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Categories: all aviation bicycle gadgets misc motorcycle theater
Fri, 05 Sep 2008I thought some of my half-dozen readers might enjoy seeing the post-crash pictures of the leather riding suit I was wearing. This, my friends (to quote a certain geriatric contender-for-office) is exactly why you wear your riding gear each and every time you go out:
Note that if I weren't wearing this suit, I would now be sitting in a hospital awaiting skin grafts over 30-40% of my body. Riding gear good! Posted at 10:11 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sun, 31 Aug 2008Racing yesterday was definitely story-worthy. The schedule for the weekend was unusual. Normally, we'd have two practices on Saturday, followed by a practice then two races on Sunday. This weekend was the endurance race weekend, and so Sunday was entirely taken up with endurance races. That meant all the rest of the racing had to happen on Saturday. Thus, we had one practice in the morning, a race at noon, and a race at 3:20. I felt kind of shortchanged, since that meant I got 3/5ths of the time on the track I normally would. The morning practice passed fairly uneventfully, although I had one notable occasion: I was trying to take corners faster, fully aware that this was one of the places I could stand to improve. As I was entering turn 2, which is a wide, sweeping left-hand curve at the end of the front straight, I decided to not slow down as much as I normally do. I remembered Jesse saying that he'd been able to take 2 at basically full throttle in 5th gear, so I figured I'd head that direction. So I entered in 5th gear, going faster than normal (although how much faster, I couldn't tell you). I made it around the turn, but I had a slightly butt-clenching moment when both tires started drifting sideways. It was very controllable, and I didn't spaz (for spazzing would have certainly caused me to crash). But it was a data point: at least on those relatively cold tires, I'd reached the traction limit. I was also scraping the footpeg, which is getting to be a real irritant for me. I didn't make as much progress on braking late into 3 as I wanted, but it was otherwise a decent practice. I had one other moment that was just dumb: coming into the bus stop, where one must slow way down and shift into 2nd or 1st, my foot missed the shifter, and I entered in 5th gear. Not a big deal, just clutch in and do some quick shifting, but it slowed me down, and the group of riders I'd been following disappeared. I tried to turn off the camera after the practice only to discover that it was frozen again. I guess my new very-solid mount is transmitting too much vibration to the camera. Again. I'm not thrilled with this. I pulled out the shim I'd been hoping would keep down the up-and-down vibration I noticed in a test in the garage, and decided I'd try again for the race. The first race rolled around at noon, and I got myself suited up. Turned on the camera, but it wasn't having any of it. It wouldn't even turn on. I gave up, and left the balky thing behind, since I really didn't need to be late to the race for this. So I rolled out, and did my warm-up lap. Nothing notable there. Gridded for the start, although as I did, one of the new riders next to me suddenly turned, closing the path another rider had been aiming for, moving way too fast. He swerved right in front of me, and I caught it at the last minute, jamming on my front brake so hard the back tire came up and slapped back down. That was the end of that, but I have a vague memory that the rider who caused me to slam on the brakes was the same rider who I shall refer to as number XXX for the remainder of the story. The start was fine, and I kept up with the back of the pack. I could have started better, but it wasn't bad. I followed the pack all the way into 3, but they were so bunched up in there that I fell back just out of a desire not to be too close to the crashing that seemed imminent. No crashes occurred, but somehow I found myself behind 146, Mark, and XXX. Mark was able to pass XXX without too much trouble half a lap later, but I found myself utterly stuck. Every time we'd go through a corner, he held me back, but every time there was a straight or corner exit, he'd pull away. I finally realized he was riding a bigger bike, and learned after the race that it was a 350. But every corner, he'd slow way down, and I couldn't figure out how to pass him safely -- I don't have the technique, and I don't have the power to make up for my lack of technique. So, I found myself thwarted at every turn, with a growing sense that I wanted to pass this guy no matter what. As he ground down to playground speeds through the bus stop, I determined that I'd try to get him around turn 2, which was the next likely place. Of course, he disappeared hundreds of yards in front of me down the straight, but I knew I could get him in 2, if not 3 or 4. So I tucked way down, and even saw the tachometer pass 10k RPM, which was my previous top speed. I was ready for this guy. I decided that since my tires were probably warmer, I could try hitting 2 fast again, like I had in practice. I kept the throttle pinned, with barely a waver as I prepared to turn in. I turned in, following my usual line, and the following events happened very quickly: I realized I was going too fast. I'd leaned over as far as I could, and the footpeg was starting to scrape. Damn that peg! My brain passed along the urgent, high-priority message: You're going too fast! An agonizingly long quarter of a second later, I decided I'd better slow down, so I rolled off the throttle. I didn't chop it, but I reduced throttle a lot. As I did this, I traced out the line I was following. It crossed into the dirt on the side of the track. As a result of rolling off the throttle, the suspension balance was slightly upset, which caused the rear tire to lose some traction (I think). This part isn't as clear to me. At no point did I touch the brakes, so at least I wasn't making that mistake (in a full lean, the available traction in a motorcycle's tire is basically all going into resisting sideways force; there's nothing left for slowing down). Something caused the lightened tire to skip, and my world went blurry. Suddenly, my hip hurt, and I realized I was on the ground. I remember thinking, "Well, this does hurt a bit. