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Marv Hushman posted:some areas that will never have jack (AZ ...) I've noticed this as well, and I can't figure out why. I lived in Tempe for a couple of years, and while the summer would be murder in full leathers, surely the NOTGAOTT folks would find the climate to be perfect. There should be WAY more motorcycles for the population. Were they just not selling japanese bikes down there in the 60s and 70s?
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Feb 29, 2012 03:21
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Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:I'm military, home state is NC where they just don't give a gently caress. I don't have to inspect any of my vehicles until the next time I go there. "So you mean if I retire in 18 years, I wouldn't have to get a vehicle inspection until then if I don't come to NC in the mean time?" I asked on the phone. "Correct" was the answer. That sounds like my experience getting an Arizona driver's license. "Here's your card!" "Thanks...wait, I think the expiry date on this is wrong." *hands back card* "You were born in...and that's...nope, that looks right to me!" "But it says it expires in 2051." "Yep!" "Shouldn't it be, like, 2015 or something?" "Of course not, it expires when you turn 65." "..." "Just come in every ten years or so to get your picture updated. I don't want to see you before then!" "..." "Have a nice day!" Coming from various lands of "yes, it will be 70 dollars to renew your license card, every three years" that just utterly blew my mind.
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Mar 3, 2012 17:59
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Shimrod posted:?!?!?! In places where the winter is too icy and snowy for any but the utterly insane to ride, you can often get half-year (etc) insurance that costs a fair bit less.
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Mar 5, 2012 07:22
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Honestly, if you just stayed around Phoenix, you saw the least amazing part of the state. Get up towards Sedona, Flagstaff, Prescott, the Painted Desert...take the Oak Creek Canyon road. I personally love starting in Phoenix about this time of year or a little later, when it's hot and dry in the low desert, then driving north all the way through Flagstaff towards the Grand Canyon. You go through a dozen different ecozones -- scrubby plains, deciduous forest, sandstone towers, pine forest, volcanic ash fields, high desert taiga, snowy mountain ranges -- all within 4 or 5 hours on the road. The altitude changes mean that it can be 70 degrees in Sedona and thirty miles north it's snowing. It's incredible.
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Mar 7, 2012 17:30
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My understanding is that countersteering, the effect of the motorcycle steering in the opposite direction to initiate a lean, happens in all turns...but countersteering, the actual action of the rider pushing on the opposite handlebar to make a turn, is not actually necessary until you've reached a certain speed. That's how it has always seemed to me, anyway.
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Mar 8, 2012 19:44
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I took my MSF in the rain, and it was actually not a bad experience, because I learned that braking in the rain is not as terrifying as I thought. Sure was cold, though...pick up some of those little disposable hand warmer things that go inside your gloves. They're lifesavers.
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Mar 10, 2012 06:13
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Ola posted:Thanks guys! Will have to weigh my options, the easiest way is to just cut a threaded rod to desired length, but I'm not sure how easy they are to unscrew, in the rare event that you'd need to unscrew one, particularly after it's been Loctited. I am currently removing a broken (steel) bolt from an (aluminum) engine side cover by dissolving it out electrolytically. Fill the hole up with battery acid, float a thin electrode down the center, apply positive to the part and negative to the electrode. Over time the steel will disintegrate and gather on the electrode, while the aluminum becomes anodized. It can be really slow, several days, but it will leave your original threading intact and clean.
