It could even be done for a very minimal overall loss on the trade, probably around $1000.

Anyway, the Connie was interesting, and I'm very glad to have ridden one. If I needed a cheap sport touring bike, that one would definitely be on the list. It's not quite the right thing for what I need right now, though.

Later...

I was just looking over some of the things on my motorcycle site, and realized that I've had remarkably little "churn" lately -- for the first three years of my motorcycling life, I didn't settle on a bike for very long. But here it's been nearly a year and a half since I've either bought or sold a motorcycle. I must have stumbled across some bikes I really like.

Of course, it's a subject that's never far from my mind. The radio I installed on the Le Mans started acting up from vibration, and is basically unusable now. This makes me question the whole Le Mans thing. The Ninja is great, but feels underpowered sometimes.

But, these are things I think about all the time. I'm no closer to doing anything about them now than I was a year ago. The only change that I'm pretty sure will happen is that I'll get a sidecar rig before too long. That may shake things up too, as I don't know how I'm going to store two bikes and a sidecar in my little garage, without some major rearrangement, and consigning one of the vehicles to the status of "pain in the ass to get out."

Posted at 20:46 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Wed, 23 Feb 2005

I'm probably doomed now. After I let my previous journal entry, in
all its artistry (ahem) percolate in my head for a while, I came up with this:

Bike gives lion's roar
Frightened cars flee like gazelle
Motorcycle fun

Now I'm writing pseudo-haiku. I bet the Real Motorcyclists are on their way right now, to take away my keys and beat some sense into me...

Posted at 15:21 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 22 Feb 2005

I had a Motorcycle Moment last night.

As is normal, I've been riding the Ninja 250 a lot, to the exclusion of the Le Mans. I had some mail I wanted to post as soon as possible, so I suited up last night at around 11 pm to go out and deliver it. Since it bugs me to see the Le Mans just sit there, I decided to ride that bike for the task.

The trip to the post office and back was uneventful, but as I approached my house on the return trip, I realized that I'd only been riding for about 10 minutes, and hadn't really warmed the bike up enough to cook off any condensation. I cruised past my house, and aimed for the freeway.

On the way to my house, I'd indulged in a little throttle-twisting, enjoying the Le Mans' copious power getting up to speed on Aurora Ave. That was part of the motivation for heading for the freeway -- freeway onramps are endless fun on a motorcycle, because they're legal acceleration zones.

So, I had the bike slicing through the curving onramp near my house, and merged with the sparse traffic on I-5. I only went about a mile on the freeway, but that mile passed very quickly, the bike throbbing beneath me.

It was like setting a stallion free. The thudding of the motor as it snarled and barked in response to the throttle was nearly transcendent. The wind increased; the red stars of other cars' taillights streaked past, shifting from red to white in the mirrors as physics was seemingly reversed by the arbitrary laws of man. Still the motorcycle glided on, like an eager lion overtaking a gazelle, striding and bounding over the pavement.

I found my exit, and turned around. I twisted the throttle and felt the bike leap under me, bounding forward with ecstatic energy. Cars peeled past, frightened deer-like forms veering away from the predator in their midst, seeking an unattainable prey. Colors flashed in the side-spill from our headlight, and lights winked at us as we passed. Again, the wind was tearing at us, the bike and I; the very air trying and failing to resist the unrestrainable progress of the two of us.

All too soon, I reached my exit, and reality set back in. I was stuck behind a slow-moving car on the offramp, frightened of its own mortality. The beast I was riding calmed down, became docile again as we returned to the mundane reality of the city's streets.

I returned to my house and parked the bike. The faint "tic tic tic" of the engine cooling was the only sign of the brief, majestic foray we'd just made into the stellar veldt of the dark freeway.

Posted at 09:47 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 15 Feb 2005

The Ural sidecar has been sold (see previous journal entries).
Too bad, it was a good deal.

I guess now I have a wide open choice of what kind of rig to get.

Posted at 19:24 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Fri, 11 Feb 2005

There's a guy potentially selling a Ural sidecar:

He told me a week or two ago that it was probably sold, then he said it might not be sold. Today is the day I'm supposed to get word on whether it's actually sold or not.

