Wretched XS

[noodlenoggin]

Good points, sir. However, you fail to take into account the fact that I purchased my car for $750 and it would take an act of nature for it to depreciate any more than it already has. Insurance is cheap and registration is cheaper on a 1984 Bomb than on a... well, anything from this century.

I do change the oil every 3,000 miles but I don't let synthetic anything near it, as it simply wouldn't know what to do with oil that didn't come from dinosaurs, so a routine maintenance at "Zippy Lube" is less than $30. Parts are cheap and plentiful for a car whose design didn't change for an entire decade, and I replaced my own front brakes for a total of $65...other maintenance is similarly cheap.

The bike, on the other hand, takes "special" motorcycle oil to handle the heat of the little motor, and that oil's 3 times the price of dinosaur-oil. Also, being that it's even older than my car, any parts that break have to be found on eBay, taking hours of research that cost loads of money in lost wages. (at my hourly rate, and I ain't cheap!) Add in the multiple layers of longjohns, snowpants, eskimo* gloves, wool socks and fleece vests I need to ride on a typical Northern Michigan morning, and suddenly the bike isn't so thrifty.

Um.

Wait.

Am I arguing against riding a motorcycle?! What's wrong with me!? I swear senility has crept in. I have to go now...

* by "eskimo gloves" I mean no slight or slur to the fine Inuit peoples.

[CNF2002]

I in no way meant to imply that you should commute by motorcycle alone...I was just pointing out that my choice to commute by motorcycle has ensured that I will be sipping a Mai Tai on a tropical beach at 60. Your results will vary

[blues2cruise]

Fun is priceless.

As for Michigan....heated gloves and heated clothing will keep you warm. And studded tires will keep you upright.

[noodlenoggin]

I in no way meant to ...

Yeah, I know. I'm really not that uptight...

Hey, my choice to drive an ocean-liner grandpa-car has ensured that I will be sipping some nice soup and wearing a cardigan by the time I'm 43.

And I agree. Fun is priceless. I was thinking about it on my (sigh)drive(sigh) to work this morning. I hope everyone knows my last couple of posts have been firmly tongue-in-cheek, mostly from sour grapes caused by looking at my bike sitting there in the garage for a year. I have never tried to tell people that I ride merely to be more cost effective -- sure, I've used as an argument to get my wife to let me insure the bike and ride it some years, but my ulterior motive wasn't so I could save gas money...it was because I pure-dee love riding motorcycles.

I was thinking about it, like I said. I've owned the same bike for 13 years. it predates my children, my wife, and even me leaving home for the first time. It has actually been one of the few constants in my life for over a decade...it's kind of one of those things that make me...me. And after 13 years, I'm still not tired of the way the bike looks. I still catch myself admiring parts of it as I walk by. I can still sit on it, close my hands and reach out -- and the handlebars are right there.

I know I've said it before, but I still get a thrill out of riding. Even the same old bike on a simple commute to work...I get the nervous anticipation as I'm putting on my gear, and it builds until I let out the clutch and go. Even if I'm stuck in traffic, freezing my (noun) off, fighting with a bike that won't idle -- when I get to work I still realize that it was better than driving. I just can't believe that it could be legal to do something this much fun without needing a physical or something.

Sigh. I'm running out of things to post about...without actually RIDING my motorcycle this year...

[CNF2002]

Sigh. I'm running out of things to post about...without actually RIDING my motorcycle this year...

Wash it and tell us how it went.

[noodlenoggin]

Bike mods. Wow, some people do a bunch of 'em. New pipes, steering dampers, fender removal, carb tuning, stickers, exhause valve tweaking, fuel injection programmers, shift-pattern thingies, triple-compound kevlar tires, Titanium blinker switches, vacuum-actuated seat-cushions....

I haven't done any to my bike. Well...I did take my Dremel tool and cut out a crossbar on my rear grab-handle. But only because it rattled constantly. No, my bike is stock and I like it that way, but some people put HUGE emphasis on modding their bike to go faster or something.

I don't think graphite golf clubs are going to make me hit the ball any farther than I already do; I don't think $200 Reeboks are going to make me run any faster than I already do; I don't think a Titanium bat is going to make me strike out any less often; I don't think a carbon-fiber fishing pole is going to make me catch more fish; I don't think that $$$ of bike mods is going to make me any better of a rider.

