lehman hill

Along the Way in Texas, Mostly

2012-01-28T18:58:00.001-05:00

I called this last test trip, "The Twelve Tire Tour". Its OK to sing along with the Gilligan's Island theme song. In the end, I did almost 3600 miles in 9 days. Still managed to get some testing done in there too.

There were interesting things along the way, but I made a special list of things I saw in Texas. The first thing was a chain of gas stations/convenience stores in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. I wonder how it got it's name.

Of course, in Texas, they have to tell you to drive friendly. One version said, "Drive friendly. I've got a gun."

All over Texas, I saw a church that was new to me, the Texas Cowboy Church.

Driving through central Texas, in the little town of Breckenridge, I came across this loan company.

When I got up in the hill country, I found what Texan's call a "hunting ranch". This is a large plot of land, often with a tall fence around it, that is stocked with wildlife and used for private hunting. At one of these I saw 3 albino deer, 2 does and a buck with a rack that was wider than he was tall. I suspect that rancher is growing these deer as a hobby.

In Uvalde, I found the "Bottle in a Bag" store. Here you could buy two of Texans favorite things, guns and liquor.

The hill country is an interesting place, worthy of exploration. The river's have some cool names too. How about the Nueces and Devils rivers. I especially liked the sign I saw but didn't take a picture of, "East Fork of the South Devils River".

Finally, when I got to New Mexico, I found proof that they see things from an existential point of view in New Mexico.

This remains travel season at work, so I'm not sure when I'll post again, but be assured that it will be trivial as its hard to be deep or creative when you're on the move.

Along the Way

2012-01-19T17:35:00.000-05:00

I've been touring the country with 12 tires. Most of the time, its just long days of driving. But sometimes, I see something along the road to comment on.

My first day driving south out of Houghton, Mi. crossed Wisconsin and Minnesota. My earlier impression of northern Wisconsin was of a flat forest, but I was surprised how hilly much of it is. For example, Wausau is the insurance capital of Wisconsin and is bordered on the south side by a really big hill. Dare I say mountain? The name for the hill is Rib Mountain. This shot is from Wausau, complete with ski area in view. The next shot is from the ski area. Definitely not flat.

I passed through Eagle River and that is one snowmobile obsessed town. They were holding the World Championship snowmobile races a few days after I passed through and you could just smell the excitement, mixed in with two stroke oil. Think a Nascar oval track covered in ice and snow very fast snowmobiles on it.

Wisconsin labels its county roads with letters, so there are lots of signs for Hwy N or Z as you drive along. Smaller roads were labeled with multiple letters like Hwy HH.

There were also quite a few big billboards for "Chubby's North, a Gentleman's Club" When I finally saw "Chubby's" along the side of the road it was a small building with a very large parking lot. Unfortunately, Chubby wasn't able to pull off the ideal combination of having his "Gentleman's Club" located on Hwy XXX.

Finally, near Owatonna, MN, there was the sign for "The Guggenham, Spam Museum". A vacation destination for each and everyone of you, I'm sure.

Vi..vi..vi..video

2012-01-15T12:51:00.005-05:00

When I travel, the experience is the part countryside, part people, and part the character of the road itself. Its always been a challenge to communicate the feeling of interesting road with a still camera.

Last summer, I got one of those video cameras that you can mount to your helmet or bike with the idea of communicating the my travels in moving pictures. My first public attempt is below.

As mentioned before, last fall's trip was splashed by a lot of rain. This 4+ minute video is a mash up of clips taken from one afternoon of riding in West Virginia on a day when the rain relented and the roads dried up enough to make it worth getting the video camera out.

Taking videos is a very different animal than still photography. I've mastered neither, but have a ton more to learn about video. The shoulder mount in this video is OK, but my helmet is in the way. I would love to mount the camera on the bike so the viewer could experience the bike's lean angle but vibration is a challenge, especially on a thumper like the KLR.

I wasted a lot of time try to fix some blurry spots in the shadows that turned out to be the relatively slow processor of my computer. Shown in HD on a flat screen TV and shown in 1080p, the videos look their best and the blurry shadows are gone.

I've been trying the various video websites. This Vimeo link allows you to see it in 720p in "HD" or smaller. The HD file pretty big, so you may want to click HD off if you don't have a fast connection.

Please pass along any comments or criticism. I'm still learning in every way. In the meantime, I hope the video gives a sense of my backroads travels. The roads in this video are around Pancake, Williamsport, and Greenland, WV.

Motorcycle Show

2012-01-07T18:55:00.007-05:00

This weekend, we Detroit types got a look at the traveling motorcycle show that many of you may have already seen. I went along to throw my leg over things I don't usually see and to try on helmets and such.

Part of the fun is the old and custom bikes on display. My favorite was the Scott Flying Squirrel, an early water cooled motorcycle and just a really cool look.

The variety of bikes was much better than seen over the last few years. I got the chance to sit on a Buell Racing 1190RS Carbon, a Ducati Diavel, an MV Augusta F3, an Aprilia RSV4, a Moto Guzzi V7 cafe racer, and a Norton Commando 961 Sport. Naturally, I forgot my real camera and found myself fighting the limits of a cell phone camera in poor lighting conditions. The Buell is a very purposeful and pretty bike. Too bad the picture of the whole bike turned out blurry. Nice carbon fiber, though.

Those bikes may be more exotic than most, but of course, I didn't fit on any of them. Just like I don't fit on the vast majority of normal bikes at the show. I'm always disappointed that Honda never has any bike that is both interesting and a reasonable fit. Of course, I have leg room on many Harley's, but am not comfortable with the leg forward riding position of the Harley group.

I wanted the Triumph Thruxton to fit, because I think it's a very pretty bike, but no go. The air cooled Triumphs are interesting, however. They have a really minimal approach to what is in front of you. The handlebars are low and so are the headlights. It seems like the only thing in front of you is the speedo and I felt like I could see the ground in front at about a foot in front of my toes. It must be an interesting feeling when riding at speed.

In the end, there were only 4 bikes that fit and moved me. Not surprisingly, they were a lot like my KLR. The practical ones are the V Strom (either 650 or 1000) and the updated Versys. Both are very capable, nice quality bikes for a very good price. They are also a slightly aquired taste in appearance.

Opps, how did that girl get in there? The update on the Versys is better than the old one, but still a little strange.

I keep thinking back to the Yamaha TDM 850 (1991 - 2001) that I saw out in Arizona and how it is the same class of bike but with a better look.

I have to admit that I am enamored of the Triumphs. The Triumph Explorer 1200 is a new "heavy" competitor for the BMW GS. It fits nicely and has a real good look. Also appears to be quite a bit lighter than the Bimmer. A very nice "big" bike potential. Big price, of course. The bike in the picture is probably the bike I played with. Apparently, there is only one in the country and it's traveling with the show.

The Triumph Tiger XC 800 is more my speed and would be just about perfect if I could raise the seat an inch. I talked to a couple of Triumph owners at the show and they talk about how nice it handles and how reliable the Triumph's are. One of these guys had previously owned a GS and now had a Tiger 1050. He considered the Triumph to be both a better and more reliable bike. I think he said he had 60k miles without any trouble at all.

Beyond that, I got to try on Schuberth C3 helmets. Also Arai, Nexx, and current Shoei. The Schuberth is nice and the Nexx is very light, but I suspect I'll end up with Arai when it's time for a new helmet again.

Overall, a nice Saturday afternoon. Now it's time to get serious about work.

Imagine

2012-01-07T18:51:00.002-05:00

Here is an image for your imagination.

At the health club, finishing up a workout, I walk into the locker room. A fat, older, naked man is standing with his back to me and leaning on an open locker while talking on his cell phone. As I walk up, I hear him say, "and give me a couple of egg rolls with that...."

Now I understand the real reason why there is a rule against using cell phones in the locker room.

A Tech Turning Point for Photos?

2011-12-23T15:44:00.000-05:00

Ok, sometimes I'm guilty of liking the new, innovative, even weird technology. Case in point.

Lytro is a camera that uses a new approach to digital photography that may be the beginning of a major change in how we take photos. At the very least, it is an interesting thing to play with. At the moment, the main benefits of this technology are no shutter delay, plus the ability to change the focus after the fact. In future, software powered capabilities may allow independent control of depth of field, even up to allowing the whole picture to be in sharp focus. There is also the promise in the future of mild to full 3D and the possibility of moving the point of view around within a picture.

For today, the technology seems a touch expensive for a point and shoot camera and the editing capabilities are limited.

Take a moment to go to Lytro's web gallery and play with their photos. To change the focus, point at spot in the picture and click your mouse. This link takes you to one of my favorites, but you can navigate around the gallery by clicking on other pictures. You can also check out the science behind it all.

http://www.lytro.com/living-pictures/280

ABS

2011-12-16T17:59:00.000-05:00

Sometimes a picture says it all. This one came in an email from Corena. Nice.

Surprise

2011-12-11T19:37:00.000-05:00

I recently found myself on a little business trip in the Arizona city of Surprise. As usual, there was no time to visit any of my Arizona friends, just a fast trip with long work hours.

Still, to unwind after work, I went for a walk and really got a giggle out of seeing the police cars. Surprise, Police!

Goat Rodeo

2011-12-06T16:44:00.002-05:00

This came up on NPR, but it struck a chord on another level, so I just had to share.

NPR had a story on YoYo Ma, Chris Thiele, and others with a musical collaboration called, "The Goat Rodeo Sessions". Love the music. Also liked the name, so I looked up the meaning.

According to Urban Dictionary, the number 3 definition is my favorite.

Goat Rodeo definition #3

A chaotic situation, often one that involves several people, each with a different agenda/vision/perception of what's going on; a situation that is very difficult, despite energy and efforts, to instill any sense or order into

This completely describes my day to day life at Chrysler. We just can't seem to help it.

I also like the number 2 definition. You might say it brings forth strong imagery.

Goat Rodeo definition #2

A Goat Rodeo AKA Goat Rope, is about the most polite term used by aviation people (and others in higher risk situations) to describe a scenario that requires about 100 things to go right at once if you intend to walk away from it.

Thank you YoYo. I think you and your comrades have introduced a word that will find its way into common usage.

Occupy Ducati

2011-11-26T13:45:00.002-05:00

Just a bit of silliness. Every time I hear them talk about "Occupy Wall Street, my ears hear them say that the demonstration is in 'Ducati Park'. Of course, it really Zuccotti Park, but I can't help the way my mind works.

So here are a couple of versions, the original "Occupy Wall Street" advertisement and a tank walker doing his version of riding the bull.

The irony is that Ducati is a passionate, but rather high price motorcycle. More likely to be part of the 1% than the 99% in Zuccotti Park.

Some might say that the demonstrators are just wasting time and are likely to end up like this guy above, going up in flames.

That got me thinking though. If there were a Ducati for the 'Occupy' crowd, which model would it be. Based on both the attitude and the name, my pick is the Streetfighter. Now all we need is enough Ducati Streetfighters to form the perfect "people's microphone". It would be loud enough, maybe just not saying the right things.

That Sinking Feeling

2011-11-19T18:43:00.000-05:00

I had been riding for about 3 hours in a steady rain. The temperature was about 50 deg F, but I was wearing all my gear. The new overboots were nicely tucked under by rain pants and my feet were warm and dry. The rain liner of my jacket was well sealed and the insulation keeping me warm. My rain overgloves kept my hands dry.

As I rode around State College, it was raining really hard. Even the cagers were going slow. Earlier, I had stopped for a drink in a little town surrounded by Amish farms. When I walked into the store, I left my helmet on at first, just to keep my head from getting wet, but I had to apologize to the store clerk for the puddle that formed around me on their nice clean floor.

As I picked up speed south of State College, I had that sinking feeling. There was something cold down in my crotch. Slowly, the feeling spread, first deeper into my crotch, then through out the seat of my pants. Cold, wet, uncomfortable.

If you can remember back to when you were in diapers, it's kind of the opposite feeling. Or rather, in the case of the diaper the spreading feeling was the same, but everything was warm instead of cold.

If you look at the photo, you can see a little gap, high up on my left leg. This picture is looking down while seated on the bike and was taken after I got home and with only my rain liner over my jeans. It turns out that rain was hitting the front of my jacket, flowing down into my lap and building up in the folds until it found a way through the gap and inside to make me cold and wet.

Trust me to find a problem in any product. The manufacturer has already acknowledged and fixed the issue for free. He said it was the first leak in the long history of their rain liner.

As for me, I spent several hours drying out in a restaurant and rode with a plastic grocery bag over the gap for the rest of the trip. I'm thinking that I finally have my gear safe from the rain. I sure hope so.

The Dream

2011-11-14T08:06:00.003-05:00

Have you ever woken in the morning remembering a dream that was so vivid, so real, that is almost like an actual experience?

I had such a dream last night, and since it was about a motorcycle, I decided to write it down here.

In my dream, I was at a motorcycle gathering of some sort. Part of this event were people riding out from the display area and up a curvy mountain road.

In the display area, I met the owner of an excellent cafe' racer built from a 70's era Triumph Tiger. The bike was low and stretched out with drooped handlebars and strangely reversed handlebar levers that you operated with your thumbs. The bike and fenders were a dark blue-gray flat paint that made it look like old original paint.

Neither of the bikes in the pictures is an accurate representation of the Tiger, but the proportions and concept are right. Both of these photos were copied from bikeexif.com, an excellent website documenting unique bikes in wonderful photography.

After talking to the owner for a while, I was invited to take the bike for a ride up the mountain road. Naturally, I accepted. After all, it's my dream. The bike started up on the first kick and the exhaust snapped and thrummed. Out on the road, the bike was stable and responsive. The engine provided smooth and torquey response to the throttle with just a hint torque pulse from the engine. For the whole length of the run up and down the mountain, I felt at one with the bike and woke with a smile on my face.

Not bad detail for a dream, eh? I just wish I could find a photo of a real bike that is closer to the dream bike.

An Imperfect Vacation

2011-11-11T10:38:00.000-05:00

Part of the fun of wandering around the countryside on my vacations are the unexpected things that happen, interesting people I meet, new places to explore, surprises along the way. Most times, bad weather is just part of the adventure. Sometimes it gets in the way and is just plain uncomfortable.

This fall's little wander started with a forecast of 6 1/2 days of good temps and little rain. It turned into cold temps and rain every day but one. That, and some unfriendly people, made this an unusual trip.

Once in a while, the clouds would part as in this shot. I was crossing a ridge on Fairview Mountain when I got above the clouds. All the colors were washed clean and the view to the next ridge made it worth digging out of all the rain gear and finding the camera.

Included in this trip where experiments with the new video camera. I found that its hard to both take pictures and video at the same time. The mind set is just different. So while, I don't claim that any of the video I recorded on those few dry hours was worthy, it did mean that I didn't take my usual number of photos. And as any budding photographer knows, it takes a lot of bad photos to find a few good ones.

In this post, I decided to throw in a few pictures together with a few observations along the way.

Based on town names, I'm guessing that the settlers of eastern Ohio were pretty well read. After visiting, Gnadenhutten, the site of a late 17th century massacre of native people, I passed by Cadiz, Calcutta, Liverpool, Lisbon, and Palestine. Most of these were 19th century industrial towns with buildings like this old mill in Liverpool.

Two results from the helmet paint job. The fluorescent colors seemed to work as far as other drivers noticing me, but there is a down side. Apparently, the helmet looks like a nice bright flower to an insect. I had so many bug splats that I had to clean the visor multiple times during the worst days, just to see out safely.

I don't understand western Pennsylvania. It's really pretty empty. It's not even that curvy. But everytime there is a hint of a turn, a suggestion of a fun road, the speed limit comes crashing down. There were enough cops around that I was good boy, even on the devil's highway (666).

One interesting thing in Penn. are the junkyards. Most places these days, they dismantle the cars and store the valuable parts in a warehouse. Car bodies are often stripped and stacked or cubed and shipped to China. In Pennsylvania, the junkyards appear to be the classic rows of partially disassembled cars. If you want a part, you find the car and take it off. Ah, Tradition.

On my way through the thin part of Maryland, I stayed in Deep Gap. Leaving Deep Gap, I had to take Break Neck Road. It's like a challenge, a moral imperative. If you are a real man, you must take Break Neck Road and see if you survive. Since it rained about 7 inches of rain the previous day and night and locals were talking about washed out roads everywhere, I felt like I was taking on a real challenge. No big deal actually, just a cool name.

In the skinny part of Maryland, the southern border is a branch of the Potomac River. I came down to Old Town where the map said there was a bridge.

First of all, its a toll bridge. An old lady sat in an old toll booth waiting for her $0.25 toll. Of course, with all the rain gear, it took me some work and some time to dig out the money. Apparently, she was worried that I might pull out a weapon or something, because when I looked up, she had a large wooden mallet in her hand, poise to wack me if I did something wrong. As soon as she saw the coin, she relaxed, but I never did feel welcome.

As you can see in the photo, the bridge isn't any more welcoming to a motorcyclist. Very narrow, no guard rails, a wooden deck with gaps, and longitudinal planks laid unevenly along the tire tracks for cars. The track planks were 10 to 12" wide with warped ends sometimes sticking up and broken corners and knots making gaps of several inches. I did my best compromise between slow for the rough surface and faster for better balance. I never did feel welcome.

In West Virginia, I wandered back toward the Allegany mountains, an area I had enjoyed a few years before. Along the way, I wandered into Jordan's Run, a valley north of Seneca Rocks. The only advantage of rain is the light that comes after the rain. It took me 2 miles to find a place to turn around and come back for this picture.

