Discussion - always find my self ridding in motorcycle

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Automotive Insanity > Cycle Asylum > Discussion - always find my self ridding in motorcycle

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Spiffness posted:

I-4's are for people who are too fat and lazy to shift

It's even better on something like my DRZ where there isn't a tach. Am I off the rev limiter? Who knows! If it sounds OK keep on the throttle I guess.

Literbikes, maybe. My friend's ZX-10 redlines 1st gear at 92mph. He could ride that bike everywhere and not shift it once.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2008 22:00

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 18:12

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Reminder for you riding goons: CHECK YOUR MIRRORS. Crazies can hit you from behind too.

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20081203/NEWS/812031014/1002?Title=Police__Driver_hit_2_cars__scooter_before_stopping

quote:

Police: Driver hit 2 cars, scooter before stopping

A University of Florida student, critically injured Tuesday by a car that apparently caused two crashes on W. University Avenue north of UF, remained hospitalized Wednesday, police reported.

Michael R. Van Wagner, 22, of Sparr, still was in critical condition, said spokeswoman Officer Summer Hallett. Police early Wednesday said Van Wagner had undergone surgery.

According to the Gainesville Police Department, the incident began at about 12:45 p.m. when Monica Renee Toliver, 40, of Gainesville was driving a 1993 green Lincoln Town Car in the righthand lane and heading east on University Avenue. She reportedly hit the back of a Gainesville Regional Utilities truck and continued eastbound on the sidewalk before returning to the street. The GRU truck was slightly damaged, police said, and the occupants were apparently not injured.

Then, about 100 yards west of NW 17th Street, Toliver apparently hit Van Wagner, who was riding a scooter and not wearing a helmet.

Hallett said Van Wagner and his scooter were pushed into the intersection, where Margaret Bridges, 54, was making a lefthand turn in her 2001 red, Dodge pickup. As Bridges was turning south, the impact of being hit by the Lincoln pushed Van Wagner into the truck. Bridges was not seriously injured.

Hallett said Van Wagner received life-threatening head injuries and was immediately taken to Shands at UF to be treated by the trauma team. He was in critical condition Tuesday night.

After hitting the scooter, Toliver continued east through the intersection, coming to a stop about a block away, witnesses told police. Toliver reportedly told police that her car rolled to a stop. Crime scene technicians noted that both front airbags had deployed on the Lincoln and there was extensive front-end damage to the car.

Hallett said Toliver "showed no obvious signs of impairment on scene, therefore a DUI investigation was not initiated." However, she did submit to having blood drawn for analysis and was allowed to leave the scene.

A woman who identified herself as Toliver's mother answered the phone at Toliver's home Tuesday evening and said Toliver would not be commenting on the crashes.

Charges pending against Toliver included two counts of hit-and-run - one for leaving the scene of an accident with serious injury and one for leaving the scene of an accident with property damage. Hallett said Toliver is also likely to be charged with careless or wreckless driving.

The crashes shut down the righthand, eastbound lane of University Avenue adjacent to UF for several hours as the scenes were processed for evidence.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2008 21:41

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Z3n posted:

I'm pretty sure they do have to get licenses for those things.

In Florida, no license is required for a scooter under 50cc that can't exceed 39mph(I think).

Also, people think Florida is a "no helmet" state, but you are required to wear a helmet unless you have a certain (large) amount of medical insurance. Florida also recently mandated that the MSF course is mandatory for new motorcycle endorsements.

It's a step in the right direction, except they also skyrocketed penalties for excessive speeding, wheelies, stoppies, and improper display of the license plate (all now $1000 fines).

loving Florida.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2008 19:04

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

The definition may vary by region, but I'm pretty sure mopeds are pedal-operated, whereas scooters are step-through.

Gainesville, FL is quite literally jam packed with cheapo $700 50cc Chinese scooters. Once in a while, I see someone wearing a full face and jacket, but that is rare. The sportbikers in this town appear to be the most safety conscious of all the 2-wheelers.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2008 20:03

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Saw this as a facebook ad:

http://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/content/pages/2009_motorcycles/xr1200.jsp?locale=en_US&camp_id=16&source_cd=Banners_XR1200

The Harley-Davidson XR 1200 is available for pre-order. First 750 people get one.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2008 15:01

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Way to completely misrepresent your situation. There are incredible mountain roads 40 miles to the east and west of you. We Florida riders weep in jealousy.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2009 01:38

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Product review:

Heli bars: http://www.helibars.com/proddetail.php?prod=HB4009b

I got these for my '08 ZZR-600, and had them installed yesterday. They required no modification of the stock lines/cables.

