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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Fri, 30 Jun 2006
The Z is a stately luxocruiser
Due to the possibility of showing it to a potential buyer, I rode the Z750s into work today. I wasn't sure what the experience would be like, having ridden the Ninja 250 for the last few days. In fact, I was not-entirely-surprised to find that the Z reminded me a lot of something I noticed ages ago on the K75: it feels glassy-smooth and heavy. I equated the K75 at the time with a luxury vehicle of some description, and the F650 I'd been given as a loaner as being a kind of rickety contraption-feeling bike. I get the same sort of comparative feeling about the Z750s and the Ninja 250 now. I knew I would, but it was still a bit surprising to actually have it come true. The Z feels really heavy, and big, and powerful; the Ninja feels small and toy-like, and not particularly smooth. What's interesting about that is that I really prefer the Ninja, although by reading the preceding sentence you might conclude the opposite. The Z felt like the perfect bike to load up and go touring on, but far too heavy and twitchy-powerful to be riding to work. I guess it's a good thing I've got it for sale, and may even sell it today (but I figure there's maybe a 5% chance of that). In the good news department, I filled the tank for the first time last night, and the Ninja turned in 46 MPG. Not bad, considering that I was spending a lot of time cranking the throttle wide open for break-in, which I don't normally do. Posted at 11:16 permanent link category: /motorcycle I placed my order today, for a shiny new Hagon shock. Bright red spring and all. The Hagon guy called me up yesterday and relayed that a stock shock (costing a mere $375, in the face of $500 for the equivalent Works or $800+ for an equivalent Penske) should work fine for me. Good news for me, since it means I don't need to spend the extra sixty bucks for a new spring and a revalve to match the new spring. Of course, it's also exciting because it means I get to introduce a new alternative to the Ninja 250 board. This is a very rare circumstance, since the Ninja 250 aftermarket is basically completely stagnant. And, of course, I'm not actually telling anyone they couldn't have found out for themselves with a bit of looking, but there's a bit of a hidebound quality to the Ninja 250 folks. It's like a bunch of scientists from 1902 sitting around talking about the nature of the universe when suddenly Einstein bursts in with some crazytalk about relativity and quantum universes. They're not (ultimately) going to dismiss it out of hand, but they never would have even thought to look under that particular rock for an answer, assuming they could have even found the rock. So I'm very excited to see what will show up at my door in a few weeks ("3-4 weeks usually; I mean, 85% of the time we'll get an order in within 2 weeks, but at this time of year, I wouldn't be surprised to see them take the whole month," said the distributor). It should be quite an upgrade to the current situation. On that same topic, the front end needs some help, too. Fortunately, this is easier to do, and cheaper. Some new springs and a cartridge emulator should have me sorted there, and for under $300. It's funny, as I mention all these prices they sound like an awful lot of money, particularly for a $3000 motorcycle, but these bits represent about 75% of the outlay I'm expecting to do on this bike. Suspension bits have never been cheap, but I'm getting away with spending very little for a huge improvement. It helps that the bike only really needs three things to make it right for me: slight improvement in brakes (already installed: stainless steel braided brake lines), better tires, and upgraded suspension. Since the tires it has right now are actually fine until it rains (then they apparently get much less acceptable), I've got a few months until I really have to worry about tires. Even so, new tires are under $200 shipped to my door, so they don't come close to suspension upgrades. They have to be replaced much more often, but you can typically live with replacing one tire at a time, which brings it under $100 a whack. I can live with that. So, in a month's time (or so), I should have the bike suspended properly. It won't feel so toy-like, rocking back and forth as I apply throttle or brakes, or sit down on it. Posted at 09:57 permanent link category: /motorcycle Wed, 28 Jun 2006
The cold starts are always the hardest