Until I am the perfect rider -- until my form and my abilities are so beautifully perfect that it makes men openly weep to watch me ride -- no amount of tacked on fru-fru is going to really change anything. I can save my money and just work on me and see a greater difference. I firmly believe that if I was at the track in a new Porsche 911 and Mario Andretti was in my 1984 P.O.S. he would still spank me so utterly that my children's cheeks would sting.

[noodlenoggin]

I actually went for a ride tonight!!

We got back from grocery shopping, and I hauled all the groceries through the garage past the bike, sitting there on its kickstand. It was 72 degrees, the early sunset was coming through the trees, and I told my wife that I wanted to pull the bike out and ride it around a bit. I hadn't started it for a couple of months -- June sometime, I think.

I grabbed my helmet and set it on the hood of the car, then paddle-footed the bike out into the driveway. Bike on the centerstand. Key on -- moderately bright neutral light. Gas on -- actually it has vacuum petcocks so it's always on. Choke on. Doublecheck that the killswitch is on "run." (so many frustrating times before learning to doublecheck that darn thing.) Kick. Kick. Kick. "Hey kids, you don't have to stand there plugging your ears...go play or something." Kick kick kick kickkickkickkick. Pant, pant pant.

Darn, the neighbors are on their porch staring at me. Yay. Kick...kick...kick... Maybe the gas needs to be on Prime. Kick kick kick kickkickkickkick. Maybe no choke? Kick kick kick. Nope, choke back on. Kick kick.

I stopped and got the battery charger and an extension cord, opened the seat and hooked up the charger. I set it to 6amp, 10volt and plugged it in. Instantly the neutral light was brighter. I got optimistic and tried the electric start -- "clickclickclickclick.." Nope. I kicked it and got a cough. Again, and a cough. Kick-cough. Kick-cough. Kick-cough. Kick-cough. Kick-cough-sputter. Kick-cough-cough-vroom-cough. Kick-vrooOOOM!

Yeah...pant-pant...um, YEAH!

I unplugged the charger, unhooked it, shut the seat and put on my helmet. I sat there for a bit and blipped the throttle -- I'm still not happy with how much the valvetrain clatters, but it has plenty of oil and isn't making any other untoward noises. I idled it soooo slowly between my LTD and my wife's Volvo, then to the end of the driveway and a slow left on to our subdivision road. First gear, second gear, around the circle in the center of our road, then up to third, and down the road at 25mph. I got to the south end of our sub road -- it's only a half-mile from end to end -- and stopped at the corner of M-37. Waited for a Winnebago and a Grand Am to go by, then across M-37 to the back-road that winds behind the Main Street Cafe. (The sign says "great food" -- it lies.) A left on the road that crosses behind the Dairy Whip and the hardware/auto parts store. Then a U-turn, back, a right and past the Main Street Cafe to M-37 again.

Crossed M-37, and motored up our road at 25mph again -- lots of kids on our street, so I don't ride or drive very fast. Got a wave from a neighbor who I see out on his new Asian cruiser all the time just riding up and down our road, and waved back. Around the circle in the center of our road again, then past our house, past the last two houses on the road, and up to the north end of our road. Stop, slow U-turn...

...Big grin...

RrrrrrrAAARRR... click....RAAAAAARRRRRR... click....AAAAAAAAARRRRRRR... click...BWAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa-mmmbdmbmdmdmbmdm... click....bwOMMMMMmmmmmmmmbumbumdmbmdm..... and back down from a loud 4th gear to 25 again as the first house passes by. Around the circle, 25mph to the south end of the road again. A last scan for any law enforcement in Buckley (population 54.3, I think) and a right on M-37. A quick blast up to 55mph or so as the evening sun streams through my dusty helmet visor, and I'm already at the sweeping left out of town, but instead of that I go straight on the cut-off road to County633. Stop at the stopsign, right on 633, and up to the speed limit again as I pass the Old Engine Show grounds on my left, but back down as some ninny in a minivan is sitting in my lane, facing traffic, getting their mail through the driver's window.

