B-King - An Odd bike's Journey

[RhadamYgg]

So, I've survived the Cape May trip. Didn't ride the bike once when I was down there. Didn't take any pictures of the bike in places that it normally isn't.

Did encounter rain - on the way down and on the way up. Had a slight scare on the way back in heavy rain on the Garden State Parkway. Just past the big bridges (Driscoll Bridge) that cross the Raritan river there is a curve and it is still really a bridge.

Well, I hit with a lean one of those metal seams with a slight uptick on the far side - probably the last one - and my front wheel went out of control for a split second. I kept riding because that was all I could do and I was a good boy and kept my pants clean, but damn.

I think a combination of steering damper, slow reflexes and inertia really kept the bike on the road and going in the correct direction.

Oddly enough, though, there was so much rain and for so long of my 3 hour ride back to Rahway from Cape May that I don't really think I have much of a problem riding in the rain (despite that one incident). I mean really I was going 77 mph (according to my speedo) and probably should have been going slower, particularly in a turn (even though it wasn't a significant turn).

Well, still alive, still in one piece, no damage to the bike - only thing damaged is my pride and it really can't take too many hits, but what can you do?

At least maybe September will be a good month and I'll be able to ride some more.

I hit triple digits for the first time on a bike today. My wife in the minivan got far ahead (too many people pulling in to my space cushion) that I hit an open area and gave it a little gas (I mean really a little gas) and off we went. Of course, I doubt if I really hit the big 100 - after seeing that my odometer is off by so many miles for only a 141 mile ride I have no idea how accurate my speedo really is.

I'll rationalize my purchase of a waterproof GPS and mounting hardware on the basis that I want to know how fast I'm really going...

Yeah, that isn't going to fly. I view it as a good thing, really. I'll think I'm a speed demon going 75 or 80 mph to work and I'll really be doing what - 65 to 70?

RhadamYgg

[BuzZz]

I think your stressing over your odometer reading too much, Dude.

What that trip proved is that your bike's odo is about 4.5% off of the odo in the van. Speedo's (and odometers since they read off the same signal) have to be accurate within 10% to be legal. Assuming the van is dead-nuts accurate (unlikely), the bike isn't that far off. And well within normal tolerances.

If you really want something to worry about, you could try wondering how much that 4.5% will change as the rear tire wears and gets smaller and smaller in diameter....

[RhadamYgg]

Ahhhhh - it is gonna get worse! Thanks for that. More to worry about.

I thought speedo's had to be 100% accurate. I remember hearing about friends who got speeding tickets having their speedo's checked and submitting that as evidence that perhaps their being over the limit wasn't something they knew about.

The police can give tickets for being 1 to 5 mph over the limit. They actually did give my wife a ticket once on Thanksgiving vacation for just that. But if Speedo's can be off up to 10% (legally) - and the speed limit is 65 mph - it could legally be up to 71.5 mph and you could get busted - for 6 to 10 mph over - but as far as you were concerned you were doing your due diligence and obeying the speed limit.

But of course, this is to my advantage since the bike is high on miles therefore low on actual speed I can ride my 75 in a 65 mph speed limit and probably be only doing 71 mph.

[BuzZz]

Before I go shootin' off my yap too much, I should say that I am not sure what the laws down there are regarding this topic. And I only know that is the case here after an uncomfortable but indepth discussion with an angry cop here one day.

I am positive that motorcycle speed/odo's read fast/high off the showroom floor 99.99% of the time on this continent.

For $100 you can buy a speedohealer that just plugs into the bike's harness and can be set to correct the speedo accurately. After my gearing change, my speedo is way off (it read fast with stock gearing) now. I have no idea how fast I'm going these days.... One day I'll get a healer and fix that, but I'm not that concerned with it right now.

[RhadamYgg]

Wow - this sucks:
Odometer accuracy

You know, cars (and motorcycles) are built to incredibly high mechanical tolerances. If cars were built to six sigma standards - they would be accurate to 1 error for every 5 million miles.

Now, I'm not sure if that level of accuracy is possible; however, I should think that with our overall engineering prowess - odometer accuracy should at least be accurate to a slight error per every thousand miles or even 10,000 miles - not 1 to 10 percent per hundred miles.

Can you imagine if your spark plugs missed 10 percent of the time? There would be a whole lot more backfires out there with all that unburnt fuel. Not to mention poor fuel economy....

Which brings to mind - if you are calculating MPG based on your odometer and your odometer is optimistic by 10% - you'll think you are getting great miles per gallon - and you aren't...