I decided to try riding the Ninja 250 into work today, my first "practical" use of the bike, rather than riding around trying to break in the engine. A fine plan, but fraught with difficulty. As I mentioned a few posts down, my bike came with the apparently mis-adjusted carburetors. In the last day or two, I'd actually thought they got better, but this morning cured me of that freakish delusion. The morning was cool, perhaps mid 60s Fahrenheit. I pulled the bike out, and put on my helmet and gloves. I hopped aboard and hit the starter button. It was a bit fiddly, but by very careful (sub-millimetric) manipulation of the choke lever, I was able to get the bike to idle at a decent speed. I knew I'd have to wait a moment for the engine to warm up, so wait I did. I tried putting the bike in gear after a minute or two, which killed it (the first shift in the morning usually finds the clutch plates sticking together, since they're immersed in oil, which can kill the motor if you're not holding some throttle on). I uttered a gentle "crap!" to myself, and restarted the bike. The idle was dancing, possibly like a ballerina. Up, and down. Up and down. But I wasn't touching the throttle. Hmm. I tried adjusting the choke a bit, to see if the bike would be happier with a bit less. Putt -putt-putt... putt... silence. Ok, that didn't work. The engine started again, idle once again dancing up and down. I'll save you the time and jump to the end of the story: I sat atop that bike for a bit over 10 minutes this morning, occasionally killing and restarting it, waiting for it to do whatever it needed to do. Trying to add any throttle would immediately pull the engine speed down as if I'd switched off the key. Finally, it was running just well enough that I could pull away and down the street, the engine hiccoughing and bucking any time I tried to speed up. This just isn't acceptable. Fortunately, mysterious as this all sounds, each of these symptoms points squarely at the problem I'd already identified. I just have to pull off the carburetors, remove the silly EPA caps, and adjust the idle mixture screws back to a sane value. I think this weekend will see me taking the carbs off. My previous Ninja 250 didn't have this problem even remotely. No reason this one should, they're practically identical bikes. At least once it's warm, it runs and idles fine. Getting to "warm" is just a huge pain right now. Good thing it's not winter time, or I'd have to wait 20 or 30 minutes to leave in the morning. Posted at 14:19 permanent link category: /motorcycle
I'm laughing, but I'm crying on the inside
I contacted Maxton Suspension about the possibility they made a Ninja 250 rear shock yesterday. I didn't have very high hopes, but I figured what the heck, choice is good. I wasn't particularly expecting a speedy response, so I was surprised when I opened my email this morning and found a message from Maxton. It reads as follows: Ian Thanks for your enquiry, unfortunately this year we have been unsuccessful in obtaining product liability cover for the United States. Whilst we have every confidence in our product, we are also very wary of the legal system in the U.S. I apologise about this, we had been enjoying building up a customer base in the U.S and dealing with your country. Regards Richard Adams Maxton Engineering Yep, that's... well, that's about right. Posted at 08:01 permanent link category: /motorcycle Tue, 27 Jun 2006Ah, sometimes I even crack myself up. (Yes, I should probably be shot for punning.) I called up the US distributor for Hagon shocks this morning, and asked him about a shock for the Ninja 250. I know I'm going to get one, it's just a matter of sorting out which one at this point. So far, I have the following choices:
So I've got a few choices. Right now, Hagon sounds like the best choice, although Bitubo is a close runner-up. I think the Hagon is likely to be a better deal, in part because the distributor sounds like he knows his business (which the Bitubo distro doesn't), and in part because the Hagon is cheaper and probably offers similar performance. "Probably" and "similar" are, of course, complete weasel-words. Unfortunately, finding reviews of shocks is very difficult, and very few people have actually tried multiple shocks in their bikes then written about it. Posted at 10:31 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sun, 25 Jun 2006When Kawasaki builds a Ninja 250 (I'm a little obsessed right now, can you tell?), they make some of it in-house, and buy some of it from subcontractors. This is pretty much everybody's business model now, because in order to do, say, engines well, you have to devote a huge amount of effort to the project. If you also want to do, for instance, carburetors well, you have to devote another huge amount of effort. Needless to say, these huge efforts also cost tons of money. So, Kawasaki buys its carburetors from another company which specializes in them: Keihin. This is good and bad. Keihin makes good carburetors, and lots of engines use them. Harley-Davidson (heavens, I know, an American company using Japanese parts? please, bear with me) uses Keihin parts on all their bikes. So does Kawasaki for the majority of bikes, and snowmobiles, and jetskis, and generators, and so on. The practical upshot is, Kawasaki says to Keihin, "we want 1000 CVK30 carburetors," and Keihin says, "right away, that'll be $50,000," or whatever the cost is. Kawasaki takes their barrel full of carburetors, and puts them on various things, including my bike. Unfortunately, of late Keihin has been falling down on little, unimportant things, like the precise adjustment of their carburetors. It's nothing your average home mechanic can't fix, but it's kind of a pain. In my case, they've set the idle mixture screws incorrectly (at a guess). Now, for me to go and fix that, I have to remove the carburetors, and drill out the special EPA tamper-preventing