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised." I slid nicely along the track, the leather suit and gloves doing their jobs perfectly. Then I started rolling, with my arms flopping around, probably about the point I hit the gravel. I realized what was happening, and tried to hold my arms out to stop the rolling. That was also about the point I came to a stop. I looked up to see the bike lying a dozen feet in front of me on its side. I did the quickest body check I've ever done, and decided nothing was seriously damaged. I got up, still nothing causing pain; cool. I walked over to the bike to shut it off, and it blub-blub-blub'd to a halt just as I bent down to flick the OFF switch. The corner worker on the opposite side of the track yelled something, and made expansive "come over here!" arm gestures. I quickly grabbed the bike and leaned it up against the tire wall. I wanted it on its sad little tires, but I realize now that I was also doing a service to anyone else who might crash in the same spot, so I'm glad I did it. I jogged across the track, since I saw some bikes rounding turn 1, which meant they would be passing me in a few seconds. As I jogged, I shook the gravel out of my gloves, and tried to make further assessments as to my state of health. Certainly the first thing they'd ask was whether I was alright. I seemed to be. I pulled off helmet and gloves. The gloves were dusty, and my thumb had a tiny numb spot on it, as if I'd whacked it really hard against something. There was also a dark red blood blister developing at the base of my left palm, but that was the extent of the visible damage. I checked over my helmet, but to my amazement, it hadn't touched down anywhere. That's $500 I won't have to spend again today, at least! The woman who was working turn 2 asked me if I wanted to be examined by the medics. After some theatrical patting of limbs and checking of collarbones, I said I was fine. I knew my hip was going to bruise (although at the time, it really didn't feel damaged at all), and my thumb felt weird. The bike, however, didn't look so good. The crash truck showed up and they loaded the bike in. I grabbed the number plate that had parted company with the bike at the track/gravel border, and hopped aboard as well. The big problem was that the front wheel was torqued about 30° away from where the handlebars were pointing. The left peg was pushed up into the bike, and the left numberplate holder was a comical mess of twisted aluminum. They dropped me off at my pit area, and I stood back to assess things. The front end was definitely in trouble. The shifter rod was bent in a comical S shape, and the shift lever itself was pointing at the sky. With the assistance of many of the other vintage riders, I was able to put it all basically right. I got the engine started again, and rode it up and down the pits once. I called Tim over to tech the bike again. I told him what I'd fixed, and my misgivings about the front-end: although I'd been able to get the wheel pretty much straight to the handlebars, it wasn't moving up and down like it should. He gave it a push, and said, "If you want, I can give you this tech sticker and you can go race, but I wouldn't do that if it were my bike." I agreed with him, and decided I wouldn't go out again. The problem was that the front suspension was much stickier than it should be. I could get it to move with a big shove, but me sitting down on the bike, for instance, didn't move it a millimeter. That's not good. The suspension is what keeps the wheels on the ground over bumps, and particularly while leaned over, any inability to track over the bumps means the tire loses traction. And what did I just do? Lost traction while leaned over. I wasn't real keen to try that experience on again. So, I sat out the second race, glumly sitting in the stands that overlook the bus stop as the little vintage bikes roared by. I noted that every lap, XXX fell further and further behind, sourly thinking, "I was behind that jerk. That would have been me." Of course, what puts a bow on the whole thing is that this was probably my last race of the season. I am most likely committed to something else for the last race on October 4th and 5th, and won't be able to race. So my 2008 race season was capped by a dunder-headed mechanical failure on the first race of a weekend absolutely packed with vintage races, and then by a stupid crash after one lap (a 2:16 lap, I noted, stuck behind XXX) in the first race of the last weekend. Clap. Clap. Clap. So I guess now I have time to do all those winter projects I was thinking about. Postscript: While I was at the race, someone came up and said, "Ian Johnston?" He went on to say, "You don't know me, but..." and explained how he'd been reading this journal after finding my website in a search for BMW R65 information. That was pretty cool. We ended up talking for a long time about these vintage bikes, and racing, and all that. He came over after my crash and expressed his sympathy, watching with his two sons as I attempted to straighten a well-bent shift lever. Of course, I've completely forgotten his name, but hi! Thanks for reading. It's neat to meet people who read this stuff, and who aren't compelled to do so by familial or friendship bonds. Post-postscript: In the cold hard light of morning, I'm almost exactly as damaged as I first surmised. I have what's going to develop into a grapefruit-sized bruise on my left hip. There's a small raised bump on my left forearm. My thumb feels normal, and the blood blister is ugly but painless. I added a few tiny scrapes in various places on my arms and legs. But that's it. No (new) joint pain, no exciting new aches other than the hip. That was, in almost any sense, the perfect crash. A nice lowside while leaned way over. If it hadn't munged up the bike's front-end, I wouldn't even give it a second thought. Other than, you know, "Hey, don't do that again." Posted at 09:39 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sun, 24 Aug 2008
Tee hee: more CAD goofing around
I forgot how much fun it is to play around in CAD programs. I decided to model (approximately) the new camera mount, pictures of which appear below.  The real thing ended up a bit more mangled than that. In order to relieve stress on the hose clamps, the corners of the ears got rounded over with a file. The camera wouldn't angle far enough up, so I ended up cutting down the top edge of the 3-fingered mount in an ungraceful way. Posted at 19:29 permanent link category: /motorcycle I finally got my new mill squared up and ready for serious work a couple of days ago, so I decided to christen it with a job that absolutely couldn't be done on the lathe: a new, steadier mount for the on-bike camera. I had these crazy plans for a very complex clamping assembly that would clamp onto a fork tube. Very swanky. Very nearly impossible to do given the facilities and skill I have at the moment. Then I was struck with inspiration for another way to do it: a much simpler mount plus bog-standard hose clamps. It worked perfectly:
Posted at 01:41 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sat, 23 Aug 2008I finally got around to editing and posting my on-the-bike footage from Sounds of the Past:
It was a all good until that last time down the straight... Posted at 08:40 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sun, 17 Aug 2008The engine started exactly like it always does. I must have done things right. There's a little bit of oil coming from the left exhaust pipe, but that's almost certainly the thick coat from the holy-piston run, which I didn't clean out. Both spark plugs look good, and I've finished my first breakin run. Pity I'm gonna have to do the remaining breakin on the track, which is not really the ideal environment (although it's better than babying it along backroads). Posted at 11:45 permanent link category: /motorcycle Curious to see if I could duplicate Jesse's fuel flow results, I set out to do some testing of my own this morning. The first test was done with the tank very low on fuel, maybe 1/2" over the top of the ON tube on the petcock. That is, about 2" of fuel in the tank. I set up my tinfoil trough under both carbs, and pulled the drain plugs. Watching the sweep second hand on my watch, I turned on the fuel for 1 minute as precisely as I could, probably within one second. I examined my measuring cup: about 1/3 cup at the bottom of the meniscus dip, which looked to be around 3 oz from what I could tell. Math tells me it's actually 2 2/3 oz. Yesterday, I did some pessimistic math, and decided that these engines need roughly 2.7 oz/min of fuel flow to develop 14 HP. And my test resulted in 2.666. Hmm. That could be a problem. So, I filled the tank nearly to the top, which is about 6 inches of fuel. I repeated the test, and the flow was obviously much more capacious: at the end of a minute, I saw 1 2/3 cups, or 13 1/3 oz! I didn't do these tests with anything like the precision necessary to be repeatable and useful for actual research, but it was a dramatic demonstration of the effects of hydrostatic pressure. It also suggests that to avoid fuel starvation issues, the tank should always be full or near to it. Posted at 11:14 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sat, 16 Aug 2008
The hopefully-penultimate racebike update
I just got back in from doing the final prep on the racebike. The engine's back in the frame, all the bits are attached, and it's basically ready to go. I still need to pour gas in the tank, but that's the only thing to be done before it should theoretically start. As it was nearly 8:30 pm by the time I got to that point, I decided to be nice to my neighbors, and not start my 120 dB racebike. So, the bike sits, fully assembled (but not quite done -- I haven't done the final safety-wiring, in case I need to pull some things apart in the near future), and ready to go. I've got gas in the can, so tomorrow morning, not too early, I'll fill 'er up, and let 'er rip. You know, hopefully. When I put the engine back together, I set the timing back to about where it had been when the whole thing went kablooey. Just for yuks, I checked to see where it fired the spark. It was at about 80° of advance. It's supposed to be set at 40°. 35°, for example is power-robbingly far off the mark. Anything over 40° is considered dangerous. I'd say maybe, just maybe, having it set to 80° could have caused my problem. Ouchie. I sent a mea culpa email to the 160 list, explaining what happened, so that hopefully no incoming newbies will follow in my dubious footsteps. Other than that, everthing has looked perfect. I reset the timing back to 40°, where it's supposed to be, and everything else is in readiness. Jesse did some flow-testing with his bike, to see how much gas actually flows out of the carburetors. Based on some calculations he did (admittedly for an EFI system, but the numbers should still be close), our bikes require about 4 oz per minute of fuel. Well, something like that, don't quote me on numbers. Anyway, he was able to get 5.5 oz of fuel out of his carbs in a minute, which suggests that there's an acceptable buffer available. The 4 oz figure is only for peak power, which is only a situation you run into part of the time on the track; 5.5 is therefore an even greater buffer than it sounds like. I will do the same test tomorrow, assuming I can figure out a sufficiently precise measuring contrivance to measure fuel quantity. Hopefully it'll be about the same, but I'm pretty sure that my problems were caused by that whole 80° fiasco, and not a lack of fuel to the carbs. So, assuming I did everything right (and I'm pretty sure I did), I should be able to start the bike tomorrow, and be back in the running for perfect attendance/last place in the 2008 season. Posted at 21:05 permanent link category: /motorcycle Thu, 14 Aug 2008I took the racebike engine apart, all the way down to the last screw. I already posted pictures of running the engine cases through the dishwasher (hint for future generations: rinse all the kerosene off if you do this -- my dishwasher smells like kerosene now). With everything cleaned up, and all the bits of dead piston removed, it all looks pretty good. The cases cleaned up nicely, although the dishwasher detergent (phosphate free) etched the aluminum a bit, so the cases are noticeably darker than before washing. I was able to get the bottom end of the engine reassembled yesterday, and it appears to have gone together nicely. I have to say, the design of the transmission is extremely elegant. I really liked having a chance to play with the gears and see how they work (just like I thought they did, but I'd never seen it before). I was afraid of taking the bottom end apart, just because it looked very daunting from the diagrams and pictures in the manual. In fact, except for one spring-loaded lever, it was a piece of cake, and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. It's that "fear of the unknown" thing. I got a start today, cleaning off the cylinders, and getting ready to fit the pistons. Unfortunately, the first piston out of my kit ended up being the wrong size! I overbored the cylinders as part of the rebuild earlier this year, to .5mm oversize. The piston kit I got is marked .5mm oversize, but one of the pistons inside is standard size. I've contacted Tim O, who sold the kit to me, and who had several others; hopefully he can get me set up with a correctly-sized piston before too long. I can't assemble the engine without it, unless I want to use the old, un-holy piston (which is a possibility if it comes right down to it). There's a lot of measuring and checking to be done on the top end, and I'm debating now how much of it I want to do. I'm not really excited about doing any of it, but I feel like I should, particularly if I end up changing some of the critical gasket thicknesses. That changes how close the piston comes to the top of the engine, which can result in things whacking into each other. Obviously a situation to be avoided. I'll have to see how dramatically different the new head gasket is (that's the "big" one, in that the old one is something like 1.5mm, and the new one is something like .5mm -- 1mm is a lot of space inside an engine). The undersized piston kind of stops me in my tracks, unfortunately. I can fake along and do some of the stuff I need to do, but I'm very effectively prevented from making any substantial progress until I either get a new piston, or decide to use the old one. Arg. Posted at 10:48 permanent link category: /motorcycle Tue, 12 Aug 2008 Posted at 23:33 permanent link category: /motorcycle I just loaded all the engine cases from my racebike's engine into the dishwasher. This is apparently a good way to get engine cases clean, and doesn't involve any abrasives or harsh chemicals, which is a good thing. I am very worried that the close tolerances inside the engine not be damaged. I even discovered I have some non-phosphate detergent, which seems to be a good thing to avoid contamination on the aluminum. "We'll see." To set doubtless shrieking minds at ease: this is the step I'm taking after I scrubbed them thoroughly in kerosene, and dried them off. They're pretty clean, and this is just kind of a final step. Hopefully they'll come out all purty and sparkly (although I'll settle for clean and dry). Posted at 16:03 permanent link category: /motorcycle Mon, 11 Aug 2008This is mostly a Picture Post™. 