I'll try to pull a video together, and maybe one more story of motorcycles in the rain.

Bicentennial Man, er Fiat

2011-11-07T17:51:00.004-05:00

I pulled the facia on the 500 and just had to take a picture.

In this shot, Guido reminds me of the movie "Bicentennial Man". In the movie, the Robin Williams character is a robot who, when they remove his plastic face (facia) and he looks in the mirror, screams at the site of the mechanical components underneath the face. "What's wrong?," says his colleague. "I saw the inner me.", says Robin.

I pulled the facia to try to find a place for louder horns. There they are, the red discs under the bumper.

This little car is amazingly tightly packaged. Hardly any wasted space at all. The new horns just barely squeeze in between the AC condenser and the fog lights in the facia. It reminds me of a line I will paraphrase from Monte Python. Petting a rabbit, "So small, so firm, so fully packed."

The other thing I often do with a new car this time of year is to install a stronger headlight bulb. Guido's lights are OK, but I always want more. At least until I'm melting the snow off the road in front of me.

So I pulled one of the headlight bulbs to figure out what to buy. To my surprise, Fiat had already put the best available bulb in the car, one that put out more than twice the lumens of any other available bulb. These little touches always surprise me.

Naturally, I broke the bulb by dropping when trying to remove it. That way I learned that it is not only the brightest, but also rather expensive at nearly $50 per bulb.

My bad.

An Excellent Project

2011-10-21T18:10:00.000-04:00

In the previous post, I focused on the Brit bikes at the Stockbridge show. There were lots of Harley's and lots of different and unique Japanese bikes also there. I honestly don't know enough about Harleys to understand what to take pictures of. I'm a little better at understanding the Japanese bikes, but the variety is immense. I just took pictures of what I liked, especially "the project."

But before we get into that, as most of you know, my bike number two is a ZRX1200R. Apparently, earlier in the day there were about 12 of these lined up, one of each color, engine, and tuning flavor. By the time I got there, it was a gaggle of green ones, plus a custom painted black one.

This old Yamaha caught my attention. I suspect the body and the bike didn't start life out together, but who cares, it sure looks good.

I noticed "the project" parked near the Motorcycle Sport Touring Association tent and asked who belong to that bike. The owner/builder is Martin Snuvsnuverink ( I hope I spelled that right) and he was happy to answer my questions.

First, a little bit of history. In 1976, Norman Hossack, in England, developed a double A arm front suspension for a motorcycle. It had the advantage of being light, stiff, and having significantly more anti-dive than telescopic forks. Although telescopic forks still dominate front suspension design, an underfunded, Hossack design bike was able to win five British Single Cylinder championships in the 80's.

I copied the photo above from Tony Foale's excellent book, Motorcycle Handling and Chassis Design. As you can see in the diagram, the Hossack has two forward facing A arms above the wheel and a triangulated fork. The bike steers on heim joints where the fork connects to the front of the A arms. A coil over damper suspends the bike from the fork to the frame. Steering is accomplished through a linkage to the fork.

Some of you may recognize the BMW Duo-Lever front suspension in the Hossack. BMW recognized and copied the Duo-Lever from Hossack.

Martin liked the Hossack design, had some left over Honda parts, and decided to replicate the Hossack design, or at least his version of it. He started with a Honda VTR 1000 Super Hawk. That is a 2001 era bike with a 90 degree V-twin similar in concept to a Ducati.

In this case, the engine, transmission and rear swing suspension were retained. An adjustable geometry Hossack front suspension was made from small diameter tubing, along with a trellis frame to connect the front to the back. The built in adjustment gave the ability to anti-dive, rake, and trail. The light weight tube fork is said to be much lighter and stiffer than telescopic forks. The adjustable coil over damper gives lots of tuning room. The body work and radiators are a combination of RC51 and Super Hawk. Note the side radiators in the fairing which, like the front fairing, are from an RC51.

Martin said that, when he first rode it, he was immediately impressed with the stiffness and control in steering and braking. He tried a range of geometry, including more than 100% anti-dive which makes the front of the bike rise during braking. In the end he settled for about 40% anti-dive and says the confidence in braking is amazing. The lightness of the steering are also said to be remarkable.

This detail shot shows the aluminum cams that are used to adjust the geometry, the billet upper A-arm, the Heim joint that forms the upper ball joint, and the steering linkage going up toward the handlebars.

I am totally impressed with this project. From design to fabrication to tuning, this project is ambitious and professional. Note too that the bike gets ridden and ridden aggressively. You can tell, in part, by the blue stainless steel halfway down the muffler. Thanks, Martin, for trying something different and following your own path. I'm looking forward to a few ambitious projects of my own.

Local Talent

2011-10-14T17:53:00.002-04:00

Recently, I was coming home from lunch with my father when I ran into a little motorcycle show in the square of a little town a few miles north of my home. It was late in the day, and I met a friend who told me that about half the bikes had already left. Time to hurry up and check out the bikes.

Of course, I hadn't planned on this and all I had with me was the cell phone camera. Now I'm going to have to take back some of those terrible things I said about cell phone cameras.

At this time of day, there were mostly British bikes left, along with a few Japanese and assorted other makes. This post, I'll leave you with one Italian, one Indian/British, and a bunch of Brit bikes.

This Cagiva Elephant (pronounce 'Elle - font') is from the late 70's and was both sold as a commuter bike in Europe and, in racing form, as true dirt bike campaigned in the Paris-Dakar rally. This is a 650cc Elephant using a Ducati V twin engine. Not my choice of colors, but a serious bike in its time.

A modern Royal Enfield Bullet. It's a good thing that Triumph began to sell their retro line again, because Enfield is looking pretty good these days.

A well used modern Triumph Bonneville with a mild cafe' racer treatment. Note the turned down handlebars, clipped fenders, and racing number plate. This was no show bike, the dirt all came from hard road use. I saw the bike leave. A young guy with a cute girl on the back. Full throttle through the gears, of course.

That leads me to a philosophical question or two. Is the cafe' racer trend just another fad like choppers? Are young guys picking up the cafe' racer thing? It's clear they are mostly passing on Harley's, but could Harley catch the attention of the younger rider with a nicely done cafe' racer?

This Norton is from the time and a kindred spirit to the Bonneville cafe' racer. You could tell that this guy used his bike, a lot.

The well ridden Norton engine.

Speaking of Norton's, the 850 Commando is a pretty bike, especially all shiny like this one. I guess a cell phone camera can do alright in the right light.

Norton was an exotic fantasy bike when I was growing up. Before the Japanese bikes took over entirely, these were aggressive, fast, and manly.

One of the clubs that was still hanging out was the Matchless Club of America, Michigan branch. Matchless was a British motorcycle company from the 1899 to the early 60's. They were famous for their light, good handling chassis and their 500 cc single engines , including the single cylinder win at the first Isle of Man TT in 1907.

The red one is pretty much in "road" trim, with the addition of a racing number plate. The black one is a pure racer with a single seat and all the lights removed.

Matchless is known for it's hairpin valve spring which was used to reduce moving mass in the valvetrain. They later built hairpin spring engines that were used in Morgan three wheelers and Brough Superior motorcycles.

1958 Matchless G12 CS was a 650 cc parallel twin with slightly higher ground clearance for desert racing. This bike still used the Matchless twin. Later engines were the Norton 750 after Matchless fell apart financially and was acquired by Norton.

Matchless was owned by the same group that owned AJS, another light, fast British bike. Known as the Matchless "Cammy", the 350 OHC single is really an AJS engine from the 7R series.

Built from 1927 through 1954, this engine was very successful in racing for many years.

Another small volume British motorcycle maker with a great reputation is Velocette. Known for their high quality and innovation, Velocette was successful in racing from the 20's through the 50's. Their 350 cc won the world championships in '49' and '50'.

This beautiful Vellocette is an early 60's Velocette Venom 500 cc single. It has its cam high in the block so that the push rods could be short and light. This resulted in higher engine rpm and higher horsepower. A slightly modified version of this Venom set the record of 100 mph for 24 hours.

I am curious about the 2nd hand lever on the left side of the handlebar. My guess is a compression release for kick starting that big 500 cc single, but I am just guessing.

Pre-WW2 Vincent's were called Vincent HRD. This is a 1949 Comet 500 cc single that was apparently made just before the change in name. Racing versions of this bike won the Isle of Man TT. The name changed to just Vincent after WW2 when the company needed to sell bikes in the US and didn't want confusion between Harley (HD) and HRD. Nice versions like this are easily worth $50k these days.

Note the bronze or brass carburetor body. Not bad for a little show in a little farming town in Michigan. Also, the photo quality is a pleasant surpise for a little cell phone camera. Next year, I'll have to plan more carefully and bring a real camera.

Call me Polly Anna

2011-10-08T08:36:00.003-04:00

Call me an incurable optimist. Although there is a long way to go, I'm seeing hopeful signs in the economy. Maybe it's just Michigan or the Midwest. And anything could go wrong and turn things back into recession. But I keep seeing and hearing things to smile about.

A short list.

Everybody I know that was looking for a job, has one. How did that happen? I heard an NPR story about how employment agencies are having trouble finding qualified manufacturing workers for their manufacturer clients. Just plain weird.

This year, I had a couple of windows replaced and the trim on the house painted (much too high off the ground for me). The paint company is using a new tech paint, so that's a little special, but they were up 20%+ in 2010 and look to be up 30% this year. The window company is having a record year and would like to expand the area they serve, but all their crews are busy and they can't find enough qualified crews to expand.

At work, we are having trouble finding enough tires to build all the cars we are selling. We have one car where we can't get replacement tires for the dealers when the customer wears out his tires because all the tires in that size are going into new car plants.

A guy that works out at my health club sells hydraulic switches and other industrial components. He says that he could sell 40% more than he is now, but the parts just aren't available.

On my recent road trip, I ran into a shortage of hotel rooms. In one Pennsylvania town, I called 1 day ahead and got the last available room in town. When I checked in, I asked why the town was so busy? Why was a little town in the middle of PA. full up on a rainy Tuesday night? The clerk replied that they were full every night all summer and through the fall.

Finally, a coworker and his wife are trying to buy a house here in Michigan. They've put in three offers in the last month, all were above asking price bidding wars, and they've lost all three houses because all they can offer is 20% down and a mortgage pre-approval.

It makes me wonder why, for the most part, the news is all so bad. Maybe, like the rest of us, the new media just got used to reporting bad news and isn't looking for good news. I hope my little list is the sign of good things to come.

Box on Bike

2011-09-28T08:01:00.000-04:00

Some of my friends doubt my taste in choosing what looks good. They might not tell me to my face, but they keep silent, look down, maybe say that, "they wouldn't make that choice." They are probably right. I don't have very good taste or don't see things the way that others do. A lot of the time, I see function as more important than style. I figure that form will follow function and don't worry about it if I am uncomfortable with my first look at it's appearance.

Just to be clear, this isn't one of those times. I completely understand that what I have done is functional but ugly. You might say that I have hit the KLR with an ugly stick and, as anyone knows, a KLR doesn't need a lot of help in the ugly department.

Over the years of touring, I've learned that I don't want to put a lot of stuff on the back of the seat so I can more easily swing my leg over. I also don't want my tank bag too high so that I can see the gauges.

This year, between video camera, overboots to keep out the rain, and other gear to stay warm and dry, I'm carrying more stuff. I needed bigger luggage that wouldn't get in the way. Most people would have installed panniers (side cases), but on my bike, there isn't any structure where the panniers go and I don't like how wide and in the airflow they end up on a high exhaust bike.

My solution was a bigger trunk behind me. My original plan was to build something aero and original, but I ran out of time. Instead, I decided on one of these waterproof military spec cargo boxes and most people would say that the one I bought is too big. Who am I to say they are wrong. Hopefully, this will be a better aero solution as the box is blocked from the wind by my body.

The extra room will be very nice. Note the old JC Whitney trunk fits nicely inside the new box. It's hard to believe that I live out of the JC Whitney for 3 weeks on my Newfoundland trip.

So my job was to make a secure mounting system that could lock to the bike for security and also be removed to go into the hotel. That turned out to be a pretty good project, including me relearning how to weld aluminum. The mounting frame that bolts to the bottom of the box uses the same mounting system as the JC Whitney trunk that I use on a daily/short trip basis. It's got plastic sliding races, spring loading, over-center latches, and locks.

Best of all, I can detach the box from the bike, pull out the handle, and roll it into the hotel just like a regular suitcase. If I get dirty out on some two track, I can find a spray car wash and clean up the box and the bike before going on to the hotel. That is a big improvement on what I had been doing with the water resistant JC Whitney trunk.

Even Mac's get the Blues

2011-09-17T08:10:00.004-04:00

I've been away from this blog for a little while. Mostly, just life getting busy, but also a period of computer problems. Having a Mac and having it be completely trouble free for 4 years from new, I was surprised when the screen started going blank and frozen at inopportune moments. I also realized that, unlike a Windows machine, I had no clue how to figure out what was going wrong. I needed help.

I found MacDaddy in the next town and contracted him to diagnose the problem. Of course, the real reason for this post is just to have the opportunity to bring up MacDaddy and his cool icon.

It turns out, my problem was a conflict between Tiger and the early Leopard upgrade which took 4 years to show up as a problem. The fix was to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the OS. Hmmmn... That sounds just like I would have done with Windows.

Ah, but there is where the Mac difference comes in. I have the Mac backup program set up on an external hard drive. Reformatting and reinstalling the OS takes about 4 mouse clicks and just walk away. After the reinstall, I was asked if I wanted to reinstall any files from another drive like Time Machine. Yes. After that, the computer was exactly as I left it, right down to opening the same web page I had been looking at before reformatting the disc. Very cool.

The other interesting thing about this process was a conversation with MacDaddy himself. It turns out that he won't be in the next town for long. Conversation got around to the economy and business recovery. His business is busy and profitable, but his wife has been laid off for 7 months. As she is from Canada, they are in the process of selling their house and plan on emigrating to Canada. I asked if they are going for economic reasons, he said partly. They also prefer the culture and government to what is happening here. He specifically mentioned that they liked single payer health care system. I know that about half the people in this country find his opinion to be anathema. Still, I find it fascinating to meet an intelligent person who is willing to pull up stakes and change his life in this way.

Music to my Ears

2011-08-20T07:04:00.004-04:00

Sometimes, my hobbies converge. My interest in music and audio has me using the little Sansa MP3 player when I exercise and the bigger Cowon player in the car and on trips. The headphones in the picture are my favorite cans for airplane travel. Notice the cover art of the Drysdale motorcycle on the Cowon screen.

The other day, I was working out and listening to music in random order, when a recording of the Drysdale 750 V-8 racing bike came on the player. Only 12 seconds long, but I smiled and smiled. It was preceded by nice little folk song and followed by a drummer from Mali and it fit right in.

I couldn't figure out how to put a sound file into the blog on it's own, so I put a few pictures of the bike together with playing the 12 second sound file twice and put them all into a short video.

Just in case you want to explore, a short trip to the Drysdale Home Page

http://home.mira.net/~iwd/

Simple Solution

2011-08-16T19:26:00.004-04:00

At the warehouse open house, one of the cars in the aisle was a licensed sports racer looking car with a bike engine. The owner called it "Piontek" and said that this was the latest built and number 6. A beautiful car with lots of interesting ideas, the one that struck me as a clean and simple solution was its reverse drive.

Lots of bike engine cars use a starter motor as an electric drive reverse gear. In this case, he simply had starter gear teeth cut into the outside of his inboard rear brake disc. Add a couple of brackets for the starter motor and you have an elegant solution to reverse gear in a bike engine car.

Blog Echo

2011-08-16T19:13:00.002-04:00

This blogging business is interesting. Most people come home to a spouse and family who ask, "How was your day, dear?", and listen to the highlights of your day or not. It is these people, truely in your life, that you share those things which you find interesting in life.

Since there is nobody but me at home, I find that I sometimes use the blog to tell the stories from the day. I put something out there, most of the time without feedback or comment, and if someone reads it and enjoys it, great. If no one reads it, I don't know about it. So most of the time, blogging is a release, occasionally a creative one, that I do and forget.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a visit from Greg and Bruce, old friends from racing days gone by. I hadn't seen them for several years and somehow expected that I would be catching them up on some of the stories in my life since I had last seen them. We had a really good time and talked about everything from airplanes to machine tools. The weird part was when I would start some story and I could see from their face or by their comments that they had already read that one on the blog.

Even more interesting was when Bruce came up to one of my motorcycle where my Helimot gloves were sitting. "Oh, are these those custom gloves you had made? So they really use kangaroo skin for the palms."

All I can say is, it's great but it's also a little bit weird feeling.

Highway Pegs

2011-07-29T18:00:00.001-04:00

I know it has been hot all over the country. I understand when people want to go for a little motorcycle ride and wear less clothing to stay cool. Now these are just gratuitous sexy girl photos from the Internet designed to get your attention. The website above was in a language that looked eastern European, but the sign and the printing on her top are in English, so....

Megan Fox in a professionally shot setup. Yes, she is wearing shorts and that is a motorcycle and she is very nice to look at, but it's not quite what I'm looking for to illustrate my story.

This is a little formal, but it is starting to get close.

My thanks to iron momma for this photo that is about as close as I'm likely to get.

So, I'm driving down the road on a hot day and coming the other way is a guy on a cruiser bike, wearing big leg shorts and a t-shirt and riding down the highway with his feet on the highway pegs. He doesn't have any windshield or fairing and he has his legs spread a little to keep away from the hot engine. The wind is doing a nice job of ballooning the legs of his shorts with lots of air blowing straight into his crotch. My first thought is, "Boy, I'll bet that feels nice and cool." Then, "Oohh. I would want to accidentally hit a bee."