They don't look like much, but HOO BOY is there a big difference in riding position. I don't have to sit nearly as far forward on the seat, so there is much more cushion under my rear end. Since I'm not leaning as far forward, I get a lot less fatigued when riding in low-speed traffic. $200 is pretty steep, but well worth it in my opinion.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2009 20:01

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

All new motorcycles are luxury items.

I showed this article to my girlfriend this morning, and she nixed it right away. No new bike for me this year

# ¿ Feb 17, 2009 16:58

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

At 500 miles a week, you should factor in new tires twice a year. That will add $600-800/year by itself. I assume you are insuring the bike, which can run between $50-100/month(on the cheap end). It ends up being pretty close to a wash.

Keep in mind with that kind of mileage, you'll be wearing the bike out pretty quickly. A lot of bikes don't make it past 40k miles before the cost of needed repairs becomes higher than the value of the machine. Unless it's a BMW, you'll have to replace the bike every few years.

If you had an efficient car, the comparison would not even be close. The car comes out much farther ahead.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2009 15:13

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Phat_Albert posted:

What? This doesnt even make sense. Since when are BMW's the only bike that can do high mileage? Since when is 40K the end?

The typical 50k mile BMW is worth much more money the typical 50k mile Honda (Goldwings excepted). Doing $1200 worth of maintenance/repairs on a bike that old is generally worth it for most BMW owners, not so much for other people.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2009 16:46

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Unless it's a 70's/80's CB750 and the starter chain breaks at 40k miles, requiring a full engine teardown.

For all of Honda's LEGENDARY RELIABILITY, I sure don't see a lot of high mileage examples(again, Goldwings excepted).

# ¿ Feb 19, 2009 17:01

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Again, Phat Albert's wild exaggerations aside, my original point is that Hondas depreciate to the point where it's simply not economical to do valve checks/fork fluid replacement/rewiring/et cetera when they could just go buy another bike that doesn't need to be cared for like an alzheimer's ridden relative.

Buying a new/less used bike then becomes the preferable choice for the vast majority of riders, which nobody factored in to the massively anecdotal discussion of bike costs vs. car costs.

Bringing up LEGENDARY RELIABILITY was just a moderately successful troll.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2009 20:36

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Phat_Albert posted:

high mileage Honda probably wont need any maintenance

# ¿ Feb 19, 2009 21:28

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Chill_Bebop posted:

So since I'm not getting spark, and all the wires are totally fine, with what looks like a fine working coil and no killswitch shorts, what should I be checking here?

Battery has a charge?

# ¿ Feb 24, 2009 15:57

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

This year there's going to be a huge pile of gubmint money for pothole filling. Shovel ready, baby.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2009 20:00

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

^^^Every time you post pictures I think you're located in some magical, mystical part of New England that miraculously has decent pavement.

Then I see the signs and sigh.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2009 13:54

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Many of you may not know this, but it's WAY MORE FUN to ride your cruiser around without a helmet than with a full face, or even a beanie. Most of the people riding without helmets know the risks, and have accepted them.

EDIT: And this is the high-horse safety nazi morality brigade that parades out every time someone brings the topic of helmets up. You guys are obnoxious even when you're preaching to the converted.

MrKatharsis fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Mar 23, 2009

# ¿ Mar 23, 2009 22:54

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

A Shoei visor will stop a .22 lr bullet. The parts department at RideNow in Ocala, FL has proof.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2009 12:43

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

TapTheForwardAssist posted:

In case anyone is as noob as I, or is amused by noob idiocy:

Left my lights on, drained my battery. So I'm sitting on a dead bike in a parking lot 2mi from home by myself. Called my brother and asked "can you google up 'push start motorcycle'?"

He reads the instructions, I think I got it, and I've got a nice long stretch of 75m of gradual slope, and 50m of relatively steep downhill. Perfect.

