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Agree, that sounds low. Take a picture of them, we can all rate them. Tires slightly high is fine, as is the idea of your own pressure gauge. Ride them on spec for a while, then try once with slightly higher and see if you like it.
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Apr 30, 2012 05:49
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What do you all recommend for insurance? I'm 22, had my license since I was able to get it (and my M1 since September) and have never gotten a ticket. Progressive seems less expensive than Geico but I'm not really sure what all these different policies entail. 
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Apr 30, 2012 09:05
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Odette posted:So I had my front brake pads replaced last year at 37,500km and I'm approaching 44,000km and a motorcycle mechanic friend commented on them the other day, "dude these are pretty low, keep an eye on them." whenever I get my bike back from the shop, the tires are always cranked way up in pressure. Must be an oldschool motorbike mechanic thing. I just let a little air out to set it to the recommended cold tire pressure (1.8/2.0 bar). I have a small dial type gauge that fits in my jacket pocket that I leave in there all the time.
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Apr 30, 2012 09:37
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Xovaan posted:What do you all recommend for insurance? Insurance is really case by case, determined by your age, zip and things like the waxing of the moon. I've had good luck with Progressive after hunting around, and Geico tends to be stupid expensive despite their constant junkmail. Also I like Flo more then some annoying accented lizard. The levels of policy coverage are usually the same between companies. I've always had minimum liability though so I'm not to familiar with the extra options. I might add comprehensive once I sell the 636 and get the wrx (supermotos are easy to steal).
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Apr 30, 2012 10:51
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Gnaghi posted:Insurance is really case by case, determined by your age, zip and things like the waxing of the moon. I've had good luck with Progressive after hunting around, and Geico tends to be stupid expensive despite their constant junkmail. Also I like Flo more then some annoying accented lizard. I cannot stress enough: get comprehensive. I had a Ninjette disappear out of my driveway, and the insurance company was like "Welp, sucks to be you." To answer the original question, Progressive (at least in the USA) has always been a joy to work with, and I'd recommend them heartily. When I wrecked my first bike, I had a $500 deductible and the bike was worth $500. My adjuster said "Since your deductible is the same as what the bike's worth, we're just going to ignore it and cut you a check. Let me know if you have any medical expenses."
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Apr 30, 2012 13:31
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I've had GEICO for ages and every time I've dealt with them it's been super easy, fast and pleasant (although maybe I should price check Progressive just to see.) Never heard anything but praise about Progressive either. If you have car insurance with either one you can usually get a discount on your bike as well. The kinda no-name insurance guys (even the "bike-specific" ones) and the old-school insurance cos (USAA jumps to mind) tend to be royal jerks and not cheap enough to make it worthwhile. Ideally there's a web tool to let you play around, if not ask the rep over the phone, but often you can get significantly lower deductible for not much more; I think I'm on $100 deductibles and it's like $30 more a year than $500. (Since you say M1 I wonder if you're outside the US in which case I have no clue how relevant this is.)
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Apr 30, 2012 14:16
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Nthing Progressive, they've always been good to me. I went to adjust my chain this morning, and I used a straight edge (T-square) on the sprocket to make sure the chain was going straight. When all was said and done the left side of the bike was almost a full notch further back than the right side. Did I screw something up or is this an "acceptable" tolerance? I've never used a straight edge before but even so everything still looks straight. DRZ400.
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Apr 30, 2012 14:18
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Had a strange thing happen to me yesterday that has been playing on my mind, thought I'd ask you guys for your thoughts. Driving around a roundabout some guy cuts me off really dangerously and starts speeding off, I follow him and about 100m later he runs into traffic at which point I give him huge berth and give him the 'what the hell man' hand out motion, to which he gives me the finger.. At this point I slot in infront of him in the queue of traffic (moving like 15mph at this stage) and I get on the brakes slowly (he's like 7m back at this stage). So I'm slowing to near 0 to make him stop, planning to give him a nice solid middle and then leave, mildly inconveniencing both him and I. Dude doesn't stop, no, he drives up ultra close to me, and then as I stop he nudges me with his car! I'm fairly sure he must have bumped my wheel significantly, but I kept it up.. I'm rather bemused at this stage and put my kickstand down to get off, and my numberplate is actually trapped in the front grill of his car. He tries to reverse away, tugging my plate a little, and I manage to detangle myself by wiggling the bike. I jump off, completely raging at this stage and face off to this 20ish year old kid, who is having a go at me for stopping him. I explain to him that he's an utter oval office and that he could easily kill a biker by doing the kind of manoeuvers that he was pulling. I didn't hit him I'm glad to say, but drat do I wish I had. What I want to ask is; Am I an idiot for doing what I did? (Bare in mind that this is a fairly common thing for bikers here to do, although I suppose that's not justification by any means). I could have easily been an undercover/off-duty policeman that he just rammed ffs. How are you supposed to deal with people like this on the road? I'd love to ignore it, but dude was driving loving dangerously. I wholly expected him to apologise, but he clearly did not give a gently caress that he was endangering me... I don't know whether to blow this off as 'one of those things' or to take it as an attitude check for myself, and try to be more passive??? drat.