If it's not sold, it's a pretty compelling deal for me. The "top of my list" sidecar rig would be some kind of Guzzi with a Ural sidecar. To buy all his pieces (which I see I mentioned a few entries back) would cost about $5000, so even with shipping, assuming it's in a condition commensurate with those pictures, it's a good deal.

As a result of that potential purchase, I was poking around, looking at parts for modfying a Moto Guzzi Aluminum (which is available for the quite good price of $7,000 from Moto International at the moment) for my purposes. The Aluminum has linked brakes, which means that the foot pedal operates one of the front calipers and the rear caliper. The hand lever operates the other front caliper. It seems like a wonky system to me, and I'd want to make it "normal."

To do this requires that the stock front master cylinder be scrapped in favor of one that can push a lot more fluid (to operate both brake calipers). And to do that requires swapping out the handlebars and clamps, in order to facilitate using any old dual-caliper master cylinder. Then, I have a choice of the master cylinder from any modern sportbike.

Of course, if I can get any old master cylinder, what's to stop me from getting any old set of brake calipers? Say, from a bike that has much better brakes than the Guzzi? Hmmmm..... I'm probably not going to go that far, but it was an interesting thought. Ebay has nearly any motorcycle part you could want, for some surprisingly low prices.

In a way, this line of thinking is the first time I've truly explored the more extreme bounds of modifying a motorcycle. I would already be replacing the front forks, and having the rear tire relaced to accept car tires (they last a lot longer, and are cheaper, for sidecar use). I would almost certainly be interested in raising the seat of an Aluminum up 3 or more inches, since I look goofy-big (and feel goofy-big, more importantly) sitting on one. Replacing the bars is now old hat for me.

If I got this rig together, it would be nice to make the bike look a bit more like an old WWII era bike. More flat across the top, and less like a cruiser (this would also benefit my seating position). At some point, I really have to learn how to weld.

Posted at 10:52 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Thu, 03 Feb 2005

Last night, I installed the new switchpod on the Ninja, and took
the opportunity to clean and oil the air filter. The new switchpod is cool enough, although really, it's just the exact same thing that was there, with an additional red button. Nice to know that button's there, though. It works as advertised -- all it takes to get hazard flashers is that switch. An excellent $18.50 investment.

The surprise to me was the air filter. When I cleaned it out, a little bit of dust came out, but not very much. I figured it would have nearly no effect on performance.

I was, however, quite wrong. It's not a huge change (there aren't ever huge changes on a 250cc motorcycle), but it's noticeable. The Ninja has more power. It doesn't clatter its valves at me when I roll on throttle at lower RPMs. It's generally more responsive. I never would have guessed cleaning and reoiling the air filter would make such a substantial difference.

Now, of course, this starts me thinking: maybe I should get some of those K&N filter pods... Hmm.... I don't really want to mess with a good thing, in that the bike is running fine, and carburetion is a tricky business. But it would be nice to have a bit more power.... Hmmmmm....

Later, that evening...

I had to make a trip to Costco this evening, for a few necessities. If you're not familiar with Costco, it's this gigantic warehouse store that sells things in enormous portions -- the smallest bag of rice they have is 10 lb, for instance. Anyway, I was on the Ninja 250, so I was careful not to get anything too big, but even so, the little basket was nearly overwhelmed:

It would have been easier with a sidecar.

Posted at 19:30 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Wed, 02 Feb 2005

I have a shiny new left-hand control pod from a Kawasaki ZX12 to
install on the Ninja 250. Apparently, the only thing preventing the 250 from having hazard blinkers is a switch. This switch pod includes that switch, and it's got all the same wiring harness connections and everything. It's supposed to be a simple operation to swap it in. We'll see if that's true or not.

And in sidecar news...

There are two Velorex sidecars for sale on Ebay right now. One is in rough but salvageable shape (with a buy-it-now of $650). It would take $300 to ship it from Kansas. There's also one listed in New York, but the pictures are just the stock photos of a Velorex hooked up to various motorcycles from the net. The NY one doesn't have a buy-it-now price, but will probably go for less than $1000.

Every time I think about it, a Ninja 250 sidecar rig doesn't seem that far-fetched. Sure, it wouldn't do well on the freeway (although I'm certain it'd be able to hit 65 MPH). Sure, it's not going to haul around any big folks in the car. But it would be awfully neat.