Yeah. That's pretty much not supposed to look like that. This may be the reason the engine stopped producing much power. Whattaya think? Posted at 13:53 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sat, 09 Aug 2008We arrived at the track today in plenty of time, and after a bit of rain, a bit of setup, and some bureaucracy, we were on the track. It was wet, but there wasn't actually rain falling. I took it easy, not knowing the limits of these tires in wet conditions. My lap times showed it: 2:35-2:40, where in dry conditions I had previously done 2:19. The bike wasn't working all that well, though. In early July, I got a new set of carburetors for the bike, which are bigger and should in theory allow the engine to produce more power. Jesse and I collaborated on the intake runners, and we had our first taste of power on the dyno at Ducati Seattle. However, this was our first time out on the actual track with the new carbs. Jesse was wide-eyed with amazement at the transformation of his bike. He was powering down the straight, keeping up with people who'd formerly disappeared on the horizon. I, however, was not so pleased. The bike ran like crap for the first lap (I thought I'd have to exit). The second and subsequent laps were better, obviously something cleared up -- we now theorize fouled plugs from a far-too-rich idle setting -- but still the engine ran with obviously too little power. Certainly nothing like Jesse experienced. So, having ruled out jetting (which we'd confirmed on the dyno was set about right), I started messing with the timing. This changes when exactly the spark fires as the piston moves up and down, and if you hit the sweet spot, the engine does noticeably better. If you're off the sweet spot, it turns in a mediocre performance, and if you're far off, it will run very poorly, or even damage the engine. I knew I was close, and so I went in the direction that seemed to make sense: further advanced. Mr. Bateman's advice was to go for nearly the stock full-advance point of 40°, and I was at about 33°. So each iteration, I'd advance a bit further, and the bike would run a little bit better. I seemed to reach a peak and go past it, so I rolled back to about where the peak was (the adjustment involved loosening two screws and whacking a rotating plate with a small hammer, so precision is not one of its strong points). Finally, the first race came. This was exciting, as the Sounds of the Past race series includes a 10-lap, Le Mans start race, which I showed via video in an earlier post. I didn't have any trouble with the start, and actually got off pretty well. I wasn't the fastest guy out there, but no real shock on that, I never have been. I was trading passes with #823, from Portland (I think that's the number, but I'm not sure), and actually catching up to #960, who had formerly had a distinct power advantage over me. I wasn't catching up fast, but my slightly greater skill brought me a little bit closer with each corner, and I figured in a few laps I would have passed him. Two laps in, as I was tucked down low over the tank in the front straight, I noticed that my tachometer was reading a little bit lower than the last lap. Not a lot, but I wondered why I should be down on power. The previous lap, I'd been able to get it up around 10k RPM, and hold it there, although this required a very distinct and uncomfortable squeeze to make myself as small as possible to the oncoming air. Then, as I rounded turn 1 (hardly a turn at all, but apparently it's a big deal at big-bike race speeds), I saw my RPM actually going down, and realized something was wrong. I launched my hand in the air, and continued to slow, despite holding open full throttle. #823 screamed past me after having been behind me for about half a lap. I pulled over to the side, debating whether I should pull all the way off. What could have gone wrong? Did I suck in a valve? Oh crap, I bet I sucked in a valve! This would be terrible, as it would require potentially scrapping a lot of the engine, depending on how it happened. Anyway, it didn't switch off like a valve should have done, it was a comparatively gradual decline: it might have taken 5 very long seconds. Possibly 6. So, I limped around the rest of the track. At full throttle, the bike wouldn't accelerate, but would maintain speed on the level. I had to downshift and upshift a few times to keep things rolling, and at least one of the shifts seemed very strange, as if I'd managed to shift from 4th to 2nd gear in one leap. I wondered what I could have possibly done that would affect both engine power and the transmission, but couldn't come up with anything. I also couldn't think beyond "broken valve," so obviously my brain wasn't firing on all cylinders yet, either. I pulled off at the track exit, and rolled up to the hot-tech guys, who were ready for me. I pulled in the clutch, knowing with a fair certainty that the engine would die as I did, and that I'd likely never get it running again without extensive work. "Oh, yeah, looks like you blew a head gasket," said one of the techs, pointing to the flow of oil down one cylinder. Well, that was actually a pretty benign failure, and it was conceivable I could fix that and be racing again today! He offered me a push to get started again, but I declined, explaining, "I don't think this engine is ever going to start again." I then pushed the bike back to my pit, breathing hard and sweating profusely under the hot riding suit. Pushing the bike any distance involved yet more muscles I didn't know I had, and of which I would have prefered to remain in ignorance. I got the bike back to the pit and sat back to cool down for a bit. I walked over to watch the last half of the race, and saw everyone