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Apr 30, 2012 15:14
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Safety Dance posted:To answer the original question, Progressive (at least in the USA) has always been a joy to work with, and I'd recommend them heartily. When I wrecked my first bike, I had a $500 deductible and the bike was worth $500. My adjuster said "Since your deductible is the same as what the bike's worth, we're just going to ignore it and cut you a check. Let me know if you have any medical expenses." Good to hear, I just moved over to Progressive last night. I was with Foremost, who used to own, but are waaaaaaaay behind the times in the web presence department. When you log into your account with them, your only option is to pay your bill, but none of their bills are online, so you either have to have your paper bill with you or guess. Its dumb as hell.
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Apr 30, 2012 15:26
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_Dav posted:How are you supposed to deal with people like this on the road? I'd love to ignore it, but dude was driving loving dangerously. I wholly expected him to apologise, but he clearly did not give a gently caress that he was endangering me... I don't know whether to blow this off as 'one of those things' or to take it as an attitude check for myself, and try to be more passive??? drat. Ride with a camera. Escalating a situation with an aggressive driver of several tons of rolling steel is never in your favor.
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Apr 30, 2012 15:53
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Is there a place I can buy kickstand/sidestand rubbers from? That way I don't scrape concrete every time I park the bike.
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Apr 30, 2012 16:01
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_Dav posted:What I want to ask is; Am I an idiot for doing what I did? (Bare in mind that this is a fairly common thing for bikers here to do, although I suppose that's not justification by any means). I could have easily been an undercover/off-duty policeman that he just rammed ffs. Just leave, please don't get yourself killed. No matter how right you are, bigger vehicles always win the argument. 
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Apr 30, 2012 16:22
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_Dav posted:
Yes you are He is in a car and your on a bike, you will die and he will drive away if that is his intention. Who is right has no bearing. Never escalate a situation, don't even give the finger. Pull over and cool off if you are too angry to ride intelligently
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Apr 30, 2012 16:26
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MotoMind posted:Ride with a camera. Escalating a situation with an aggressive driver of several tons of rolling steel is never in your favor.
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Apr 30, 2012 16:29
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kenny powerzzz posted:I have been thinking of doing this. I need a bit more gear before I spend on a camera but it's definately on the list. If nothing else it could document a situation that may be their word against yours and after the cost I don't see any downsides to it. $50 buck helmetcam: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3223561&pagenumber=16#post402724852 Works great, been using it for a few days. Only malfunction is leaving it on and getting a few hours of video from my dresser. 
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Apr 30, 2012 16:36
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_Dav posted:How are you supposed to deal with people like this on the road? I'd love to ignore it, but dude was driving loving dangerously. I wholly expected him to apologise, but he clearly did not give a gently caress that he was endangering me... I don't know whether to blow this off as 'one of those things' or to take it as an attitude check for myself, and try to be more passive??? drat. Carry a cell phone, call the cops. You shouldn't have positioned yourself where he could hit you, but definitely once he did you should've had him busted.
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Apr 30, 2012 16:41
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LarryCsonka posted:Yes you are I wasn't angry, I was intending to let the guy know that he was being dangerous and being a dick; perhaps in some small way preventing him from doing the same poo poo to other bikers. What is shocking to me is that he literally couldn't have given less of a poo poo. With the 20/20 of hindsight, following this particular guy was the wrong action. Snowdens Secret posted:Carry a cell phone, call the cops. You shouldn't have positioned yourself where he could hit you, but definitely once he did you should've had him busted. I stopped in such a way that unless he really really wanted to hit me, he never would have. I never would have imagined that he was actually going to do it.. Should I report this, or is it one of those things that is better left. It looks as though I'm not exactly an angel in this in any case, but I would love to see that knob put down a number of pegs. _Dav fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Apr 30, 2012 |
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Apr 30, 2012 17:00
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_Dav posted:Should I report this, or is it one of those things that is better left. If there's no visible damage anywhere, no footage of the incident, and no policeman saw it happen, then it's just your word against his. Which means it might as well have never happened. It's even harder now that you've let some time pass instead of calling it in right away. Better to just leave it, as frustrating as that is.