Around the white Town&Country at 30 or so, then back up through the gears for a quarter-mile, then slowed down to turn right on County Line road. I find I have to hold the blinker switch to the right to make them keep blinking, which makes it hard but not impossible to run the clutch at the same time. Right turn on County Line, up through the gears again, then back down for the turn back on to my sub's road. I'm done "gettin' on it" and I amble up the road at 25 once again to our driveway, then into the driveway, and paddle-foot the bike on the grass around the parked cars -- can't be too careful on grass. Bike off, and I backed it back into it's favored spot as the only motor vehicle actually staying in the garage.

I pulled off my helmet, and the old thrill was still there. My hands were actually shaking for the next half hour as the adrenaline rush wore off. Man, what a pure shot to the motorcycling vein. During the ride, I found that my skills really hadn't rusted that much at all. Starts and shifts were smooth, ultra-low-speed U-turns were ok with my feet on the pegs -- it all still felt natural and just flowed. I also savored how the clutch that I replaced last season was so much smoother and less grabby compared to the previous five years or so.

So... Un-insured? Yes. Un-plated? Yes. Went out wearing jeans, tennis shoes, casual shirt and a helmet? Yup, I was "that guy." Totally exhilarating, therapeutic and exciting, nonetheless? YES! Absolutely what I'd been missing.

[noodlenoggin]

Season of the Bike

Okay, back in the day I had a page on *cough*MySpace*cough* and there was another guy who had a blog and posted something he got from somewhere else that I wanted to share here. Only problem is that when I quit *cough*MySpace*cough* I lost the something.

Ok, I just went back and found it, and saved a copy of it because I wanted to keep it. It sums up riding in words I wish I'd used.

Season of the Bike
By Dave Karlotski

There is cold, and there is cold on a motorcycle. Cold on a motorcycle is like being beaten with cold hammers while being kicked with cold boots, a bone bruising cold. The wind's big hands squeeze the heat out of my body and whisk it away; caught in a cold October rain, the drops don't even feel like water. They feel like shards of bone fallen from the skies of Hell to pock my face. I expect to arrive with my cheeks and forehead streaked with blood, but that's just an illusion, just the misery of nerves not designed for highway speeds.

Despite this, it's hard to give up my motorcycle in the fall and I rush to get it on the road again in the spring; lapses of sanity like this are common among motorcyclists. When you let a motorcycle into your life you're changed forever. The letters "MC" are stamped on your driver's license right next to your sex and height as if "motorcycle" was just another of your physical characteristics, or maybe a mental condition.

But when warm weather finally does come around all those cold snaps and rainstorms are paid in full because a motorcycle summer is worth any price. A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car; the difference between driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in boxes and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us languidly from home-box to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time entombed in stale air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets.

On a motorcycle I know I'm alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through it and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of sunlight that fall through them. I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than PanaVision and higher than IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling or dashboard.

Sometimes I even hear music. It's like hearing phantom telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic ghosts out of the wind's roar. But on a motorcycle I hear whole songs: rock 'n roll, dark orchestras, women's voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed.

At 30 miles an hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid. All the individual tree-smells and flower-smells and grass-smells flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony. Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it's as though the past hangs invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock it. A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane. Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine. It's a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic. It's light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping over each other; it's a conduit of grace, it's a catalyst for bonding the gritty and the holy.

I still think of myself as a motorcycle amateur, but by now I've had a handful of bikes over a half dozen years and slept under my share of bridges. I wouldn't trade one second of either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride was one of the best things I've done.

Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control. The air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, "Sleep, sleep." Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that's no reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride.

https://www.aerostich.com/files/reading ... /sotb.html

[noodlenoggin]

Stuff I Think About

What's the purpose of voicemail? I leave messages at the prompts and I never get called back. Ever. Oh, I have to answer my voicemail at work upon pain of death -- if someone leaves me a voicemail asking what I had for breakfast and I don't return it, my boss'll have me in on the carpet. I leave messages asking for my blood-pressure meds to be refilled before I run out and die......no answer. Ever. Really.