cap. The EPA is justifiably concerned that your basic ham-fisted home mechanic will see this screw, turn it without knowing what they're doing, and suddenly their bike will be spewing lots of unburnt hydrocarbons into the air whenever they're sitting at a stoplight. Unfortunately, those same screws also determine how the bike idles -- properly adjusted, it idles nicely all the way from cold starts in the morning, to the midst of summer traffic. Improperly adjusted (like mine are), the bike simply refuses to idle nicely. When cold, it refuses to idle without lots of choke. When warm, the idle speed hovers a thousand RPM higher than where it's supposed to be, then sinks down to lower than it's supposed to be, without any input on the throttle. It would be enough to drive a new rider to distraction. So, I'll be pulling out the carburetors soon, and adjusting those same screws the EPA seems convinced will destroy the world. Never fear, EPA, with the bike idleing properly, there will be far fewer noxious emissions than if I left the bike in this whacked-out state. Posted at 11:34 permanent link category: /motorcycle
The scientific method, applied (kind of)
For the new Ninja 250, which I picked up yesterday, I'm going to follow this guide as closely as possible for doing the engine break-in. It's pretty different from the Kawasaki recommended method, but following a different break-in doesn't affect the warranty (short of actual abuse, of course). That method I linked to was used by one of the competitors in the Iron Butt Rally, in which motorcycles are run over 1000 miles per day, for 11 days. It's a pretty thorough test of a motorcycle (and a rider). Anyway, I've now done the idleing step (let the motor idle for 10 minutes, 4 hours cooldown), and the first ride (~5 miles, very gentle acceleration). I got a request from one of the Ninja 250 board members to test the compression of the engine before and after break-in, and discovered too late that my compression tester didn't have the right little adaptoid to fit the Ninja. So, I lost the chance to test it after the first step (the engine is supposed to be warm), but I did get to test it after the ride last night. About 170 PSI on each cylinder, which is low, but not shocking. It doesn't idle very nicely, which could either be poorly adjusted valves (possible, but unlikely), or poorly adjusted carburetors (very likely). Unfortunately, to fix the carbs, they need to be taken out, which is practically a masters course all by itself, so that step is going to wait a little bit. I think when I do the 600 mile maintenance stuff, I'm going to check the valves and pull the carbs to get them sorted out. I'm intending to replace a lot of suspension bits, and the tires, but I want to wait on all of it until I've had a chance to ride the bike for a while, to see what the stock parts really feel like. My one reservation about constantly dissing the stock tires and suspension is that I don't really remember what they were like. Spending some time on them should be plenty of reminder. I'm also trying a new thing on this bike, and weighing the pieces I put on or take off, to keep track of how the weight of the bike changes as a result of my modifications. I don't know how valuable it will be, but it's an interesting exercise. Posted at 09:45 permanent link category: /motorcycle Thu, 22 Jun 2006So, I sat down this evening to rebuild the new Goldwing starter I picked up from the guy at bikesalvage.com. I was thinking to myself, "well, it's a junkyard starter, it probably needs at least new brushes, which I already have." I'd picked up most of the commonly-needed parts for a starter rebuild a month or two ago, hoping to rebuild my current starter. I opened up the new starter, and was surprised to see that it actually looked pretty good. I measured the length of the brushes (which is the standard way to gauge when they need to be replaced), and they were the same length as new. Hmm. What? How could they be new? But there they were. In fact, the insides of the starter looked new too, no dirt, everything shiny and sparkling. I greased the end of the armature shaft, and reassembled the starter. I turned my attention to replacing the starter in the bike. This was a bit of a challenge -- in order to do it most easily, the bike has to be on its sidestand. Of course, the Goldwing has a sidecar attached to the side of it. It doesn't have a sidestand. I ended up pulling up the sidecar by its wheel, rigging it to the main beam in the garage, and putting a jackstand under the shock mount to keep it secure. Pulling out the old starter and putting in the new one turned out to be pathetically simple. If I'd taken it to the dealership and they'd charged me an hour's worth of labor (probably $65), it would have been a waste of $35. My total time, which includes me being a complete novice at replacing Goldwing starters, was an hour. I usually figure my time is 3-4x what a professional mechanic could do. But hey, hooray for things being easier than expected! The real surprise was when I ran back inside and grabbed the key. I switched on the bike, ensured it was in neutral, and pressed the starter switch. I expected to hear the old familiar "ka-whIIIRRRRR-na, ka-whIIIRRRRR-na, ka-whIIIRRRR-na" of the old starter. Instead I heard, "RR-NANANANA" and the engine was started. Whoa! That was 5-10x faster than the old one! It was really quite amazing, I hadn't realized how tired the old starter was; I just figured that old Goldwings had slow starters. Not so, apparently! So, I'm very pleased with my $50 investment in a new starter. I'm very confident this starter will last a long time, quite possibly longer than the engine, and it'll probably still be going strong when this rig is finally broken up and sold as scrap. Amazing. I'm going to have to call Bob at bikesalvage.com and ask him about the bike it came from. It couldn't have had more than 10-15 thousand miles on the odometer. Just amazing. Posted at 22:20 permanent link category: /motorcycle Wed, 21 Jun 2006Curious as to the status of the theoretical black Ninja 250 which Lake City Kawasaki claimed they'd be getting in, I called them back. "Oh, we haven't see that bike yet." "Ok," says I, "and no word on a red one?" "Nope, they're really hard to find. I don't think anybody has any new ones left any more." Riiight. So I typed "Kawasaki" into a yellow pages search, and started calling. Bellevue: "No, we don't have any, but I think the 2007 models are coming out in two weeks. I'm sure you want to wait for a 2007 model, right?" Kawasaki normally releases the next-year Ninja 250s in September. Whatever. Enumclaw: "Nope, they're really hard to find. No one really has any more 250s in stock right now. Haven't heard they're coming out in two weeks, though, they usually release the new 250s in September." Kent: "Yeah, I'm looking at four right now: yellow, blue and red." Monroe: "Yep, we still have a yellow one available." Renton: "I've got two left, a silver one and a blue one. Yeah, the silver's an '05, that's right." Waldron: "No, we're sold out of them. Good luck finding one, they're getting pretty scarce." Ok. So if you've got them, there's no mention of their scarcity. If you haven't, they're made of pure unobtanium. I really hate vehicle dealers sometimes. Kent wins though, and has a small deposit from me on the red one. I guess I'm really buying a Ninja 250. Posted at 11:50 permanent link category: /motorcycle The Le Mans is finally gone. Even with the bike out of the garage, and the money in the bank, it doesn't feel quite real yet. I keep expecting to check the bank website and find the money gone. "Sorry, turns out that check was made of fairy dust! Where'd you get that thing, anyway?" I'm left with the shop stand, which the buyer didn't want, and the spare front tire, which is so old at this point that I'm not sure I feel comfortable even giving it away. I'll probably post it on Craigslist anyway, with the caveat that it's 3 years old. It's still probably better than a bald front tire. I'm not sure what exactly happens now. I'm still excited about pursuing a 250, but I'm also kind of ready to stop worrying about motorcycles for a bit. I'd like to sell the Z, but I'd better have the sidecar functional by that point or it'll be the bicycle for me. Hmm. Bicycles don't have insurance payments or use gasoline.... I couldn't have a bicycle as my primary transportation, unfortunately. If I were in a compact city it could work, but in Seattle, everything's so spread out that I'd spend hours just getting from place to place. I called Lake City Kawasaki, and they claim that "no one has any" Ninja 250s right now. We'll see about that. Chances are decent that he's right, but I'll do my own research before I believe it. A friend mentioned that I would do well to wait until July, so I don't have to pay the Monorail tax (which apparently ends June 30th). Noted, but if I find the right bike, I'll probably have to jump on it, no matter the date. Posted at 10:58 permanent link category: /motorcycle Mon, 19 Jun 2006Seriously, don't read on if you hate needles. I went into the doctor's office this morning so they could check on my cholesterol level -- they discovered it was 251 a month ago! I've been trying a lovely pill-a-day since then, to see if it would help. I also had this obnoxious "hives" thing happening, which I wanted to run past the doctor. So, I sat down and chatted with the doctor for a bit. In particular, she noticed the hives (which have been getting worse on a day-by-day basis), and her eyes got kind of wide when I told her that was pretty much a 24/7 occurrence. She jumped up and came back with a syringe full of something for the swelling. After a follow-up question about side effects on my part ("none, really, your arm will probably be sore..."), she lined up and plunged the needle into my shoulder. "Which arm do you want to be sore?" Great. Actually, it was amazingly painless, but I really don't enjoy being jabbed with needles. That was all fine, and the theory is that that shot will keep me hive-free by reducing my tendency to inflammation. Here's hoping the reality lives up to the theory; I'd greatly enjoy being less itchy. Really, is there any time you wouldn't enjoy being less itchy? (And who doesn't want to hear about somebody else's hives! I mean, come on!) So, on to the best part. The phlebotomist came in after a bit of wait. She beckoned me out, and we went back to her little station, where I sat down in her chair. The little arm support was folded down in front of me, and I mentally prepared myself. I'm not real fond of having my blood drawn, and this time was no exception. First, a tiny bit of background. I remembered last night that I was going in for this cholesterol check in the morning, but I couldn't remember what the fasting period was. Was it 12 hours? That sounded about right. Due to schedule craziness, I had lunch at 2:30 or so, and wasn't able to get into a dinner scenario until 9:00 that night -- crap! 9 am doctor's appointment! 