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Chichevache posted:The Grapevine is a ton of fun in a car, I can't wait to take the bike on it. But yes, I-5 is the worst god drat road. There isn't even any interesting scenery to look at. I'm almost tempted to take 101 next time, even if it is an extra 2 or 3 hours. Hmm, five hours baking in flattop on the 5 versus seven hours on a gorgeous coastal route. Tough decision!
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Apr 4, 2014 03:23
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Shelvocke posted:I'm a nurse, I actually love people. Singular. Huh. Of all the professions, I've found that nurses are the ones who are the most vehemently opposed to the very concept of motorcycling. I have one nurse friend who acted like I'd said I drive drunk for fun when she found out I ride a bike.
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Apr 9, 2014 15:57
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Yeah I am really not a fan of this new pointy-bulgy-transformers aesthetic that's on everything now. When are we gonna get back the cool late-80s stuff with broad smooth surfaces and dual round headlights? cool Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 18:23
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Really? I thought the whole idea of linked brakes was to ensure that the front brake gets actuated when stopping even if midlife crisis biker wannabe refuses to touch the Layer Dan Lever (tm) and prefers to ride like he's on a beach cruiser bicycle with a coaster brake.
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Apr 19, 2014 22:27
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"Bugdrvr" posted:Nothing like having your feet on the OBGYN highway stirrups with your hands in the "about to do a pullup" position I call these guys "road starfish".
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May 4, 2014 23:42
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I leave two twenties in the inside pocket of my riding jacket along with the insurance, earplugs, etc. Just in case. (please don't mug me now that I've told you where i hide my money)
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May 6, 2014 01:52
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I parked my old CL350 outside for a single night while I was figuring out where to put it now that I own two bikes, and someone poured kool-aid or a melted slurpee or something equally bright red and sticky all over the seat and tank. Probably the rear end in a top hat teenagers from the high school up the road.
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May 7, 2014 16:47
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Coydog posted:YOUTHS. Yeah, it came off pretty easily just with water, but goddamn was it ever bright red. A single swipe and it stained the blue sponge dark brown. The water pooling on the ground was visibly red. If it didn't smell kind of fruity I would have assumed someone just poured red dye or paint on the thing. And people drink this?? slidebite posted:If it's really that bad, it's almost certainly breaking some sort of state or civic noise law. If you're comfortable enough, research and tell him. If you're not, tell the cops and let them worry about it. http://drivinglaws.aaa.com/laws/motorcycle-noise-limits/ Different states have different limits. In California it can't be more than 80 decibels (as loud as a telephone dial tone in your ear, if anyone remembers that) 50 feet away from the bike at any RPM or load condition. So basically everything with an aftermarket exhaust is going to be illegal in California. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 21:08 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 21:02
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Does it come off easy, at least?
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You said they're straight pipes? Jam a cored-out potato about a foot down one of them with a broom handle and see if he can figure that one out.
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May 7, 2014 21:09
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It's great when you're riding down a twisty road and get stuck behind some car pootling along and slowing down to 10 miles an hour for every turn, but once they notice you're there, they start flooring it on the straighter parts like they're doing you a favor by speeding up, still creeping around every turn, but now it's also less safe to try and pass them. Wait, no. That isn't great at all. When that happens to me and there's no way to get around, though, I like to see if I can ride the total opposite of the way the car's driving -- maintaining the exact same speed on the turns and straights, never touching the brakes and barely adjusting the throttle, just cruising along evenly and smoothly. Makes me feel real smug when I drop back 500 feet on the straights and then end up right behind them again after every turn. Collateral Damage posted:I wish I had a reason to ride more. I live too close to work for it to be worthwhile to commute on the bike, so I don't ride during weekdays unless I have to be somewhere after work (that doesn't involve alcohol). Me too. I wouldn't even get my engine warmed up in the time it would take me to get to work, and with the gear, the stoplights, and the parking, it would probably take me longer door-to-door than my current bicycle ride too. I ride basically on weekends and Fridays when I can leave earlier and go hit up some fun spot before it gets dark. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 20:46 on May 14, 2014 |
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May 14, 2014 20:43
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M42 posted:In the same vein, I'll sometimes WOT for a second to get out of a car's blind spot on the highway. Half the time it'll flip some "omg biek wants 2 race" switch in the lizard brain of whoever's driving, and they'll speed up too, putting me squarely back in their blind spot. That's not a very impressive WOT then  Riding on the weekend I got trapped behind cars a few times. When I'm just loping along behind them at 2800 or so the bike is just quietly going "blatblatblatblat" so they don't pay a lot of attention. But one of the cars was a convertible with the top down, and when I went to pass I kicked it down a gear and went WOT at 5500 and the engine turns into this tremendous hollow roar and I scooted by and was back in my lane in about 2.5 seconds and as I looked in the mirrors I saw both the occupants wobbling back and forth and rubbernecking and jabbering and pointing. It was the best. And that's just on a bike that makes maybe 50, 55 horsepower. So awesome
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May 15, 2014 01:24
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Bugdrvr posted:People always try to speed up when they see a bike coming up. I have no idea why but the idea of getting passed on two wheels really pisses people off subconsciously which causes them to stomp the gas regardless of the situation. Maybe it's just a California thing but I find that for every idiot who tries to race and every zombie who thinks they're helping by speeding up, there's another person who knows how to use the pullouts or moves over in the lane and waves me by. I assume it has to do with penises.