This is huge.

I have seen those speedo healers. I'm just not sure I want to bust out the $114 for the one that'll work on my Suzuki.

RhadamYgg

[RhadamYgg]

More on Speedometers from Wikipedia:
Wiki

[BuzZz]

So just do what I do.... ride the dam thing and only worry about mileage readings when the fuel light comes on. Then I just have to worry about making the next gas station in time.....

MPG is a distant second to GPG (giggles per gallon).....

[RhadamYgg]

Ahhh so I've done something terrible to my bike. Fixable, but still stupid stupid stupid and yes did I mention terrible.

My wife said she was going to help me lube the chain of the B-king for - it seems like weeks. It has been ridden in the wet three times and I wanted to take it to work tomorrow.

She was going to help me lube it today when I got home from work, but that didn't work out. And then she had karate from 9 to 10 PM.

So, I decided I definitely was going to ride in tomorrow - and I definitely needed to have the chain lubed before I rode again because that last bit of rain on the way home from Cape May had been very heavy at times.

So, I take the bike out - and discover that at night I just can't lube the chain by myself.

My wife comes out to help me (all the kids are asleep - courtesy of me during her karate class).

We are having a really difficult time seeing what has been lubed and what hasn't - moved her van several times to reposition her headlights as I walk the bike a bit and lube the next segment of chain.

I have a brilliant idea (take that as sarcastic or not sarcastic) or both at the same time. I used to play with a bunch of neodymium magnets (ostensibly research on uses) and if the chain was magnetic we wouldn't have to tell where it was lubed or not - just keep repositioning the magnets. It was a stack of 5 or 6 1/4 inch thick, 1/2 " diameter magnets.

This actually works pretty well.

So, we're done. And I go to wheel the bike back to the garage. The bike stops moving (with a crunch).

I'm stuck in the middle of the street the bike no longer rolls forward or backward and what I wanted least was to be stuck in the middle of the street and there I was stuck in the middle of the street. Bleh.

After attempting to move the bike backwards to re-expose the magnets didn't work and I couldn't roll it fowards - I push the clutch in and with an other crunch I manage to get the bike rolling and it moves smoothly and I get it in to the garage.

The neodymium magnets are basically a ceramic coated in nickel.

At first I was thinking I've got magnet chunks in the transmission and that I'm totally screwed.

Then I recall that people can change their own sprockets and chains (often at the same time) and that the outside of the sprocket is probably sealed from the inside of the transmission.

So, my most horrible fear of screwing up the transmission I think is not going to happen.

But on the other hand, I've got bits of broken up fragments of nickel and neodymium ceramic magnet scattered all through my chain and likely the sprockets too.

So, I'm thinking I'm going to call the dealer tomorrow and ask for a tow - but should I ask them to be on the safe side to replace the sprockets and chain - or is it possible to remove and clean off the magnetic fragments from the chain and sprockets?

What would you do (and never mind the I wouldn't use magnets to mark my place on the chain and lube my bike's chain in the middle of the night, I've covered that ground and I agree, but that isn't what I actually did....)?

Ahhh... Well I guess we gotta learn somehow. I should be happy that it didn't involve blood, guts or anything else.

Damn, I really wanted to ride in tomorrow.

Part of me thinks that I could just ride and crunch up all the cerarmic and the chain/sprocket life for this set will be greatly reduced but that the bike isn't a screwed and change it now position.

RhadamYgg

[Wrider]

Honestly your best bet is to ride it. They're magnetic (obviously) so they won't fly off too badly until speed. Plus because of the way they're positioned they're on the outside... Honestly I wouldn't worry about it unless you can see chunks of magnet between your chain and your sprockets. The crunch is probably from it hitting the case cover, and if you aren't leaking oil, you're fine. (Those magnets tend to crush easily compared to a case cover.)
Check for evidence of an oil leak in the morning, if it isn't there run the chain around both sprockets, if it doesn't crunch anymore, ride it to work and be happy it was a cheap lesson!

[RhadamYgg]

Thanks Wrider. I'm late for work already so I won't ride it today.


None of the pieces we saw were between the chain and sprocket. At work I have a bunch of much stronger neondymium magnets and what we are going to do is use them to get as much of the particles and chunks out.

Then I'll probably ride it and since I doubt we'll get all the chunks and particles I'll probably have some lower chain life this time around.

Which is a-ok - well not a-ok, but better than having a re-built transmission. I was even thinking of going so far as to expose the front sprocket to see about getting particles off there as well.

RhadamYgg