12 hours! So, I decided to skip dinner, I mean, better safe than sorry. I'd hate to screw up the blood draw and have to do it again. So, on with our story. The phlebotomist set me up, wrapped the little druggie tubing around my upper arm, and located a juicy vein. *pop*! went the needle, and she was drawing blood. Of course, I didn't see any of this, since I look away, on the theory that my imagination is not going to be as vivid as the real thing. Huh huh. Riiiight. It was pretty painless, but the knowledge that there's a hair-thin sliver of metal inside a vein, supping on my life fluid has never been pleasing to me. She pulled out the needle and pressed some cotton over the wound, the whole thing finished in about 30 seconds. Unfortunately, in that time, my world had gotten weird. I looked over at her, a pattern of cracked safety glass superimposed over my vision. I don't know how to describe what was happening to my hearing, but in a TV show, they'd simulate the effect by adding a lot of reverb and making it sound really distant and hollow. I vaguely recall a lot of rushing-blood sounds. My head felt light, and I was suddenly sweating much more than the situation warranted. "Do you want some water?" she asked. "I can't really see," I responded, wittily. "Ok, well that's perfectly normal, some people just don't like having their blood drawn." The words seemed to be coming from far away, and I was having a hard time correlating the sound I was hearing with what limited information I could gather from my eyes. I wondered if I was going to pass out. Looking back on it, I can see they treated me with a fair amount of concern as they asked if I wanted to lie down. I think I responded coherently, but I for all I know, I might have just dribbled and said "floobey da goo-ga" -- they would have understood that to mean "yes" as much as if I'd said, "why yes, that sounds like an excellent idea." The short, crew-cut nurse and the phlebotomist guided me carefully back about 3 feet to a couch, and I laid down with my feet up on the arm. Things got a little bit better, but I still felt like I was looking through a translucent desert floor, and everything was tingling. I was freezing cold and really warm at the same time. The nurse explained how he used to be a medic in the military, and he would have to lay soldiers down when they fainted in formation, and put their gear under their legs -- s'what you get for standing perfectly still with your knees locked, I guess. "This is a little trick I learned in the military," he said. At that moment, I would have believed he'd learned it at the Jedi academy under the tutelage of Chewbacacca. "Aaarggggh! Yuuuur rruuuuugh!" I wanted to respond. My head hurt just thinking about trying to make Wookie noises. As I slowly came back to my senses, I sipped some water and ate a few of the crackers they'd given me ("Oh, 19 hours of fasting? That's above and beyond the call of duty, aaand your blood sugar is probably just a little bit low..."). I looked around, and realized I was lying on a couch in the kids' room: there was a Shrek II DVD sitting there, and some toys, and a silent TV staring back at me. I was still shaking a bit, and sweating, but my hand was freezing from the cold-pack they'd handed me at some point. I was still clutching a tissue the doctor had given me after the shot, although I'd turned out to be "not much of a bleeder." Yay me! I gradually felt more and more like a human and less like a kaleidoscopic acid-toy. I had a moment when I thought I was going to break my nearly 20-year no-barfing streak, but it passed. Still, it's amazing what you can fight through to get to a toilet when it feels like your insides would really rather be outside. Finally, everything was about back to normal, although I still felt weak and lightheaded. I asked the phlebotomist, and she said that whole episode I'd just had usually happens from very low blood pressure -- the veins dilate, you've got less blood than you did a second ago, and everything goes downhill very quickly. Including, of course, all the blood which no longer has enough pressure behind it to fight gravity all the way up to your brain. Whoops. So, let this be a lesson to you. 8 hours is an acceptable amount of fasting. 10 hours is ideal. 12 hours is overkill. 19 hours is heroic to the point of idiocy. Plus, I'm a little girl when it comes to needles, apparently. Posted at 22:16 permanent link category: /misc Sun, 18 Jun 2006
Apparently, raccoons like cherries
Even when unripe.
Posted at 17:05 permanent link category: /misc Tue, 13 Jun 2006
The starter is dead. Long live the starter!
