The General Motorbikers Discussion Thread

[Spectre]

FYI, regarding your headlight: http://forums.off-road.com/vintage-d...ht-needed.html

[tigger]

Originally Posted by Spectre

FYI, regarding your headlight: http://forums.off-road.com/vintage-d...ht-needed.html

Thanks, though I actually know about that little trick. Last fall I cut the bulb out of the back of the light, leaving me a small circular hole. I bought a cheap turn signal bulb and holder, popped it in, and wall-ah, I got a headlight. The problem is that it's nearly worthless at night because it's so low power. I need my bike to pass inspection, and that won't be good enough. If I can ever find one, an automotive headlight, H6040 or H6014 or something, is a close enough fit.

[Spectre]

Try an H6024. Walmart, $10.

[tigger]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Try an H6024. Walmart, $10.

That's a 12v light, isn't it? The 3 prong plug is correct though. What I'm looking for has prongs just like that, is 6v and about 5 3/4in in diameter.

I need to go down to the Yamaha dealership anyway for a flywheel puller, I'll see if anyone there can tell me. It's normally just a couple girls working the parts counter, which isn't so bad. Unless you actually need a part. When I was there last, one of them thought "points and condenser" was a carburetor part .

[Bubs360]

I've got an '01 Buell Blast that I ride almost every day, even through a hailstorm last week. It's proven to be quite thrifty (70-76mpg) and a fun corner carver to boot. For the most part it's been reliable, but it is far from a comfortable long-distance machine. The 500cc thumper provides plenty of power but far from enough torque or top speed to do anything stupid. Luckily, it came with a Vance&Hines sport exhaust so it doesn't sound quite as lawn mower-ish as the stock Blast.




I would like to pick up another bike this year, probably an older Kawasaki KH400 triple like my dad used to have. Years from now, I want to get a Triumph Speed Triple. But for now, the Buell is a great bike.

[tianluo]

Just bought my gear, ready for commuting now

Frank Thomas 3 layer jacket with elbow and shoulder armour


Frank Thomas 2 layer trousers with knee armour


Frank Thomas gloves


Sidi boots with ankle protection


Forcefield back protector


...and a Shoei XR1000

[Spectre]

Not bad, but I would have gotten a jacket with integral back protection. The other thing I would have gotten is gloves with hard first knuckle protection, like these:



An awful lot of stuff comes up off the road and smacks those knuckles, IME.

[tianluo]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Not bad, but I would have gotten a jacket with integral back protection. The other thing I would have gotten is gloves with hard first knuckle protection, like these:

An awful lot of stuff comes up off the road and smacks those knuckles, IME.

Wanted to get a larger contact area with the back armour, so went for the wearing type. My work mates said it would mold into my shape soon and won't move around as much.

As for the gloves, I wanted one with hard knuckles, but couldn't find one which felt right and not dig into my hand. Would know sooner or later if it is up to the job.

[Spectre]

Courtesy of another forum that I am on, regarding people just returning to motorcycling after an absence:

(Original article was in City Bike) www.citybike.com

By Gabe Ets-Hokin

I just quit working as a motorcycle salesman, so now I can bitch about these guys to you. I call them “un-frozen cavemen,” in honor of the hilarious character invented by Phil Hartman on “Saturday Night Live.”

On the show, Hartman plays a 20,000-year-old caveman who was frozen in a glacier and then is thawed out in modern times. Our modern ways “frighten and confuse” him. My un-frozen cave men (UCM’s) sheepishly wander into dealerships all over the USA daily. They have just thawed themselves out from 15 to 40 years of motorcycle-less hibernation and are looking at motorcycles again for the first time since Nixon bombed Cambodia (to protect us from terrorists, of course).

They usually describe pretty limited motorcycle experience, and aren’t even sure of the model of bike they owned. (“Oh, it was a Honda. I’m pretty sure it was a Honda. Anyway, it was my brother-in-law’s. Man, was I crazy!”) Today I met the man who just 15 years ago had a BMW R75S, the only one ever known to have existed. He must have had a good relationship with BMW, for them to make a unique one-off bike like that for him.

The UCM’s gave it up because they bought a house, or they had a kid, or simply because the wife asked them to.

Frequently, they have an inflated image of their past selves. Sometimes they were the fastest guy on Mt. Tam. Other times they were the top motocrosser in the state. The common thread is that they had to abandon such craziness before they got their fool selves killed.

Running through my salesman’s list of steps to move the customer towards a sale (or maybe just to weed out the timewasters, which is what 75% of these guys are), I’ve now determined their riding experience, and now I want to find out what they want out of a motorcycle.

“Well, I just want to have something to putz around on.” is what a huge number of them say.

Putz around. “Putz” is Yiddish slang for the male reproductive organ, and is more commonly used to describe an oafish or stupid man. Yeah. Judging from the rare UCM who actually buys a motorcycle, “putzing” involves wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and boat shoes while wobbling down the street on a motorcycle with under 1000 miles on it. A man can do a lot of putzing (or putting) on a 50cc scooter, but they don’t want that. A 250 Virago or Ninja won’t do it either. I’ve seen a lot of putzes on scooters, especially in San Francisco, so it would seem an ideal putzing tool, but apparently not. I’ve never sold a small scooter or a small displacement bike to a UCM. “Putzing”, as an activity, needs to be done on a motorcycle with far, far, far more capability than the putzer could ever possibly use. It’s wacky, huh? Sort of like using a Porsche to pick up dry cleaning. Actually, they do that a lot, too. At least in Marin, which is probably the only place outside of Stuttgart where you can see actual traffic jams of Porsche 911’s.