Cell Photos

2011-07-22T18:36:00.004-04:00

Watch that first step.... Uvalde, Texas

I have recently joined the masses of people carrying around a cell phone. Naturally, it has a camera, but based on the size and quality of the lens, I didn't expect much in picture quality.

Downtown Sabinal, Texas.

Recently, I made a short trip to Texas and, as usual, found myself taking pictures of old buildings along the way. This time, I had only brought the cell phone, so the first 4 pictures are from the cell phone camera.

The old Ford dealer in Sabinal, Texas.

This is probably my best effort, helped along by a bluer sky and nice sunlight.

This is the Armstrong Theater in Hondo, Texas.

The pictures from here down are from a 2006 trip to the same San Antonio area, but taken with my little Panasonic camera. I think the difference is significant. The colors are more vibrant and deeper. The image is sharper and has a greater depth of field. The bright areas show more detail and the dark areas are clearer as well. All that in a cheap little point and shoot camera.

Old San Antonio downriver neighborhood.

Wrought fence for depth of field.

Shooting toward downtown on a canal.

The Alamo at night. I haven't tried the cell camera at night, so this isn't a fair comparison.

It was Christmas 2006 and the city was decked out in lights.

Downtown out my hotel window.

It might be nice to have a camera that fits in your pocket along all the time, but the idea that one gadget is going to replace all your others is simply dreaming. I'll continue to bring along my camera when I can and use each tool to do its job. The same goes for my watch.

River walk.

Great Eastern Quicksilver Mine

2011-07-17T15:29:00.006-04:00

Going through some photos from spring, I ran across this little side trip in Northern California. The road is a narrow local road coming back from Guerneville and through the coastal range on the shoulder of Mount Jackson. The first surprise was this neat old truck. I don't recognize it and couldn't find any id on the truck, but it has a nice style and certainly looks like it belongs.

Farther up the mountain, I came across this wreck of a mine. Later research online let me know that it was the "Great Eastern Quicksilver" mine. Quicksilver is Mercury (CR2 Hg). The mine started in the 1860's and ran through the early 1900's. It was said to be a 400 to 600 feet deep shaft mine with more than 1000 feet of tunnels.

Of course, the problem is that this mine is in a very active earthquake zone. The oral history I could find suggested that there were many tunnel cave-ins and several miners died in this mine.

These days the building are falling down and the whole site looks like some wooden and galvanized steel version of a castle ruin.

I love old wood like this.

Anybody need an old Ranchero? There are two of these parked behind the mineshaft that look like they have been there a long time.

After snooping around the mine and a drive up over the mountain, it's back to valley and the end of the road. And what should greet me there but an old Ford providing symmetry to this little side trip. Truck to truck, a nice little exploration for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Helmet Paint - A Project Delayed

2011-07-16T16:52:00.005-04:00

I bought my Shoei X11 helmet almost 2 years ago. I had been planning on buying it in yellow, but at the time, they were closing out the X11 and there weren't any yellow ones to be had.

So I ended up trying a red one and hoping it was bright enough to be seen. It's a nice helmet and I enjoyed it all last season as a red helmet, but the red just didn't stand out visually enough to suit me.

Even before I chose the red, I played around on the computer on how I might paint it,if needed.

My original plan was to put the helmet away for the year at Halloween and have it finished by the new year. I guess that didn't happen.

After my experience with the "egg yolk" helmet paint job, I decided that I wanted to avoid painting the vents and switches, so that they wouldn't get stuck with the paint. That was the starting point of my graphics design.

I went fluorescent yellow to match my air bag vest and to maximize my visibility. The graphics try to be interesting while providing enough bright color to be seen from any angle. I like the contrast of red against the yellow.

Originally, I expected that some thin black accents would make the color transition "pop", but as you can see, I should have saved the effort. It's amazing how hard the black and red are to tell apart.

Overall, a far from perfect execution, but I'm happy to have it back on the road, even if it's 6 months later than I expected. By the way, the fluorescent yellow really does glow in low light.

You will notice that I had to use a neutral background color to photograph the finished helmet. Even with the neutral beige carpet, the yellow reflects light into the carpet and I had to crop the photos pretty tight to avoid the carpet looking too green in the pictures.

Women, the Couch, and a classic Fiat

2011-07-08T17:58:00.003-04:00

As of last weekend, Jac's inconveniently out in the country, family storage, opened for business. In this case, my niece is going on a 3 month assignment to Brazil and I offered to store her stuff while she was gone.

Most of the stuff went into the basement and a spare bedroom. But my niece decided that I needed a couch, so her couch ended up in my living room.

The philisophical question here is why women are so in love with couches? Apparently, I'm too dense or too long a bachelor to understand it. This is, however, a universal truth. Women love a good couch. They appear to feel that a room is incomplete without one. Further proof of this theorem came a few days after the couch moved in. The lady that cleans my house wrote me a note. "Next time is August .... I love the new couch."

Any of my friends with greater understanding, please explain this to me. What is so wonderful about a couch, especially to women?

Another interesting part of this move is the smell. I had to call up my niece and let her know that my house now smelled of girl. Of course, I mean the sweet and nice smells that women are famous for.

My niece gave me the nice car picture that is sitting on the couch. Yes, that is the best use I can think of for the couch so far. The car in the picture is a 1954 Fiat Supersonic, also shown in 3/4 view below. In addition to being a nice looking Fiat from the 50's, it has an interesting engine.

Fiat was competing in 2 liter racing in the 50's. They decided to design a light weight, compact engine for their racing and other cars. The Supersonic had the 8V engine, an aluminum, 2 liter V8 with a 70 degree bank angle (to keep it compact), it had a short stroke design with a single camshaft in the valley, pushrod operated valves, and exhaust ports that came out of the top of the heads. All this in 1952. Although Cadillac and Oldsmobile had an overhead valve V8 in 1949, theirs was a 5.4 liter, all iron hulk.

Thanks Parsla

2011-06-25T07:32:00.004-04:00

I've spent the last month or so trying on the various name suggestions for the Fiat, plus a few ideas of my own. For example, Enzo is a really cool name that seems to go with the heritage and the color, but at only 100 hp, I just couldn't tell people the Fiat's name was Enzo with a straight face.

In the end, the name that grew on me and became natural was Guido. Parsla suggested this with all of the great reasons that it works.

1) Guido is the first-person, present conjugation of the Italian verb guidare ("to drive"). Naturally, I didn't know that, but Parsla did.
2) Guido was Luigi's sidekick in the original movie "Cars"
3) Slang for a working class Italian-American

The Fiat is definitely a working class Italian-American, but also Mexican. And it definitely loves to drive.

I decided to formalize this with a portrait in front of the Guidobono Concrete company. Now, Guidobono is actually a name of long standing, but if you take it apart and use some linguistic license, Guido bono can be interpreted as "certified Guido". So that's what my little red Fiat is, a certified Guido.

Funny Fingers

2011-06-19T08:48:00.000-04:00

One of the things that makes each of us unique are the little genetic anomalies that only we own. Those of you who know me understand that my body is one major collection of genetic anomalies, so you won't be surprised to learn that I have funny fingers.

It turns out that my hand would be an XL glove size, but my index finger is about 1/4 inch longer than average which means I'm poking out of end of the first finger of any XL glove.

This has been a particular problem with motorcycle gloves where you are constantly using all your glove's finger length as your hand is wrapped around a motorcycle grip. For years, I've been seeking out XXXL or larger gloves, just to get the index finger long enough. The trouble with that is that the body of the glove is too large and wouldn't stay on in a crash.

This winter, I was trying to upgrade all of my safety equipment, including finding gloves with a combination of good fit, improved crash protection, cool in summer, some vibration absorption, and a reasonable amount of "feel" for the controls. Not an easy task, but it led me to an interesting glove and an interesting person.

First the person. Helmut Kluckner is the tall, skinny guy standing in the Michigan pullover in his shop. Helmut had sent me some insoles to improve the fit of my boots and didn't charge me for them. I sent him the pullover as compensation.

In addition to the curly hair and the Austrian accent, he is both a searcher for truth (in motorcycle safety gear) and an artist. I was lucky to visit his shop in San Jose and get the chance to meet Helmut in person.

As soon as I walked into his shop, he greeted me and as soon as I expressed an interest in gloves, he asked me to show him my hands. From a distance of 5 feet, he noticed that I have a long index finger and said that I must have trouble finding gloves to fit. Then, 'you look like an XL to me.' I guess all true artist are very visual people.

Then we wandered around the shop has he showed me how the gloves were made and had me try on several gloves of different types and sizes. In the end, he took a tracing of my hand and explained how they would use the length of an XXL index finger in an XL glove and then shorten the length of the little finger a little bit to get a perfect fit.

Through all this was a philosophical discussion about what it takes to design a safe motorcycle glove, the materials they use to make gloves, an example of a glove worn in a 100 + mph motorcycle racing crash, and finally, as we moved to try on boots, a discussions of motorcycle handling development and the way that your foot changes shape as you age.

Helmut is a proponent of having strong, tear resistant materials properly sewn together to avoid ripping while sliding. This is combined with padding materials which spread the force of an impact and absorb energy. He doesn't care for hard shell knuckle or finger protection and says that the edges between the hard material and the leather is often a place where the sewing fails and opens a hole in the glove during the accident. The vents and other edges are just a place for the ground to grab and tear the glove while you a sliding.

I am definitely buying into these ideas and am happy to get beyond the carbon knuckle, mass media approach to gloves. It comes third hand, but I read a blog online where a MotoGP doctor was quoted as saying that he wished more glove manufacturers would emulate the Helimot glove with it's padding instead of hard armor. If true, then Helimot is on the cutting edge of safety technology.

The gloves I bought are the F 108 hot weather gloves. The palms and all the leather are kangaroo leather which is strong but thin and with good feel. The back of the gloves are made of stretch Kevlar fabric which breathes easily. The fingers, upper palm, and thumb are just one thickness of kangaroo leather for good feel. The lower palm and the entire back of the glove are lined with an open cell foam that provides protection. The knuckles have multiple types of foam and thicker foam to provide impact protection.

The idea is good protection in a glove that is also breathable, but it doesn't stop there. When it gets truly hot, you just pour water into the inside of the glove. The open cell foam absorbs the water and it slowly evaporates and keeps your hand cool. Although it hasn't been hot enough to try it yet, Helmut says that the evaporation cooling will last 45 to 90 minutes, depending on how much air flows over the gloves.

Naturally, the fit was just right. The gloves are definitely stiff when new, but I'm breaking them in over time. So far, I have maybe 5 hours of riding in the gloves and I'm really enjoying them. Although you can't feel the airflow directly, the gloves definitely breath and stay cool. With all that protection, the gloves absolutely feel stout, but you don't feel restricted in your motion. The padding on the palm is very clever. It adds enough isolation that my fingers aren't buzzed after a couple hours riding, but the padding ends in just the right place. The finger and thumb feel practically naked with excellent touch and control on the bike.

For Doug's sake, I'll mention that they also make a nice touring glove, made entirely out of deer skin, Doug's favorite. The gloves don't come cheap, around $200, but then again, they are hand made, to fit my goofy hand, and made right here in the US. From the quality I see, they will probably last a lot longer than the cheap stuff I'm used to. Happy riding.

Imported from Detroit with a Twist

2011-06-09T16:13:00.003-04:00

I was running errands last Saturday and noticed a van with the logo and name, "Motus" printed on the side. For those of you who don't know, Motus is a ground up motorcycle venture, designed and made in the US. A little farther on, I saw the Motus motorcycle sitting on the side of the road waiting for the truck and found it parked next my Fiat when I came out of the store. This time, I had my camera with me.

Of note, this bike had an Alabama license plate, which may indicate where the Motus will be made. That said, it was clearly an engineering development bike, from the uncovered and hand shaved seat foam to the support van following it around.

The van also said Pratt and Miller, which is the Detroit area engineering company hired to do the development of the Motus motorcycle. This is what I mean by "Imported from Detroit with a Twist". Detroit has gone through a lot of transformation over the years, but it is still has a lot of engineering expertise, like Pratt and Miller, and is still the place in the US that new "vehicles" are likely to be developed.

Isn't that tank shape delicious?

First of all, the sound. Honestly speaking, I thought it sounded a little thrashy to me. That is, too much mechanical noise and not enough music from the intake and exhaust. Maybe we need to give it the benefit of the doubt, however, since it was clearly a development bike and may not be representative. More than that, I only heard it from a distance and at idle or near idle. It may sound wonderful "on the pipe." The engine is an interesting concept, a V-4 pushrod gasoline direct injection engine, longitudinal in the bike, and with the crank axis tilted down at the front. It looks really good and aggressive. Of course, at 1645 cc, it's going to have some grunt.

The thing you can't see is how compact this bike looks. Maybe, the next time you see a Fiat 500, you can think back to how much shorter the bike looks than my little car. That is probably one of the big benefits of the pushrod V-4, it is very small for it's displacement and power.

With the test rider just taking a break for lunch, I had a chance to take a close look. Although this is just a development bike, the quality of the bike was very high. This is probably too much bike and too much money for a cheapskate like me, but I'm happy to see someone doing it right and doing it right here in Detroit. I don't know if I would ever need a high end bike like this. Then again, it is a touring bike. Maybe it would make sense someday.

John's Great Adventure

2011-06-04T17:47:00.003-04:00

John Deikis is a new friend with many of the same interests as me. Among those are British cars, especially old ones, motorcycles, and a mild taste for adventure. Maybe I should say that my taste for adventure is mild, but John may be addicted. Today we send him off on the 2011 Rallye to Reno where men in old cars travel across the country on Highway 50, known as the "loneliest highway". John is doing this in his old MG TD named 'Morris' and doing it to promote a charity, CURE Childhood Cancer. Now that's adventure.

Just an aside, it's a worthy charity that is worth supporting. If you can, please donate through the portal on John's website.

http://kidscure.blogspot.com

Meanwhile, John has been working all hours trying to get ready, but you never know what you are going to get. After a flawless 200 mile check ride, this morning he blew a fuse on his fuel pump and had to jumper the pump to get home.

You can follow John's trip on the kidscure blog above and possibly on his johns folly website shown in the picture.

I like the pic below. It kind of gives you that 1950's view of the car factory look. Note the little trailer attached to the TD. John is thinking he will pull into WalMart in the little towns and sleep in the trailer. Me, I'm thinking a bed and a shower sound good.

Good Luck John. We know you have everything under control, but good luck anyway.

Everything Changes

2011-06-01T18:52:00.003-04:00

Everything always changes. You would think I would get used to that after all these years, but it keeps on surprising me. For example, this old Palm Pilot that I use for finding phone numbers. Boy is that out of date. Time to clean out a few old phone numbers too.

Recently, we had a reorganization at work and that means training a new boss and giving up one of the cars that I've worked on since conception (Dodge Journey). On the plus side, it means working again with K. Kaumeheiwa. We worked well together on Pacifica and will have a good time on this new project too. Still, it takes time to realign your thinking and get used to the new way things are going to be.

I guess all the changes got me thinking on a personal level. K and I are at the beginning of a new car concept. That means it will be a while before it gets into production. By the time it gets into production, I'll be pretty near Social Security age (62). Wow. By then, Medicare won't kick in until your 70, so I'll probably have time to work on one more new car after that before it makes sense to retire. It's hard to believe that I've only got 2 more cars in me. Time sure flies when you are having fun.

Note to others who have retired at 55. You are probably lucky dogs all, but I'm still enjoying working life, so I'm not complaining.

At the same time that I was changing my personal profile at work to list my new boss, I took a look at my emergency contacts. My father had been my main emergency contact for most of my working life. He is still doing OK, but he is no longer in a position to come running to my rescue, so it was time to change that. My sister was elevated to the number one emergency contact and she now has responsibility for just about the whole family. I also had to take my old friend Bob off the contact list, elevating my now responsible niece.

As I said, nothing stays the same. I'm just happy to be healthy, aware of the days passing, and enjoying them one by one.

It's been a wild year, so far

2011-05-17T19:23:00.005-04:00

I'm lucky enough to live where a certain amount of wildlife is part of my daily routine. In my yard and at work, there are deer and Blue Heron and Sandhill Crane and wild Turkey. But a truer measure of wildness are the animals that aren't seen in sub-rural yards. The ones that mostly avoid humans and are sometimes even hostile to humans. In being in wild places and seeing those kinds of animals, I've had a good year.

Two of my sitings came on my California trip. The coastal mountains are actually quite wild, in spite of small roads running through the countryside. Naturally, I either didn't have my camera or was too slow to use it, so the animal pictures will have to come from the internet.

One Sunday off, my coworkers and I wandered through the redwoods to the coast and had lunch in Mendocino. Steve had his phone with him and took pictures along the way. Coastline shots like the one above came out pretty good for a phone camera, but the Bobcat picture didn't work at all.

So here we are, driving south along the coast, and there in the field next to the road is a mama Bobcat and her kits. From the big size and the ears, there was no mistaking her for a house cat.

On another Sunday off, I was wandering on my own when a Marten crossed the road in front of me. These animals are said to be very cautious of humans and fierce fighters. I didn't know what it was at the time, but I knew it was unusual. Martens have short front legs, longer rear legs, and long bushy tails. When they walk, they look a little like an kangaroo walk/hopping along.

It has been a wet spring here in Michigan. On my way home from visiting my father, I went the back roads to escape some construction. On the edge of a country road, crossing over to a swollen pond, I saw a Great Lakes Mink. Not bad for farm country.

