Goodbye to motorcycling

By this time tomorrow, I will be motorcycle-less for the first time in years.

When I first got a motorcycle, my idea was cheap commuting. But what I found is that a motorcycle is like a fancy mistress, it always wants more money, more trinkets, more of your time to get dirty with it. Motorcycles are high maintenance whores. But I wasn't too upset with that, because it was a fun whore. Problem was, this whore -- a nice fast sport-touring bike -- killed my knees on long rides. Which sort of defeated the purpose of having a nice fast sport-touring bike.

So I got a dual sport so I could go play in the national forests, and also have more room for my knees. But what I found is that playing in the national forests on a dual sport is sort of fun in that you never run into a road that has an end to it (you can turn a dual sport around literally on a dime by laying it on its side and spinning it around), but you can't carry the sorts of supplies that would save your life if you broke down in the middle of nowhere. I was always a bit nervous riding a dual sport well away from anyplace that anybody would venture for days, because if I fell and broke a limb, well, I'd probably die.

So I mostly rode the dual-sport on pavement, got a Jeep for the forest roads, and was much happier with that. So I thought, what about a nice fast sport-touring bike again? And ABS, so I could commute in crappy weather rather than chickening out because of oil-slicked roads? So I bought my Wee-Strom ABS. And it was good. The nice thing about the Suzuki V-Strom 650 is that it is a very comfortable and roomy bike, though the weird styling does tend to make things rather buffety in the cockpit. But then I hurt my leg, to go with my bad knees and my bad back. So now I have a bad leg, bad knees, and bad back.

At this point, I've decided the only reasonable thing to do is hang it up. It's just not fun for me to ride anymore because too many body parts start hurting too soon into the ride. So hopefully by tomorrow evening the V-Strom will have a new home. I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with my Jeep, because at this point trying to get myself healthy is much more important than a playtoy that hurts me to ride.

-- Badtux the Gimpy Penguin

Summer wind

Well, the thermometer crept near 90F here in Sodom by the Bay, so this was decidedly the time for the Changing of the Windshields. Since the Mule is gone to a new home, the Knightstrom was the recipient of its seasonal windshield transplant. I went from the big winter windshield: to the small summer windshield (the one that came with the bike): The fancy bracket that the windshield is mounted on is a Madstad bracket and allows moving the windshield up and down and tilting it back and forth and allows air underneath the shield to help reduce backpressure and buffeting. For the winter windshield it was set about midway, too high and too far back and the mirrors or the handguards hit it when I turned the wheel lock to lock. For summer use, I put the summer shield all the way down and all the way pointing back. This puts the maximum air on me.

In other news, I paid off the Knightstrom today. The loan lady gave me the choice of either giving me the title with a signed lien release, or having her handle the paperwork to send the title to the State with the lien release and they send me a clear title. The latter takes four to six weeks for the state to send the clear title back. So I told her to go ahead and do the second one, of course. That gives me four to six weeks to decide whether to sell the Knightstrom or not. I'm a bit reluctant to do so, it's a great bike, but I really do need to simplify my life...

-- Badtux the Wrenching Penguin

Goodbye to the Mule

Well, the Mule is sold. An era is ended. Sigh. I am becoming ordinary.

-- Badtux the Ordinary Penguin

Hell's Grannies

They're coming for you!

-- Badtux the Easily Amused Penguin

Craig Highline down

Kawasaki KLR-650 rider Craig Highline hit from behind while stopped at a red light, killed, while riding his KLR.

First Cary, now this. I think it's time to put an armed mortar shell facing backwards on a stalk on my KLR so that if any son-of-a-bitch hits me, he gets his ass blown to the next kingdom at the same time I get mine sent onward. Fucking bastards. Too fucking busy talking on their goddamned cell phones about nothing important to watch where the fuck they're going...

-- Badtux the Targetted Motorcyclin' Penguin

R.I.P. Cary Aspy

Cary Aspy was the creator of the 685 and 705cc overbore kits and "Big Valve" modification for the Kawasaki KLR-650 at Schnitz Racing. That was what he did when he felt like riding in the slow lane, which was when not building race engines for some of the quickest motorcycles in history. He built complete race engines from superstock, to nitrous injected and turbocharged. He hand ported every cylinder head and fit every piston.