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Apr 30, 2012 17:05
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MotoMind posted:$50 buck helmetcam: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3223561&pagenumber=16#post402724852
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Apr 30, 2012 17:07
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_Dav posted:I wasn't angry, I was intending to let the guy know that he was being dangerous and being a dick; perhaps in some small way preventing him from doing the same poo poo to other bikers. What is shocking to me is that he literally couldn't have given less of a poo poo. With the 20/20 of hindsight, following this particular guy was the wrong action. Escalating ANY situation is the wrong action. People in cars do not act as they would outside a car. Always assume they are irrational, as most times they are. I am never shocked by people not giving a poo poo in a car, I am shocked when they do
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Apr 30, 2012 17:17
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LarryCsonka posted:Escalating ANY situation is the wrong action. People in cars do not act as they would outside a car. Always assume they are irrational, as most times they are. I am never shocked by people not giving a poo poo in a car, I am shocked when they do That's a good way to look at it, fair point. I just have problems with letting things go.
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Apr 30, 2012 17:26
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_Dav posted:I just have problems with letting things go. I do too. I always try to remember the Rule of Lugnuts - as in, "he with the most lugnuts ALWAYS wins", and that helps.
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Apr 30, 2012 17:36
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That's why you should always ride with a sock full of lugnuts.
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Apr 30, 2012 17:49
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MotoMind posted:That's why you should always ride with a sock full of lugnuts. "What? That lug nut that cracked your windshield couldn't possibly have come from my bike, it's clearly for a car of some sort."
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Apr 30, 2012 17:58
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That, and most car drivers who drive offensively like that aren't aware they're doing it. So they have no idea they almost just knocked your bike over. So when you ride up next to them and crowd their car and flip them off, they think it's an unprovoked act and you're some kind of dangerous psychopath. And depending on where you live in the world, such as most of the USA, many people spend their whole lives eagerly awaiting an encounter with a person like that, or the second coming of Christ, so that they have an excuse to commit homicide and feel justified in doing it.
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Apr 30, 2012 18:30
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Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester posted:That, and most car drivers who drive offensively like that aren't aware they're doing it. So they have no idea they almost just knocked your bike over. So when you ride up next to them and crowd their car and flip them off, they think it's an unprovoked act and you're some kind of dangerous psychopath. And depending on where you live in the world, such as most of the USA, many people spend their whole lives eagerly awaiting an encounter with a person like that, or the second coming of Christ, so that they have an excuse to commit homicide and feel justified in doing it. Yeah, this. Most people aren't actually assholes, they're just oblivious.
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Apr 30, 2012 18:38
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Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester posted:It is not in fact good for the engine. Arguably it's bad for the engine in a minor sense. You're putting a load on the engine when you don't need to. The wear on the engine is incredibly small each time, but imagine it's like opening the throttle more than you need to every time you accelerate. It has a cumulative effect. I don't think it would have a long-term effect that would be measurable on the average bike/rider, but it's not a GOOD thing to do to the engine. At best it has no effect. The load you put on the bike's engine engine braking is negligible compared to other loads. The load during engine braking is only from compressing and re-expanding the intake air. The force to do so is negligible compared to the force from a combustion event with the same charge of air. In steel, when loads are small enough compared to the ultimate strength, the part can have infinite life. The only, very small, drawback to engine braking is the normal wear caused by friction, which again, should be small because the loads (and pressures) on the engine are also small. Giblet Plus! fucked around with this message at 00:30 on May 1, 2012 |
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May 1, 2012 00:28
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Rev. Dr. Moses P. Lester posted:That, and most car drivers who drive offensively like that aren't aware they're doing it. So they have no idea they almost just knocked your bike over. So when you ride up next to them and crowd their car and flip them off, they think it's an unprovoked act and you're some kind of dangerous psychopath. And depending on where you live in the world, such as most of the USA, many people spend their whole lives eagerly awaiting an encounter with a person like that, or the second coming of Christ, so that they have an excuse to commit homicide and feel justified in doing it. That's the thing, I didn't flip him off, I gave the wide armed 'dude, what the hell' motion to which he flipped me off. Reading that back makes it painfully obvious that that was the sign to not bother with the guy at all.