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Mar 13, 2012 15:50
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Forty Two posted:I'm not quite sure about this. Battery acid (sulphuric acid) readily reacts with aluminium and will produce hydrogen gas, which is bad for a variety of reasons. Baking Soda (sodium bicarbonate) would be a much better electrolyte. Sulfuric acid does react with aluminum, but you are missing the anode reaction. The coating of aluminum oxide actively built up on the anode as a simultaneous process protects the base metal from any corrosion. In fact, you'll find that what I'm doing is actually the exact process used to anodize aluminum after stripping it in lye. I can confirm that the steel is indeed dissolving out and plating onto the cathode as iron (II) oxide, because so far the top eighth-inch of threads have been stripped completely clean and a bunch of black crud has built up on the cathode. The crud is also magnetic so that sort of proves it's ferrous. Baking soda would not be a good electrolyte because it produces an alkaline solution, which would cause the aluminum oxide to fall right off, exposing the highly reactive bare metal underneath and ruining the part in just the way you predicted. I did consider nitric acid, but it's a pain in the rear end to acquire in Canuckistan and I had battery acid and a power supply sitting around already. If I had a larger bolt to get rid of I'd probably go that way, though. You're right that the aluminum could have been an alloy that would be badly affected by the acid, and I probably should have checked that first, but eh, most alloys wouldn't be and I was lucky. Don't be a grouch.  [e] incidentally, the same process means that if you have a broken tap or bolt in an aluminum part, you can take it to be anodized and the steel part will just fall out. It can ruin the anodizing solution so it's good to let the guy know of this, but it definitely works. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Mar 13, 2012 |
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Mar 13, 2012 18:13
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Forty Two posted:I wasn't grouching, I'm just curious! Most of the stuff I do nowadays is real bucket chemistry, I usually measure things in or kilos or tonnes. Whoops, sorry...I saw Sir Cornelius' avatar right above your post and coupled it with the general "well I don't think that's right" attitude and assumed it MUST have been him. Cause who else could it be?  The wire is the cathode. The positive cable is connected to the aluminum part, which is electrically continuous with the steel bolt, so the entire part is the anode. The steel dissolves into iron oxide and allows the acid to contact the aluminum underneath, which is instantly anodized (oxidized) and thus passivated against further corrosion. You're right that doing it too long is a bad idea, though. I've gotten to four days of continuous dissolving (at very low current, mind you -- slow and steady) and I don't really want to risk doing damage now that it's cleaned down to the internal threads in some places, so I'm going to try picking the rest of the bolt out with an icepick or a scribe or something. This motorcycle so far has been more of a chemistry project than a mechanics project, really. Sulfuric acid to electrolyze the bolt out, and to deal with the DSPO who boiled the battery over and killed it...oxalic acid to chelate the rust off of chrome...sodium carbonate for deep electrolytic rust removal from steel...xylene and hexane to dissolve varnish and grease...ammonia and isopropanol in the metal polish...way more WD-40 and liquid wrench than I'd care to think about...
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Mar 13, 2012 21:56
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NitroSpazzz posted:I'm headed out to Montana in July for a wedding and am trying to figure out how I want to get out there. If that's total time from start to finish, not just time on the bike, I believe you would qualify for an Iron Butt Association Saddlesore 1500. Worth submitting your details if that's the case.
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Mar 15, 2012 17:44
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darkhand posted:If you're not motivated to focus and want to learn it, it's rather moot. Oh, you 
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Mar 20, 2012 20:25
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LarryCsonka posted:The instructor yelled at him to never look down like that while sitting on the bike. I thought it was a dick move, he has never ridden before and embarrassed him on front of the group. Wow, what a prick. Even a rider with decades of experience would probably look down on an unfamiliar bike just to see where the petcock actually was. My MSF was pretty good. It was a really cold and rainy weekend so we didn't spend quite as long on some of the exercises as we normally would have, but everybody passed and only one person crashed (not badly). The very first thing was rolling down a slight hill with the engine off to learn how to put your feet up and use the brakes, followed by about an hour of just clutch practice -- start rolling, ride 10 feet, stop at the line, start again, ride to the next line, stop, etc. At least a third of the class had never driven a standard before and everyone figured it out by the end.
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Mar 20, 2012 20:44
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Ponies ate my Bagel posted:Yeah because you'd never look to your petcock while riding... It's not like the tank ever runs out and you need to switch it to reserve while riding to avoid eating that SUV... Well, the instructor was right that you shouldn't be looking down at the petcock while you're riding. Target fixation and all that. Better to learn where it is by feel. But yelling at a new rider, the first time he got on a bike, for looking down to find it while the bike was stationary? Total prick.
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Mar 20, 2012 21:55
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nsaP posted:Not sure if serious. Nice macro. No, I didn't mean that you were going to target-fixate on your petcock and suck yourself into the gas tank and disappear into a singularity. It was kind of a brain-dead way of saying "the target you should be fixating on is the road ahead, not pieces of your motorcycle."
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Mar 20, 2012 23:34
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You know what I meant. [e] uh, here's a sexy picture to make this page look better  (put some goddamn gear on ya squid) Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Mar 20, 2012 |
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Mar 20, 2012 23:38
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Linedance posted:things my bike has on its digital gauge cluster: Things my bike has: - a petcock with a reserve setting - a resettable trip odometer (new for '71!) Course I'm really just confirming your point about it being an anachronism, but hey, there are probably more vintage bikes on the road percentage-wise than there are vintage cars.