A Fiat followed me home

2011-05-09T18:51:00.001-04:00

Almost exactly 2 years ago, when Chrysler was still in bankruptcy, I got my first chance to sit in a Fiat 500 and was fairly convinced I would buy one one day. A lot has happened in those two years including a lot of US development on the 500.

In early April, I went shopping for a 500. I could have chosen from 40 or so 500's on the lot, but instead I ordered one exactly to my specs.

Amidst all the craziness at work and the commitments of my father's illness, the Fiat 500 that I ordered came in and I managed to pick it up and bring it home this week. So far, I am happy. It's a neat little car with a lot of personality.

The initial quality is great. I've only found one thing I would change and that is only because I have too much information and am your basic geek. OK, I'll give. I want to better center the electrical center point or trim of the electric power steering. The car is aligned perfectly, but the power steering thinks straight ahead is a little to the left.

I worried about the color choice, but now that it is here, I'm happy with my choice. I've even been wearing my red sweatshirt to go with the car.

The next happy task is to figure out a good name for him. The one thing I'm pretty sure of is this car needs a male name. Luigi is obvious, but already taken by a well travelled development car. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Telling Time

2011-04-30T16:43:00.003-04:00

I've been away from the blog for a couple of weeks due to parental illness. It is easy to imagine things are going to stay the same forever, but time marches on and both ourselves and the ones we love get older and wear out a little more.

As it happens, just before my father became ill, I had ordered a new watch to compensate for my own fading eyesight. As time has gone by, even my long arms haven't always been long enough to read my watch. I wanted something bigger, with bigger numbers and hands, to make it easier to see at a glance.

I could have gone digital with 3/4" numbers and a bright back light, but I've typically preferred the traditional analog hands and dial.

The search for a bigger analog watch led me to a strange place, Russian watches. Traditionally, Russia has used analog watches for it's military and for aviation, a large watch with an easy to read dial is key. For the most part, Russia never made the switch to quartz movements, so most of them are traditional mechanical movements.

The reason we all changed to quartz or digital movements is that they are cheaper, but far more accurate. Those of you that know me know that I am often a few minutes late and have never worried about the exactness of time. I have always loved the detailed mechanism and craftsmanship that come with mechanical time pieces. I have 3 mechanical clocks in my house that make lovely noises and need periodic winding. When it came to a watch, I was happy to trade accuracy for size and uniqueness.

The watch is a Moscow Classic Aeronavigator with a 31 jewel Vostok automatic movement. Automatic means that it has a little pendulum inside that winds the watch as your arm moves. There is even a little window in back where you can watch the pendulum and all the little gears. It is a modern watch in the style of Russian military aviation watches and is decorated with a WWII bomber on the face. Yes, that is Russian Cyrillic writing on the face.

In this choice, I realized an interesting contrast to my father. He has always been interested in watches and clocks, but from the viewpoint of technology and accuracy. In the 60's he had a Bulova "tuning fork" watch which was unique method for keeping time. Since then, he has graduated through quartz movements to "atomic" movements that look for a radio signal from an "atomic" standard clock and correct themselves to be accurate to the second.

A couple of years ago, he and I went to visit family in New York. I remember him asking the hotel for a room that faced west so that he could put his clock in the window and make sure that it updated it's accuracy overnight. Even almost 30 years after he retired and needed to be someplace on time, he still wanted to know that his watch was accurate.

So here is a picture of my new, inaccurate Russian watch with my old watches. The watch on the left is a cheap Sharp that I use when I travel. The watch on the right is my old TAG. Both are "normal" size watches for men. I'm hoping the new watch ages gracefully and that I do too. I'm also hoping my father gets better and we can have an interesting conversation about what is important in keeping time.

April Snow Showers bring May Flowers

2011-04-18T17:11:00.005-04:00

For the last few weeks, I've been posting seasonal pictures of bright green foilage, trying to will spring into being. Even though I knew the forecast suggested a chance of snow, I still spent part of my Sunday doing the prep work to get one of the bike ready to ride.

And this morning, we have this little gift. To my friends in the south, the seasons do change here in Michigan. It is just not always a steady progression.

Consider this 3 inches of snow that is melting away as I type.

Old Buildings

2011-04-16T19:38:00.005-04:00

One of the things that I like best about wandering the backroads are the old buildings. Old buildings seem like they have grown out of the ground. They have been there long enough for lots of things to happen to them and they seem to me like they are just begging to tell me their stories. Unfortunately, they don't speak English and I can only get a glimpse of their stories from the side of the road.

By contrast, new building are just plain boring.

Barns are great. Born of function, yet they seem to have interesting, simple architectural shapes. So much more than a house, they seem to grow out of the ground. And when they get old, they lean and sag and talk to us of the hard winters and heavy loads.

Sometimes, they are split from the house and other barns by the road, almost like no one ever thought there would be more people and traffic when they were built.

Then there are the curiosities. When you built this house, how did you think you were going to get into the attic?

I like this. The whole barn has been without paint for a long time but the window is painted blue. Also, note the car radio antenna rusting away outside the window.

Finally, there are little gems like this cute little barn. It just makes me want to climb into the loft with a good book and take a nap.

California Moss

2011-04-09T16:14:00.004-04:00

Exploring the coastal mountains of Northern California is an excellent way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon. The hills are steep, the valleys are narrow, and there are new micro-climates around every corner.

The narrow valleys seem to hold the mist that comes in from the ocean. All that moisture and shadow results in pockets of dense forest with long shaggy moss.

The bright green of the moss in the half light seem appropriate for spring time here in the midwest.

The density of growth is amazing. Note the redwood tree that has fallen over the creek. Suspended on the bridge of the fallen tree, another tree has taken root and grown up toward the sky.

Sweetwater Springs is narrow little road, even narrower when it squeezes through a stand of redwood. At this point, the road is about 6 feet wide. Note the telephone line and pole squeezing through the same gap.

Of course, sometime you just have to go around the tree.

David E's Office

2011-04-03T14:27:00.003-04:00

There has been a little too much death in this blog recently. Sometimes, it just can't be helped.

David E. Davis passed away last week at age 80. For those of you who don't know him, David E. Davis was a writer first and foremost. Among other accomplishments, he was editor of Car and Driver magazine and the founder of Automobile magazine. More than that, he was mentor and supporter of the best of automotive writers and automotive writing. He always had a strong personal style and was, in the best sense of the word, a raconteur .

This last Saturday, a memorial was held for David E. at the Warehouse. Many members of his family were present, along with a couple hundred other admirers. The current editor of Car and Driver gave an excellent remembrance of David E. and read some of his words.

In conversation with Steve Schewe, he mentioned how influential David E. was to his viewpoint. In the late 60's, David E. wrote an article about the BMW 2002. He said that driving most cars was like wrestling, but in the BMW, he found a willing dance partner. Naturally, Steve bought a BMW.

As for myself, I had met Mr. Davis, but can't say that I knew him well. I did have the chance to hear him tell a few stories in his office. About 3 years ago, David E. rented the offices that were once the executive office for the factory that is now the Warehouse. He furnished it with photos and memorabilia from a life in the auto industry. In that original open house, his wife held court in the conference room with the food. Someone asked her why, now that David E. was retired, he needed separate offices? She said. "I married him for better or worse, but not for lunch." I guess any woman married for a long time to a wit like David E. had better have some intelligence and wit herself.

This Saturday, I wish I had brought a camera. As part of the memorial, they opened his offices. What an excellent way to get a glimpse into the man and his wit.

For example, on his desk is a beautiful little model of an early Ferrari F1 car and on top of it's case, a corn cob. There was a styling model of a Ford GT90 concept car and photos of a young woman (probably his daughter) in both the normal portrait smile and sticking out her tongue and making a face. I also like the Yugo change machine (you know, the metal thing you put on your belt to make change at the ballpark) and the speaker stand and speakers from a drive-in movie theater that was used to hang his collection of race and show credentials.

On my previous visit to his office, he told a story about some photos of a Mercedes pre-war Grand Prix car that were on his wall. This was Mercedes pride and joy and they had brought it out of the museum to show to Mr. Davis. The pictures show the factory driver coming around the banked turn of the test track and parked photos of the car. Naturally, David E. asked to drive the car. It was clear that his hosts didn't want to let him drive, but he was an important journalist, so they eventually caved and let him drive. As David E. describes it, 'the road was wet, the clutch was tricky, and the car difficult.' Apparently, he popped the clutch, spun out, and came to a stop, backwards, and 3" from a guard rail. As you can imagine, the car was quickly hustled back to the museum.

On this visit, my favorite piece was an old photo that had been framed and sent to David E. on the occasion of his 80th birthday by Dan Gurney. At first glance, the picture looks like some 60's Rock-n-Roll band with a bunch of long haired guys standing on a bandstand with guitars and drums. Then you look closer and see it is Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill, Dan Gurney, Jack Brabham, and Jim Clark looking like the original mop-tops.

Wish I could be sharing pictures of this, but those of us who don't carry cell phones are often without camera.

Connections

2011-02-26T16:31:00.002-05:00

Doug, in a comment on my memorial to Bob Wilson, said that we could fill a blog with Bob stories and I agree. I won't bore you with multiple Bob stories, but I will tell this one.

During the week before Bob died, I was working in California and Bob emailed me to suggest that I give him an email on the weekend if I had some time to talk.

On Saturday afternoon, while at work, I started thinking about the old song, 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, and the tune just popped into my head. I hadn't thought about this song since I did a post on it more than a year ago. Here is a cover video of it by Reckless Kelly where the words are pretty easy to understand.

At the end of the workday, I bowed out of dinner with the other guys and went to my room with the idea of talking to Bob. Since the hotel phone is so expensive, I sent him an email to call me at the hotel and found myself perusing the internet for different versions of the Vincent Black Lightning song.

Of course, I never got a call from Bob, he was already gone.

The last verse of the song is when the James, the motorcycle rider is dying. The lyrics to the song go,

Says James "In my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl.
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeves won't do,
Ah, they don't have a soul like a Vincent 52"
Oh he reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
Said "I've got no further use for these.
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome,
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home"
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride.

I think Bob would have rather seen angels on Guzzis or Ducatis, an Ariel is close enough.

In Memory of Bob Wilson, 1952 - 2011

2011-02-20T14:31:00.003-05:00

On Saturday, Feb 5, 2011, Bob was riding his motorcycle on a group ride in Arizona. Although not riding fast, something happened. Bob low-sided the motorcycle and slid into a guard rail. He died instantly.

Bob has been a good friend for more than 30 years. It is taking me a while to get used to the idea that he is gone.

The last time I talked to Bob, he called to tell me about an wonderful ride he had on his motorcycle. Winter is peak riding season in Arizona and Bob was enjoying the good weather and good riding. Of course, he is gone much too soon, but I have to believe that Bob died doing something he loved. I'm pretty sure that Bob would have said that, if he had to go, this was a pretty good way.

Bob's Moto Guzzi Breva 750

Bob was people person. The chain of friends across the country and around the world is testament to that. Smart, curious about the world, open to learning about other cultures and other people's life experience.

The last 10 years haven't been kind to Bob financially, but if you ask him about it, he would tell you that he wouldn't change it. Living on less taught him how to simplify his life and to value his friends. From a Chinese student friend who was working her way through college in the US to dinners with Dale and Sandy and all of their stories. From his neighbor, the woman Buddist monk to his friend, the New Mexico golf pro and teacher, the people he met and became friends with changed Bob's experience and made him a different person. He would tell me that, if he had stayed at VW, his life would probably have been easier, but he wouldn't know who that guy was, and he wouldn't have missed the experiences for anything.

A small story with pictures to remember Bob by.

When we worked together at VW, Bob was our boss, but he also took a one year assignment in Germany. On the day before he returned from a year away, we decided to pretend that we had been using his office as a parts storage room.

"Hey, why is my office door closed? Why is everyone hanging around the office watching me?"

"What are you guys up to?"

"What the heck?"

I will miss him.

Waterford People

2011-02-05T19:52:00.000-05:00

Here are a bunch of pictures that were on the Waterford disc from my father. The first is a picture of the first lap of a race taken coming out of Skeet House and headed to Hilltop. The Porsche leading the pack is Vic Skirmants. Back then, he was just a good Waterford racer, but later on, he became an icon to the bathtub Porsche set.

The first day of driver's school, I met Greg and Grant, two guys from London with a well prepared Titan. That first weekend they were tent camping at the track and being sprayed by errant shotgun pellets from the club's skeet range. I thought that was a pretty poor way to spend a race weekend, so by the next race, they were camping in my house instead.

Greg is the man with the Labatt's hat. Grant is guy with the 7 Up bottle. I can't help but notice that we were all running around without shirts and otherwise minimum clothing. I don't remember it that way, but it must have been a very hot period when we were racing. Just think of the fun of putting on Nomex long underwear, a two layer racing suit, a balaclava, helmet, and gloves for the race.

By the next season, they both started showing up with girlfriends which soon became wives. Somehow, I never took the hint and was always the bachelor host. Here is Liz, a key part of this crew. I should have one of Grant's girl, but oh well.

A little cheesecake from Grant.

Now for the Chrysler group, a few of you will remember Kim Lyons, a very smart man, now retired. Kim spent a few years engineering a Lamborgini Minardi in F1 for Chrysler. When he came back, he made and published the first SAE paper on an automatically shifted manual transmission that is the forerunner of current high tech transmission. He used a Neon transaxle case with March F1 gears and shafts inside.

And of course, a young Dave Dobry. I've often wondered how Dave manages to look so young in retirement. Now I realize that he looked even younger when in his 20's.

As for how these pictures ended up on the same disc, I don't know. Dan Champney has been a friend since high school and helped me crew the race car. The first shot is Dan from that period. The second shot is Dan from a later period.

Finally, I couldn't get away without showing a picture of an Opel GT in race clothing. My father bought an Opel GT at my urging when I was turning 16. Actually, I tried to talk him into a Lotus Super 7, but the Opel was a GM car,so technically legal for him to drive as a company car. Together, we had a lot of fun with that car, so it was nice to see someone racing one years later.

I guess that as I post this, I have missed a warehouse open house. This will have to substitute for a walk down memory lane.

Photographers!

2011-01-12T18:29:00.005-05:00

Photographers always seem to snap the shutter when you are at your worst. Have something go wrong and the shutterbugs come runnin'.

I found these old pictures, taken by my Dad, while digging around looking for a lost software disc. They were mostly taken from 1985 at Waterford racetrack when I was competing in F-Ford.

The amazing thing is that it was more than 25 years ago. Ouch.

If you just looked at the pictures, you would think I was breaking down all the time. This is me coming home on a rope. If I remember correctly, we forgot to tighten a hose clamp in the fuel system. On the pace lap, gasoline started pouring out of the fuel cell and into the bottom of my seat. My ass was burning from the chemical burn (no fire) by the time I was half way around the pace lap. I pulled off and watched the festivities from a corner station.

Actually, I think I finished almost all of my races. I don't remember what happened here, but all four wheels are on the car, so it couldn't have been too serious. Yes, that's me in my spiffy driving suit with sharp red accent down the pants leg.

I pulled in this picture of my friend Greg, just to show that I'm not the only one to come home on a hook. Here the photographer got my better side. I'm the one with my butt to the camera, hariy legs, and a sunburned back.

Greg's car is a Titan Mk 6c and he and I were very evenly matched. Waterford had/has a great family atmosphere. If one of us had a problem, everyone you knew, including your competitors, jumped in to help.

Greg was a great driver but it took him a little while to get used to formula cars. He had been a rally driver and liked to back a car into a corner. That worked great on gravel, but really scrubbed the speed off on pavement.

Here is the start of a race. Again the photographer makes it look like my Lola is last, but in reality, the cars ahead of me are in a different class running slicks and I am on the pole of the radial tire F-Fords. Note the massive power squat as my huge 105 Hp engine accelerates.

This should be the checkered flag picture with me winning my class in the race. Unfortunately, the checkered flag isn't visible in the picture.

My car is a Lola T440 from the late 70's that I picked up for a song because it was in boxes. The radial tire class was great because the tires were weak enough that you could power slide the car around, even with the 105 Hp, pushrod 4 cylinder engine. Also, the tires lasted 1.5 seasons and the engine just needed the oil changed and the valves lapped at the end of the season.

A Future Racer.

This is the son of one of the mechanics from work. I hope he enjoyed himself, I know that I did.

A couple of other notes about the picture. You can see the radial tires, BFG Comp TAs. Also, the steering rack is raised about an inch with the body work bumping up to match. I needed the clearance for my shins. Finally, notice the silver VW pickup truck in the background. It was nice to be able to tow my race car with a little truck like that. That truck served me well, including a big move from Michigan to California.

The next time, I will pull up some people pictures and show what time and my Dad's camera did to some faces you may know.

Stories Come from Everywhere

2011-01-05T17:15:00.003-05:00

This has already been a special week. The beginning included part of Bob's visit and all the social activity that just naturally come with Bob. This week, we also celebrated my father's 90th birthday although it was like pulling teeth to get him to do more than go to lunch. I asked him what he had planned for his next 90 years and he just laughed.

This surprising story came from a chat in the locker room at the health club. I've often exchanged pleasantries with an older gentleman with a French accent. Today, I mentioned my father's 90th birthday and he said that he was only 1 and 1/2 years behind him. He asked if Papa was in any wars and I mentioned his role as a pilot instructor in WW II. At this point, my French friend told the following story.