Of course, I'm nowhere near actually spending any money on any of this sidecar business. But the Ninja 250 hack is a persistent and interesting idea.

Yet later...

I was poking around and found this sidecar for sale. What's cool about it is that for $3000, it includes everything but the Moto Guzzi. That's vs. $2600 for the sidecar, $1800 for the fork, $800 for the subframe, some amount for labor, and tax for all that, if I were to buy it new. Yow!

I called the guy selling it, and he said it's "basically sold next weekend." But he'll keep me in mind if the sale falls through for some reason. I'm not holding my breath, but that would be a nearly ideal situation -- then I just sit on it until the right Guzzi comes along.

So, it probably won't happen, but that would get me surprisingly close to my ideal sidecar rig, which is what the same guy put together for about $15,000.

That evening...

The MSR hand deflectors I ordered arrived today, so I picked them up and checked them out. These are flaps that are supposed to fasten around the handlebars and deflect air/mud/water/whatever. I wanted them to reduce frozen-hand syndrome when the weather got cold.

Pictures of the deflectors

Anyway, they're really not that good. I'm sure they're fine for a motocross bike, but the Ninja 250 just doesn't have enough handlebar space to allow them to fit well. I'm going to bring them back to the store and see if I can figure out something else.

Posted at 22:43 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 01 Feb 2005

I went over to Aaron's house (who works for Moto International, and
is a big sidecar fan) yesterday, to look at some sidecar stuff he's trying to sell. He's got a 1982 Goldwing attached to an EML sidecar, which is a full kit, with car tires all around (a good thing) and leading-link forks (also a good thing). He's also got an Arrow sidecar, unattached, which is an interesting, if cheaply built sidecar.

The Goldwing is an interesting option. He's selling it for around $5000, which is a good price, considering what it is. EML kits sell for around $15,000 at the bare minimum now, apparently. They're very well made, and they handle well, and they were/are one of the better rigs out there. And indeed, the rig itself was quite nice, and in good shape.

Unfortunately, the bike isn't doing so well. He's having trouble finding a set of exhaust pipes that fit and don't cost an arm and a leg. The bike needed a bunch of work, most of which he's already done, but some of which (notably a water pump and an oil change, I think he said) haven't been finished. It's also a 1982 motorcycle with 83,000 miles on it. That's a lot of miles, whether it's a Goldwing or not.

He had an interesting idea, which amounted to buying a much lower-mileage 'wing, swapping the parts over, and selling this one. It would be a losing proposition financially, but would result in a much better hack when all was said and done.

Because the bike needs so much fussing to get it right (and I'd consider bike replacement practically mandatory if I were to buy it, so that's a big project looming on the horizon), it's not a terribly attractive option to me, right now. I just don't want to take on a vehicle that needs a lot of work.

I may change my mind if I get to the point of being ready to buy and it's still available. It is, after all, a very nice rig once the bike gets sorted out.

The Arrow sidecar, it turns out, has a heavy, strongly-built frame, and an interesting but cheaply implemented tub. It would make a great sidecar for a 1000cc bike, such as the Guzzi/Ural rig I was envisioning at one point. The sidecar itself isn't as nice as a Ural, but at $800, isn't a bad place to start.

The main problem with it is that the car is built pretty cheaply, with lightweight materials, a lot of marginal quality welds, and a few curious design features. Like, it's got this clever system where the seat is locked in place by a little drawer, which has a tab at the back to hold the seat back in position. But as you pull apart the various pieces, you begin to realize that it's not a very good locking system, because a few serious tugs and maybe a little crowbar action, and you'd have it apart.

Or, behind the seat is a fairly large, and potentially useful space. But the only way to get to it is to unlock that drawer, pull out the seat back, and stand on your head to see what's back there. The back doesn't open at all, except at the seat back. It begs to be cut up and hinged.

For all that, the sidecar comes with almost everything you could want (although I didn't see a tonneau cover, to keep the rain out). It's got a windshield and a spare wheel and tire. The seat is tall and fairly neat, until you realize it's stuffed with straw and not very comfortable.