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Mar 21, 2012 02:18
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Speaking of petcocks, I've got one of those vacuum operated ones that has "on" "pri" and "res" that I'd like to change to "on" "off" "res." Are petcocks fairly standard items, or do I need to find something specific? The standard bike parts places aren't doing me as much good as I'd like. Depends on the bike, but ultimately it's just a valve connected to the fuel lines. As long as you get the right threading, and you don't have fuel injection or some other complication, just about any petcock should serve your purposes. Zubumafoo posted:The one time I did catch it, my speedo was at 62 mph. And my actual speed was 80 mph. Jesus christ, no wonder I was having such a hard time at highway speeds. You didn't notice your speed differential with all the other cars?  Like, "goddamn, I'm only going 62, why is everyone on the road going like 50" Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Mar 21, 2012 |
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Mar 21, 2012 02:47
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Uh, that's what the passenger seat is for. [e] also  If you do get a truck, get a Ranger. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Mar 22, 2012 |
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Mar 22, 2012 17:12
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It's the spring, enduros and dual-sports and supermotos are getting popular, and everyone is scared of gas going up to 5 dollars a gallon and so are deciding they'll save money by getting a motorcycle.
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Mar 23, 2012 21:57
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It's not rational thinking. It's people who currently drive SUVs that cost a hundred bucks to fill thinking "oh jeez I should just get a motorcycle, that's cheaper than any car!" without really considering the actual costs of riding. Impulsive behavior. And dual sports I think are just popular because they're what is starting to be in fashion. My guess is that the cafe craze is blowing over and the real bleeding-edge hipsters are going to be picking up DRZs and enduros and stuff.
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Mar 23, 2012 22:09
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Well, when you're adding up the costs to compare, remember to include MSF course ($50 to $400 depending on your state) helmet ($120+) other gear ($600 to thousands) maintenance (more frequent than car, about the same price) insurance (fairly cheap, but still an extra cost) And then you still probably won't get more than double the fuel economy of an average econobox unless you're looking at scooters. If you just want the dirt-cheapest way to get to work, buy a beater metro or something. But it's not a motorcycle! And that sort of trumps a lot of the above.
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Mar 24, 2012 01:54
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I've dropped my bike twice and it hasn't even run under its own power yet. 
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Mar 25, 2012 18:31
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I've heard third-hand that sometimes you will come out of a store to find someone putting their kid or, worse, themselves, on your bike. Does this actually happen or was that just a "dumb cagers  " apocryphal story? Cause that just seems really  , like climbing into someone's parked convertible or something.
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Mar 27, 2012 21:15
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BotchedLobotomy posted:Honestly I wouldn't really care too much, its more just a "hey knock it off" kind of thing. Well, it's one thing if the guy walks up to you with his ten-year-old and says "hey, my son wants to know if he can sit on your motorcycle for a minute". But coming out of the store and finding some bunch of weirdos posing their kid with your bike, sitting on it and twisting the bars back and forth, screwing with the switches and the shifter, maybe knocking it off the stand (this is how it was described to me -- again, no idea how common that scenario is)? Sounds infuriating and totally out of line.
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Mar 27, 2012 22:00
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Endless Mike posted:Know how you avoid having to say "please don't take that as racism"? You don't mention race when it's not relevant to the story. Sounded to me like he was just describing the scene accurately -- specific details make a story easier to follow and more memorable. You don't have to assume that any detail about the person's race, gender, weight, whatever must be borne out of the author trying to make some discriminatory point.
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Mar 27, 2012 22:45
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Ponies ate my Bagel posted:an older guy walked up and started to untie it He must have been just a demented old man, because no one in their right mind would call that anything but "stealing a catamaran". Right? Same goes for the guy who was trying to convince you to let him take the R6 for a ride. People can't seriously expect you to say yes to that kind of thing.
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Mar 27, 2012 23:10
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If I ever got a catamaran it would have to be one of these http://www.windrider.com/windrider_rave.aspx (Or maybe someday I'll just build one)
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Mar 27, 2012 23:24
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What about those laptop alarms that set off an ear-piercing siren when you bump them? Dangle one off the bars and you're set.
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Mar 28, 2012 00:21
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Or the simple tautological variation: If you can read this, I am not wearing a jacket.
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Mar 29, 2012 22:47
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MotoMind posted:To avoid ending up in this kind of situation, I decided to go buy one of these inexpensive video recorders to leave mounted in my helmet: How well do those things stand up to a crash, though? If the camera is destroyed, can you still recover the data from the flash card?