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May 15, 2014 07:26
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So just after posting about people not using the pullouts and blocking your way on the road, today I had totally the opposite experience. I was riding along on a decently twisty road but just taking it easy -- capable of going faster than traffic but not feeling the need to. Immediately ahead of me was a guy on an R6 or R1 who was really antsy and not having any of this slowness, though. After tailgating the cars for a few minutes he gunned it past them across the double-yellow in a turn and shot on ahead. Whatever. I kept on going, staying a reasonable distance behind the car in front of me, since she was going about 35-40 miles an hour and that was fine by me. Yet at every point that the road widened, she would start to move way over to the side and dip her wheels into the shoulder. I didn't attempt to pass (illegally -- this was a divided two-lane road with a concrete barrier in the middle, so it would be lane-sharing) when she would do this, and after a few seconds she would move back into her lane. She did this four or five times before coming across a long straightaway. At that point she pulled right over into the shoulder and stayed there, still driving, but halfway off the edge o the road. I tried to wave her back into the road but she wasn't having it and wouldn't leave the shoulder. I shrugged and blazed past and slowed back down to basically the same speed she was going anyway. She stayed within sight of my mirrors the rest of the road. Weird people.
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May 16, 2014 09:23
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Well I wasn't complaining about it, per se. It was just that what she was doing was unnecessary and sort of dangerous. This is the section of road I'm talking about, and as you can see it's really not safe for her to be going into the shoulder like that. She was also traveling at what I thought was a perfectly fine speed, so I was happy to stay behind and wasn't tailgating, and there were several cars ahead of her going roughly the same speed anyway. It was a nice gesture, yeah, but not needed.
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May 16, 2014 17:58
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It's literally one lane and a wide shoulder because the next thing beside the shoulder is a sandy berm and a drop into a valley. You could argue that it would have been best for me to pass the first time she did it so that she would stop pulling halfway into the shoulder at 40 miles an hour, but I couldn't have known that she was going to do it several more times even when I was clearly hanging back and not trying to get up her rear end. In the end I did pass her and kept on going at the perfectly acceptable speed I was traveling, which was the same speed she was going. Incidentally, did you know that it's actually illegal to give up your right of way on a public road (eg: waving someone else ahead of you at a four-way stop), specifically because it confuses other drivers? You people seem really mad when my only comment was that this was "weird" behavior. EX250 Type R posted:Yeah if she wasnt a woman i bet she would know how to drive right sagebrusch Don't be an idiot.
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May 16, 2014 19:02
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nsaP posted:I'm never 'mad' about anything on here, lol. Just saying take the invitation man, you were the one posting in the rant thread about it. Oh, I only posted in the rant thread because a day or so ago this was where we were talking about people not letting you pass. This event was a nice contrast to that. I never meant for it to be a rant.
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May 16, 2014 19:12
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(3) is interesting there. In Ontario, where I learned to drive, the rule is that pedestrians in the roadway always have the right of way over cars, even if they're crossing illegally. If they're on the side of the road or waiting at a crosswalk, you don't technically have to stop, but if they're in the road -- regardless of whether it's at a crosswalk or in the middle of the street -- you stop for them. I don't think it's the same in California. Also Nova Scotia has the same rule except you also have to stop if there's someone waiting to cross. Someone standing on the sidewalk facing the roadway? They have right of way. Calling urban traffic there "lethargic" would be the kindest way of putting it.
