To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

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jstark47
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Re: To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

#151 Unread post by jstark47 »

JackoftheGreen wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 9:45 am THIS IS A TEST.
Ummm......no.... that's a Concours 14. Kawi doesn't make a model called "Test".

:mrgreen:
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Re: To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

#152 Unread post by JackoftheGreen »

jstark47 wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 3:03 pm
JackoftheGreen wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 9:45 am THIS IS A TEST.
Ummm......no.... that's a Concours 14. Kawi doesn't make a model called "Test".

:mrgreen:
RDRR

😀

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Re: To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

#153 Unread post by JackoftheGreen »

It was really a busy weekend!

Riding as a pretend student was a lot of fun! Even with the rain. It was coming down pretty hard for the first half of the class, which prompted me to take the Scorpion jacket I reviewed last fall. The waterproofing capabilities of the jacket, combined with my Frog Togg pants, kept me dry.

I rode half a dozen different bikes, as us coaches are wont to do, and had fun on each of them. I even got to spend some time on the Grom, which was a lot more fun that I expected it to be. The Grom is so small, it really doesn't matter that you're too big for it. The handle bars don't contact your knees on turns because they're simply not long enough to. The entire bike just disappears beneath you, and it's a lot more like skate boarding than motorcycling. You get the impression that you could just sling the Grom over your shoulder when you got where you're going. For all that though it's a tight, precise little machine, and I knocked out more than a few 14 or 12 foot U-turns on it. Here's a pic of me and the Grom.
eric grom.jpg
On the subject of Honda, I also rode the newly updated Rebel. That was less fun. The riding position is more forward than you might expect, at least it was for my six foot frame, and that was kinda nice. But the pegs just stick out so far, they'll bruise up your shins if you're not paying attention when you put your feet down. Good pickup on it though for a 250. Didn't take any pics.

In case you missed it on the main page, Carrie's review of the Amphibious Soft Seat is live this week! Here's the link.

Amphibious Soft Seat

I suppose that's everything I've got for now!


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Re: To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

#154 Unread post by JackoftheGreen »

Some more pics from the class over the weekend!
smiling.jpg
twilight.jpg

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Re: To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

#155 Unread post by JackoftheGreen »

Not much to talk about today.

It's the second Tuesday of the month, which means Bike Night at our local CycleGear. We've missed it the last two months, sadly, and missed it again today because the weather's been pretty wet. As established, we're not even the least bit intimidated by riding in the rain. But Bike Night isn't any fun if people don't show up, and in our experience rain drives most of them away. So we stayed in today.

I had to go outside and clean up some of the remnants from our super-soft party. The giant flamingo and unicorn pool floaties, specifically. Deflated them and tucked them in out of the weather. I can't imagine how it'd look having a 7' tall flamingo flying off into the wind.

The downtime is pretty nice after the busy weekend.

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Re: To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

#156 Unread post by JackoftheGreen »

Haven't had a lot of time to get on here this week. :) We're babysitting our niece and nephew while their parents are off an their Alaskan cruise, so it's been pretty crazy. We've changed up our shifts at work as well, so I've been getting up at 3:40am to make it to work by 5. Pretty tired. Getting up early is easy, it's going to bed on time that I struggle with.

I installed the isolated fuse block on Carrie's CTX over the weekend and it turned out very good. Her bike is the Standard, as opposed to the Deluxe, so it has a pigtail under the seat that provides switched power to a 12v socket on the Deluxe. On the Standard it's just capped off and taped. A quick clip, some stripping and shrink connectors, and it's providing the switch for the relay. EZPZ.

Stashing the fuse block was a little more difficult, as big as that bike is there isn't much spare room under the cowlings. I've got it sitting on top of the battery restraint strap, secured with four inches of Dual-Lock. Very secure, but also very tight in there. The cowlings are already a little sketchy, maybe a little worse now.

Will be doing the same thing on my bike this coming weekend, maybe. I'm teaching, so we'll see if I feel up to it after class.

That's all for now! Thanks for checking in!

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Re: To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

#157 Unread post by JackoftheGreen »

My latest article went live this morning, and I'm really excited about this one!

I wanted to put out something about improving riding techniques, so after some thought I decided to write about counterweighting. This is not to be confused with countersteer, which is different.

Very pleased with this one, please check it out, share it in your networks, and make sure to watch the video too! It's especially good!

Counterweighting - Tight Turns, Tight Skills


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Re: To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

#158 Unread post by JackoftheGreen »

coffee.jpg
My cup of coffee this morning.

I taught a class this weekend and had a lot of fun. It seems like every class I learn something new, and I suppose that's how it should be right? Unless there's a change in the schedule this will have been the last class I teach this season, which means a nice long break and I get to start sleeping in on weekends again. Carrie has one more class scheduled and then she'll be on winter hiatus too.

As part of that, I suppose I'll cancel the ads on our two bikes for sale. Those winter bargain shoppers always give me a headache, and for the Versys at least, I think I'm 70% of the way convinced to put some nobbies on it and make it my dual sport. We've been talking a little about maybe doing some off-road stuff, and the rest of the world rides the Versys in all kinds of thick. It's just here in the States we think of it as strictly a road bike. So we'll see how that goes. A lot of people missed out on a really good deal, LoL.