passing by, but watching from the straight is one of the least interesting locations, particularly when you were most recently watching from the track itself. After the engine had cooled off, I started taking bit and pieces off to see what I could see. The spark plugs revealed the most interesting and doomful story: the right plug was a very odd oil-grey color, which I'd never seen before. The left plug was beautiful, a lovely tan with a hint of grey; exactly the color you want to see. Tim O suggested that I had actually busted a valve, and bade me look into the exhaust port of the suffering cylinder. I looked: one whole, healthy-looking valve. However, as long as I had the flashlight out, I switched my view around to the sparkplug hole. There, lurking casually in the top of the piston, was a ragged hole, the size of a dime. This is in a piston that's around an inch and a half across, so a dime is a pretty significant chunk of it. In any case, you never ever want to see a hole in a piston. That cemented it: I was done for the weekend, possibly for the season, depending on how hard it was to get replacement parts. I put the bike back together, my mood surprisingly upbeat. Upon reflection, I realized that "unavoidable" failures just don't bother me: they're part of racing. It was the "I should have known better" problems that really pissed me off and got me in a foul mood. So, I put things back together, and got myself ready for transport home. Jesse still had one race to run, and ended up placing 6th, which is quite an accomplishment, particularly in this day's crowd. I, meanwhile, have been plotting my course until the next race: work a corner tomorrow (they seem to be perpetually short of corner workers), and spend the next week disassembling and cleaning the engine. The majority of the damage will be the little chunks of molten piston that got sprayed everywhere, but fortunately there should be little or no permanent damage. It does mean I'll have to completely disassemble the engine and transmission, but this is actually an exciting prospect. I wanted to do that before, but even more than that, I wanted a working engine. Now, I have to do it, or I won't have a working engine. I'm such a nerd. Minor update: why it happened! I'm still undecided, but there are two possiblities. The first is that the right carburetor was starved for fuel near the end of the straight (which is where you need the highest fuel flow), and thus ran leaner and leaner as I rode down the straight. This seems possible, but why didn't the left carb suffer similarly? It showed no signs of being too lean. The second thought is that I may well have pushed the timing too far advanced, resulting in a slight detonation condition. This is very likely to put a hole in a piston, since it starts the fire going while the piston is still coming up, instead of when it's ready to start going down. I now suspect that both of these conditions may have combined for a perfect storm of doom for the right piston. I'm not sure why only the right side was affected, but perhaps more clues will become evident as I take things apart. Posted at 19:56 permanent link category: /motorcycle Fri, 08 Aug 2008I happened to be sifting through the pictures I took on my coast trip, and came across this one, which I thought was pretty cool: 
That was taken with my trusty collapsible tripod south of Crescent City, CA, very near the Mill Creek campground turnoff, where I stayed on the third night. That wasn't the biggest redwood I saw, it just happened to be one of the trees in the little area where I'd pulled off to take a rest. It's just a wee tiddler, don't ya know. Posted at 00:47 permanent link category: /motorcycle Thu, 07 Aug 2008Didja miss me? I just got back last night (minutes before sunset) from a motorcycle trip down the coast to Northern California, then back through Crater Lake and Bend where my aunt recently moved. It was a generally good trip, but had a melancholy tinge because I was doing it solo, and would have been happy to have had another person or two to share things with. Anyway, this makes trip report #3 I want to get written up and posted -- good thing I've still got next week off! In completely separate news, and news I wish I'd mentioned before I left (but you know how getting ready for a trip gets crazy): Come watch me race this weekend! Saturday is the event called Sounds of the Past, and is a huge vintage racing event that promises to be great fun. The 160 class (in which I race) will have a Le Mans start race, in which the racers have to run across the track and start their bikes (push-start in the case of most of us): It looks mad, but I'm interested to try it. Also, (hint hint) I'll need someone to hold my bike for me! Check out the schedule. You'll definitely want to be there by 1, but interesting things start at 10:48 (the qualifying practice, which will be as good as a race), and the last neat Vintage event is at 4:05. So, show up anywhere in that range, and you'll see some hilariously slow-paced racing. The entrance fee is $10 per day (there's also racing on Sunday like normal, but Saturday is definitely the day to be there). Here are directions to the track, which is about 40 minutes away from Seattle. I'd love to see you there. Look for me in the pits, right where the B mark is on this map. I'll be under a white shelter, and my bike number is 923. Come hang out. Posted at 09:01 permanent link category: /motorcycle Thu, 31 Jul 2008
CL175 rebuilding part 7. Finally.
Hey, it's only six months late, right? I finally sat down yesterday and logged some more footage for the next episode of rebuilding the CL175. From December. But I finally did it, and the next episode shouldn't be too much further behind.