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May 16, 2014 23:18
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ElMaligno posted:Try a grate bridge with railroad tracks, my old supervisor dropped his bike and broke his wrist. My least favorite grate bridge is one downtown where there's a blind turn immediately after the grate stops, and then a stoplight right after that. You're crossing the bridge, you know there's a turn coming up, but you don't want to turn while you're on the grates cause it's so squirrely, so you compensate by keeping it upright on the bridge then turning late and more steeply...but as soon as you get leaned over all the way you come into view of the stoplight, and notice that the light is red and you immediately have to stand the bike back up in like 20 feet. It's no fun.
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May 19, 2014 03:38
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ReelBigLizard posted:When I read this my mind instantly wandered onto the inevitable "what happens to your body if you go down on that surface?". Nothing out of the ordinary, because you're wearing tough, slippery leather and a good full-face helmet, right?
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May 19, 2014 19:14
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I got the wave from a bro riding a recent GSXR wearing the usual helmet/tank top/shorts/sneakers outfit. I don't think I've ever gotten waved at by one of these people before. Is it acceptable form to deny them the return?
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May 19, 2014 19:28
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Snowdens Secret posted:That's kind of a shithead thing to do, though. I mean, you miss it on accident, you miss it, ok. But just straight up turning up your nose is kinda lovely. clutchpuck posted:You were... busy with the clutch. I actually was -- I had just left a stoplight and was shifting from first to second in a turn. I nodded my helmet to him as he waved instead. But it got me thinking is all -- I've noticed a significant decrease in the number of waves I get now that I have something that looks modern instead of retro, and I'm wondering if there's a whole other level I didn't understand before. Everyone waves at vintage stuff, so getting ignored more frequently is new for me. I wave at basically everything on two wheels with a motor as long as I'm not focused on a turn or something. Scooters seem really confused.
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May 19, 2014 21:05
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Snowdens Secret posted:Same. this is my favorite wave 
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May 20, 2014 00:11
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Ozmiander posted:So....a crown victoria? Yeah I think that's 
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May 21, 2014 03:30
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Backov posted:Don't worry, with the trend as it is in the US, police forces will get special exemption and just start using military vehicles made for this market. Bulletproof boxes, maybe with a turret, totally wired with cameras. They already do that. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/04/18/congratulations-your-tiny-town-has-an-mrap-and-is-ready-for-war/
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May 21, 2014 08:27
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Well, that was a new one. The teenage girl across the street backed into my bike and knocked it over...while I was standing next to the bike, working on it...after she'd spent 45 minutes standing 30 feet away from the bike across the street while I was working on it.  I'd been out there trying to narrow down my intermittent brake light issue (found it, I think: the switch itself is flaky and randomly flickers on and off. Easy fix.). I had the seat, cowl and tank off and was digging into the wiring harness. The girl had been out there across the street screwing around with her cell phone and yelling at someone (boyfriend?) for 30 to 45 minutes while I was out there working. Eventually she went into her garage, got into her car, and backed out across the street towards my bike...and kept backing...and kept backing...and then when she was about four feet away suddenly I noticed she wasn't going to stop and I jumped up and lunged for her trunk...and she kept backing up as I pounded on the trunk and rear window and yelled "STOP! STOP!"...and she backed up another foot and ran into the tail of the bike and tipped it over onto my leg and then stopped the car. I crawled out from underneath and started shouting "Jesus Christ! What the gently caress!" and she got out of the car and stared and said "I'm sorry." I picked the bike back up and yelled at her for a while about how these things break when they fall over, and do you at least have insurance?, and jesus you have to look BACKWARDS when you're backing up, and how could you not see me you were RIGHT THERE for half an hour and I don't even know what you did and how the hell can you do something like this and so on. I spent a few minutes looking the bike over. The only obvious damage was the shifter (bent inwards) and the left bar cluster. After I'd calmed down a bit I got her insurance information and she said "Yeah I'm sorry" again and left. After going over it some more, the damage is minor. The left bar and mirror looked all hosed up at first but they turned out to just be tweaked to a different position so I unbolted and reset them and they're okay. The shifter was definitely bent, but I pried it mostly straight again with a claw hammer and ran the bike up and down the street and it still shifts normally. The bike still rides true and there aren't any funny noises. The little peg feeler on the bottom of the left peg got torn off but I guess I don't really care about that piece. The clutch lever is all bent forwards like the seat on one of those stupid German streetfighters but that's the only part that will need to be replaced, it looks like. I was really lucky that I had the tank and cowl off the bike when this happened, so they didn't get cracked or scratched. So I don't know. Should I report this to insurance? Part of me wants to just say gently caress it, I don't care, it's like $20 for a new clutch lever and she's just a dumb teenage girl. The other part of me wants to say no, you don't get away with this kind of thing, you need to be taught to loving look backwards when you reverse the car (so many people I know don't do this or just use their mirrors and it drives me insane), and reporting the accident would be a fine way to do do that. She was really unapologetic too -- I've had people run into my car before and they were almost hysterical but she only said like three sentences the entire time and sure didn't sound upset. But would it even matter to the insurance if there's no damage beyond the clutch (and, theoretically I guess, the shifter)? What would you do? Report it to insurance? Ignore it? Talk to her parents? Even though it seems pretty much okay, I kind of want to take the bike to the shop to get looked over but I'm not sure how to make that happen. VVVV yeah if I'd been standing behind the bike instead of beside it, I would have gotten pinned between the bike and the car instead of just having it knocked onto me. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 23:10 on May 22, 2014 |
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May 22, 2014 23:04
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She wasn't texting while driving (that I could tell) -- she was doing that earlier in the half hour she was sitting outside while I was working on the bike right in front of her. I think she literally just wasn't looking backwards at all while reversing, not even in her mirrors, because she ran almost perfectly straight into the bike. Dead center on the rear bumper. Idiot. I don't have any damage coverage on my motorcycle, just the liability and medical stuff. So I can't make a claim against my own insurance and the total repair cost either way is seriously about ten dollars for a new clutch lever. Everything else seems fine; I rode it around for a couple of hours afterwards today and nothing feels different from the way it was before other than my hand is now cramped from using the clutch in its cool new position. So basically making a claim wouldn't get me anything other than revenge -- knowing she's being "punished" for it -- and I don't think that's a very karmically desirable way to live. I'll sleep on it but I'll probably just end up letting it go or talking to the parents at worst.
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May 23, 2014 02:57
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So just now while I was thinking about it both the parents came over, apologized for their daughter (they asked if she had apologized too, I said "sort of" lol) and said that she's only had her license for three months. The dad said something along the lines of "I've been trying to get her to look around more, but..." and did the pained sort of hands-up gesture that people do. I showed them the damage and told them it seemed small, luckily, and that I was more concerned that she look around and be aware of where she's going because it could have been so much worse. They agreed. The dad asked if a hundred dollars would cover the damage and I decided that yes, that would cover a new clutch lever, new shifter, and an hour of labor for a safety inspection if I decide to do one. No it wouldn't cover any work if something else comes up but I really doubt there's anything else wrong with the bike...I can't spot anything and it rides fine, and one low-velocity drop like that isn't going to cause any hidden internal engine damage or whatever. Also, they literally live across the street from me, so it's not like these people are going to disappear if something else does go wrong, and the dad gave me his card and said "call me if anything else comes up". Seems like an upstanding person. So I guess this is the universe doing its thing. She (or her brother, who was also in the car) obviously owned up about it to the parents, and I assume they're disciplining her in some way. I got enough money to make things right, and since this is probably her first incident I feel okay about it being a wake-up call rather than saddling her with years on years of heightened premiums. Extra premiums that her parents are paying anyway isn't any motivation to be safer, but the parents putting the fear of God into her is. If she has another accident despite this she'll be paying through the nose soon enough anyway. I hope she's SO grounded. re: MRAPs I would definitely take a free one because I could park it on my street regardless of the official hours and what are they going to do with a 25-ton APC, tow it away? I'd make it into a shed and put tools and bikes inside. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 03:35 on May 23, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 03:32
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I read that they get between 6 and 9 miles per gallon, which is in line with the F-350 I drove for a job once. Pretty solid for something that outweighs that truck eight or ten times.
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May 23, 2014 06:23
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Snowdens Secret posted:Y'all may think Sagebrush's casual response appropriate, but just a few more seconds or a few more feet and she could've squashed him flat. I hope her parents at least made it very clear how dangerous her inattentive driving was. I do too. Let's be honest about making a claim though: there was almost no damage to the bike (I bent the shifter back to make sure the transmission was okay, so now it doesn't even look like it was damaged) and I wasn't injured. Yes, I could have been and the damage could have been worse, but insurance doesn't deal with "what could have been" and the insurance company wouldn't send a policeman to give her a stern lecture or something if I did make a claim. Having to pay more for insurance is an abstract thing for a 15-year-old girl. Getting yelled at by your parents isn't, and that seems to be the situation, so I'm good. I dunno. I'm really not a vengeful person. The few times in my life I've gotten real "revenge" on someone who wronged me, I just felt bad because I did something equally nasty to them. I got the money to fix the pieces and she's hopefully learned a scary lesson before she actually hurts someone on the road badly. Works for me.