He was 18 years old and living in Normandy when the Nazi troops arrived. There was a lot of activity in his village because the Germans were building the coastal defenses. He tried to stay out of the way of the Germans, but some soldiers, seeing him as a young man and a possible threat grabbed him and threw him down on the road in his village. They threatened to shoot him, but he was lucky and they let him go.

At one point, a tank was rolling through the village and was being guided by only one soldier on the ground in the front. To express protest, he grabbed some red paint and a brush and painted a red 'V' on the back of the tank. He got away with it, but realized later how stupid it was. The Nazis could have blamed anyone for his prank. Realizing that he was at risk from the Germans, he left home and moved to Paris where he thought he could disappear into the large city. But he still had to keep running as the Germans were now looking for him. Apparently, more than once he had to run from the Gestapo. Leaving Paris, he moved to a farm a few hours from Paris to live with relatives. He stayed there until liberated. While at the farm, an American pilot bailed out of his plane and was parachuting to the farm. Unfortunately, German soldiers shot at him from the ground and he was dead when he landed.

My French friend considers himself very lucky. He has two cousins who were not so lucky. One cousin was sent to a concentration camp for helping hide an Allied pilot. He never returned. Another was sent to a concentration camp in Germany and came back paralyzed on the right side. Apparently, a subject for German medical experiments.

It is so amazing to hear the stories of the great generation. I wonder how this Frenchman ended up retired in Chelsea.

Favorite Roads of 2010

2011-01-03T19:13:00.003-05:00

2010 was an amazingly busy year. Amongst all the hustle, I managed to get to a few favorite roads, some new, some old friends. I decided to pick the top 3, along with maps of each. I wish I had pictures to better tell the story, but if the road is good enough, its hard to stop and take the picture.

View Larger Map

Number 3 is a bit of a cheat. Unfortunately, its not available to most of you, as it is a test road on a proving ground. In this case, Nissan's Arizona proving grounds and the road is called the "Marketability Road". In fact, most of Nissan PG is pretty featureless and totally flat. In the case of the "Marketability Road" they dug some small valleys and used the removed dirt to make small hills. The result is a road that combines bumps and curves, dips and yumps in a very entertaining way. Probably the SRT guys with their adaptive damping went the fastest, but even the van, with the addition of some grippy tires, was a hoot.

View Larger Map

Number 2 is an old friend up in Northern California. Cal Hwy 128 from Cloverdale to Mendicino is a wonderful, flowing, curvy road, but the best part is the scenery. It changes from rolling green hills, to forested mountains, to vineyards, to virgin redwood stands, and a rocky coast with cliffs crashing into the ocean. I was lucky enough to take this highway on a beautiful day in March on my new motorcycle, the ZRX.

View Larger Map

My absolute favorite of the year was one of those unexpected finds on the way home from down south. Kentucky Hwy 89 is 30 miles of empty, ever changing, and challenging road that rolls through the Daniel Boone National Forest. I rode it on the KLR in early fall and there were just enough leaves on the road to tell you that no one had been there for a while. My passing blew them away. The road starts narrow and following the edge of a flood plain in a narrow valley with a river wandering along the bottom. A little later, the road picks up a little width and the curves get tighter as it climbs into hills and to McKee, the only town along the route.

Leaving the town, it starts climbing and crosses over two small mountain ranges before flowing into a bigger town and the end of the road.

I hope the new year brings you new adventures and new favorite roads.

Urinal Redux

2010-12-27T15:12:00.003-05:00

Just before Christmas, I had to make a last second trip for work. Amid all the travel and the hectic, get it done in time work, I observed two things.

1. Waterless urinals are catching on and are seen in everywhere from fast food restaurants to airports.

2. They smell worse than ever.

Apparently, I'm a typical male and have little sense of smell, but I find these thing offensive. I can't imagine if they came up with a female equivalent and what that would do to most tender female noses.

So I have a humble suggestions. Lets replace the waterless urinals with potted plants. Of course, we would need lots of plants and the pots would have to be large in high traffic areas. The advantage is that guys are used to peeing on plants in the outdoors, so peeing on one indoors would be no problem. The plants and soil would purify the water and give off oxygen to purify the air. Problem solved.

Loudspeakers

2010-12-18T17:05:00.003-05:00

As the winter has turned colder, my mind has turned loudspeakers and am in the middle of a nice sized project. Although I find loudspeakers just as creative and involving as my other hobbies, for some reason, I have a hard time sharing thoughts on the subject. Maybe, driver compliance, diffraction, and psychoacoutics feel so involved that I am unable to explain them. Whatever the reason, the project is to build a pair of desktop speakers and amplifier with active crossovers in a hybrid omni-directional design. If you look close at the driver in the picture, you will see that the dust cap has been cut off. I'm in the process of adding mass to the coil former to lower the resonant frequency, along with other tweaks to get the performance where I want it. The monitor shows the measured frequency response of a woofer.

I guess the point of this post is to say that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth and to wish all a Merry Christmas.

The Same Tree

2010-12-05T12:28:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself with my camera, out in the front yard, taking a picture of a cherry tree that I took pictures of last year about this time, and the year before. So I had to ask myself, why this tree?

I think the answer is that its the last tree to keep its leaves and it color. When every where I look out is in full fall color display, its hard for individual colors to stand out. But when you are the last soldier standing, like this guy, you can certainly make a statement.

Not wanting to repeat myself too often, I looked around for more color and the best I could come up with was this Kerria bush with its green branches and yellow leaves.

Now, a few weeks later and officially in December, even the cherry tree is bare. We are well into winter and, with the wind blowing through the bare branches, into the time named by my California friends as "Stick Time."

Life as an XXL

2010-11-18T17:57:00.003-05:00

One of the strange things about being tall is that you look around the world at the rest of the people and your mind forgets that you are a different size than everyone else. Of course, logically you know that you need to buy your clothes in the tall man's store, that you have to duck your head walking through some doors, and that you have to pick your cars and motorcycles based first the few vehicles that fit. That said, in your mind's eye, you are just like everyone else.

Usually, I am reminded of reality by a photo of me and normal people. This time, it was a little web site, cycle-ergo.com, that puts a virtual paper doll in your size on a variety of motorcycles to let you see how you fit.

I really enjoyed this website, but I couldn't help but think that there were a lot of bikes that looked like mini-bikes with my paper doll on the bike. Here is an example with a Moto Guzzi V7 and my head sticking out of the top of the picture. Having your hip at a tighter than 90 degree angle is a bit cramped and the knee is rather tight as well. I wonder if my shin would clear the cylinder head. Oh well. I guess if it were to be a Guzzi, it would have to be a Stelvio.

Thanks to the anonymous author of the cycle ergo website. I love the chance to virtually sit on a bike and appreciate the variety of bikes offered. I would love to see even more choices.

I not only like the ability to see riding and standing positions of knees and body, but also to get a sense of my center of gravity relative to the foot peg. To me, that speaks to a sense of control when the relationship is right.

Helmet Making Video

2010-11-16T14:53:00.000-05:00

I have recently been working on painting my Shoei motorcycle helmet. Nothing artistic, just a bright color for safety. Still, its all hand work. Sanding, masking, and painting.

Along comes Webbikeworld with a video of manufacturing helmets at Nolan in Italy. I found it fascinating and especially like the robotic sanding and the automated painting.

People you meet on a Motorcycle, Part 4

2010-11-15T07:11:00.002-05:00

As mentioned in an earlier post, I spent a couple of days based out of Tellico Plains, TN on my recent motorcycle trip south. Its a cute little town that sits at the edge of a plain on the western edge of the Smokie Mountains. It looks like it has been in decline for a while, but recent gains in tourism are starting a rebirth in Tellico Plains.

While there, I met Mike who is an example of the town's rebirth. He and his wife moved up from Florida to start a motorcycle outfitter in downtown Tellico. Since then, they have opened an ice cream store across the street and their grown daughter as moved up from Florida to find work in Tellico. Its nice to see growth in a little place like this, even in the heart of a recession.

One night, I went to strange little place for dinner. Imagine a food court in a mall, except that there is no mall, just a small building in a field at the edge of a small town. There is a common eating area with picnic tables inside and out. There is a vendor selling hamburgers, another beer, another pizza, and outside because of the smoke, a family selling barbecue.

I decide to try the barbecue and, while I am outside waiting for my meal to be prepared, a local pulls up in his old Chevy Suburban, sort of like this one.

Out of the truck steps a guy who looks like he could be playing in ZZ Top, a tall thin man with a long white beard and wearing denim coveralls. Also tumbling out of the truck are his 2 dogs, 4 foot tall Maramduke dogs with spots that look like a cross between a Great Dane and a paint horse.

Of course, everyone knew this guy and the lady gave me my food and then excused herself to go visit the dogs. I went into the building to find a little shade and eat my barbecue. A few minutes later, the local with the beard sidles up beside me, bends down so he can talk quietly and tells me, "I've got something really good here for you to taste." Surprised by this offer, I said no thanks and went back to my meal, but I couldn't help but wonder what I was being offered. If someone wanted to create an image of a moonshiner, they could certainly use this guy for a model.

Switching Styles

2010-11-06T14:21:00.000-04:00

This post is in honor of Mike Weaver, a former Chrysler inmate. Mike grew up on dirt bikes and is a natural at riding them. He once told me that it took a very different style to ride a dirt bike and a road bike. He tried a road bike for a while, but he said he just couldn't adapt his riding style and felt like he was always doing the wrong thing. In the end, he sold the road bike before he hurt himself.

I spent a couple of nights in Tellico Plains, TN and a couple of days riding around that part of the Smokie Mountains. This area is famous to road bikers for the "Tail of the Dragon" and the Cherohala Parkway, both of which cross the mountains in a nice combination of curves. Frankly speaking, I found the "Dragon" to be far over-rated, a case of good marketing over a good road, but then the 4 radar cops, the 30 mph speed limit, and the line of bikes all in a row probably colored my opinion. The Cherohala on the other hand is just grand.

The same area is famous to dual sport bikers for the large network of gravel forest service roads, mixed in with a few single tracks, that cover the mountains. Even more interesting, are the roads that go back and forth between paved and dirt. These roads left a wonderful impression.

A Matter of Style

On a road bike, you lean into the corner. The faster you go around the corner, the more you lean. As you go faster yet, you shift your body off the inside of the bike so that the bike is at a little less lean angle while the combination of you and the bike remain balanced.

On a dirt bike, you don't have enough grip to lean into the corner, yet you need to lean the bike to turn efficiently. The result is that you stand up, lean the bike into the corner, while keeping your center of gravity somewhat over the tire patch.

The problem is that when you have been used to riding pavement and you come to some dirt, your instincts are all wrong. I had been riding twisty paved roads for 3 or 4 days when I came to my first long section of dirt road. Boy did I feel like a klutz. It took 20 minutes riding on dirt to get even a little comfortable. Then, switching back to pavement took another 5 minutes or so to remember the right thing to do. However, by the end of a couple of days of switching back and forth between pavement and gravel, I was switching styles with the best of them.

My advise to Mike is to get a dual sport bike next time, the bikes response will be more familiar to you. Most of them are hell on wheels on a twisty paved road with good mixed surface tires. Although they are too heavy to be much good off-road in sand and mud, give them hardpack and they are still a lot of fun. Then get on a road like Citigo Creek where you can practice, practice, practice.

The obligitory photo of a rock strewn creek, this time Citigo Creek, TN. This shot is fairly far up the road where the road has changed to gravel again.

Fall Chores

2010-10-29T18:06:00.001-04:00

Forest shadows on the fallen leaves.

Every fall, there are chores to do around the house. One of the most odious is getting rid of the old gas in the motorcycles. I am forced to find a warm day, take the bikes out and ride through the countryside until the tank is nearly empty and then run the carbs dry. Last Sunday was the day for this chore. The sky was blue with a few clouds floating by. The temperature was up to 73 deg F. It was late fall in Michigan with most of the colors turning shades of beige and brown, but a few brightly colored trees along the way.

The story I would like to tell you is about a nice ride with my camera taking pictures along the way. Unfortunately, that is not the way it turned out. I was riding the ZRX when I started to notice the photographic opportunities. But I hadn't remembered to bring the camera. According to the gas gauge, I still had plenty of miles to go, but riding home to get the camera, it coughed and died about 1/2 mile from my driveway. By the time I rolled to a stop, I was about 100 yards from home with a small hill to push it up. Making the crest and breathing heavily, I coasted down the hill to my driveway.

On the plus side, the chore was done and going out with my camera in the car opened up dirt road possibilities that I would never have done with the ZRX. On the negative side, it would have made a better story without all that running out of gas stuff.

I guess you can say that Michigan has its own charms. One of the first that I ran across was Grandfather Maple.

He is old and wrinkled, but still has his charms.

But he is a big fellow and must have been standing by this road for a long time. Note my blue car in the corner of the photo for scale.

The fields have color and shades of their own.

St Jacob Lutheran, one of my favorite country churches.

Glenn Road invites you to explore.

More sunlight colors in the grasses of the fields.

Reithmiller Road is guarded by an Oaken Arch.

Along the way, one of our neighbors is experimenting with wind power. I should have slowed down the camera and allowed the blades of the windmills to blur into circles. As it is, you can't tell that all except the tall windmill in the foreground are spinning madly and making electricity. Each of these windmills is about 6 or 7 feet in diameter and the farm is on the edge of a wide, swampy plain without trees. If anyone has good land for wind power in Michigan, this guy is looking pretty good.

Who says all Michigan roads are flat and straight. This is a relaxed cruise kind of road.

A farmer's dam. This stream flows out of Locker Lake and the farm captures the stream for pond just before crossing Camp Road.

Autumn can be a colorful time, but soon the only color will be brown and we will be entering into stick time. The motorcycles are put away for the winter and I will enjoy the last few days of color.

Between the Coasts

2010-10-23T11:43:00.002-04:00

So many people fly from coast to coast and look down on what they assume is nothing.

Having just travelled, as much as possible by backroads, through Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and parts of North Carolina, I am amazed at the number of people living out there in the countryside. Every little town, every bigger town yet not a city, and every country road in between, there are millions of people living out their lives.

Even in this day of sprawling suburbs and coastal megalopoli, there are more people living between the coasts than there are on the coasts. The truth is that the average American is small town and I'm happy to be part of that.

John and I happened to be talking about this subject and he brought up a website of wonderful photos which I think I will append here. These guys flew across the country and back in an old Piper Cub which means that they flew low and slow. As a result, they have a wonderful collection of photos of the country "between the coasts" and, yes, even a few photos of a big city. It just makes me itch to visit places like Zoar, Ohio, just a few miles down the road.

Vintage Flying

Walking the Land of my Great, Great, Grandfather

2010-10-16T11:45:00.001-04:00

When I was a kid, we would visit our grandparents in Indiana every summer. Spending time with my grandfather, he would tell stories about when he was a kid, especially about the summers that he spent with is grandfather. His grandfather was Iven Moore (apparently,pronounced like "Evan" in his lifetime).

Over the years, various members of our family have tried to find Iven's land, although the house is known to have burned down by the 1950's. Each of the attempts were frustrated by the poor memories of older family members and poor maps. One of the goals of this year's motorcycle trip was to find Iven's land.

My sister had dug into topo maps and property records since the last attempt. That, combined with satellite photos from Google gave us some idea of what to expect. The plan was for my sister and I to meet and see what we could learn.

View Iven Moore's Land in a larger map

Here is an interesting sidebar. I have a friend who is about to become a great grandmother. Her mother is 83 and still living, so she will be a great, great grandmother to a living child. In my case, my great, great grandfather was born in 1827 and passed after a long life in 1909. My great grandfather was born in 1831 and my grandfather was born in 1894. We seem to have a lot of space between generations in my family.

Iven was a master woodworker who made his living making everything from furniture to wagons. Although born in West Virginia, he brought his family down the Ohio on a flat boat and later moved to the hills of Indiana. The land he bought was back in the hills, on top of a tall hill. There, he built a 2 story log home in the shape of an 'L'. The outside was covered with clapboards to make the house look respectable and keep out the wind. The walls were said to be 14" thick.

He also built a barn, wood work shop, and a smoke house. Between their animals and fields, they grew most everything they needed. Using the woods around them for material, they made anything else they needed.

Iven sold a few acres up on the hill to the Harmony Church and part of my sister's research told of a small cemetary in the churchyard.

Fast forward to 2010 and we used GPS to find Mt. Moriah Cemetery where Iven and Belinda are buried. When gravestones are more than 100 years old, the carving have sometimes faded, so you use your fingers to make out the letters and words.

New resident guarding the old gate to the Mt. Moriah Cemetery.

We drove over the ridge to the next valley where Iven lived and drove right up the driveway of a house where Iven's land should be. I went up to the house to ask permission to walk on their land and met the current owner who was a very private man. Overall, he wasn't comfortable with us being on his land, but our stories were convincing and he knew where the old cemetery lay. In the end, he decided to take us for a walk and show us the old cemetery. As the current owner was uncomfortable, I didn't take too many pictures, but I did like the light coming through the trees (photo above) and somehow felt it might be the kind of thing that Iven or my grandfather would have seen in these woods.

This place must have always been remote. It is in a part of Indiana that is below the reach of the glaciers. The valley's here are narrow and winding. They have been eroded over the many centuries. Iven's hilltop is relatively flat, but hill side is steep and 50 to 100 feet above the valley.

The cemetery didn't hold any of our relatives, just a few forgotten graves overgrown by the forest. Someone had planted Myrtle at one of the graves. Over the years, it has grown beyond the graveyard and now forms a telltale ground cover in part of the forest.