Look for Part 8 within a month. Really. Probably. Posted at 14:42 permanent link category: /motorcycle Mon, 28 Jul 2008Jesse finally talked me into going out and riding in the dirt a bit, and today was the day. We loaded up and headed out to Tahuya, which is near Tacoma, on the Kitsap Peninsula. It's a little state park that's been set up for offroad vehicles, and seems to be mostly used by dirtbikes and quads. We had Jesse's WR250 and his friend's XR200R in the truck, and I was wearing a hodgepodge of my, Jesse's and the friend's gear. Now, this was a significant day, and I should explain why. When I was growing up in Woodinville, my parents absolutely forbade motorcycles of any kind. There were other kids I knew who were allowed to ride dirtbikes, and it seemed horribly unfair to me that I wasn't given the same opportunity. Unfortunately, most of the kids I knew who rode dirbikes were also, to be blunt, assholes. They seem, through the gathering mists of time, to have been characterized by awful mullet-like haircuts, husky voices, a certain fantastic boastfulness ("I'm a black-belt in karate" sort of thing), and a smug, superior attitude. Between the attitudes (despite all present evidence, I was a scrawny and unpopular kid when I was growing up) and the bike-envy, I essentially grew up hating dirtbikes. In early adulthood, I came to view dirtbikes, and by extension their riders, as these awful noisy things that went around destroying natural areas. It's a classic capital-L Liberal reaction. It was supported by the evidence, though, and it never even crossed my mind that I might one day try riding one offroad. Then, a few years ago, Jesse got a dirtbike. I made the requisite inbred-hick jokes and didn't think much more about it. He seemed to be having a good time with it, but I wasn't interested. After I got into racing this year, I heard an awful lot of people say, "Dirtbike riding really improves your track riding skills." Ok, sure. Still not interested. Finally they got through to me, and last week we made plans to go out. I agreed to go attempt this form of riding that I'd been completely against less than a week earlier. Jesse's friend Eric had a bike to lend in exchange for some much-needed maintenance. So Jesse and I replaced bearings and brake shoes, and adjusted and cleaned and did all the things you really have to do every so often on motorcycles. Once we finally got on the trail, riding Eric's undersprung XR200R, pretty much the first thing I did was crash on the first corner. I saw this seemingly huge vertical wall looming, and stared it down, crashing as surely as if I'd target-fixated on a concrete wall on the freeway. Fortunately, I crashed at about 4 MPH, and the worst damage was to my pride. Heaving and sweating (it wasn't a hot day, but I was already soaked from working muscles I didn't know I had, and I was wearing my effectively non-ventilated road helmet), I picked up the bike, and declared to Jesse as he rode back to investigate, "This isn't fun." He laughed it off, and we kept going. He told me about how he'd had much the same reactions at first, as well. I realized that my mistake on the first crash was that I wasn't looking where I wanted to go, so I worked on that. It got better, but my second crash was basically the same thing. After that, I didn't have any more trouble with crashing due to looking in the wrong place. So, a bit more background here. In street riding, you're working on the assumption that the road surface is solid, and any impediment to traction (such as oil, gravel, rain, snow, etc.) is a call for utmost caution. You train yourself that if you see these things, mental alarm bells go off, and you back way off and go gingerly. Gravel in particular is one of those things that sets off the alarms. Now, on the trail we were riding, there was about 50% coverage with what I will graciously term "gravel." This wasn't your nice, jagged, unlikely-to-roll roadside gravel. No, this was deep puddles of rounded stones that looked to me like gigantic mineralic ball bearings. In other words, exactly the sort of thing that makes my brain flash red strobelights and engages every nerve that will lead to stopping and getting away from this foolish road condition. So, for the entire hour or two we were out, I was fighting deeply ingrained impulses to STOP because I was ABOUT TO DIE. The trails we were following were between 3 and 5 feet wide, and typically involved a sharp curve every 10-20 feet. The curves were massively banked, so it was possible to fly through them quite quickly, although I was going at a grandma's pace. Jesse was very good about stopping and checking that I was still upright, and he wasn't going too fast (although I found that if I let him get ahead of me, I wasn't consuming quite so much dust). However, in addition to being massively banked, they were also covered with these seemingly colossal swamps of overgrown pea gravel ("orange gravel," if you will). Fortunately, it didn't take me too long to figure out that the bike wasn't going to freak out about this stuff if I wasn't. It would slide around a little bit, but in a very controllable way. It would go over little rocks and roots and such without any drama, although the 1991 motorcycle's apparently-original rear shock wasn't doing its job particularly well any more. Unfortunately, my brain wasn't so quick to shut down the alarm bells. On top of all this, despite my book-larnin' about how you're supposed to ride in the dirt, my natural instincts were to adopt street-riding techniques. I stood up over the heavy bumps, but I stood in such a way as I might on a street bike -- as if I was going to sit down again immediately, putting a huge strain on my arms to pull me forward just for a moment. Only I held that position for minutes at a time. Not so good. I put my feet on the pegs with the balls of my feet taking the weight. When dirt riding, you want the weight in the middle of your foot. When I could actually convince myself to do this (or more like remember to do it), things were easier, but that amounted to about 5% of the time. In order to ride correctly, I had to consciously override years of training and instinct, and that just didn't happen very often. Among the kit I had on, the one piece of my own gear I was using was my helmet. I tried Eric's helmet, but it was definitely too small, and adding a headache into the mix seemed like a terrible idea. The goggles I had didn't really fit in the cutout of my road helmet, but it was a better system than trying to use my faceshield, and at least the helmet wasn't attempting to compress my skull. The problem is, offroad helmets are positively breezy compared to road helmets, so