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Mar 31, 2012 19:25
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Loop recording is definitely nice. But it looks like the battery-limited recording time is as low as 35 minutes...that's pretty dismal. One commute and you're done until you can recharge for a couple of hours. On the other hand, the camera does have a standard micro-JST connector for the battery, I think, so you could hook up a larger li-poly pack if you had the room for it. Or just bite the bullet and pick up a contour for 3x the price...
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Mar 31, 2012 20:23
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I used to be puzzled as hell as to why Honda claimed numbers like "122 mpg" in old advertising for the 350s, because that made no logical sense at all and was completely impossible to attain in any case. Then I was flipping through the spec sheet in the actual factory manual, and it specifies "fuel economy: 122miles per US gallon at 35 m.p.h. in 5th gear" 
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Apr 5, 2012 18:14
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I've had good experiences with both http://www.siriusconinc.com/ (Kitchener) and http://www.canadasmotorcycle.ca/ (Montreal), if either of those have what you're looking for.
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Apr 11, 2012 21:29
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epswing posted:Are no-name ebay parts generally a bad idea? I wouldn't really trust them for anything that needs to stand up to a lot of load or anything that your life depends on, but for little accessories and simple parts I haven't had any problems. Handlebar clamps...well they're certainly something you don't want failing but they're pretty straightforward pieces, too. Not a whole lot that can go wrong. Probably safe? [e] after looking at them, the two expensive ones are single-piece die castings (requiring a custom die for what is a short-run part) while the eBay one is two pieces that you can machine out of normal bar stock very rapidly. That probably accounts for some of the cost difference. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Apr 13, 2012 |
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Apr 13, 2012 11:27
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Crayvex posted:-- The law does not require a motorcycle operator to carry or present proof he or she has a motorcycle endorsement for at least two years or has successfully passed the motorcycle safety course. Huh? Does this mean you effectively don't need a motorcycle endorsement? Or was there previously a law that after you had an M-class for 2 years you were allowed to go without a helmet? What? The whole concept's retarded, but MAH FREEDUMS
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Apr 13, 2012 23:02
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Shimrod posted:I'm assuming White "No Law" = you can ride without a helmet, and green "Universal Law" means you have to wear a helmet, but what is the blue one representing? I would guess something like the prior Michigan law stating that you have to wear a helmet unless you're over 18 and have 2 years of experience and $20,000 insurance, etc.
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Apr 14, 2012 17:41
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thylacine posted:Happy I have radial tires on this bike so I don't have to gently caress with fixing a tube. Well, on the other hand, with a tubed tire you get to worry even less about punctures because you don't even have to seal them. As long as the carcass isn't literally ripping apart there shouldn't be any safety issues.
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Apr 24, 2012 03:07
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BotchedLobotomy posted:I guess I've never had that problem since all the bikes I've owned the headlights always move with the bars vs being built into a fairing v Yeah, I was kind of wondering that too. I mean the BMW system does seem to turn the lights more than the handlebars would, and it counteracts roll, so that's an improvement...but it sure does seem like using a whole shitload of advanced technology to duplicate the effects of a much simpler system. A lot like Porsche stubbornly sticking with rear-engine cars and using all the bleeding-edge technology they have to make them perform almost as well as a mid-engine car of similar weight and power. Maybe it's just a German thing.
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Apr 24, 2012 21:27
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[e] <---- well, this is a new thing Yeah...it's the seller's prerogative I guess, but like, come on. You're on the internet already, so get with the times. I definitely won't respond to an ad that says "text me" and I only ever phone anymore if it's something I absolutely know I want. Also I get inordinately pissed off when I write "Hey, I'm looking at your [bike] on Craigslist. It looks like it's been sitting for a while, so can you tell me when it was last started? I see it has a broken exhaust...are there any other specific problems? I can come and check it out tomorrow evening if that works for you. Thanks! [name]" and the response is "dont no when it was started runs good cash only" Instant turn-off.
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Apr 25, 2012 17:28
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NitroSpazzz posted:They either know what they are looking at, know what it is worth and will offer you a reasonable amount. Or they are idiots who low ball like crazy and don't seem to even care what they are buying. I think the first group are those who actually want the item in question, while the second group are just looking around for anything they can rip you off for and then flip the next day for a profit.
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Apr 26, 2012 18:29
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