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Couple of quick pictures, got a lot of stuff to do today:



We drove through a tree in California:


HARLEY-DAVIDSON BEEF JERKY!


Todd and Virginia walking out to the ocean:


That's it for now.

Looks great Skier! Was it a tad chilly at all - just wondering as I'm not that familiar with the ocean breezes & it's spring. You are so lucky - the snow here's melting but there's a bazillion pot-holes this year and an excess of sand and gravel all over the roads, but I did see a few bikes out yesterday (when it was warmer than it is today)

KarateChick wrote:Looks great Skier! Was it a tad chilly at all - just wondering as I'm not that familiar with the ocean breezes & it's spring. You are so lucky - the snow here's melting but there's a bazillion pot-holes this year and an excess of sand and gravel all over the roads, but I did see a few bikes out yesterday (when it was warmer than it is today)

The coast was the warmest part of the trip. When the sun went down, though, things got cold real quick. Thankfully, all our days were fairly short on riding, so we were usually checked in to a hotel before dusk.

And yes, we're lucky, for timing if nothing else. It's supposed to snow for the rest of the week here. Boo!

On a different note, I had earlier thrown down with our buddy MotoF150 about AMSOIL. Unlike him, I will actually follow through:

Skier wrote: HARLEY-DAVIDSON BEEF JERKY!

uhmm, you should really stop routing through dumpsters...

Product review time:

Stopper LED brake light
I picked up mine from Aerostich. You wire it into your brake lights and the row of nice and bright red LEDs add to braking indication. I've never seen what it looks like from a distance from my bike until I was on my spring break trip and swapped bikes.

The bike swap happened in the high desert of Nevada on a very bright day, and that line of LEDs was seriously noticeable. I was impressed by how bright they were. I'm most certainly going to pick up one of these for all of my bikes in the future!

Next up is Aerostich's Stop and Go tire repair kit.

If my tire's puncture wasn't far too wide, this kit would have been great. Nothing I could have brought with me could have filled it, anyways. The CO2 cartridges seem to do a decent job of filling the tire, but you NEED a wrench to hold one of the fittings as it turns ridiculously cold.

I could have done the entire tire-changing fiasco with a different way of inflating the tire. Next time I'm going to break apart my $20 Wal-Mart 12V air compressor and use that. Takes up a bit more room but if I'm really stuck in the middle of nowhere, it'll allow me to keep filling up the tire. Cheaper than buying those CO2 cartridges in bulk, too.

Joe Rocket Sportbike Saddlebags
Huge saddlebags. Tons of room. My only complaint is they don't have a smooth padding surface in a lot of places. The roughest part on my bike was the buckles and when they met bodywork. Also, my bike's aluminum heatshield was roughed up a bit. Nothing some rubbing compound and elbow grease won't take care of. I'll buy some kind of padding and keep using these on all my trips.

I received my LED bulbs from Superbrightleds.com. Taillight bulbs dropped right in without a problem, as did the front indicator bulbs (1157 replacements). Two problems: first, one of the indicator bulbs was DOA. Second, I have the ricer-flash going at about a billion times a second.

Thankfully I can get a new flasher relay that triggers with 0.02A to 20A, so I'll drop another $15 on one of those and wire it up. This allows me to replace the rear indicators with LEDs, as well, for even less power draw.

My charging system will have plenty of breathing room once I get LEDs on all four corners and the taillights. Now to look into a heated vest...

Just got back from running a few errands. I'm still on a mission to get the GF on two wheels, especially since she has her endorsement and passed the safety class. So we hit up the local Yamaha dealer and sit her on a Vino 125, C3 and a Vino classic.

The Vino 125 is a bit too tall for her. She can't flat-foot it, but the seat has a lot of foam in it. I wager if we shave off 3/4" or so all around, it'd be ok for her. It's nice because it's inexpensive, has a front disc brake and an acceptable amount of power. The power is important because we live on a hill and there's no way to get up to our place without a steep road or two. So the Vino 125 is acceptable, once the seat gets some foam knocked out.

The C3 wasn't bad. The GF thought the looks were acceptable. It's less expensive than the Vino 125, but at 50CCs it doesn't have the required amount of pep to get up the hills around here.

The Vino classic was the same deal as the C3. Decent enough scooter, not enough power.

Moving on to the Tank dealership, I'm impressed by the low prices. Now, I had done some research on these online and everyone says they are cheap Chinese junk knockoffs of Honda designs. I suppose they must skimp on things some places. It appears they skimped everywhere, though, except the "oh, wow" factor. Their cheapest scooter had a remote start and remote kill!

So we have the salesman pull a model down off its centerstand so my GF can hop on and see if it fits her. As he does so, one of the bolts holding the centerstand on to the scooter falls off. My buddy and I are on the side where the bolt fell off, the salesman and the GF were on the other side. Yeah, we let her play with that model for a bit then we got out of there. No thanks, that's some serious Chinese junk.

Next up was the Honda dealer. They have an Elite 80 which might provide enough punch for the hills around here, but it's still a maybe and it's still too bloody tall for her to handle. So that's out.

Honda's Helix 250 is out due to price. It's over twice as expensive as all the other models we were looking at today. Honda's other offerings are either too small of an engine or too high of a seat height.

She also can't fit on a Rebel due to the plastic covers on the sides and finds the Shadow VLX is too heavy for her, despite a very low CG and seat height.

Well, the quest continues. We think the best idea is still a used Vino 125 with some seat shaving.

Have you considered the GZ250 or S40? Maybe larger than what you're looking for but, I think they'd be worth sitting on. Maybe try and find a Vento dealer near you? I came across this site as well. If nothing else, it might give you some ideas; http://www.cbxmanmotorcycles.com/.

Good Luck with the search!

How big is your gf? If you check out the seat height sticky, you might be able to find something along the lines of the ones she can fit, but with enough power to get up your hills. You want to be able to ride the bike up the hills, not push it!
Wrider