This weekend was a WMRRA race weekend, and Jesse was in full force, turning in a 2:13.9 lap as his best (that's better than his previous best). I was also there, to film things, as has been my wont since he started racing. Of course, to film something properly, you really need the proper gear: camera, tripod, etc. For a day-long event, it also makes sense to bring suitable refreshment: a small cooler with drinks and refrigerables; other, less frigophyllic foods; reasonable quantities of water. One also needs certain other supplies to protect from excessive sunlight exposure: hat, sunscreen, umbrella, what have you. Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that it's a big wad of stuff, and it's more than really fits on a solo motorcycle. Enter the sidecar rig. Perfect! So I rode the sidecar rig down on Saturday, and filmed my heart out. It was great. As is usual these days, the bike's starter was slow, a gentle prodding reminder that I needed to pull it soon and see what all I could fix up. On Sunday morning, I loaded up the sidecar again. Hat, cooler, water bottle, bag, camera, tripod. Certainly not a full load, but really more than I wanted to try carrying on a bike. I rolled the rig out and locked up the garage. I turned the key, pulled on the choke lever (ah, that new choke lever is so much better than the old one, thought I), and hit the starter button. Ck! LLLrrrrrrRRRRrrrrr. Hmm. That's not right. I hit it again, greeted by the same slow, pained groan. Uh-oh, looks like my battery really is dying. Crap! I opened the garage back up and grabbed the battery charger, which also has the handy 50A "engine start" feature. Tried again, pumping 50 fat amps into the battery. Ck! LLLlrrrrrRRRrrrrr.... rrr... Silence. Uh-oh. I tried again, just to be sure that what I thought had happened had really happened. Ck! mmmmmmmm. Oh. Yep, the starter is gone. Rest in peace, old starter. Most likely, it welded itself together after 23ish years of use gradually loosened everything up, increasing internal resistance until it was pulling way too much current, heating up, and eventually destroying itself. So, I'm now on a quest to find a replacement starter, since I suspect the one I have isn't rebuildable. Ick. At least it croaked at home, instead of down at Pacific Raceways. Thanks for small favors, little starter. Posted at 13:28 permanent link category: /motorcycle Fri, 09 Jun 2006Well, the Ninja 250 alternator parts are off, anyway. I just shipped off a box containing mostly packing peanuts, with a few very dense motorcycle parts interleaved like lasagne noodles. I'm hoping that ElectroSport will be able to get back to me soon with a lovely column of numbers, correlating RPM to output power. That would be excellent information to know. Posted at 14:30 permanent link category: /motorcycle
The return of the pocket knife
In 1996, I was given a very nice Laguiole pocket knife for Christmas. I'd been carrying it for a number of years as my apple-cutting knife, when it suddenly went missing a few weeks ago in Portland. Despite searching the places it would have likely fallen out of my pocket, I didn't find it. Drat! So, I started the search for a new pocket knife. They're so handy that I didn't really want to be without one. A friend recommended Knifeworks as a good place to buy pocket knives, so I took a look around. The first model my eye lit upon was the CRKT M16. That's about the perfect shape, in my mind, and would probably be small enough to be unobtrusive. With a bit of cursory searching after I found that, I decided that it was the right thing -- the price was certainly right. So, I ordered it. I waited patiently for it to arrive (ordering things online is never quite as instantly-gratifying as buying them locally). I got a call one day, about when it should be arriving; it was Knifeworks calling. The woman on the other end explained that there'd been a mixup, and my order had been sent to someone else, and their order sent to me. Could I please send it back? No worries, but how annoying (they paid for return shipment, of course). However, in the mean time, I'd been doing research, having gotten more interested in the subject. I ran across this article on steel types in my wanderings, and after a thorough reading, I began to have more misgivings about the M16 I'd ordered. On the one hand, that knife is an excellent price. On the other, I really don't like liner locks (the kind where part of the liner springs into place once the blade is open, to lock the blade in place): I always feel like I'm going to lop off the end of my finger, since the unlocking tab is invariably in the path of the closing blade. I was uncertain of the liner lock, but swayed by the low price. Then, in the steel article, I found that the steel CRKT is using in that blade (which isn't even listed in the article, but is logically "below" a steel rated "just barely acceptable for daily use") is sub-par. That at least partly explains the low price, I guess. All this brought about a certain amount of buyer's remorse. When I got the call that the order had been cross-shipped, I took it as my cue to change my order. For a birthday present several years ago, I was given a Benchmade knife, exact model unknown. I carried it for about a year, clipped to my pocket (as is the style with these things), until one day a shoulder bag grabbed the clip and slid the knife out of my pocket without my knowing it. Of course, when I went back to look for it an hour later, it was gone. Crap! That was actually what spurred me to carry the non-clip Laguiole. Anyway, thinking back to that knife, which I really liked, I decided to change my order to something about the same. After some deliberation, I decided to order a Benchmade Mini-Griptilian. It's got a few things going for it: the "axis lock," which is a much better locking system, to my mind; 154CM steel in the