Rookie School

What to do, when to do it, and how not to screw up.

Tech IV - PASSED!!!!

Houston, we have liftoff. The leathers passed and the magic tech button was attached. All the to-do items have been checked off. Next stop is the Rookie Rider meeting.

Midnight At The Oasis

After dinner we were up until midnight gluing the edges of the patches. Hopefully this will be the final hurtle to leap.

A Home Of Our Own

This is the pit area for us. The guys that fixed the bike invited us to pit next to them. We should be able to glue the leathers tonight and run tomorrow.

Tech III - PASSED! !!!

The bike is ready, now we just need to fix the leathers. They liked the barbed wire but we need to seal the edges.

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Honda Harry and his crew lept at the chance to help us out. They welded up the steering stops, cut a chain guard, and had it back together in record time. When I asked how I could help they suggested that I should stand back. Good people are everywhere!

Tech II - Failed

A new to-do list.
Steering stops to wide for the class we got bumped up to.
Inadequate drive chain guard.

What to do? What to do ...

Barbed Wire Leathers

Sure to start a new trend in New York City and San Francisco. We fixed the leathers by safety wiring leather over the textile panels. Ill put them on eBay when we get back and let the bondage crew fight over them.

Desert Sculpture

This is the Tree of Utah. It's just a very big (100' tall) and very weird thing in the middle of the desert. Maybe it migrated from Burning Man.

Back To Wendover

When they said, "Go straight on I-80 for 100 miles." They were not speaking metaphorically!

Fixing The Leathers

We're in Salt Lake City at Charles Custom Upholstery getting the leathers fixed so Beth can race. I'm going to be depending on the generosity of others.

To-do List

Safety wire the head of the axle bolts as well as the nuts.
Replace the rubber valve stems with metal ones with metal caps.
Preposition the steering dampener bracket to allow full lock to lock movement (curiously reducing the dampener effect ).
Class designation not displayed (but they assigned me to a different class anyway ).
Leathers must be ALL leather, no perfs or textile inserts.
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Look Ma, I'm Flying

Swapping metal tire plugs for the rubber ones that might fly out under the awesome power of the mighty Moriwaki. The to-do is not so bad. Tomorrow we will drive to Salt Lake City to find someone to modify the leathers. Time for a shower.

Tough Day In Tech

Went through tech this morning and came out with a to-do list. Nothing major but things that will take the rest of the day. Both leathers were rejected. Hard to stay patient and positive in the heat and disappointment.

Breaker Breaker Good Buddy

The rule book states that a competitor must provide a support vehicle with a CB radio. Buying an inexpensive handheld unit before I left would have been too easy. Hence this marvel of shade tree engineering. If it rains reception could be dicey.

Street(rod) Show

All the action is not on the salt, there was about 50 cars at a street party in front of one of the casinos. And they had cocktail waitresses fetching drink for people. We're not in New England any more.

We Have Arrived

Got Beth at the airport and drove to the salt flats. Organized chaos seems to be the order of the day. Compounded by my leaving all my paperwork on my desk in CT. We missed the newbie orientation this morning so we are now playing catch up. It will all work out in the end.

Waiting at the airport

It's hard to imagine that air travel was ever glamorous.

Where Did You Wake Up?

Slept under the stars last night. Somewhere in Utah.

Across The Continental Divide

Took US30 north from Laramie until it met up with I-80. Went over the continental divide and the brakes are holding on the downside.
The Guy on the chopper is my hero for the day. I know that he's gone at least. 150 miles today. He was flying when he passed me.

Back on the road again

After lunch at the best diner in Laramie

Thoughts From The University of Wyoming

In college I learned how to study things but I didn't learn how to learn anything.

Youth is not wasted on the young, cynicism is wasted on the old.
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Look Ma, No Brakes!

Laramie Wyoming GM dealer is working to get me back on the road. The last few miles coming down the grade into Laramie were "interesting"!!!

Turning 2000

Amazing day. I got past the flooding in Ames IA by going north to a 2-lane country road. Had to sleep in the truck. The beauty of the farm land was so great that I stayed on it to the end. Then I took US30 instead of going back to I-80. It may have cost me a couple of hours extra driving but it was worth it.
The road runs next to the Union Pacific main line so I go a 75 car freight train every 15 minutes.
Lots of rain and thunder storms all around me but I threaded the needle between them and stayed dry.

Turning 2000

Just went past Cheyenne WY. It's been a great day. Took US30 from Ames IA. Was tired of droning along I-80 and decided to see what I was missing. Too much to tap into the Droid but I'll write it all later. Over the Rockies tomorrow

Iowa

The possibly exists that I have taken a wrong turn. Or I just might be having way too much fun!