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May 1, 2012 01:34
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Ola posted:Agree, that sounds low. Take a picture of them, we can all rate them. Tires slightly high is fine, as is the idea of your own pressure gauge. Ride them on spec for a while, then try once with slightly higher and see if you like it.   Pics! So ... how lovely are my brakes? 
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May 1, 2012 01:55
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Your rotor is pretty chewed up. Hard to tell your pad level, there's usually a channel in the friction material, if you can't see one you might be due for new pads.
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May 1, 2012 02:06
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_Dav posted:That's the thing, I didn't flip him off, I gave the wide armed 'dude, what the hell' motion to which he flipped me off. Reading that back makes it painfully obvious that that was the sign to not bother with the guy at all. Look at it this way, your gestures, yelling, or middle finger won't suddenly make him a better driver. In fact it apparently made him an even more dangerous one while he was doing his idiocy to show you up. You have the final laugh anyway. He's stuck in his generic box, but you're on the proper number of wheels.
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May 1, 2012 02:07
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Pads look like they're at about 50% life but that rotor doesn't loom great as clutchpuck said. If you can feel valleys and peaks in it as you scrape your nail from the inside to the outside of the swept surface, or if it's below the minimum thickness (typically printed on the rotor) you should replace them 
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May 1, 2012 02:27
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Z3n posted:If you can feel valleys and peaks in it as you scrape your nail from the inside to the outside of the swept surface, or if it's below the minimum thickness (typically printed on the rotor) you should replace them My rotors have been like this since day 1. 
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May 1, 2012 02:38
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_Dav posted:Driving around a roundabout some guy cuts me off... Just view the thing as a sound-proof bubble with all the sense and humanity sucked out of it and you'll never be disappointed. I go back to the Everybody Hurts video for a refresher every once in a while. It's not too far off, really. Except now they've got cellphones so they can verbalize the imagined drama in real time. Save the physics lesson for a guy in a Miata at a stoplight. That's the one where you don't die. I know it's difficult to check your emotion--I still get surprised out there. The latest fad I'm seeing is drivers jamming from the far right lane to the far left to grab a U-turn. I'm not talking drifting and power-merging, I'm talking about swinging perpendicular to the direction of traffic. I've almost T-boned these idiots twice in a season that technically hasn't even begun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijZRCIrTgQc
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May 1, 2012 03:03
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Marv Hushman posted:The latest fad I'm seeing is drivers jamming from the far right lane to the far left to grab a U-turn. I'm not talking drifting and power-merging, I'm talking about swinging perpendicular to the direction of traffic. I've almost T-boned these idiots twice in a season that technically hasn't even begun. I don't know where you are, but that seems to be nearly the only way Dallas cagers know how to get to an off ramp. I used to think Bay Area drivers were the worst, until I moved here.
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May 1, 2012 03:58
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Xovaan posted:What do you all recommend for insurance? Do you have car insurance or renter's/home owners insurance? Bundling is the way to go. Full coverage on my bike is $80/6 months(lol adventure/dual-sport insurance is cheap anyway) because we have other stuff on the policy. And yes road rage dude, you're an idiot. Just let it go or rage inside your helm. Think of it jerk-offs who taunt you the same way you think about internet trolls.
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May 1, 2012 04:10
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PSIC is worth checking out.
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May 1, 2012 05:23
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thylacine posted:Do you have car insurance or renter's/home owners insurance? Bundling is the way to go. Full coverage on my bike is $80/6 months(lol adventure/dual-sport insurance is cheap anyway) because we have other stuff on the policy. The problem is that my car is under my dad's insurance policy. I'm wondering if I could add the motorcycle to his policy and keep me as the primary rider... paying $30/month right now for theft and liability only.  I'll also look into PSIC. Thanks!
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May 1, 2012 09:07
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How old are you guys? I'm a 26 y/o male, and the lowest I've ever been quoted for an '06 V-Strom DL1000 for full coverage is more than $100/month, and I've never been in an accident, cited, or had an insurance loss. It's bullshit that I'm grouped along with other idiots my age when I'm a goddamned commercial driver instructor and have never even been in a minor crash, knock on wood.
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May 1, 2012 22:04
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Radbot posted:It's bullshit This is how you can describe literally everything about how insurance companies operate. It's basically just legalized (legally mandated, for that matter) racketeering.
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May 1, 2012 22:23
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