Obviously didn't get around to the fuse block this weekend, but I may have some downtime during the week I could start on it.

Yesterday after class, Carrie and I went to our local mineral hot springs park, a place called Crystal Hot Springs in the town of Honeyville. It's about half an hour north of us, cheap admission and excellent pools. They have several different tubs and pools of varying sizes and temperatures, and it's one of our favorite places to spend time when the weather cools off. It's amazing to me to think what a luxury a hot spring must have been 200 years ago, when heating water was a arduous chore. Can you imagine coming across a hot spring in the wild when you literally hadn't had a hot bath in months? It must have been incredible.

We spent two hours soaking in the pools, much-needed after how the last few weeks have gone. Every time I go to any sort of waterpark facility, I always think the same thing, "Wow, like EVERYBODY has tattoos!" If you work for a company that still considers visible tattoos a violation of dress code, you should do something to try to change that culture. Literally more people have tattoos than don't these days. Or, at least, when examining the portion of the population that engages in public bathing. Maybe it's a thing.

So that was our weekend. This week should be relatively quiet, getting the tires on our econobox rotated tomorrow and that's about it for plans.

A quick favor to ask while I've got you here. The TMW YouTube channel has been hovering at 19,9xx subscribers all summer. We get a couple more every few days, but I'm getting tired of looking at 19.9K. So I thought I'd see if I could push a membership drive from my blog here. I'll make it really easy on you. Assuming this works, all you have to do to subscribe is click HERE. That should be the direct link to subscribe to the channel, and all you'll have to do is log in to your YouTube account if you're not already singed in over there. EZPZ. As of twenty minutes ago we were at 19,959 subscribers, so it'll only take 41 people to get to 20k. Does this modest little blog here on the largest motorcycle website in North America have the horsepower to get 40 YT subscriptions? Show me what we've got.

Thank you!! That's all for now, I'll be seeing you next week. Now I'm gonna have a drink and watch some comedy on NetFlix.
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Re: To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

#159 Unread post by JackoftheGreen »

I went out after work today to get the tires on our Honda Fit rotated, just like an adult!

While they were doing their thing at Discount Tire, I walked over to the AutoZone next door to grab a couple of things I've been wanting. I picked up a new battery for my key fob, some red 14ga wire for my fuse box install (I already have 14ga black wire), and a pair of those sticky 2" blind spot mirrors. More on those later.

There were about a dozen AZ associates in the store while I was there, doing a lot of stocking stuff. Great big bins full of products that they were moving around the store, hanging up or pulling down on nearly every isle. I asked the associate what they were doing, and he told me something interesting. He said their store was being designated as a regional distribution center, so their building was being expanded and they were freeing up stock space in the back. I'm excited to hear that AutoZone is investing and expanding in a storefront in my neighborhood, I think that's a pretty good sign. Just wanted to share that. :)

So the blind spot mirrors! I've been wanting a pair of them for Ursula. I think they're a great product and I've used them on several vehicles I've owned, but I've never had a bike with room for them. But the Connie's mirrors are HUGE, so they fit just fine. The only thing they block is the view of my panniers, LoL.

That's all I got for now, thanks for checking in!

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Re: To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

#160 Unread post by JackoftheGreen »

It was a pretty laid-back week.

It's been raining off and on all week too, and temperatures have been getting steadily colder. Overnight lows got down under 40 degrees yesterday, so we finally swallowed our pride and turned on the furnace. I LOVE those six weeks where you don't need any sort of comfort cooling or heating, and we try to make it longer every year without giving in.

Turing on the furnace for the first time every year is especially low on my list. No matter how much vacuuming and dusting we do, there's always that burnt hair smell for the first ten minutes. The smoke detectors in the house all go off too. This year I even dragged my air hose down into the basement and blasted out the ignition chambers with compressed air. Still happened.

On Saturday, my oldest daughter went out with a boy to a local skating rink/laser tag/arcade place in town. Her treat. She's 15, almost 16, and by all reports they had a good time. He's a good kid, been over a couple of times, and they get along well. He even carried her skates in for her, which was nice. They really do grow up quickly.

Afterwards, we settled in for a family movie night for Carrie's birthday, which was Friday. We did a sandwich buffet with a bunch of deli meats and cheeses, sauces, lettuce and tomato and all that good stuff. I'm still stuffed. We watched Sleepy Hollow. And then today we did a replay of the same thing and started watching Supernatural together as a family. Carrie and I used to watch the show until it got stupid. We binged the first six episodes this afternoon and so far it's a hit. They're all loving it.

I also got some of the preliminary work done installing the fuse block on Ursula. I soldered in spade connectors on the relay and prepped all my power and ground wires, now I just have to take my shrouds apart and start placing the components. I'm definitely going to take some video of that process and turn it into another YouTube offering, since it's the sort of thing that might seem intimidating to people before they understand how everything goes together.

While I'm doing that, I'm going to remove the peg lowering blocks I put on her. I thought they'd be nice, but they throw off all the rest of my geometry and make some things more difficult. Lesson learned.

Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks again for taking the time!

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