Once I figure out what kind of riding style they’re interested in, I show the UCM a model or two. And it’s here the fun begins, as I have to explain every single technological advancement in motorcycle technology since 1968, starting with disc brakes. By the time I work my way up to liquid cooling, I’m ready to fake an epileptic seizure so I can stop talking to this guy.

“Liquid cooling? I don’t need that! I’ll just be putzing around on this thing. I won’t be racing or anything like that.”

I can just imagine a frustrated salesman talking to some prospect in 1910. “Rubber tires? With inner tubes? I’ve been riding on steel rims and wooden spokes since 1885. I don’t need any of that fancy crap! It’s not like I want to be riding around at 20 miles per hour or anything like that!”

Seriously, re-entry riders really need to be mature and intelligent about their re-entry purchase. Sure, a 30 horsepower Bonneville with drum brakes and barely-functioning suspension was OK back in the ‘70s, when the Bay Area’s population was a third of what it was now, and the roads were smooth and well-maintained, and most drivers were insured and driving well-maintained and relatively slow cars. But now the roads are heavily trafficked with SUV’s and monster trucks driven by inattentive sociopaths at breakneck speeds.

Introduce a putz on a modern motorcycle, a motorcycle with a power-to-weight ratio far better than anything available in the 1970s into the soup and it’s a recipe for lots of crashing. Especially when you consider that these guys never get any kind of advanced motorcycle training, much less a license.

The UCM is unable to comprehend the technological advances of the last three decades, so he just goes by what he knows about. This usually fits in with what I call the “I’m a pretty big guy” syndrome.

PBGS is a condition where the UCM’s creeping weight gain has convinced him that he needs a huge amount of horsepower to propel his expanding ass at a sufficient speed. The manifestations of PBGS are disregard for any motorcycle smaller than 750cc and a preference for “comfortable” seating positions. This means the UCM usually rejects any handlebar lower than nipple height as being “one of them Ninja-bikes.”

“I’d probably kill myself on one of those things.”

The UCM will usually tell the salesman that he had a 750 or a 900 back in the day, so he needs something at least that big. The salesman will try to explain that even the slowest, cheapest 600 today makes more horsepower and weighs far less than the most extreme, exotic, high powered liter bike 30 years ago, but the UCM’s primitive higher brain functions cannot comprehend such a concept. Big guys get big bikes. Manly men get the most powerful bike they can afford. A 750 is more powerful than a 600, and the 1400cc Harley must be the baddest, most fearsome bike at all.

It’s not like he’s buying a Kawasaki Z1 or anything like that! I remember I rode one of those things once, and I could barely control it, it went so fast!

Anyway, a pretty big guy needs at least a 750 for putzing around on. That’s just a basic safety issue. And I’m just being sarcastic. If these were real concerns I had, then the average age of motorcycle crash fatalities would be rising steadily over the last decade as more and more UCM’s re-discover the joys of ‘70s style unregulated, untrained motorcycling with the help of no formal training.

[Crazyjeeper]

Since gas has gone up so much, and my truck gets 13mpg no matter how I drive, I've started looking to save some money to buy a motorcycle. I have been reading a FAQ on the Ninja 250 forums and I encountered this amusing quote on crosswinds.

* Tumbleweeds blowing across road = mild crosswinds.
* Sand blowing across road = moderate crosswinds.
* Jackrabbits blowing across road = stiff crosswinds.
* Rattlesnakes blowing across road = heavy crosswinds.
* Trucks blowing across road = time to get off and walk.

[Spectre]

You'd be surprised at the kind of crosswinds a moving bike will stay upright in. Thank God for gyroscopic precession and the ability of a bike to roll on its axis while still moving forwards.

[Jon]

Originally Posted by Spectre

Not bad, but I would have gotten a jacket with integral back protection. The other thing I would have gotten is gloves with hard first knuckle protection, like these:



An awful lot of stuff comes up off the road and smacks those knuckles, IME.

I have Akito's version of these, although the hand protection is very good, they're quite bad at keeping your hands warm when it's a bit chilly.

[emil_t]

why are bikes limited to 300 km/h on the speedo ? even though the bike can do more

[Blind_Io]

They are?

[emil_t]

Originally Posted by Blind_Io

They are?

some guy on tv said that, and all digital speedos that i've seen go to 299km/h, oh and that guy had a hayabusa and had only 300 on the speedo , he said that's an EU only rule

[Karoug]

There is no law against it in here. But the Japanese manufacturers agreed upon it to stop idiots like myself from chasing km/h... Didn't work though..

[Redliner]

Great text, Spectre.

[Jon]

I'm shitting myself about this new motorbike test their introducing in the UK.. Some people say it's due in September, some say October. (If you don't know already it's meant to be ridiculously difficult and costs a ridiculous amount of money.) Basically i'm 21 on August 25th which means if it's September i have less than a week to do my bike test from the time i turn 21, and pass it. I could do my test now but i'd be restricted for 2 years. Balls.

[Spectre]

Not seeing the problem - get your test in that week window. Or is there some difficulty I'm not getting?

[Jon]

It's going to be busy as hell for bookings, and what if i don't pass it?

Edit: Found out it applies from September 29th.. This is good! Maybe i should actually start doing lessons now...