I suppose that none of this is particularly significant to anyone other than my sister and I. Still, I felt a connection to a long ago ancestor. I imagined the home he built and felt the connection to the workshop and its tools. There is a wistful feeling from seeing and walking on land that connects to my grandfather's stories.

So here is to all of my ancestors. A line of people, experiences, and stories that are more a part of me than I realize.

Goin' South

2010-10-07T11:44:00.000-04:00

A modern, Southern Indiana, interpretation of cabin life. I especially like the window air conditioner.

If you keep going south in Indiana, pretty soon you run out of Indiana and into the Ohio river.

Below that is Kentucky and the realization that I wasn't making much time or miles as the crow flies. All these back roads are great, but they add an extra 50% or so to the expected miles and double the expected time. I found myself looking for a hotel in Elizabethtown or E'town. This was the setting for the movie of the same name and is close to the Fort Knox Army base. That makes it a pretty lively place and a very young population. Nothing like a bunch of polite young people in uniform to make me feel my age.

Coming out of E'town, I found yet another collection of nice back roads with the biggest problem convincing myself to stop an take photos when there is a nice road ahead.

As it was election season, I was amused to find that some Kentucky counties not only elect their Sheriff, but also their Jailer. Sounds like a good scam to me.

Southern Indiana Roads

2010-09-30T14:08:00.000-04:00

Even though my family is from there and there is a sense of history for me traveling through Indiana, I would probably take the roads of Southern Ohio or West Virginia over Southern Indiana. That said, there is no doubt that the roads are entertaining in Southern Indiana. In fact, there is a typical south Indiana landscape and road. The valleys are flat, bottom land made by creeks and rivers over time. The hills pop up steeply out of the valleys in crooked ridges that wind and fork in seemingly random design. The roads often follow the edge between the valley and the hill, sometimes popping up over the toe of a hill, sometimes winding up a little canyon, over the hill, and down into the next valley. On occasion, they climb up on a ridge and follow the top of the hill for a while.

Mixed in, there are little towns and farms and churches. And sometimes, like in Silverville, the town is quaint and the road beyond beckons.

So with all this entertainment, why do I prefer Ohio? Because Indiana has a penchant for posting a lower speed limit anytime the road gets interesting. Sometimes, even when its not interesting. So on the medium to bigger roads, you end up with a lot of 35 and 45 mph speed limits and the locals following the speed limit exactly, just like the cops were watching. Oh yeah, there is the occasional big sign stating the minimum ticket is $100 and there is a $1000 fine plus jail for being cited for reckless driving.

My solution was simple. I stayed on the county roads where the traffic was lower and the chance of getting caught speeding was much lower.

The names are fun though. On my way down, I went through Gnaw Bone, past Popcorn, and had lunch in French Lick.

Old People Time

2010-09-21T19:10:00.002-04:00

My niece, Amanda, cares about our family and likes to visit family members, both local and far away. That said, she does get bored with the older generation. She says that old people don't like to do anything but sit around and talk.

She also talks about "old people time". Its true, young people don't even start to go out until after 9 pm and seem to stay out all night. They think of the morning as a good time to sleep, getting up a noon or later.

I don't know how this generational shift occurred. When I was young, I went to bed early and got up early, just like now. But I have to concede, Amanda has a point about old people time. She says, 'They get up at the crack of dawn and go to be when the sun goes down.' She was recently proved right. Pat and I stayed at, what turned out to be an old peoples hotel. I slept in until almost 7 and went out for a walk while it was still dark. As I was starting my walk, there were 4 older couples loading up their gear, checking out, and ready to get on the road.

I guess young people own the night and old people own the sunrise.

Low Power Grin Factor

2010-09-19T08:19:00.003-04:00

Between the KLR and ZRX and experience with the Fiat 500, this has been an interesting summer of contrasts. For years, Bob and I have been discussing the question of how big and heavy a vehicle you really need to move you around the world. But that's a bigger question that I'll leave for a later time.

This summer, I've been interested in the intoxication of power versus the everyday fun of driving/riding. Most people I talk to believe that fast cars and motorcycles are exciting and the most fun to own. I'm not so sure. I believe that a slightly underpowered vehicle that you drive/ride hard all the time is a lot more fun on a fun/mile basis than a really powerful vehicle.

Lets take my two motorcycles. The ZRX has about 130 HP and weighs 400 pounds or 635 pounds with me and my gear. That means about 5 #/HP or really bloody fast for a street vehicle. But this bike better be upright and pointed in a straight line when the rider goes for the throttle. Even then, if you don't want a ticket, that big twist on the throttle can only last a few seconds before its shift, shift, shift, and slow down to somewhere near the speed limit.

The KLR has 45 HP, weighs a few pounds less, and ends up with about 13 #/HP. That's not slow, but it is slow enough to need full throttle and frequent shifting. That said, I can twist the throttle while leaned over in a corner and run through the gears ending up only a little too fast.

The difference between these two descriptions is key to the problem. The reality is that the faster the car, the smaller the weight/HP, the more the engineers need to compromise the turning behavior to keep it stable. That means a less tossable, less capable cornering vehicle that has to wait for the straight to go fast. For me, the lower power vehicle that turns well and can be driven/ridden flat out all the time improves the percentage of time spent with a grin on my face.

How does that add up with cars. The picture above is a composite of the Dave's AREX engine and a internet stock photo of a Fiat 500. Dave's supercharged engine is about 600 HP at about 2600 pounds or 4.7 #/HP with me in the driver's seat. My AREX is only 475 HP at 2500 pounds, so 5.7 #/HP. The Fiat is roughly 20#/HP (a guess as the HP and weight for the US car aren't published).

Even though the AREX is a pretty good handling car with massive 335/35 tires out back, the same problem as the ZRX exists. The car has to have more built in understeer so that the wheels don't spin when the throttle is opened and the car goes better when you wait for the strait.

The Fiat on the other hand is hugely tossable, is a blast to shift, and drive flat out all the time. As a person who likes to be an active part of driving/riding, I think I'll stick to the lower powered vehicles in the future.

Motorcycle Safety

2010-09-12T18:50:00.003-04:00

Different riders, have points of view on safety equipment.

Some think, "It will never happen to me." Not sure, but I think those are the riders in tank tops, flip flops, and shorts plus a helmet tied to the seat behind them.

Others recognize the need for good safety equipment, but if its not black leather and looking good, then they can probably get away without it.

I belong to the group where the latest safety equipment is like catnip. I just can't get enough of the best or latest. The old saying is, "If you have a 10 cent head, then wear a 10 cent helmet." I feel that way about my whole body and hope my head is worth more than one thin dime. There is always risk in motorcycle riding. I want to be visible and ride defensively to try to avoid trouble. If/when something goes wrong, I want the best possible protection.

My latest acquisition is a wearable air bag. These have been used in Japan and Europe for about 12 years. They operate on a CO2 cartridge and are controlled by a tether attached to the bike. When you and the bike part company, the tether pulls the trigger and inflates the air bag.

Here I am with the Hit Air bag vest over a black shirt for good contrast. The CO2 cartridge is on the right chest.

Of course, my hi-viz yellow vest wouldn't please the black leather crowd, but to me, loud colors are great. The color causes another problem. It doesn't go well with my new Egg Yolk helmet. Oh well.

The video below shows my model of air bag inflating. The real question becomes, do I feel a little too invincible with a good armored jacket and the Air Hit vest? Can I keep my head or will I twist the throttle just a little farther?

Tuning - Its all in the Details

2010-08-30T18:28:00.005-04:00

Since I got the ZRX, I haven't been doing my usual of working on it all the time. I've done a few things like updating the turn signals to something more visible and finishing off the undertail. Here is a shot of the ZRX in the shop with the new turn signals and another of finished rear undertail and turn signals.

We recently had a week of cooler temperatures and I had a chance to put some miles on both bikes. In the process, I started messing around with suspension tuning on the ZRX and came away totally amazed. When I first got the bike, I said that the heavier engine made the bike feel like it wants to fall into corners. In a corner, it takes quite a lot of force pushing away on the inside handlebar to keep it from falling into the corner. I never liked this, but figured it was just part of the package.

Also, the ride was aggressive. So I did a little checking on the Kawasaki factory recommended settings and compared them to set-up as I purchased it.

First of all, the shocks were extremely tight. In particular, somebody had set the forks full tight in jounce and the rear shocks full tight in rebound. I guess they were trying to keep the bike from diving during braking. Happily, I have independent jounce and rebound adjustments on both front and rear, so I was able to easily take it back to recommended settings. Here is a shot of the top of the front fork, that blue aluminum on the left. The screw in the center is the rebound fork adjustment and there is a similar screw at the base of the fork for compression. The silver barrel around that screw is the front spring preload adjuster.

In the rear, I have the 5 steps of spring preload adjustment with height adjustment ring. I also have damper adjustments like the knob in the picture showing the rebound set at level 3 out of 5.

After backing down the shocks from 5 to 2 and a similar adjustment in front, the ride was now plenty soft and I was able to tweak it just a little tighter. Having adjustments with reasonable steps.... Sweet.

But the bike still fell into the corners, so I checked out the heights. The rear was set up high at position 4 out of 5. The front was about 2 mm low. 2 mm didn't seem like much, but I guess that the guy was trying to get the bike nose down so it would have less rake, less trail, and turn faster in a transition. Must have been a young and stupid racer. As for me, I'm old and stupid and like a more relaxed handling and ride.

At first, I decided to make a small change and go from 2 mm low in front to 1 mm high. I didn't really expect to be able to feel this change, but the available height range was pretty small, so I made a small step. What a difference! It still wants to fall in, but its a lot easier to ride.

After talking to Bob about changing his suspension, I decided to take the plunge and lower the rear height. From the looks of it, one step in back was about 3/8 of an inch, but upon measuring is, it was only 1/8" or 3 mm. Taking the bike for a ride and the steering torque is almost neutral, but falling in slightly.

Finally, I'm in the process of taking one step further with another mm higher in front. Now, I just need the hot, sticky weather to back off a little so that I can give it a try.

After more than 30 years of making little changes that improve the character of a car, I shouldn't be surprised how much the little adjustments matter. Still, I am amazed that a few millemeter change in ride height can have so much difference in the comfort and character of a bike. Its all in the details.

Egg Yolk

2010-08-15T08:00:00.002-04:00

If you've read this blog, you have probably figured out that I like to be nice and visible when riding a motorcycle. The very first thing an oncoming driver can see is your helmet, so a helmet that is visible from a distance is important to me.

Many people love fancy graphics and, I'll admit, they look nice when you hold the helmet in your hands, but from 100 yards away, you need a light, bright, solid color to maximize your visibility to other drivers.

Last fall, I was due for a new helmet and, because it was the end of the Snell 2005 era, there were many good deals available. There was also a slim selection of colors as these were the last run of the 2005 spec helmets. In the end, I found 2 helmets, a Shoei X11 (king of good ventilation) and a Vemar VTXE. The Vemar came at such a good price, I thought it would make a good learning helmet for painting. You see, neither helmet was my preferred color and I would need to learn how to paint.

So in this project, I learned about water borne urethane paints, air brushes, and a little about graphics. Oh yeah, and I was totally clueless about mixing paint colors.

The Vemar started out as white with red and black graphics. I forgot to take a "before" picture, so here is a picture of the helmet from one of my favorite websites, WebBikeWorld. This isn't the exact graphics, but its still complicated like what I started with.

My first step was to sand it down and paint it a white base coat. I thought about leaving it white, since the sculpture of the vents looked nice, but I stuck to my plan.

The back of the helmet was getting a checkered flag look with white and yellow. Here is my masking tape checkered flag. I learned that you can mask a pretty clean line with masking tape, but if you pull it off and then need to remask and repaint the line, its hard to keep a clean line because the discontinuity of the paint thickness lets the paint bleed under the mask.

Getting the right paint color was an education. I thought that to make yellow a darker color, you simply added a touch of black. Nope. All that gets you is a muddy green. After being schooled on the color wheel and buying some red to darken my yellow, I came up with two colors I liked. The first was a dark yellow, similar to my old helmet. That was made with 2 drops of red added to yellow. Add one more drop and the color changes to an orangey yellow that I call "Egg Yolk". I decided to paint this helmet "Egg Yolk" because its shape reminds me a little of a fried egg. So here is the end result. Just don't look too close.

I like the way the color turned out. In the car biz, they say that this paint as a lot of "flop". That means that the color looks darker, even a different color, in shadow as compared to direct light. Egg yolk is clearly yellow in direct light, but has a an orange/red tint in the shadow.

I wanted to blend in the "spoiler" on the top, so I painted a black accent graphic. I thought it looked like horns, but my niece says its definitely "Transformers".

In the end, I learned a lot and have a unique helmet that meets my goals. Hopefully next time, I'll make fewer mistakes and not take so long.

Rocks in my Head

2010-08-07T18:14:00.004-04:00

That's more or less what the doctor told me.

One of the interesting things about life is that sometimes, your body lets you know how it works by not working properly, hopefully only for a short while. Recently, I had a demonstration of how amazing the human body is and have been learning about the incredible engineering inside us all ever since.

One morning, I woke up and opened my eyes, only to see the room spinning around in circles. When I lay still looking at the ceiling, the spinning would slowly stop, but I spent the next several days feeling generally dizzy and having to avoid looking up or the room would start spinning again.

Its an incredible feeling of weakness. We take our ability to balance for granted. To have to grab onto walls or a desk to avoid falling down in a crumbling pile when suddenly and unexpectedly, the room starts to spin makes you wonder when its going to stop and will you ever be right again.

In my case, its quite an interuption of my active life. At work, I'm under cars on a hoist looking up (spinning) and checking out the suspension. I also drive cars, including evaluating handling, which could bring on the vertigo, as a primary part of my job. At home, I'm either working on projects in the shop (refer to hoist, above) or riding my motorcycles. The thought of having the world spin around while riding the motorcycle has kept me off them since this first occurred.

So I made an appointment with the doctor and he told me I had rocks in my head. More accurately, we all have stones in our inner ear that form part of a balance sensor in each ear. Think of it as an accelerometer that helps our brain figure out which way is up. In my case, one or more of the stones has become displaced so the left ear is sensing gravity differently than the right ear. My brain is reading these two different signals and trying to make sense of it and not doing a very good job, hence the spinning room.

Now the good news is that it should go away over time. The sensor cells that are missing stones will shut down and my brain will reprogram itself for the signals it has available. That alone is amazing.

Look at the design of this tiny accelerometer. The stones are a mass that responds to gravity or other accelerations. The stones float in a damped, flexible layer that supports them and flexes side to side when accelerations move the stones. The hairs flex with the stones and send signals to the nerve cells letting the brain know which way the head is being pulled. Your brain then processes these signals and lets each of us sit, stand, run, jump, or do cartwheels. It also lets us drive or ride a motorcycle by letting us know, in combination with our eyes, which way is up and how fast we are going around a curve.

This system not only lets us know which way is up, but if we are accelerating or braking or, by the difference between left and right ear, turning our head to look left or right. That very key factor lets us know if the tail of our bike or car is sliding out on a corner. It tells us if, in NASCAR terms, the car is pushing or loose.

It has always been clear that some people have more sensitivity to the handling of a car than others. I've always been grateful that I been more sensitive than most as its allowed me to have my career and a lot of enjoyment over the years. Now, I have a subjective understanding of the engineering inside my head and appreciate it all the more. Yes, my body is getting older and breaking down. My days of being the best driver on the track are gone, if they ever were. But the world and our bodies are both an amazing place to live in.

Jewelery

2010-08-02T18:47:00.003-04:00

Early this spring, it was cold, wet, and windy. It was a personal challenge to get any riding in on the motorcycles. Then, suddenly in late May, Michigan turned to hot and humid with plenty of rain and serious thunderstorms. All that got me interested in the idea of having a thermometer on the bike. At least that way, I could tell with authority why I was uncomfortable.

I settled on a Marlin's, partly because its the biggest and easiest to read and partly because he is a Michigan business. That way, I get to pay sales tax.

There are lots of ways of mounting gauges like this to a bike. I chose a mounting that hid my fork stem and was partly shaded by the handlebar. I enjoyed making the curvy shaped mount. Its really too fancy for the KLR, but it looks good anyway.

Battery LiFE Po-or

2010-07-27T17:57:00.004-04:00

Sometimes, new technology like that from electric cars and bikes provides an interesting advantage for our old, existing technology. The KLR is typical of many motorcycles with a smallish, flooded lead acid battery that works OK for a while but seems to need water constantly and, even though I keep it warm and charged through winter, lasts 2 years and then dies.

I have been laying out $50 every 2 years for a while now, so I got curious about what else is out there. I found more expensive Yuasa Micron batteries ($70) and AGM sealed batteries ($100 - 120), but they are still just lead-acid and I've heard that the life improvement is little or none.

Then I came across the Turn Tech battery. It uses Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFE Po) chemistry that is made up of sealed cells with very low self-discharge (<1%/month). The weight savings are amazing. My lead acid battery weighs almost 11 pounds on my scale. The Turn Tech, less than 2 pounds! You can think of that as a 9 pound savings or an 82% weight savings. That can't be bad.

Even more interesting, the Turn Tech is rated at 250 amps at 70 deg F. That's plenty of power to start my KLR which spins up easily every time.

How about life? This graph from the Turn Tech website shows cranking for 18 seconds per start. My bike usually starts in about 1 second, maybe 3 seconds on a cold start. Assuming this curve stays linear, even at 18 seconds cranking, this battery should last more than 9000 cycles. If I started the bike 4 times a day, every day of the year, that would be about 6 years. In reality, I don't get to ride every day and my riding season is only about 7 months per year. At that rate, I am hopeful that it will last 6 years or more. All without watering. Yeah.