Get on, start riding it down, can't get the barest whimper from the engine. Get all the way to the bottom of the hill. gently caress it, guess I'll have to walk home, drive me car here, and jump start it. I hop off and start to push it to the side to park it, and as I do so get a little rumble in the engine.

Hold up... did I just ride down the entire hill with the clutch engaged?. Yep. So I pushed it uphill about 10m, left it in second, released the clutch, and the engine kicked in before it rolled even 10ft.

Worked out okay, but drat did I feel retarded.

Not to nitpick, but I'm pretty sure the clutch is 'engaged' when the lever is all the way out.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2009 12:14

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

I rode a cruiser (Suzuki Boulevard M50) for 3 years, and just recently got a sportbike. The cruiser was great for a lot of reasons:

1) My girlfriend would ride on the back.

2) It was an acceptable tourer.

3) 50 mpg, all the time.

4) I looked great on it, in a wifebeater with my longish hear blowing in the wind.

I'm ATGATT now, especially after my last crash, where hard-knuckled gloves saved me from going on disability.

edit: 5) The cruiser was really cheap to insure.

edit 2:

Z3n posted:

Comfort's an intensely personal thing anyways, but I find that cruisers of the feet forward variety get very uncomfortable, very quickly. The wind protection is awesome, but the seating position is poor.

My friend considers his ZX-10 to be very comfortable, and couldn't ride my cruiser for more than 10 minutes without cramping up. When I rode his bike for the first time, every joint in my body was screaming in pain. To each their own.

MrKatharsis fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Apr 17, 2009

# ¿ Apr 17, 2009 17:38

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

The girl is probably an illegal massage parlor worker. You should see if he'll knock $1000 off unless she can produce documentation.

# ¿ May 1, 2009 16:36

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

I have roadside assistance from Riders of Kawasaki. It's $40/year, and the tows are 100 miles, no charge. I've used them several times and they are pretty drat good. You don't even need a Kawasaki motorcycle to sign up.

Also, you get into the members-only Kawi tent the big bike shows, where they have free coffee, bottled water and cookies.

# ¿ May 18, 2009 15:56

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

blugu64 posted:

Their website says up to $250 of towning coverage, is that per incident or yearly total? How far can that get you? and if per incident how many incidents are allowed? (I should probably just call)

I'm pretty sure it's per-instance, as I've gotten two tows from them (dead battery and a crash). I asked them if I should start paying extra in case it happens again, and they said no.

# ¿ May 18, 2009 17:33

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Chairon posted:

Think theres a chance they'll have one of the new XR 1,200's? Those things look sweet, Popular Mechanics is giving one away (you can enter at https://subscribe.hearstmags.com/subscribe/popularmechanics/34961 if you want, I did.) and they're about eight different kinds of Awesome.

And the Freakonomics book is a good read too!

Yeah whatever you do, don't enter your cell number in there. I immediately started receiving spam text messages to the tune of $9.99 apiece.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2009 15:39

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

2ndclasscitizen posted:

I don't see the point of the Spyder. They've got all the downsides of a car and a bike, with none of the upsides, and personally, after riding one I thought that if you've got a disability that stops you riding a bike, a Spyder won't be any better. Plus there's noticable vibrations, it's fairly plasticy, you can't grip the "tank" with your knees, they don't sound that good, aren't that fast and looks like it'd be a pain to service youyself.

It's made by Canadians, who are instinctive snowmobilers. That's about the only logic I can attach to the design.

Why they're so popular in Florida, I have no idea.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2009 23:13

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

PlasticSun posted:

Wall Drug is a tourist trap, it's a clever one but it's just about the same as South of the Border and many other places like that. There's no history, nor is there anything particularly interesting about it (I suppose the dinosaur is kinda cool).

Wall Drug is a million times cooler than that trashy dump South of the Border.

$0.05 for coffee is pretty drat interesting to me :colbert:

Nerobro posted:

8ender has some good advice. But there's better than tighty whiteys. Goto your local bicycle shop, pick up bike shorts. Or even just "bike underwear." Bicycle shorts do not have any seams where it counts. They also have padding that's part of them (called chamios) that acts as the wear surface instead of your butt.