Turning 1000

1 monster thunder storm, 95F & 95% humidity, and dozens of construction projects. Thank God for a/c! Spent the night with a buddy in Cleveland. Always good to see old friends. Getting near Rock Island as the Speedo spins past the first 1000.

LSR News - 0 Hour

It appears that it takes a ton of stuff to get a 150 pound bike to Bonneville. I'm finally loaded and ready to hit the road. Only 2 hours late which is good for me.

Somewhere in here there is room for me. I guess a van would have been a good idea. I'm hoping it will settle over time.

Next post from the road.
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LSR - 12 Hours To Go

Compare this with this morning's picture!

However, there was blood, sweat, and tears along the way. Not to mention a trip to Home Depot, and Cables & Connectors for some last minute items.

First the steering dampener didn't clear the fairing. So a little creative sculpting was called for.

Then I had wired in the tether kill switch wrong and the engine wouldn't start. Another hour lost making the wiring changes. My fault for not testing the switch before I installed it.

Finally, it went down the road like the proper racer it's supposed to be and there were smiles all around. Now it's time to load up the truck and get a good night's sleep.

Tomorrow I hit the road and will post my adventures from along the road.

LSR News - 24 Hours To Go

I'll be on the road at 8am tomorrow morning. However this is what the bike looks like at the moment.

Notice the fine chain guard held together by high-speed clamps.

However, the kill switches are wired in with Radio Shack parts.

Another fast trip to the Home Depot and it will be running by this afternoon! I'll post more pictures then.

People I Hate

OK, things are a little stressed as the deadline for Bonneville approaches. As it says on your mirror, "Objects may be closer than they appear." No shit Sherlock! Tuesday at 8am I'm hitting the road but today I'm still trying to wire up the new kill switch.

So I'm waiting in line at the donut shop this morning and I'm seriously considering the penalties for homicide. The people in front of me wait 5 minutes for their turn and when the clerk asks them what they want they say, "Oh l don't know. Let me see ..." I'm thinking that if I could take a video of them no jury in the world would convict me.

Which got me to thinking  about some of the other people I hate:

• The old lady at the post office who can't decide whether she wants the cat stamps or the bird stamps. Lady, nobody cares. They rip open the envelope and throw it away!
• The woman at the store who digs around endlessly in the bottom of her purse for 17¢ in change. "No, no, I've got it here somewhere."
• The mommy who finally gets to the counter at the ice cream shop and then asks little Suzie what flavor she wants. She has to recite them all because Suzie is too cute to be able to read at age 6.
• The bozo who stands at the counter at McDonalds trying to figure out what to have while we all wait. Hey, genius, it's the same as last week, last month, and last year. You should have it memorized by now. Or are you new to this planet?
• The woman who wants to write a check at Target. Does she have it out and ready to write? Of course not, she waits until the associate tells her the total and only then explores the dark depths of her bag to find her check book. Does she get her driver's license out while she's down there. No again, this takes another trip into the doom and gloom chamber. Like she didn't know they were going to ask for it?
• The old man who wants to drive 5 mph below the speed limit. I'm not as young as I once was either but when you notice 20 cars strung out behind you wouldn't it be courteous to pull over?
• The morons on bicycles who want to ride 2 or 3 abreast while they chat and everyone else piles up behind them. I dream of having a paintball gun at times like that.

And the list goes on and on. Leave a comment below with your favorites

Covered Bridge Tour

I've been busy with the LSR bike and work in Boston. Jack Cole sent this info on his upcoming tour for bikes in upstate New York. I'll be in Utah getting ready to Rock & Roll but anyone else should try and make it. If you don't have an old bike Jack will not turn you away. But be prepared to get the urge to get one after an event like this. It's infectious!

Basically, bikes 30 years old or older, no size limit.  Ride starts around 9:30 or 10 am Sat Aug 14, rain or shine, at my place, 41 Gardiner Place, Walton NY.

Ride is 130-150 miles, I am doing it again today to shorten and liven it up a bit. Lunch stop about 1/2 way.

Indoor Camping available for Fri. night in the church parish hall or pitch a tent on my lawn.  We can do anther ride Sunday after church if folks want to, going north.

No charge, but feel free to throw some money in the pot for the Sat night BBQ and gas for the chase truck.

Jack

Trip Planning to Bonneville

Mapping out the route to Bonneville is pretty simple. Get on I-80 and keep going! My mapping software put it in plain terms, "At IA/NE border go straight for 929.86 miles." Then there was a slight change before continuing for another few hundred miles.