my head was swaddled in its own steambath within a few minutes of setting off. Now perhaps, you can imagine me, sweating my way down the trail, turning sharp curves every few seconds (we might have hit 15 MPH in one of the straight sections, so at least we weren't going too fast), brain screaming, "GRAVEL! YOU'RE GOING TO FALL!" the whole time, arms and chest trembling with unaccustomed effort, sucking in clouds of dust as I attempt to tame this sliding, slithering, wobbling motorbike. It was... passable. I made it. My last fall resulted in a banged-up leg, but nothing broken. But at no point did I even approach near the thought, "This is kinda fun." No, it was just work. I was working to make sure I didn't fall so I could get back to the truck, get off this bucking hellbeast, and breathe some air that had much less of a mineral component. It was not enjoyable. And in a very important way, I was horribly disappointed by that. I had really hoped that this would be an activity where I could just let loose, and have a really good time. Stop worrying about everything. Just have fun. Instead, I was thrust into a situation where there was literally a small but solid (6-8" diameter) tree directly in my path much of the time. Every turn was composed of a traction situation designed to induce panic. Working with the bike was a chore to be endured. I did learn (or at least re-learn) things. Looking where you want to go is vitally important. Traction is not an absolute thing, and some traction is good enough. Armor is good. (If I weren't wearing very substantial boots and shin armor, I'd have more damage than a big bruise on my leg.) And, there were cool parts. Once I enforced the rigid discipline of "look where you want to go," it was amazing how easily the bike could ride up these walls in the corners, and over obstacles that looked at first to be completely unsurpassable. I didn't have to think about it at all by the time I was done, the bike was just going where it needed to go. I managed to go the whole ride without bashing anything like a tree or stump (and there were countless opportunities, with a couple close calls). Despite the fact that I'm writing this with my faintly throbbing leg (which inspired the title for this entry) elevated to keep the swelling down, I didn't really come away with any damage. An ex-girlfriend's motto is, "I'll try anything twice." There's a certain logic in that, and I'll stick to it for dirt riding. It's obvious to me how the skills transfer from dirt to track. I don't want to give up on something just because I wasn't immediately skillful at it on the first try. So I'll try it again. Maybe in a few months. After my leg feels a bit better. Posted at 23:28 permanent link category: /motorcycle I took a look at the dyno charts Ducati Seattle sent me home with, and all the runs that look reasonable (ie, real runs instead of "riding at road pace" warmup runs) run up past 16 HP. That's definitely not my bike: we saw a lot of 12.x HP, and 14.0 peak. I'll have to check in with Ducati Seattle again to see whose files I actually have... Posted at 08:21 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sun, 27 Jul 2008At the last race, a few folks got together and started plotting for an event they've wanted for a while: a dyno day. Cogs, one of the racers, works at Ducati Seattle, who have a very nice dyno. He proposed the idea to his manager, who readily agreed, and the Vintage 160 dyno day was born. It occurred yesterday, and Jesse and I both brought our racebikes down. We'd picked up these shiny new carburetors from Bateman early this month, and we were anxious to use the dyno time to tune them up. So this week was spent somewhat feverishly making the intake runners we'd use to hook up the carbs. I ended up standing in front of the lathe and mill for many hours, but it worked out well: we now have six complete runners, with four installed on bikes, and two spare. Anyway, we showed up at Ducati Seattle around noon, to find a moderate crowd of vintage racers milling around, talking, and working on bikes. I don't think anyone was on the dyno at that point, but it wasn't long before the room was filled with the subdued roar of a bike revving towards redline. I should say a word about the Ducati Seattle dyno. It's a different brand than the one at Twinline (which I wrote about at the time, and posted a video about), and apparently reads horsepower numbers differently by about 2 HP -- the 11.8 HP we saw at Twinline is equivalent to about 9.8 on the DS dyno. The DS dyno is also beautifully enclosed in a little sound damping room, so that when a run is happening, it's still possible to hold coversations outside. Saturday morning, I was waiting for intake runners, since the timing had worked out that we only had one set finished by Friday. That set was then installed on Jesse's bike, which was successfully test-run. But it left me with a bunch of machined-but-not-welded runners until Saturday morning after Jesse had time to weld them. So, my new carbs were installed mere hours before they were put to the test on the dyno. In fact, all we had time for before departing for the Ducati dealership was to get the carbs bolted on, not even attached to the control cables or the fuel lines. Jesse had the foresight to check the length of my fuel lines (not long enough) so we brought along some clear PVC tubing I had in my stores. We got there, and essentially the first thing I did was set to work, getting my carbs hooked up. No real problems until I turned on the gas the first time. For some reason, the new (clear) fuel line was weeping gas. I thought it must not be sealing properly, so I bummed some zipties off Mark Etheridge, who had graciously opened his shop (rented from Ducati Seattle, and literally a dozen feet from the dyno room) for us. One didn't seem to do it, so I put on a second. I turned on the gas, and instead of a weep, it was shooting a stream of gasoline at my face! I shut off the petcock, as I realized that the stupid tube must have split. Exercising my excellent "sponge" skills, I asked Etheridge if he had any fuel line. He did, and let me use enough of it to get my carbs hooked up. It was nice Motion Pro line, much higher quality than what had been on the bike before. I owe Mark a cigar. But that solved the problem, and the bike was finally looking ready to try starting. It took forever to get all this done -- I had several people come over and ask me if I was rebuilding the engine or something. So, I rolled the bike off the table (Mark has both a lift and a table with a ramp in his shop -- very nice!), and up into the alley. I spent the next ten minutes unsuccessfully running the bike up and