Cary was truly dedicated to what he loved... spending 7 days a week at the shop when he wasn't enjoying a ride or weekend trip. He was involved in a fatal motorcycle accident Monday evening when a SUV hit him while he was riding his KLR on his way home from a weekend riding trip to Tennessee.

Dangerous hobby, we motorcyclists have. I was thinking about buying one of his 685cc kits for my KLR, which is getting a bit tired in the engine department. Now... I guess not :-(.

• His funeral arrangements.
• Schitz Racing.

-- Badtux the Saddened Penguin

Zen and Now

Another Jesuit scholar examines Robert Persig's classic motorcycling tome, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Mark Richardson's new book, Zen and Now, examines Robert Persig and the connections between technology and nature...

-- Badtux the Literatary Penguin

A very lucky dude

Watch near the end. A guy slides down and whacks into the barrier. He falls, and just as he hits the ground, a 400 pound motorcycle flies right over him and slams mostly through the barrier. The guy gets up and runs like hell to get out of the way of any other flying motorcycles that may be coming. Makes me glad that penguins don't race motorcycles...

Also: Be sure to tighten your front axle nut, people:

-- Badtux the Flightless Penguin

How to get to good riding places *fast*

Now, one thing I don't like about owning a Kawasaki KLR 650 is that if you want to explore someplace like Death Valley or Moab, you have to ride there. And ride. And ride. And ride. And ride. And ride. And when you get there, you still have a 400 pound dual-sport, not a 250 pound trail bike. And pushing a 400 pound dual-sport around in the dirt is hard work.

But courtesy of Gizmodo, there is a solution. Just take your lightweight Yamaha XT220 trail bike with you and *fly* in to those areas! Yeah the dirt strips in Death Valley are kinda a pain, but hey, it's better than spending 9 hours riding only to end up with a too-big bike once you get there, right?

Of course, the other possibility is to just hitch a trailer behind your car and haul your trail bike behind you. That's a little more affordable for this flightless waterfowl, as well as a bit safer than flying a light airplane into a dirt strip, heh!

-- Badtux the Flightless Penguin

Glad I don't have a BMW

Ouch. Apparently not the first time this has happened to BMW motorcycle forks. The rider reports that the bike acted like it was entering a tank slapper, and then the bottom of the forks ripped right off and the bike went down while the wheel went its own merry way.

Jap bikes have their own quirks, but they don't send their wheels in random directions, and their sidestands generally don't just collapse underneath you (another quirk of these BMW's -- flimsy sidestands, probably because for many years BMW motorcycles didn't have sidestands at all, just centerstands). German "engineering". Bah humbug!

-- Badtux the Jap-bike-ownin' Penguin

Dead batteries and KLR's

Well, I went to ride my KLR to work today to keep it charged up and ready to go, and the battery was dead. It shouldn't have been dead -- it's just been two weeks since I last rode it, and I rode it for about 100 miles on several consecutive days then -- so either the voltage regulator has gone kaput and it's not charging, or the battery has an internal short and is dying.

So the first thing I'm going to do is put the battery on my Battery Tender when I get home tonight and let it charge for 24 hours. Then I can unplug the Battery Tender, let the bike sit for a few days, and check the battery charge by plugging the Battery Tender back in. If the Battery Tender does anything other than cut right off after a couple of minutes max, the battery has an internal short and needs replacing. Luckily since I have the Nightstrom, I don't need this bike to commute.

Oh, here's something to remember: When you're pissed because your motorcycle won't start, don't lean it over onto the sidestand without, uhm, putting the sidestand down first :-). The KLR fell over onto the Nightstrom. Luckily the topbag hit the Givi rack and stopped the KLR from falling over all the way, giving me the chance to swing my boot out from the other side of the KLR and push it back upright again. Then I pushed the KLR back to the front of the garage, backed the Nightstrom out of the garage, and rode the Nightstrom to work. Oh well!

-- Badtux the Motorcyclin' Penguin

Postscript: Yeppers, the battery is the problem. I took it off the Battery Tender once it went to maintain, put it back on again a couple of hours later, and it started charging again. The Battery Tender will, with a healthy fully-charged battery, do its red light, then start flashing its green light, then within a minute go to a steady green for "maintenance"... if the battery lost enough charge in two hours to stay in the 80% flashing mode for more than a minute or so, the battery has a short and is losing charge and needs to be replaced.