The route back will be a bit more relaxed. I'm going to be heading south through some of the most beautiful areas in the U.S. If you haven't seen it, check out the slide show of my cross-country trip to see the wonders of the Moab area. From there I'll be touring through the Colorado Rockies and especially Independence Pass. With all due respect to the Stelvio Pass in the Alps this has got it beat hands down. Especially if you're on a motorcycle and like a bit of spirited riding. Breathtaking views combined with a road that has heart stopping climbing and descending turns. Bring a strong engine and stronger brakes (and clean underwear just in case)!

After visiting a friend in Colorado Springs it will be a slab dash to get home. I'll be posting pictures from along the route there and back. Stay tuned!

Steering dampener

The steering dampener bracket came in today so it is mounted. One more item checked off

Aprilia One Ups BMW

If you have a long memory you might remember my post of BMW yanking a tablecloth from under a banquet table.

The there was the spoof of a Vespa doing the same thing.




Now Aprilia has made another jab at BMW with this video. Since they are #1 in WSBK racing results and BMW is next to last it's a pretty fair shot.

Here are some other videos of Aprilia making fun of BMW ads.

Lastly, how about a free Aprilia t-shirt!? (for only $8.99 shipping and handling)
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Something to be torqued about

"If I had four hours to chop down a tree,
I would spend three hours sharpening my axe."
- Abraham Lincoln

Too many of us jump into a job without thinking about the basics. I just took apart an engine that was apparently assembled by King Kong. The aluminum drain plug gasket was mashed down to a mushroom shape from being over torqued. The valve covers took a 6 point socket and an 18" breaker bar to loosen. Even the valve adjustment nuts were miserable. What was this person thinking?

One of the first things they discussed in Honda School was the correct tightness of fasteners. They had a variety of nuts and bolts on a test board and we were asked to tighten them down as we thought best. Then they took a dial torque wrench and showed us how far off we were. In every case, myself included, they had all been over-tightened.

Obviously this leads to stripped threads but, more subtly, it leads to parts failure because of excess stress. At the school, the next hour was spent tightening all sorts of things with a torque wrench to get the proper feel for each of the bolt sizes. Nobody gets out a torque wrench to tighten side cover bolts but a few minutes with a torque wrench can be very revealing. I do it about once a year as a reminder of what I already "know". Funny how what I "know" seems to drift with time.

For the record the standard values for each size is listed below. Just as a reminder, the listed size refers to the thread size, not the wrench size. A 6mm bolt generally takes a 10mm wrench to tighten it, 8mm bolt is 12mm or 14mm wrench size, and 10mm is 14mm or 17mm.

Standard torque values from the Honda manual:

(most 3/8" torque wrenches are unreliable under 20 ft/lbs. A 1/4" drive torque wrench is necessary for accurate work)

• 5mm - 3.6 ft/lb - 43 in/lb
• 6mm - 7 ft/lb - 84 in/lb
• 8mm - 16 ft/lb - 192 in/lb
• 10mm - 25 ft/lb - 300 in/lb
• 12mm - 40 ft/lb - 480 in/lb
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• 6mm flange head - 9 ft/lb - 108 in/lb
• 8mm flange head - 20 ft/lb - 240 in/lb
• 10mm flange head - 29 ft/lb - 348 in/lb
  
  A handy torque conversion calculator can be found here.

If you are tempted to tighten something more to be sure it doesn't loosen consider that if you cause the bolt to stretch it will loosen even faster! Possibly even failing completely!

If you are worried about something vibrating loose use Loctite, don't overtighten.

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Progress

As I take off more & more I'm not sure if the progress is forward or backwards

Anyone have a spare bed?

The last post from the Droid worked so I'll be able to post from along the road. I definitely stink at texting!

If anyone has a shower & a place to sleep along I-80 and I-70 I would appreciate it. Leaving CT on the 10th and UT on the 22nd. TIA

Test mobile blog post

This is the super trick CB175 chain guard on the Moriwacki

Weather (or not) To Ride

I mentioned in a previous post that we aborted our race effort last weekend because of the poor weather forecast. The forecast turned out to be completely wrong and caused us to miss a chance to wrap up the class championship. We relied on weather.com and on the weatherbug app on my Droid. Weatherbug is handy as a phone app but I had long ago begun to distrust weather.com. My opinion is that they sensationalize the bad forecasts in an effort to get you to revisit their site thereby building clicks and ad revenue. Conspiracy theory or just bad experience? You be the judge!

Riding a bike means taking the weather very seriously. What gear to wear and what bike to take. Sometimes even to go or not to go. A friend recommended the NOAA site as much more reliable source of weather info. It's run by a government agency who could care less if you check back or not. They don't have to rely on ad revenue, they reach right into your pocket for the tax dollars.

In just the short time I've been checking they've been 100% correct about what was to come. The graphics are clear and concise, in a few seconds I know whether to put on the mesh jacket or the rain gear. I know what to plan for the weekend and have a high confidence the results. Best of all there are no dancing girls trying to get me to refinance my house or fat housewives trying to tell me the secret of their weight loss.