For $800, though, it does represent a pretty good deal. It would need some help in the mounting department, but that's practically a given. Compared to a $2600 Ural sidecar, it's not as nice car-wise, but the frame is equally good. And really, that's a huge difference in price.

Overall, I think Aaron's goodies are going to stay in his garage for now, as far as I'm concerned. Until I get rid of the big truck, I can't really justify having a sidecar. If he's still got all this stuff when the time comes, I'll have to go re-evaluate what I want to do. To a large extent, it depends on whether I can find a reasonably priced used Guzzi to haul a car around. The Ninja sidecar project (mentioned in a previous journal entry)is going to wait to be a second hack, I think. Interesting idea, but likely to be more problematic.

Posted at 04:15 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Sun, 30 Jan 2005

I've been in kind of a weird emotional state lately, for a variety
of reasons that are unimportant to this topic. One of the things I've found that helps is going out for a ride.

This afternoon, I was in just such a state, and eventually decided that a ride was called for. I hopped on the Le Mans and took off for Redmond and points beyond.

It was already dark when I left, so I knew it wouldn't be a long ride. I rode out Union Hill Rd, which winds down into the Snoqualmie Valley. It was quite dark, and on the cold side -- I wasn't quite wearing enough clothing. I turned the wrong way on Carnation-Ames Lake Rd, and headed back to Redmond, when I'd meant to head for Carnation. I just rolled with it, since I didn't want to be out too late, and was getting a bit cold.

I was a tiny bit dissappointed, though, because I was looking forward to a ride up High Bridge Rd, and possibly finding a spot to stop, look out over the valley, and reflect on life for a bit.

Even though I didn't get my stopping-and-reflecting time, the ride was still quite helpful. I'm not sure what it is about riding that helps, but I think it has to do with focusing my mind. When I'm riding, I have to be focused on the task at hand, there's just no other way to be. I can't be mopey or distracted or discombobulated, or I'm dead.

I come back from such a ride feeling better, every time. It's not that the emotional weirdness has passed, but it's put back into perspective. There's other stuff out there. Life offers more than the opportunity for self-introspection and endless looping in a logic chain that doesn't ever complete. Somehow, riding forces things to be right again, in proportion.

I'm really glad I remember to do it every once in a while.

Posted at 22:19 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Thu, 27 Jan 2005

Most interesting.

I started thinking today, about what it would be like to put a sidecar on a Ninja 250. This quickly blossomed into a post on the board, followed by a bunch of web research, followed by a call to Dauntless Motors. The final result seems to be this:

Jay (chief mover-n-shaker at Dauntless) said that it sounds like a fun project, both to build, and to ride. He also agreed with my supposition that it's probably never been done before. He said I'd be looking at about $1000ish (very very very rough estimate) to do the work to attach the rig to the bike, and $1800 to build a set of leading-link forks. The new forks aren't strictly necessary, and that would be a logical thing to leave off and do later.

This would probably go on a $2000-2500 used Ninja 250. The ideal car is apparently a Velorex 562, which can be had new for about $2000, or used for about $1000. If you've been following along, that puts a nice real-world price on the completed rig of less than $5000. For a sidecar rig, particularly one that's built for you, that's pretty dang good. Price with the new forks would be under $7000.

I'm not necessarily considering this as a serious thing, though. I do know that I'd like to get a sidecar rig after I get rid of the truck. I've looked into a Moto Guzzi Stone or Aluminum ($12-15 thousand by the time it's done). I've thought about a Ural Tourist or Patrol (fully built and set up, $8700 or $9700 respectively, but incapable of serious freeway travel). One of the guys at Moto International is selling a Goldwing with an EML sidecar, that's apparently quite the nice rig, for about $5000 (that's a pretty serious option, assuming it's still available when I get in the market). Then there's the Ninja 250 for about $5000.

So, there are some interesting options out there.

Posted at 16:35 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Tue, 25 Jan 2005

I was randomly reminded today that getting the Ninja 250 to have
hazard blinkers (all four blinkers at once) is as simple as replacing the left switch pod. In a fit of projectiness (is that a word?), I found the correct replacement switch pod on Ebay, and bought it for less than $20 after shipping.