A journey

Yesterday I rode the Wabs (V-Strom 650 ABS) around 180 miles through the heart of the Sierra Diablo. Here is a view from the top, where we are looking down on the Silicon Valley. Or we would be, if it was not covered with a smokey haze drifting in from Big Sur... The road up to Mount Hamilton has a number of hairpin turns, and is done mostly in 2nd gear on the 'Wee, with a few places (the 180 degree switchbacks) needing 1st gear. The road down the other side seems a bit less severe, or maybe it's just that you're going downhill. With the torque and power of a 650cc V-twin fed to pavement through a 150R17 radial rear tire, you rarely need to use any brakes on the downhill, unless you're trying for speed and trail braking. Me, I was enjoying the scenery (such as it was -- is chaparral scrub scenery?). The Weestrom is a predictably-handling bike and had no problem with the curvy road, but I didn't push it either -- pushing a motorcycle you're still learning on an unfamiliar highway is how you die.

Here is the 'Wee in all its glory with its new crash bars and highway pegs. It's wonderful what some rattlecan "satin black" will do, eh? Note how the skid plate reduces the already-limited ground clearance. This just goes to show that the V-Strom is not a dual-sport, no matter how Suzuki classifies it on its web site. Anyhow, I was still in very curvy and steep terrain here, mostly with no shoulder. This was the closest thing to level terrain I could find to stop. Here's another place I stopped: I almost got to test the crash bars here. The sidestand sunk about an inch into the soft tar of the shoulder. It was well over 90F outside, and I was stopping primarily to shove water into me (there was a bottle of water in the tank bag, which is also where the camera lived when I wasn't using it to take pictures of the bike, and there was two more bottles of water in the tailbag).

Somewhere around here, the GPS quit working altogether. I later examined the cable and found that a wire had pulled out of the plug because the screw holding the wire had come loose. A re-insertion of the wire and tightening the screw solved that problem. Here is a closer side view of the bike. You can see the sidestand starting to posthole... The GPS is the silver thing perched on the handlebar on the other side. You can also see the sheepskin on top of the gel seat. This is mostly to keep the sun from turning the seat into a torture instrument ("fried hueves, senor?"). Also note that I've used the aftermarket Madstad bracket to put the windshield down as far as it'll go and tilt back towards me as far as it'll go in an effort to get more air. At the top (Mount Hamilton) I ran into a guy on a Goldwing, he had air deflectors all over the place to try to get some air back into that stable bubble behind a Goldwing's massive windshield. The 'Wee doesn't put as much air on me as the KLR does even with the windshield at its lowest/tilted most position, but it was enough.

After about 60 miles more of curvy road, I arrived at I-5 and headed towards Altamont Pass to get back home on the 'slab. At first I was relaxing, feet on the highway pegs. It was like sitting in an easy chair. The only thing I needed then was a backrest and I would have been completely relaxed. Then the first gust of air from the west hit me -- the winds from Altamont Pass, hitting me from the side. I adjusted the windshield further up and tilted it a little more forward to give me more wind protection, but it didn't help much. Heading crosswise towards the pass, I was getting constantly pounded from the side by the air coming through the pass. It felt like it was gonna rip my helmet off the side of my head! Through it all, the Blackstrom happily chugged straight ahead at 80mph indicated on the speedometer, not breathing hard even on the uphills. Even heading up over the pass straight into the teeth of the gale, the 'strom had no problem maintaining speed without downshifting. 70hp for a 500 pound bike (with 200 pounds of rider and gear on board) simply laughs at such grades and winds.