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May 23, 2014 18:42
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Yeah I've always had super slow shipping from BikeBandit as well. Slow enough that I sometimes would wonder if they even had a warehouse at all or if they were just dropshippers. I ordered something on Monday night though and got notice that it shipped today (supposedly, tracking isn't up yet) though so that's pretty good I guess?
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May 29, 2014 01:11
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My first avatar (on this account, anyway) was some anime bullshit with the word POUTINE below it and I still have no clue what it was, who bought it or why. http://esarahpalinonline.com/soap/?username=Sagebrush
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May 29, 2014 23:37
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KozmoNaut posted:a street-legal ATV (registered as a car What? 
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May 30, 2014 19:48
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Yeah I feel like that's the one case where "I want to be thrown clear of the wreckage" is actually the correct answer. I'm just imagining her crashing that thing and it sliding a couple hundred feet down the road on its side with her arm pinned underneath.... 
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May 31, 2014 06:46
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I tried to get some of my friends into motorcycling and the answers are all the same: "My mom would die of terror" "[something about organ donors]" "I can't, I'd go like, TOO FAST, ha ha!" And the one dude who seemed actually pretty interested but when I suggested he look at Ninja 250s his response was "gently caress you too, man." He wants a GSX-R750. Frosty- posted:We went from no motorcycles and no motorcyclists to (...) a 2012 R6, a 2013 CBR600RR, a 2013 GSXR600, this sounds like a good idea
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May 31, 2014 22:56
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Razzled posted:my brother is so lazy and spoiled that my dad is buying his bike for him (I don't know why) he tried to have me and my dad go look at used bikes without him so he could hang out with his friends. I think he wants to come home and just magically there's a bike for him now! I don't even know if he wants to ride for real, I can't even imagine what could possibly motivate you to think "oh yeah I don't need to see the bike! A blurry cell phone pic is enough!" This sounds like a terrible idea, even beyond the laziness and spoiled attitude, because someone who's that blasé about the idea of riding a motorcycle really probably won't care enough to keep his head on straight and be safe about it. He sounds like some people I know who just pick things like that up as a "new hobby" -- radio controlled quadcopters, rock climbing, kiteboarding, etc -- that they last about a month in before selling off all the stuff they bought and moving on to the next one. There's no serious interest in it, just something in between a childish "that looks like fun, I want it" and a really sad "I gotta do this to make myself seem interesting" thing. If he just wants a bike to fart around on, get him a $800 dirt bike. VVVVV yeah I think people who say that are split 50-50 between some kind of bizarre braggadocio "Oh, I'd just be SO AWESOME and SO EXTREME that my life couldn't even handle it" and actual "no I just have a baby's sense of self-control and I would literally power-wheelie out of the parking lot and into a police cruiser." Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 23:23 on May 31, 2014 |
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May 31, 2014 23:20
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Razzled posted:Man if you had smashed her mirror with your fist I would not even blame you I have fantasized sometimes about designing some kind of steel brace structure that goes inside your jacket and distributes force from your fist to your chest and allows you to do just this, punching off people's mirrors as your ride by at 20 miles an hour, like modern-day jousting.
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Jun 4, 2014 23:39
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M42 posted:"you hot in that? I don't even wear anything, just like a tshirt when I ride" If he ever shows you his bike, don't sit on it.
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Jun 5, 2014 18:13
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M42 posted:Haaaa, I knew someone would pick up on that I was also very bemused when one of the australian posters referred to squids there riding in "thongs and a singlet", which apparently means flip-flops and a tank top, but I loved the idea of dude bros ripping around on rashed-up gixxers in a spandex wrestling outfit and a lacy g-string
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Jun 5, 2014 18:45
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clutchpuck posted:3 Ulysseses? wait, do you have a Buell or something?  e: actually I can't remember if it's you or Safety Dance who talks about Buell Buell Buell Buell Buell Buell. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Jun 6, 2014 |
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Jun 6, 2014 18:43
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 23:41 |
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The answer to "you're going to be too hot" is "sounds like you aren't riding fast enough." *slams down mirrored visor* *flicks cigarette at u* *wheelies over the horizon*
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Jun 8, 2014 18:54
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