---

I'm tired of spending all my time doing the stuff that "needs done." Cooking, cleaning, working, fetching things for my wife and kids' bajillion daily "needs." Spending all day every day at a job I can't stand because I "need to." Scrimping and saving for "the future" every day because "it needs done." Worrying all the time about house payments and school clothes and cable bills and groceries and on and on and on and on...

All these things that need done. Why do they need done, I ask? What is the benefit -- what am I going to gain by spending all my time on these needs and putting off all the "wants?" Who ever looked back on their life and thought "Wow, I'm so glad I did the dishes that one night instead of going to that concert?" Who was ever glad that they spent their kids' childhood working overtime to pay for "needs" instead of coming home and playing catch with them?

I know the stuff that I like to look back at -- the stuff I'm proud of doing -- the stuff that I think actually enriched my life is NOT the stuff that I "needed" to do. I'm proud of the day that I went for a drive on a break between classes -- and ended up at Lake Michigan, and tear-a$$ed back to class and was only partly late. I'll always remember when we packed everything we owned into our car and drove off from Michigan to Atlanta with nothing more concrete than a place to stay at a friend's apartment.

What I'm saying is that the things we think we "need" to do are, in the grand scheme of our lives, really NOT necessary. I'm saying that the things we really need to do are the things that don't make sense, the things that break out from the mundane and make a memory in our heads, and when it's all been said and done the only thing we REALLY own are our memories. Nobody will give us an award or a website honoring our ability to make meatloaf and wash the pan afterwards, or for going to work every day for 20 years to take $#it but not end up running the company.

When it comes down to it, and we're going not-so-gently into that good night, the things we needed to do are the things we all put off because we "needed" to do something else.

[noodlenoggin]

Just blue-skying it here, probably because I had to come to work at 6:00 a.m., but I was thinking I'd try to rebuild my bike this winter. Maybe nothing'll come of it, because we'll have some new twins all winter that'll probably take all of my time, but heck, I can dream, right?

First, the engine really needs work. Its started weeping oil from a number of spots and really seems a bit tired. I'm thinking it could stand to have the gaskets replaced ( $51.95 for the "Complete Engine Overhaul Gasket Set" from 650central.com) and the oil seals replaced ($29.00, ibid) at the very minimum. Maybe I could spring for new piston rings. ($29.00 per piston, so $58, and yes I did have to use a calculator!)

Next, my exhaust system isn't pretty anymore. The head pipes are blued and pitted with rust, (grrr) the left muffler has some "character" where it slid on the road at 45mph in 1993, and both the mufflers are shiny on the visible side but really pitted and rusty on the bike-side. I could use new head pipes ($131.95, is that each or per pair, I wonder?) and probably a set of mufflers. It's got long "Dunstall" style mufflers

and would look good with stock replacements, but what I really like for some unknown reason would be a set of fish-tail mufflers.

or

or


Next, I think I'd like a set of handlebars that are a bit lower than stock. The bars I have are comfortable, and I really don't have a logical reason to change them...I just want something sportier. Clip-ons sound cool, but are probably too impractical.

I wouldn't mind rearsets for the pegs, either -- when I ride on the freeway I find myself folding down the passenger pegs and using those for a while. They let me stretch my legs a bit while still leaning forward into the wind.

I suppose while I have the bike spread across the garage floor, I should also rebuild the carbs -- the bike's never really wanted to idle, and revving the throttle at a stoplight isn't really cool on a 27-year-old, semi-rusty, oil-spotty bike. Besides, it makes teenagers in rusty, oil-spotted Civics want to race when I really just want to make to work before my hands crystallize and fall off. Or something.

I guess the real danger of contemplating this kind of limited-scale project is the temptation to attack everything and find yourself in the middle of a full-scale restoration without really knowing where you went wrong.

"Oh, I took the motor out to replace the gaskets, and ended up boring the cylinders, and putting in a race cam...and the carbs needed rebuilt, so I put on K&N filters, and a new exhaust, and new swingarm bushings, and bead-blasted the frame, and put on a fairing from a Ducati, and tri-compound, kevlar-reinforced tires, and HID lighting and a CD changer, and a titanium fork-brace but that was before I grafted on a Harley springer front-end and a set of tailfins from a '62 Cadillac."

I dunno...it's 7:46 in the morning and there's not enough coffee in the world.