The cost of this 5 Ah battery is about $160 or about 3 times the cheap, flooded lead-acid. Its worth it for the no maintenance, weight improvement, and just to know you have something "high tech" in your bike. If it lasts anything more than 6 years, I'm ahead of the game.

Of course, nothing is perfect. You can't put this on a bike where there is a constant current drain from a clock or other electronics. My KLR is dead as a door nail when the key is off, but this thing is only 5 Ah capacity, so it will discharge from a current drain a lot faster than the 14 Ah battery its replacing. If you do let it discharge, its a one way trip to a 2 pound paper weight. This chemistry doesn't come back from a deep discharge. They also don't recommend it for bikes bigger than a 650, although Turn Tech will make you a custom battery for special applications.

I'm such a geek. Thanks Turn Tech.

The Imagery of Old Times

2010-07-21T19:43:00.003-04:00

It looks like the company is going to be getting me a cell phone and I'll be joining, at least during working hours, the majority that carries these damn things around. I guess I'm an old, anti-social curmudgeon because I really don't have any use for these things in my non-working life. In the past, when I have had a cell phone, I've gone weeks without a personal call.

I'm convinced that these things are an overall detriment to society and personal communication. Oh sure, people communicate more because they can do it anytime, but the quality of thought and of communication degrades in the process.

People seem to think they need to be connected at all times. Here are two things that I won't be doing. Driving while talking on a phone and putting on lipstick.

This is off the list too. Although, I won't promise not to talk on the phone when sitting on the toilet. I will promise not to flush until the call is finished.

The basic problem is that cell phones and, especially texting, is that imagery in language is traded off for brevity. "What up dog? RU home?"

So in celebration of imagery in language, here are a few sayings from a time when people liked to use there imagination as part of communicating. Not say its artistic, but....

The cleanest of these was a saying my mother used often. When the storm was clearing and there were patches of blue in the sky, she would say, "The weather is going to clear. There is enough blue for Dutchman's britches."

From an old movie I saw recently. "You remind me of me, kid. Your cocky. I came here with nothing but a fiddle and a hard-on. I've still got the fiddle."

My friend Garl has shared some favorite sayings from his late father.

"He is as dumb as a box or an ox."

"He is so dumb he couldn't pour piss from a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel."

A Family Tradition

2010-07-11T14:48:00.002-04:00

When I was a kid, my dad was always interested in technology, gadgets as he called it. Whenever he bought something new, whether it was a toy or something practical, the very first thing he would do would be take it apart. Not so far that he would break it, but as far as he could to see how it was made and how it worked.

Being my father's son, I've grown up doing the same thing. Today, its even better, because you can explore technology online, join a forum and ask silly questions, or email the manufacturer with detailed questions. You might even get an answer.

If you want to take something new apart, there is probably someone online that has already made a video of disassembling some new toy. For example, the iPad.

This may be a family tradition, but it looks like we are not alone.

Anti-Vibration Gloves

2010-07-05T17:00:00.000-04:00

Sorry if this blog has turned into motorcycle product reviews recently. I'll try to get to some other subjects in future.

I guess riding a thumper, I've been more interested in the subject of vibration than maybe other riders have. Although, I've had other people tell me my bike has less vibration than their multi-cylinder bikes. In fact, even the 4 cylinder ZRX buzzes my hands after an hour.

There are several sources online that suggest that vibration can be damaging long term and I want to be riding a long time. They say that, if your hands tingle or become numb after riding, its a sign of temporary nerve damage from the vibration. The problem is that the nerve damage is cumulative and will eventually become permanent.

Wanting to avoid damage, I started out with Olympia Gel gloves and foam hand grips. On the way, I've tried Qwi gloves (which were probably worse than normal gloves), bar end weights (both bought and home made, better), and rubber isolated handlebar risers. About the only thing I haven't tried is a bar snake.

With the possible exception of the bar end weights which made highway wobble a little worse, everything has been "somewhat" helpful and haven't degraded the riding experience. The isolated risers did the most, but still, there is some buzz in the handlebars.

This spring, I came upon Chase Ergonomics (chaseergo.com) who makes gloves with a vibration absorbing foam in the palm and fingers. These are actually aimed at industrial use, but they weren't too expensive, so I gave them a try. I bought a pair of Decade Drivers Style gloves with Gfom padding for vibration absorption. Although called a drivers glove, they are really just goatskin work gloves. As motorcycle gloves, they are not perfect. But what wonderful vibration control! These were easily the biggest step in my quest for vibration isolation.

So what does it feel like? Imagine you put a 1/4" of soft foam inside all of the fingers and palm and tried to grip through this sponge and you will have a pretty good idea. There are those who talk about dexterity and "feel" and this is not the glove for them. That said, I don't feel I'm giving up any control and I'm gaining a lot in isolation. I guess its not for everybody and its an acquired taste for some others.

What does this stuff do? A single cylinder engine like the KLR is running about 5000 rpm down the highway. Just to make the math easier, we'll call it 4800 rpm. At that speed, the piston is going up and down at 80 Hz. The engine fires every other revolution, so the engine firing frequency is 40 Hz. That will be the fundamental vibration frequency coming into the handlebars. Traditionally, engines make vibration at 2x, 3x, and 4x the firing frequency, so we should see vibration from 40 Hz up to 160 Hz from the engine and more as the bike resonates. As you can see from the graph, Gfom reduces the vibration by more than half at 40 Hz. Even more at higher frequencies.

OK, great idea but the driver style gloves are not a perfect motorcycle glove. As they currently have motorcycle gloves with gel padding, I emailed Chase Ergonomics and got a nice reply from their president.

"We are aware that some of the most popular bikes present hand/arm vibration exposure for serious riders. We will build on our initial Decade MC glove styles. We chose to open with a Gpact(R) line because existing brands already had established "gel" gloves on the market and we thought that we could make better ones. As we build our line, you make a very good point that adding full palm and finger Gfom(R) pads makes a lot of sense.

Gary D. Shumate
President
Chase Ergonomics, Inc."

First of all, thanks to Gary for responding and his interest in motorcycle gloves. On his suggestion, I purchased a pair of the new Decade Summerweight gloves which are a lot closer to a motorcycle application. The white goatskin will undoubtedly show road grime with time, but at less than $34 on Amazon, I'm impressed with the quality and comfort. The best thing is the little pad of foam and leather sewn in the junction between the finger and thumb that fits perfectly on the handlebar grips.

I know I sound like an advertisement for these gloves, but what I'm really trying to do is generate enough interest in this market that Chase will move forward with a motorcycle specific glove using this technology.

Ain't technology grand?

Thermo-Bob

2010-06-26T17:00:00.006-04:00

You know how it goes. I am a car and bike tech geek, but sometimes, it takes me a long time to figure out how something really works. In this case, it the cooling system.

I remember back when I "upgraded" Gidget's engine. Since I was living in warm California and had increased the horsepower by about 75%, I figured I better put in a better radiator and fan to keep Gidget cool. Well, it turns out that Gidget has one of those thermostats with a bleed hole in it to keep a little coolant circulating all the time. In the summer, there isn't any kind of coolant bypass since you shut off the heater. I always wondered why it took so long to get the coolant temp up and why you had to run a little choke all of the time, unless you were running her hard. Now I know that the little bleed hole was letting coolant into that nice big radiator and circulating cold water back into the engine, even when the thermostat was closed.

I got a better understanding of this when I replaced my KLR gauge pack with an Acewell instrument computer. The temp gauge on the Acewell couldn't use the Kawi head temp sensor, so I had to put an Acewell temp sensor into the top radiator hose. Imagine my surprise when the temp gauge read 135 deg F on a warm summer day. The coolant temp also varied a lot, bouncing around even when just riding down the highway.

It turns out that the KLR has a pretty big radiator because it has to cool the engine under high temp, low speed off-road conditions. In the stock system and under highway or cold weather conditions, the thermostat stays closed until the coolant at the top of the cylinder gets hot enough, then it opens allowing very cold coolant into the bottom of the cylinder until the thermostat closes again. That means that the cylinder is cooler than thermostat control temperature on average and that the temp is oscillating between cold and warm.

The temp history shown here is for stock system on on a cold day by the inventor of the Thermo-Bob. The Thermo-Bob is an external thermostat with a coolant bypass that circulates coolant without going through the radiator when the thermostat is closed. The blue line, inlet temperature, shows how cold the coolant coming into the cylinder can be and how the thermostat oscillates in its control.

This schematic shows how the stock system works, followed by a similar schematic of the system with the Thermo-Bob. By creating a coolant bypass of the radiator and thermostat, warm coolant circulates continuously. When the thermostat opens, a controlled amount of cooler coolant mixes with the bypass coolant, making for a warmer, more consistent coolant temperature. If you think about it, this is the same approach as modern cars use where the heater flow acts as a bypass. Maybe I should have soldered up the bypass hole in Gidget's thermostat and left the heater valve open.

This graph shows the inlet and outlet temperature traces under similar conditions with the Thermo-Bob installed. Notice how much smoother and better controlled the temp traces are. The hope is that fuel economy will be a little better and oil temperature will be a little higher and more consistent. At the very least, my temp gauge will register correctly.

Naturally, I ordered my self a Thermo-Bob. This picture shows the Thermo-Bob installed on a KLR from a web site picture. This guy has a Trail Tech instrument computer, so he had to install his temp sensor in the radiator hose along the side of the engine. I had to do the same thing, except my Acewell sensor adapter was far too long for this location. I cranked up the machine shop and made myself a version that saved about 1" on length.

Although this aluminum is nice and shiny when new, I realize that raw aluminum will eventually tarnish, so I'm trying something that works pretty well no raw metal of machine tools. Instead of anodizing or painting it, I "polished" the aluminum with car wax. I leaves a shiny and durable coating that I hope will keep oxidation at bay. We'll see.

The Thermo-Bob works as advertised. The temp gauge reads a nice steady temp in a range of temperatures and subjectively, the bike warms up a little quicker. I'm looking forward to a trip to see if I can tell any improvement in gas mileage.

Peak-esse Pay-awk

2010-06-18T19:26:00.002-04:00

Pikes Peak!

OK, I know I don't bring any new constructive information when I just post a video like this, but man o man, this is just too cool for school. I love the feeling of speed over the dirt section. Watch him fight the bike on the rough section.

This is a nearly stock Ducati Multistrada 1200. It costs something like $18,000! On one hand, what a way to risk such an expensive bike. On the other hand, how impressive is it that such a heavy bike can do this and isn't this what the engineers had in mind when they developed the bike? Enjoy.

Greg Tracy - 2010 Ducati Multistrada Practice Run - PPIHC from greg tracy on Vimeo.

The Pass

2010-06-15T19:00:00.001-04:00

Check out the pass of the #3 bike over the #1 bike. Holy moly!

Maybe electric bikes aren't so bad?

Honda Innovation

2010-06-10T08:22:00.002-04:00

Last weekend I went to a mini-tech fair to ride the CuMoCo electric scooter. That was interesting and fun. In addition, there were a bunch of high school competition robots with their unusual approaches to steering. That reminded me of this video which explains some of the novel approaches being used in robots today. The interesting question is if this type of thing would ever make it into cars?

A Rant on GPS

2010-06-03T18:17:00.004-04:00

It seems to me that these days, we rely on technology and miss out on seeing the world. GPS is a great example of this. Sure, if you are in a strange town and want to find a gas station, ATM, or restaurant, turn on your GPS. It will give you a little knowledge and get you to what you are looking for. But it won't be local knowledge. You will never know about that little eatery with its great special dish. You also won't have the pleasure of a little conversation with a local who loves their town.

Now on the motorcycle, I find it hard to read a GPS when I'm riding. The screen is just too small and you can't see it well when the sun is shining bright. In the car, its easier to see, but you get such a small view of the world, either no detail when zoomed out or just a postage stamp of local countryside when you are zoomed in.

I suppose you can try to plan your route before hand and follow the directions given by the little electronic voice, but you loose the pleasure of looking to find your way, find your turn, understand something of the country. In the end, you become an automaton blindly following directions and not thinking for yourself.

Of course, if you want to go anywhere but the largest freeway route, you can't plan a trip using a GPS. Any attempt to go backroads in fettered by the dreaded "Calculating New Route". Also, you can't see enough of the world to imagine your way across the countryside. You need a map for that.

And then there is the adventure of getting lost. In this case, GPS is just too helpful.

In contrast, consider the map. Lovely, multi-color printing, perhaps with land contours suggested by shading. A broad scale of the country that lets you understand the flow of the roads and their relationship to the land.

When you deviate from the roads on the map, you have a sense that you are between this road and this other road. That you are north of the river and south of the lake. Even when you don't know where you are, you know you haven't left that zone. So you just keep going until you reach one of those boundaries. Of course, sometimes its useful to have an idea which direction you are going. That brings us to my latest addition to the motorcycle. A $3.00 compass. I think the compass and a good map will always give me more pleasure than any GPS ever could.

On the motorcycle, I still can't read the map while riding, but if I'm going to stop and plot my course, I get so much more understanding out of a map.

Maps themselves are art. Even when I'm home, I can sit and look at maps for hours. I think of them as paintings with places to go. I love the names of these strange places along the way. More than once, I've used the internet to try and discover the history behind the name of a place.

So here is to maps, especially the paper kind. Although they may be headed for extinction to be replaced by mind numbing GPS, I hope they last long enough that I will be gone before they are. And to all of you, get out there and explore. Follow your nose and bring along a map if you need it. Leave the GPS behind and use your mind.

Airlines in 1943

2010-05-19T18:43:00.006-04:00

In 1943, my grandfather made a business trip from Rochester, NY to Seattle, WA using the airlines of that time. This is just a diary and not literature, but I find it interesting so see the perspective from 67 years ago. Here is my grandfather's dairy of the trip.

My Trip to Seattle

My good friend, C.S.B., called me by phone Friday night, the 16th of April, incidentally my birthday, and asked me if I had any objection to flying to Seattle. My answer was that I did not object and only for the reasons that I had had one other trip from Syracuse to New York and rather liked it. Within a couple of hours he called again and told me that I would leave Rochester at 2:45 P.M. Saturday.

It was with some misgivings and a lot of excitement that I prepared to leave my newly wedded wife for what may turn out to be the longest voyage through the air that I shall ever take. There were a lot of things I hadn't done,a s for example fix it up so my wife could draw a check, change the mortgage on the house, change the beneficiary on my life insurance, etc. so that in event of an accident my wife and daughter would have the best care I could afford. So I made out my will.

Now that all seem silly perhaps, but I was really embarking on a new adventure and one never should take a chances that are not necessary. As a matter of fact, thus far the odds have been with me (I'm starting this in Wichita, Kansas) and if my luck holds out in getting a priority I'll finish the trip by plane even if is may not be as comfortable on the last end of the journey.

My wife and Sid saw me off. Sid helped matters considerably by telling me about all of the comforts of flying: such as the pleasant effect of dropping into an airpocket and coming out again, the lovely meals that they serve on the ship, the beautiful hostesses who watch over your comfort, ans last but not least the little can or bucket which is supposed to be convenient when you just can't hold it any more. He also said not to try to throw it out the window because it gets all over someone else.

I made three starts to get on the plane but each time they were not ready. Somebody had been air sick on the way into Rochester and possibly attempted to throw it out the window because the porter had a long job with his bucket of water and gremlin gun. Sid said the reason I made so many starts was because I wanted to come back again to kiss my wife goodbye.

At last we started. The sensation at the take off is not thrilling except when you wonder whether you will clear the telephone wires and such at the end of the field. It is really difficult to tell exactly when you leave the ground except for the fact that it is smoother in the air and the motor noise after leveling is less noticeable.

We had to leave our curtains closed till after we had left all the military objectives, such as General Railway Signal Company, so the first chance I had to look out was at Churchville. We were up quite high by then. But I could pick out familiar places quite easily, and it seemed no time at all when the stewardess came through telling us to fasten our seat belts, stop smoking, close the curtains, in preparation to land.

Most landing are not very thrilling unless you wonder whether the plane will hit the runway squarely or whether it will hit soon enough to be stopped before you reach the end of the runway. Of course, there is pressure on your ears coming down from high altitude but you soon get used to swallowing, yawning, or chewing gum if you think about it at all.

We landed at Buffalo and there I waited for another plane. The one out of Rochester was going Southwest and I was going to Chicago. After starting out again we flew, most all the way over Lake Erie to Windsor, Ont. Here we did not have to close the curtains because it was not required in Canada. The trip over the lake was not very interesting because there was little change in scenery. There was ice at the Buffalo end and open water at the Detroit end. After leaving Windsor we stopped at Detroit and South Bend and then Chicago. At Detroit they loaded in a lot of large packages which were placed in the first three double seats thus replacing six passengers. I don't know whether they took off any passengers on account of them but they must have been important packages.

Between South Bend and Chicago I had my first meal in the air. I think it consisted of soup, salad, meat pie, puddings, rolls and coffee. The food was served in individual cups or dishes set in a cardboard try which is like a box with holes cut in the top to receive the dishes. The American Airline has dishes and porcelain cups while the others thus far have paper plates and cups. Coffee does not taste good in paper cups.

I had about two hours wait in Chicago for the plane west, so I called up Carl Henze and chinned with him for a while. He was home with slippers on, sniffling with a cold, but he wanted to be remembered to all the GRS guys anyway.