Since I just lubed up the choke cable (which requires removing the left switch pod) not three days ago, I had it fresh in my mind how easy that is to do. For $19, why the heck not? It'll mean taking the tank off, but I can handle that, and anyway I need to clean and re-oil the air filter (which needs the tank off).

So, hooray for increased safety! Yet another reason to ride the Ninja instead of the Le Mans...

Posted at 22:05 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Thu, 20 Jan 2005

It's been freakishly warm the last few days (like, 60° F -- in
January!). I've been stuck inside, trying to make progress on my kitchen remodel. It's been kind of frustrating, I haven't even been able to ride into work, since I've been taking vacation days to work on the kitchen.

I finally rode in today, with the temperature at around 50-55°. It was pretty nice. I also rode in really early (like, 6:45 vs. my normal 8:45) so I could leave work early.

The reason I'm leaving work early is actually cool all on its own: my Ninja 250 will be in a film workshop as the protagonist's bike. They wanted to use the Moto Guzzi, but they also wanted to have a "riding" shot with someone else doing the riding, and I'm not happy about lending out the Moto Guzzi even to people I really like and trust. So, the Ninja 250 it is. It doesn't fit the bill as well (it's supposed to be a motorcycle our hero is working a crappy job to afford), but it's fine for a workshop. When they get to the real movie, "we can talk."

Anyway, it's nice to get back on a bike after a few days of driving around in trucks and doing no driving at all.

Posted at 12:19 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Fri, 14 Jan 2005

I rode in to work today, despite a temperature of about 26° F
recorded outside my house.... I'm very glad of that heated vest! I should write up a quick review of it and the temperature controller, but I've been so busy with the kitchen and everything else in my life.

Motorcycling has been reduced to a mere transportation means for me right now. Except for notable exceptions like a few nights ago (previous journal entry), I'm just using a motorcycle to get from one place to the other. It's not very glamorous, and isn't ultimately that fun. It's better than it would be in a car or in that gas-guzzling truck, but it's still not great.

I guess for that reason, I'm looking forward to better (read: warmer) weather. I certainly don't have any friends willing to ride with me right now, and usually don't feel like braving the cold for long enough to make a fun ride. The vest is nice, but it still doesn't make the ride warm. Just more bearable.

I was thinking about it on the way into work today, and I think I need to install brush guards on the handlebars of the Ninja. Just to deflect the wind; it would make a huge difference in how cold my hands got. I'll have to look into it, and see how much of a pain that would be.

Posted at 13:04 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Wed, 12 Jan 2005

I was in a grumpy, bad mood last night, so I decided to take a ride
while the weather was still "nice." I paid bills, which never makes a great day, but this particular day showed me that both motorcycle and truck insurance had just gone up (truck insurance by a lot). With the kitchen remodel in progress, and a few other contributing factors, I was feeling disconnected and unhappy.

This last weekend, it apparently snowed (I was in Chicago, so I didn't get to see it falling), and the weather has been cold and clear since then. Last night, some clouds had rolled in, and the temperature was actually up in the mid 30s to very low 40s. Seeing that there wouldn't be any ice to worry about, I suited up and headed out. (Loving this heated vest concept, I must say.)

The ride itself was relatively uneventful, in storytelling terms. A few people tried to run into me on the freeway, but no more so than normal, and nothing untoward happened.

What was nice was to get on the Le Mans (which I rarely ride these days, since the Ninja 250 is so often the obvious choice for the riding I'm doing), tuck in and just ride. I didn't have a goal or a timeline. It was after 9 pm, so the traffic had thinned out to the point that it was flowing freely, at least.

I went up I-5 to 405, turned south on that road, and came across I-90. Probably 40ish miles all told, all on the freeway. Nothing like a stunning ride, but it really improved my mood and reminded me that I still like the Le Mans. Sometimes I forget that, riding through the city on the Ninja. It's discouraging to think I'm paying over $200 a month, between insurance and loan payment, just to have the Le Mans sit in the garage.

It was also nice to realize that riding a motorcycle can still improve my mood. I forget that sometimes too, since I almost always ride on an errand lately. It's been ages since I rode with no purpose other than riding. A nice change of pace from just riding to/from work or trying to get to some store before it closes.

Posted at 10:00 permanent link category: /motorcycle

Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater

Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.