Also:
http://www.newenough.com/protective_apparel/vests_underwear_and_misc_/alpinestars/summer_tech_performance_underwear_motorcycle_boxers.html
With soft armor: http://www.newenough.com/protective_apparel/vests_underwear_and_misc_/icon/field_armor_motorcycle_short_2.html

# ¿ Jul 29, 2009 15:28

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

It's easy. Put the sandal strap under the lever and press up. I did it all the time when I had a cruiser. <cue CA morality gear brigade>

No, seriously, I did and it's easy.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2009 15:39

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Endless Mike posted:

I guess my problem is that I don't really have room for more than one bike, and there's not a lot of choices in middleweight sport tourers (VFR, F800ST, and I guess some of the smaller adventure bikes would also work). I guess I could kit the poo poo out of the SV. Maybe I should hit up the BMW dealer.

I'll sell you my ZZR600 with heli-bars and corbin seat. It's almost a sport tourer.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2009 22:42

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

I live near Ocala and that is not surprising at all. The Ocala Hooters is a good destination for a motorcycle ride because a road (sr 225) on the way that contains 7 of the 8 total curves in northern Florida.

I've mentioned it many times, but riding without gear and DUI are basically the only thing non-sportbikers around here like to do.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2009 17:57

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

"Could use a carb cleaning" is craigslist code for "won't loving idle."

Make sure your buddy checks out the fusebox.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2009 13:19

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

frozenphil posted:

They can't ticket what they can't catch, bro.

Ohhhhhhhh yes they can.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2009 00:51

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Maybe power wheelies don't work the way I thought they did, because I rode a KTM 690 and it definitely didn't jump up on me in 2nd gear.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2009 17:39

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Boat posted:

Seems kind of appropriate considering the discussion at hand...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyeY0hWU28I

You could remake that song for Nebraska but it would have to be 8 hours long.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2010 17:52

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

King of all Machines Operate posted:

My friend's birthday is this weekend and I want to get him something motorcycle related. He just got new gloves boots and pants though, so I'm not too sure what to get. He rides an '07 675 Daytona. Anyone have an idea of any vaguely motorcycle related gifts under $100 for him? Thanks!

Get him these. The stock headlights are weak as gently caress.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/e...id=390139996551

# ¿ Feb 23, 2010 19:42

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Negotiate on OTD price only. You can get away with a lot, so try for a free Shoei while you're at it.

Motorcycle "financing" is basically a credit card with a promotional rate. That rate will skyrocket in 2 or 3 years, so plan your payoff accordingly.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2010 16:30

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

redscare posted:

Add bears to the list of things that will kill you

http://www.clickorlando.com/traffic/22713198/detail.html

Lousy picture of the bike here:
http://www.gainesville.com/article/20100302/ARTICLES/100309911/1118?Title=Motorcyclist-killed-in-Marion-County-crash-with-bear

And yeah, the Ocala National Forest definitely has bears.

MrKatharsis fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Mar 3, 2010

# ¿ Mar 3, 2010 00:26

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 18:12

MrKatharsis: Nov 29, 2003; feel the bern

Augmented sensory input! At least they aren't implementing Toyota-like control over the throttle and brakes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12266406

quote:

Motorbikes 'to get safe driving aids'

One system tested works out if riders are travelling too fast to negotiate upcoming bends. Mira has developed software that acts as a "co-pilot" which, with the help of a digital map, knows what speed they should be travelling to make it round a bend.

Mr Moore said one system under test based around radar constantly monitors the blind spots around and behind riders to create a safety "bubble" around a bike. This helps because vehicles behind or to one side of a bike can be hard to spot because vibration means images in wing mirrors are difficult to make out.

"We put a motor in the cheek pad of the helmet so if you do not notice the object it will vibrate and give you a tactile warning that there's something to the right or left," said Mr Moore.

The system can also help give a rider information about traffic further behind in adjoining lanes to help with over-taking or lane-changing.

Motorbike collision detection systems developed by Mira warn a rider about an imminent impact and let them take action by slow sharply down or, in the case of a vehicle travelling in the same direction as the bike, following it while slowing.

The safety systems could be a boon to younger bike riders.

"They do not give the attention to the road they should or have the experience to deal with problems," said Mr Moore.

The prototypes demonstrated by Mira showed it was feasible to fit such safety systems on motor bikes, said Mr Moore. He speculated that manufacturers would start to put them on bikes within the next 18 months to two years.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2011 14:31

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