For the rest... (shrug). I've ridden this route often enough that I don't need the GPS, lucky me because the GPS still wasn't working. I got home, and considered what I'd learned. What I'd learned was this:

1. The windshield doesn't do a very good job of wind protection when there's a lot of wind blowing. No big deal in the summertime, I'll need a better windshield when winter gets here.
2. The Suzuki gel seat feels like a friggin' 2x6 under my buns even through the dead sheep pelt covering my seat. The sharp edges between the gel and the foam feel like creases under my buns. Sad to say, I think I'm going to have to invest major bucks into an aftermarket seat.
3. The highway pegs are very comfortable when buzzing away on the superslab just covering miles. Can't use them in the twisties, of course. But who wants to use them in the twisties?
4. I need a backrest for best use of the highway pegs.
5. This is a nice bike for putting a lot of miles on quickly, it is very stable on the highway and has plenty of power to cruise at 80mph all day just as I'd hoped. When I get the automatic chain oiler and the cruise control in place, it'll be perfectly suited for visiting friends in other states.

All in all, it is getting close to exactly what I want it to be. As soon as I get it to that point, then my attention will turn either to the KLR or to the Jeep, and you'll quit seeing so much of the V-strom 650 ABS on these pages.

-- Badtux the Motorin' Penguin

Proper protection

Now, one thing I gotta say about riding a motorcycle. It's dangerous. All those damned fool drivers are trying to run you over, and all you have going for you is your superior acceleration and maneuverability (motorcycles brake about the same as cars, so alas that's not an advantage you have over cagers). And you won't win every time. I'm missing a chunk out of my foot and have a wrist that tells the weather to prove that.

Yet I still see damned fools riding motorcycles wearing t-shirts and jeans. Well, and a helmet, since this is Californication and thus a helmet is required by law, but if not for that law, I betcha they wouldn't be wearing a helmet either.

Now, one argument I hear from the damned fools is the whine, It's hot!. Yeah? So? Guess what. There's this new shit on the market called mesh riding gear. Lets air flow through it. Just like your t-shirt that's riding up your ass and flappin' so I can see your butt-crack as you crouch over on your crotch rocket (eww gross). Except it's got impact armor so your stupid knees don't get shattered to shards when you hit the pavement, and a back protector so you don't get paralyzed when your backbone hits the pavement, and so forth. You know, protection. Duh.

So anyhow, that's what I spent the last couple of weekends doing, was shopping for some new mesh riding gear. I have some old mesh gear I bought in, hmm, must have been 2004, closeouts of the 2002 model year gear that I got for cheap. But technology has moved on since then. Mesh gear was new in 2002, and wasn't very good. Now they got EU-spec armor in them and more Cordura nylon or other such abrasion-resistant materials in places where your ass would get road rash.

Now, the cream de la creme of mesh gear is the Motoport Kevlar mesh gear. That shit don't rip or burn if you fall down. It's stout. It's also heavy as hell and a full suit of this gear costs around $1200. Eeep! I ain't payin' no $1200 for gear that is just gonna shrink so I can't wear it in a few years! (Now, some folks say I eat too much herring in cream sauce and it's not my clothes shrinkin' but the other way around, but same effect, okay?).

So anyhow, I got some Olympia Airglide gear. The jacket looks like this: You betcher life I bought the hi-viz yellow jacket. Like I said, those damned fools out there are tryin' ta kill me! Now, imagine my shark lawyer holdin' that jacket up in a court of law and sayin' to a jury, "This is what my client was wearing. Do you really believe that Damn D. Fool did not see my client?" I betcha that jacket would be worth an extra half a million bucks in punitive damages for general stupidity on the part of the damned fool. Anyhow, it's about half and half Cordura nylon (very abrasion resistant) with nylon mesh panels (so I don't damn well suffocate when it's hot outside), with the Cordura everywhere that you'd normally slide on the thing, plus has a winter liner that'll let me wear it in a wide variety of conditions. Then there's the pants:

I actually got the black, not the silver, but the mesh vs. Cordura nylon shows up better on the picture of the silver. As for why black, well, because when you're riding a motorcycle you're often kneeling on your knees and shit to oil your chain, check your oil level, that kinda stuff. Not to mention that when you're riding in the rain all the oil and shit from the road gets kicked up onto your pants by the cars in front of you. Any other color starts looking like crap after a while. So black it is.

So anyhow, take it from a wise penguin. Wear your fuckin' gear, dipsticks! And now that good mesh gear is available, heat ain't no excuse. And look, that flappin' t-shirt showin' your butt crack as you crouch on your little crotch rocket? Bad taste, dude. BAAAAD taste. Ugh.

-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin