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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater Fri, 25 Feb 2005
In a fit of randomness, I decided to stop by Ride West BMW today. 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 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). 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 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 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. 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 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 Categories: all aviation gadgets misc motorcycle theater Written by Ian Johnston. Software is Blosxom. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net. |