Whenever I use these I've learned to read the weather maps. If there is a southeast wind and there is rain in Albany NY it will probably be here in 4-6 hours. If the front is only 40 miles deep then I know it will pass and I can plan my ride for later in the day. Not too hard to figure out if one takes the time to learn the local patterns.

Project Bike

Everyone that has more than a couple of bikes, especially vintage bikes, has a project bike lurking in the depths of the garage. I have a '66 Honda CL72 Scrambler that is hiding back in the shadows waiting for attention. It has belonged to either me, or one of my friends, for the last 35 years. I keep collecting parts to restore it but nothing in the way of progress has happened in a long, long time. Maybe this winter ...

Even worse is my XR400R. I bought it when we were all hot for dirt bike riding a few years back. A definite step up from the MT250 that had rekindled my desire for trail riding. However, it has been a trail of tears for this bike. First, I dropped it in a water crossing and didn't drain the oil immediately. It seemed to run OK once I got it restarted but the next day it suffered a couple of mini-seizures. 

When I got home I tore it down and sent the barrel out for a re-bore. I put it back together but appearently didn't get the cam chain adjuster right and the chain jumped a couple of teeth. The valves didn't appreciate meeting the piston in such a violent manner and got all bent out of shape.

Back into the shop. I sent the head out for rework and checked the piston. While I was at it I decided to pull the cover and replace the clutch. This is where I became my own worst enemy. Not having the proper $19.00 tool I promptly broke the $160.00 clutch basket. The shop I sent the head to took a long time getting it back to me and when they did it was too late for riding. I was totally discouraged. So it sat ...

That was 2 or 3 years ago. Really! One of the advantages (or curses) of owning a lot of bikes is that I can always ride something else. There is no pressure to get anything done. The XR had acquired a "what else could go wrong?" aura that kept putting me off. It had also taken on a certain reputation amongst friends who wondered "when I was going to have it bronzed?" or "are you saving it for a tombstone?"

A few weeks ago I finally bit the bullet. I decided that I wouldn't try to fix it all at once, I would just put a couple of parts on it each day and see how that went. So far that plan is working. The head is reassembled, the clutch is back in place, the covers are on and tight. I'm waiting for some parts to put the carburetor on and then the engine work will be done. While I had it apart I was thinking of replacing the suspension and wheel bearings but that might put off riding it for another 2 years. Better to just ride it and get to work on the Scrambler while I have the momentum.
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You Can't Win If You Don't Play

We were supposed to race last weekend at Loudon. For once we were all set; all the issues with the bike were resolved and we had 100% confidence in the bike. We even went out and bought a new stand-up tent for the weekend that would also serve the as the Bonneville HQ.

We got a late start but that didn't seem all bad as it would put us just behind the Friday Boston rush hour traffic. Or so I thought. At 6pm we were sitting in stop and go traffic 70 miles from the track with little chance of improvement down the road. Worse, the rain was torrential! The mood was as dark as the sky.

I checked the forecast on my Droid and it was for over 60% thunderstorms on Saturday and 45% on Sunday. Plus we would be putting up our new tent in the mud in the dark. 

The mood was getting darker. I suggested a break for coffee to think things over. In the warmth of a restaurant the decision was made to call it a day and head home. Racing is supposed to be fun. Creeping around the track in rain soaked leathers is not considered fun by most folks. Back at home in bed, listening to the thunder and lightning all around it seemed we had made a good decision.

And then the sun came out on Saturday morning. Dang! I suggested that we hop in the car, since it was still loaded, and head for the track but it would have been 3 1/2 hours to get there and the forecast was still poor. We didn't go.

Too bad! Jason called to ask where we were and said the weather at the track was hot and humid but bearable. To add insult to injury, Beth's main competitor had engine trouble and was unable to finish his race. This would have put a lock on the #1 plate for her if she had just started and finished the race. Now it's down to the last race and anyone's game.

I can think of a dozen things we should have done:

• Ignore the weather forecasts which seem to sensationalize bad weather so you'll keep checking back which improves their hit rate and ad revenue. I have since switched to NOAA weather forecasts on the advice of a friend.
• At least I should have checked the weather maps to see that the front was passing through and would be gone the next day. Which is to say, make my own decision rather than rely on somebody else.
• Checked with the local motel to see if they had a room for the night. Sometimes you just have to pay for your fun!
• Sucked it up and gone for it. Racing is supposed to be fun but if you want to win you have to do whatever it takes to get to the finish line.

Bonneville is coming up quick. All good lessons for that trip. And there will be another race at Loudon in Sept. No turning back for that one!