blade -- in contrast to the AUS4 in the CRKT knife, 154CM is among the best rated steels for knife use; it's smaller than the M16 -- I realized after looking at a ruler that the M16 is huge and would have been hard to carry every day. Of course, it's also $20 more than the CRKT M16. I got the call that the Benchmade shipped on Wednesday, so with any luck I'll be seeing it today or Monday, but I'm resigned to waiting until Wednesday or Thursday before it arrives. I guess the advantage or ordering stuff online is that it's kind of like waiting for a Christmas present to arrive, except you already know it's going to be exactly what you want. Posted at 11:04 permanent link category: /gadgets Thu, 08 Jun 2006So, I've been thinking, since my excellent, all-flowing-right ride this last Sunday (ride report pending), that I'm not so all-fired convinced that I need to get rid of the Z750s. Since then, I've been pretty actively enjoying the bike. It hasn't annoyed me once. Of course, it got 44 MPG on that trip. I was working on my riding technique, and it was working really well. The bike was flawless, as it's always been. But more importantly, I realized that I was fitting on it well, and it suited what I was doing really well. The problem is, it's still going to get in the low 30s for around-town MPG. It's still top-heavy. It's still overpowered for most of the riding I do. I don't know what exactly I want to do at this point. I suspect my decision will depend at least in part on how hard it proves to be to sell either or both of the motorcycles. Posted at 19:29 permanent link category: /motorcycle Wed, 07 Jun 2006
The Le Mans is back on the market
The guy who was going to buy the Le Mans has backed out, so the bike is back on the market. I'm sick of sitting on it, so I've reduced the price to $6500. Hopefully that'll be more enticing to someone. Posted at 13:34 permanent link category: /motorcycle I finally sat down and figured out how to add an RSS feed to this journal thing I've been doing. At least, it works for me. As you can see, I also added a clever calendar-thingy at the top. Should make it much easier to find older entries, the one thing I wasn't so happy about when I made the switch to Blosxom. Hooray for plugin developers! Posted at 12:01 permanent link category: /misc
Slacking on my journalistic duties
I just realized that I haven't updated the theater journal in a while. The show I was last working on, noSIGNAL, went really well. It was only a three night run, and we managed to get 90% or better houses on all three nights. I think on Saturday (the final night) we turned people away. As expected, we did in fact put on three good shows despite all the hurdles. It would have been nice to have fewer hurdles, of course. I'm now on a kind of theatrical hiatus, with one more planned theater event this year: I'm going to be Tech Director of SketchFest Seattle again. There may be some amount of noSIGNAL work this year as well, but that's only to be expected with a show that good and a run that short. In any case, I'm pretty much theater-free until September. Now I just have to get started cleaning out my basement and trashing/giving-away/selling stuff. Anyone want some 1960s era SLR camera bodies and/or lenses? Posted at 11:09 permanent link category: /theater Sat, 03 Jun 2006
Well... that was a waste of time
Sound Rider (where I'm advertising my motorcycles for sale) asked me a week or two ago if I wanted to bring my bike(s) down to show at this Marketplace event they were planning for today. I said to myself, it's free, and it's marketing exposure. Why not? Just in case SR pulls that page (I would), this is one of the paragraphs: We've once again invited some of the most innovative manufacturers and vendors in the Northwest to come out and show the people what they've got. You'll see the latest in clothing, touring gear, bikes, electronics and more. Cool, sounds good to me. Next to it is a photograph showing a huge hall, with people, motorcycles, displays and so on, going on for hundreds of yards. It's pretty impressive looking. Looks like one of the annual International Motorcycle Shows, in fact. Fabulous! As I've so skillfully foreshadowed, it was anything but fabulous. It was, in fact, held in a small parking lot attached to Cycle Works in Renton. The used bike display area contained no more or less than five motorcycles: two sidecar rigs (which immediately attracted all attention, to the detriment of the other bikes there), a scooter, my bike, and a poorly blinged-out CBR600. Instead of the "latest in clothing, touring gear, bikes, electronics and more" we had the Sound Rider store (with some interesting stuff, I'll admit) and a booth promoting service dogs and motorcycling. Or something. Aaaand, a lot of empty parking lot. I encountered Tom Mehren, head mover-and-shaker at Sound Rider, and said, "what happened to all the vendors?" He replied, "yeah, we didn't charge them any money to join in, so they all bailed -- they didn't have any incentive to come. We're not going to do that again." I bet. The turn-out was impressive, too. I probably saw a total of 40 people walk by my bike (and I was there most of the time, since there was nothing else to do). Maybe 5 people actually stopped and read the little sheet I'd made up and hung on the handlebar (and a huge thank you to Cycle Works for letting me laminate that, and use a rubber band -- it sounds trifling, but it meant a lot to me after getting to Kinkos just outside of business hours twice in a row). The sheet ended up being a hassle, since I discovered that Xerox (nee Tektronix) wax printer printouts don't actually perform very graciously under the heat of a laminator. Yeah, it turns out the reds just completely dissappear, leaving you with a picture which looks like it's been soaking up UV for years. I ended up being situated next to a nice but slightly quarrely couple trying to sell their Goldwing sidecar rig. It was great being able to leave my stuff there and wander, but I grew weary of the tit-for-tat arguing pretty quickly. Add to all this that I didn't get much sleep last night (had to have the bike there by 9), and neglected to pack any sun protection (having assumed it would be indoors) and I was one unhappy camper. I hope SR gets their marketing game together for next year, but I'm unlikely to be attending. And now, for some high-quality naptime. Posted at 13:28 permanent link category: /motorcycle Fri, 02 Jun 2006I got up far too early this morning to go meet a potential Le Mans buyer in Sumas, WA. That's about 13 feet from the Canadian border, inland from the more popular Blaine, WA crossing. It's also two hours from my house, and about four (!) from Dennis's (the potential buyer) house. Anyway, I did the straight-up-I-5 route to get up there, because I was uncertain of how long it would take, and I started about 30 minutes later than I wanted to. The ride up promised to be awful, as I started out in that heavy mist that isn't quite rain, but is really too thick and downward-falling to be mist. However, as I rumbled northward, the mist died off, and things started drying out. Fortunately, I-5 went by quickly. It was long, straight and boring. Hoo boy. But the Le Mans is certainly at home on the freeway. No problem passing anyone who gets uppity. I turned off 5 in Bellingham, and headed over to Highway 9, which is a much smaller, much more interesting road. It winds through farmland, with lots of low-speed sweeping curves to follow property lines. Alas, that section of road didn't last nearly long enough, and I was shortly at our designated meeting spot. We chose one of the few open restaurants in Sumas, and sat down to breakfast. We ended up discussing a wide variety of subjects, only touching on motorcycles now and again. I had pretty much decided beforehand that this trip wouldn't result in a sale, so I was just treating it as a social visit at the midpoint of a nice ride. We traded bikes for a quarter mile of Sumas' exciting urban asphalt, with Dennis declaring the Le Mans lighter-feeling and better-steering than his R1100R. I didn't notice too much difference, but I'd already ridden a very similar bike, and knew about what to expect. I was getting ready to depart, when Dennis paused, and was obviously pondering something. Suddenly, I remembered that he'd actually expressed interest in buying this bike I'd ridden up. He turned to me and said, "I guess we need to agree on a price, then." Oh! Right! So, after five minutes, we'd hammered out the details, and I parted with a glowing feeling of having finally sold the Le Mans. The ride back was very pleasant, particularly as I diverted to take Chuckanut Drive from Bellingham, which parallels (if you can consider a nicely curvy, waterfront road to parallel anything) I-5. I found myself singing Variations on the Theme of Chuckanut -- mostly repeating "Chuckanut Drive!" -- into my helmet. Very nice, if somewhat silly. Arrival at home didn't actually see me at home. Instead, I rode straight to Lake City Kawasaki to see if they had a lovely red Ninja 250 for me (not buying yet, since the deal for the Le Mans isn't absolutely done yet). Alas, they were sold out, but tell me they'll have a black one available some time this month. I was really hoping for a red one, but I could probably make do. In all honesty, the biggest difference between the two is that the black model will probably show dirt a lot faster. I'm a lazy bike washer. Anyway, overall an excellent day. I'm looking forward to finalizing the sale of the Le Mans, and getting it into the hands of someone who'll actually ride it properly. And, of course, looking forward to getting my butt back on a Ninja 250. Posted at 17:10 permanent link category: /motorcycle Thu, 01 Jun 2006I decided to take a late-evening jaunt down to Fry's this evening. The weather has been off and on rain all day, so I knew I was taking a chance. The ride down was perfectly dry, and quite pleasant. I discovered that the marked speed on a particular interchange was estimated very conservatively. I got to watch as a poser in a lowered, fancy-wheeled car ran wide on a curve in front of me (to no one's actual detriment, except perhaps to his ego), suggesting either lack of skill or lack of attention. Fry's itself was, as always, a huge bin of temptation. I managed to restrain myself and only get a DVD set and some CDR envelopes in addition to the batteries I'd originally gone for. However, when I got outside, I was greeted by post-sunset deep dusk, and pounding rain. Well, I thought it was pounding at the time. I secured my booty, and donned my helmet while still under the cover of Fry's ostentatious overhang. I leapt aboard the bike (more or less), and headed out. As I rounded the onramp to I-405 northbound, at a conservative pace, the rain seemed to increase in intensity a bit. By the time I reached the end of the ramp (possibly amplified by the passing traffic), the rain seemed to have doubled from its previous intensity. When I finally got to a section of road where I didn't have someone right in front of me, I confirmed that the rain intensity had, in fact, doubled from what I'd seen before. The rain didn't slacken until I was nearly home, of course, and well after the Aerostich suit's notorious "leaking crotch" had reared its chilly head. My gloves, treated a year or two ago for some modicum of waterproofness, squished. My feet seemed dry enough, which is something of a miracle considering that my boots are not nominally waterproof, and there was even more water at foot-level than there was at glove-level. And now, I sit here slowly evaporating, drying out. It's nice to be home and inside. Maybe I'll watch a DVD. Posted at 21:57 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