down the alley behind Ducati Seattle, trying to get it to run. Finally, sweating profusely in the mild Seattle sun, I got it to fire off, although it didn't run that well, cutting out at full throttle. Even though it had problems, when it was running correctly (ie, when I wasn't too aggressive on the throttle) it was shocking how much more power the bike plainly had. It tugged me back unexpectedly in first gear, with a much sharper pull than I'd ever felt before. I was entirely unprepared for it. Etheridge later said it looked like I was close to lifting the front wheel off the ground. I rolled the bike back, and sat back in one of the provided chairs, glad of the cool warehouse air and the shade. Tamra and I and several others chatted for a while, and watched dyno runs through the soundproof windows. It was informative to watch the other bikes being put through their paces. I saw peak HP numbers anywhere from 11 to 16 that day. I watched with particular interest as Jesse's bike was rolled up onto the dyno. His bike and mine are so nearly identical that his results (in particular his air/fuel mixture) would indicate the path I should take with setting up my new carbs. He ended up posting 14.4 HP peak, and no real problems with mixture, which was a relief. He was running size 98 main jets, which are the primary determinant of mixture. I had the size 100s in (we bought an assortment of jets for tuning purposes), which looked to be close enough to be worth a try. It'd be interesting to see what the difference was. Finally, it was my turn to roll up on the dyno. We had some initial problems with the mixture reading, which may have been the position of the sensor (a long copper tube that's shoved unceremoniously up the bike's exhaust pipe). However, after a few tweaks, we started getting real-looking numbers, and things looked good. We saw a peak of 14.0 HP on one run, after tweaking the timing. However, further tweaks dropped the power back down to 12, so we ended up seeing 12 most of the time. By the end, the engine was radiating heat pretty fiercely despite the copious flow of air over it, so we rolled it off to cool down while someone else ran their bike. As long as I was waiting, I pestered Bateman to see if he had spare 98 jets -- my sparkplugs were on the dark side after the dyno run, so I figured I might be able to go leaner for a bit more power. He had them, so I swapped the jets out. I have to say, swapping jets on the new carbs is remarkably easy compared to the old stock carbs. The day was wearing on, and by the time it was my turn, Robert, our valiant dyno operator, had a certain limp-rag nature about him. He'd been up there, running puny-horsepower bikes on the dyno, for a full 8 hours, and asked if I could come back some other time. I still had dyno time coming, but he was wiped out. No problem, of course. A bit disappointing that I didn't get to see what the slightly smaller jets did, but that's alright. With my schedule, I probably won't be able to get back to the dyno for a couple weeks. I have to say, one of the highlights of the day was near the end, when Bateman was in the dyno room with Tom Deem's bike. I had been casually watching the numbers scroll up, when I saw them approaching, then passing 15 HP, and keep going. A cheer went up from the crowd, and the bike topped out around 15.8, I think. Someone explained what was happening: Bateman was adjusting the timing on the fly, as the bike ran! That's a good way to do it, if you know what you're doing. It was impressive to see the peak power he got that way. Overall, I can only call the day a success. The dyno was running a lot of the time, and lots of people came away with printouts of their bikes' power curve. I had a USB flash drive with me, so I actually have all the data files with me, although it requires a Windows computer to run, so you'll have to wait to see my charts (I know, you can't wait). I may be able to get those charts figured out today, though. As usual, it was great fun to hang out with the vintage crowd; they're a group of excellent, kind people. It was also interesting to see the power other people's bikes were making in comparison to my own. Particularly with the new carbs, I don't feel too bad about my bike's ability to hold its own. If you're keeping track at home, the peak HP we saw at Twinline was 11.81 HP. Subtract two to get the equivalent HP on the Ducati Seattle dyno, so 9.81 HP. The peak I saw on Saturday was 14.0, or more than 4 HP gain (over 40%!). I'd say those carbs were a fine investment! Maybe my lap times will reflect the change. We'll see on August 9th and 10th, the weekend of the next race. Posted at 11:14 permanent link category: /motorcycle Sun, 06 Jul 2008
The First Annual Formula 160 Vintage Invitational
That's a fancy name for what happened this weekend, but it's also pretty accurate. Bradford Duval of Portland put together a really neat day of riding for Vintage 160 riders, and invited everyone to show up. We had racers from California, Oregon and Washington, that I know of. It was held at Pat's Acres, a little go-kart track in Canby, Oregon, just south of Portland. Check out the track. According to the surveyor's document they had posted, the track was .59 miles long along its centerline, but the whole thing was contained in a square about 300 or 400 yards on a side. Very very twisty. I never got beyond third gear, and that only for about 5 seconds down the straight. The rest of the track was second-gear-only, and I even dropped to first for a couple of the hairpins. Of course, being this twisty and convoluted meant that one lap consisted of about 8 changes of direction, and therefore changes of hanging-off side. It was a constant barrage of gas-brake-gas-brake. The end result is that my arms are protesting from resisting the braking force, and my legs are protesting from all the side-to-side. I think the only time I actually rested on the seat was on the straight, and that lasted all of 5-10 seconds. It took between a minute and three seconds, and a minute and 15 seconds, of the people I timed, to go around the track. That makes the fastest average speed around 25 MPH. I'll have more on it later, including a ton of pictures and video (the GoPro worked every time, so maybe my little copper shim in the battery compartment works). It was great. It was tiring. Let's do it again! (But let me rest first, I need to get feeling back in my legs!) Update: The video's done and posted. This is among my final laps on the track, so I was both tired (thus slower) and more experienced (thus faster):
Posted at 20:08 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. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