The planes used by United Air Lines are Douglas, twin engine the same as those on the American Air Lines. The plane leaving Chicago went all the way to Seattle and even beyond to Vancouver, B.C. I had a seat third from the front on the single seat side. The window overlooks the wing but you can see both ahead and back and if you make an effort you can see straight down in back of the wing. I think it is the preferable spot both from the standpoint of view and smooth ride.

I left Chicago at 9:30 P.M. and, of course, it was dark. There was not much to see but the lights of towns and farm houses and cars on the highway, but for a while, it was interesting. The first stop was at Moline, Ill. and everyone got out to walk around. From there on we stopped at Des Moines, Iowa at 11:40 and at North Platte, Neb. I don't know what time it was because after leaving Des Moines I went to sleep and did not wake up 'til we landed at Cheyenne, Wyoming at 3:00 A.M. I went to sleep again and slept 'til we reached Rock Springs at 4:30 A.M. From there on I stayed awake because there were signs of dawn and I was anxious to see the mountains.

From Rock Springs we flew to the north of Great Salt Lake coming back on the beam at Albion, Idaho and it was then light enough to see the Snake River valley. This was the first of quite a large number of places which looked like deserts except for the long lines of irrigation ditches which reflected the light like bright lines of silver. At first I thought they were roads, they were so straight and laid out in rectangles but I finally decided they were irrigation ditches because they seemed to emanate from one of considerable size.

We arrived at Boise, Idaho (pronounced Boysee) at 7:30 and left at 8:00, so there was plenty of tie to walk around. The airport is located on a high plateau bounded on two sides by ranges of nice snow-capped mountains. It was warm enough to stroll around without an overcoat and the sun was shining brightly. I really enjoyed myself strolling around looking at the mountains and watching Flying Fortresses take off and land. The airport is also used as a Bomber flying school and there were probably 30 Flying Forts based there. It really was a beautiful sight.

The next port of call was Pendleton, Oregon and we arrived at 8:10 and took off at 8:30 for Portland, Oregon. Breakfast was to have been served out of Boise but for some reason the Stewardess was slow and it was 9:00 A.M. before I had anything to eat. Now that does not sound bad until it is recalled that after having dinner between South Bend, Ind. and Chicago, about 6:30 Central time. I had set my watch back two hours which according to my stomach, made it 11:00 A.M. I was hungry and they were running short of food so it was necessary to go to the Airport Cafe in Portland for another breakfast.

There were some very nice mountains in the view between Pendleton and Portland for it is here that the Cascade Mountains are crossed. It was a little cloudy, so the tops of Mr. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Hood were shrouded in clouds but there was enough of the bases showing to indicate they were high and snow-capped.

The airway follows the Columbia River through the Cascades Mountains and in one place it seemed as though the wing tip would touch a mountain. I was on the wrong side to see the Bonneville Dam but one of the passengers told me it was so "far down" it could not be appreciated. Nor did I see the two water falls, one 620 ft. high. It is very difficult to measure depth with the eye when up so high in a plane.

From Portland, up the coast to Seattle, the Cascade Mountains are on the east and the Pacific on the west. The mountains could be seen very clearly but the Pacific was too far away. I saw M. Hood, Mt. Adams, and Mt. St. Helens again and just short of Seattle, Mt. Rainier. They were all beautiful but I like Mt. St. Helens the best because it was such a perfect shape. The sides have a smooth slope, unbroken by rocky foothills, and its tip is almost a perfect point. Mt. Rainier is higher and the National Park surrounding it is supposed to be very beautiful but I think it is probably best appreciated by automobile or horseback.

Seattle is a city of 365,000, the same as Rochester, but the business section is considerably larger, and the hotels are better. I stopped at the Olympic Hotel which has 300 rooms. The city is built on hills which lay between Puget Sound and a fresh water lake called Lake Washington. I had a very difficult time getting directions straight because the Olympic Mountains, which can be seen very clearly from the city when weather is clear, are to the west, between Seattle and the Pacific. It seemed to me they should be to the east. It is a busy city and I guess, is the hopping off place for Alaska. On the way back I met a sailor who had flown down from Juneau, Alaska and had spent a hundred dollars on rings, etc. for his wedding. He went on the plane with me to Salt Lake City.

I spent Sunday afternoon with Lt. Godfrey on the business matter and incidentally learned that he is a son of Brig. Gen. Godfrey of the Air Corp. Engineers. He is a nice lad in spite of his connection with the official family. I spent the rest of the time in the Boeing plant, leaving Seattle by plane on Tuesday, 11:00 A.M.

On the way back the route was the same as far as the Idaho-Utah state line and there it turned toward Salt Lake City. The view was different, however, because I was seated on the other side of the airway. I still had my No. 3 single seat.

Between Seattle and Portland we had rain and we were high enough that ice formed on the wings and they used the de-icer. The de-icer is a rubber strip on the leading edge of the wing in which they can build up air pressure and cause it to expand, thus breaking up the ice formation. And it was in this storm that I had my first "bump". Quite a number of times the plane seemed to drop right out from under but it didn't bother a bit. I rather liked it.

We had rain and mist off and on all the way to Pendleton but after that it cleared except for very high clouds. One view proved conclusively to me the color which artists put into their pictures of the western plains is real. After leaving Boise we flew through a snow storm and then it cleared again. Many of these plains looked like desert waste but here and there would be large areas irrigated and cultivated. Boise is the home of the famous Idaho potatoes.

For miles and miles before coming to Great Salt Lake there were great wide plains, part of it cultivated and here and there were mountains of what I thought was sand. They had a different shape compared with the Rockies; they were sort of round and smooth with gullies up and down their sides, but they did not look so much like sand because they were covered with some sort of plant life.

Great Salt Lake is the most peculiar lake I have ever seen. For miles there was nothing but sand beach and then water which did not look like our lake water. It was calm except for the very faint ripple which make it look shallow and it must have been because almost across the center of it is built a railroad, half of it on dirt fill and the center half on trestle.

The mountains around Salt Lake City are beautiful. They seem much closer and intimate than at any other city. They probably are not as high as many other that I saw on the trip but I think I liked them best except for Mt. St. Helens.

We left Salt Lake City at 7:00 P.M. and after passing through a deep gap we flew parallel to a range of mountains for miles, and then the ground seemed to be rough and absolutely unproductive. There were roads ere and there but it was difficult to see where they led to any place in particular and I could not help wondering how anyone could exist in a place like that.

It was dark when we crossed the high mountains and it was 9:15 P.M. when we arrived in Denver. I was much surprised that Denver is built on the plains and that the mountains are only on the west and at that they are from 90 to 100 miles from the city. I had always pictured Denver as being built on a plateau almost surrounded by mountains, so Denver was somewhat a disappointment. Salt Lake City is built more as I expected Denver to be built and I did not expect such a beautiful setting in Salt Lake City.

I stayed all night at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver and started out bright and early, 7:15 A.M., on Continental Airway for Wichita, Kansas. The Continental flies the Lockheed Lodestar which is a twin motored low wing monoplane similar to the Douglas but smaller. It carries only 14 passengers compared with 21 in the Douglas, and either it was not as smooth riding or the country was more conducive to rough riding.

We flew south from Denver along the Rockies and two mountains in particular were pointed out to me, Long Mountain near Denver and Pikes Peak between Denver and Colorado Springs. Pikes Peak was a surprise to me because I had pictured it to be a lone mountain towering above the ground like Mt. St. Helens. It really is the highest peak in a range of mountains and there are several other peaks near it which seemed almost as tall. Perhaps it is more impressive from the ground and from the other side of the ridge which lay between us and the mountain. The ridge was like the blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Pikes Peak and its range were snow covered.

We landed about every thirty minutes all the way to Wichita. The first port was Colorado Springs, next Pueblo, then La Junta, Garden City, Dodge City, Hutchenson and Wichita. After leaving Pueblo the country was flat and uninteresting so I read for the first time on the trip. There seemed to be quite a few more bumps on the Continental but I attributed it to the smaller plane. As we got along toward Wichita I noticed a man in No. 2 across the aisle who was using the bucket quite frequently. It had not bothered me any and I was surprised that anyone should be air sick. As I was getting off the ship at Wichita I heard the stewardess ask the other man if he "felt better now" so I began to wonder if the trip had been rough. So I asked the stewardess if she would call it a rough trip and she said yes, and I felt quite good that I had really flown on a rough trip without trouble.

That magic word priority. With out it you cannot be too sure of securing passage and if you do you are liable to be taken off to let someone ride who has it. On the entire trip there was only one case where I know of a passenger being taken off. There was a lady with a young baby started out from Seattle and managed to get as far as Boise, Idaho, but was finally bumped by a man with priority. Priority express also can bump a passenger if the weight, including the passenger, exceed the maximum load. So an empty seat may indicate a priority express shipment.

At the Boeing plant in Wichita I was a little concerned about getting a priority because John Newman, the G.E. Co. representative, was so busy I could not get him to line it up and I didn't know the proper people. But finally, he told me to call Maj. Long and state my case and be prepared to answer a lot of questions. Apparently, I stated it so well in the first few sentences the Major didn't have any questions and said he would send through a certificate right away.

I was to leave Wichita on T.W.A. at 7:40 P.M., arrive in Chicago at 11:00 P.M., leave Chicago on American Airline at 12:30 A.M., arrive in Buffalo at 5:45 A.M., leave Buffalo at 7:00 A.M., and arrive in Rochester at 7:35 A.M. The plane into Wichita was two hours late in Wichita but they said they could make up time but it didn't, and I missed the connection in Chicago. At the tick counter they told me I would have passage on the 9:00 A.M. plane and inquired as to where I would stop in Chicago. I decided on the Palmer House at expense of the airline; I don't know which one.

Te plane out of Wichita was a "super-duper", a 24 place ship built by Douglas. Twelve seats were actually filled with priority express. We had to change planes at Kansas City and went back to the 21 place Douglas, the same as the American and United ships. The T.W.A. used to fly the Stratoliner but a pamphlet states that their Stratoliner ships are now in the service of the government in Europe and elsewhere.

I am finishing this report on the plane out of Chicago and I have just finished a cup of coffee, of all thinks, free gratis from the American Airlines. However, I don't think I'll get a second cup since the one I finished was my second for the morning.

I think I would rate American Airlines, 1st for services and attention to passengers comfort; United Airlines, 1st for beautiful scenery, probably because it was the only line traveled over the mountains;T.W.A., 1st for equipment and they really had the most beautiful stewardess out of Wichita although not the best; American 1st and United 2nd for its tasty meals but the United was last as for service because I had to wait too long for breakfast; Continental, 1st for the roughest ride, because of the small plane and the kind of country where updrafts are prevalent. The next time, I go to Seattle, if it ever happens again I'd like to go via the Northwest Airlines because they tell me the planes frequently fly through the narrow passes and high over mountains. The United has the lowest crossing of the Rocky Mountains.

I like the airport at Salt Lake City best from the standpoint of scenery, probably on account of the mountains; the Boise airport for its open approach and good runways; the Wichita port for its design and arrangement of its buildings; and Boise for the cute little girl who runs around checking up on everyone to see that they get on the right plane.

My son, Bob, is in training at Spokane and I would liked to see him but it could not be done because I didn't have time for a side trip. My son, Art, just finished his Air Cadet basic training at Enid, Okla. and I did talk to him by telephone but he could not get leave to come to Wichita to see me.

N.C.L. Brown

Copied by J.L. Brown 2010

B-29 Turret Gun Gunsight

2010-05-09T09:19:00.015-04:00

While I'm on airlines, one of my favorite family documents is a dairy, written by my grandfather, of a cross country trip by airline in 1943. I started out to tell this story in one post, but between the gunsight and the trip, there is too much, so I'll post about the gunsight and, later, copy in the dairy of his trip.

My grandfather, Ned Brown, was a self taught engineer who was an expert in designing railroad sorting yards and the control systems needed make up trains in a switching yard. These railyard controls were very sophisticated for their time. They used electromechanical systems that were controlled by an operator in a tower. Using this control system, the operator could control multiple switches and brakes so that a car that was pushed into the yard at the top of the hill would coast down through the switches onto the right track to make up a new train. Think of it as an early semi-automated computer router, making up a line of train cars instead of a series of information packets.

This kind of technology was useful in other areas, so during WW II, my grandfather's company, General Railway Signal Company in Rochester, NY, manufactured a turret gunsight for the B-29 bomber. This picture shows part of the gunsight upside down from the way it was mounted in the plane.

This was a very sophisticated gunsight. Note the picture with the plate showing it was manufactured by General Railway Signal and especially the switch with the label "computer". Now the term "computer" doesn't mean the same thing as it does today. The gunsight was a complicated electromechanical system but was still a combination of gears, levers, mirrors, motors, and switches. According to my father, this was the first gunsight that had would allow the gunner to fire on an enemy fighter, following fighter's path, and when the guns would be crossing his own wing, the gunsight would shut down the gun as it passed your own wing and then start firing on the opposite side of the wing. It also allowed the gunner to be inside the plane, below the guns instead of up in the turret sighting directly down the barrels.

My grandfather was an inspection manager for the gunsight. They tested every gunsight, including hooking it up in the plant and bringing in an inexperienced person who would randomly play with controls and switches to see if he could make it fault. Imagine if Microsoft did that kind of testing with Windows.

In 1943, my grandfather made a trip by commercial airline from Rochester, NY to Seattle, where the B-29 was manufactured, to work with the gunsight as it was installed in the plane. At that time, airliners had unpressurized cabins, had to fly with the weather, and stop often for fuel. An upcoming post will be the diary of his trip.

Airlines

2010-05-09T09:19:00.007-04:00

My friend Corena essentially writes a private blog. She writes things and finds things on the internet and sends them out to a select few by email. Being lucky enough to be on the receiving end of these emails, I occasionally like to pass something along. Like this one for example. Having spent time recently mooing in line at today's airports and being shoved into the cattle shoot (jetway) and onto the crowded airplane, I find this Life magazine story about the way it used to be nostalgic. Hope you enjoy.

The first 747s had a stairway and cocktail lounges.

Dressed to the nines is right, notice the ties.

Quite a change from today.

I went a trip last week and I noticed that only one guy had on a tie...

and he was probably the sky marshall !

I don’t think this is one pendulum that will swing back.

THESE WERE THE "GOOD OL' DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!

White-Glove Service

Fifty years ago, flying had a certain glamour:

the luxurious seats, the doting (and beautiful) flight attendants, the gourmet meals...

Today, most of the majesty of commercial air travel has been scrapped,

thanks to cutbacks and tight security.

Miss the old days? LIFE looks back at what it used to mean to fly commercially.

More Bubbly, Sir?

This giant double-decker Boeing 747 seems light-years away from,

the cramped, leg-crunching cabins of today.

Pictured: A Pan Am stewardess serves champagne.

A Tempting Third Course

In-flight fare once included gourmet food delivered on fine china and unlimited drinks...

the alcoholic kind, with cutesy names like "Passion Punch" and "Love Potion."

Today, unless you're lucky enough to be in first class, you get a bag of peanuts and/or pretzels,

and one (non-alcoholic) beverage... MAYBE!

Hot on the Job

Women all over the world aspired to be flight attendants

("stewardesses, " as they were once called).

On Southwest Airlines (pictured), the motto was "sex sells seats"...

and, for better or for worse, the attendants' outfits were fully in accordance.

A Proper Goodbye

Dropping a friend or family member off at the airport was an adventure in itself.

People would actually park their cars, escort their traveler to the departure gate,

and watch the plane until it was just a tiny speck in the sky.

Dressed to the Nines

Forget the T-shirt and sweatpants... flying was a formal occasion.

Pictured: Gossip columnist Cindy Adams and her husband, comedian Joey Adams,

are dressed to the nines as they board a flight to Indonesia , 1966.

Going Up

In 1970, an air hostess greets a passenger before heading up to an upper deck lounge.

That's right: AN UPPER DECK LOUNGE!

Customs? Relatively Calm!

No X-ray machines, no metal detectors, no taking off of shoes:

Customs purely served as a luggage check.

Hard to believe, but this is a 1964 photo of the customs area at the

New York International Airport (the madhouse known today as JFK).

From Aisle to Runway

Going through security check in a wedding dress today would prove to be a nightmare,

but back in 1965, a newlywed London couple wastes no time heading off to their honeymoon,

after tying the knot.

Superstars Mingled With Us Common Folk

In the days before the influx of private planes,

even the Beatles traveled on commercial flights.

Plus: fun, unconvincing costumes!

(That's George Harrison pushing John Lennon, in 1965.)

Roomy!

On a Boeing 747, passengers could stand tall without ducking,

have decent legroom,

and sink into plush seats.

A General Excitement About the Future

Way back when... it seemed anything was possible in air travel...

including a superfast transatlantic jet.

Pictured: In '69, a French model

wears a hairstyle and makeup in tribute to the Concorde,

which has now been retired.

Cops and the Rules

2010-04-20T18:48:00.002-04:00

As mentioned in an earlier blog, I bought my ZRX motorcycle in California from a cop. Not like that! He was a guy.

NO NO NO! He wasn't old and the bike was way cooler than that.

Now were getting a little closer. You could tell that he was used to being in charge.

Yes. This is about right. A superbike cop.

He had lots of toys and took very good care of them. In fact, he was kind of worried about the ZRX being parked outside my hotel. I asked, "Why? Is there a problem with crime?" No, he said, but it might get wet and it might get dirty sitting outside all night.

You would think that as a police officer, he would be a stickler for the law. But he told me, "don't go to the DMV and give those guys a bunch of money for nothing. Just ride it here on my plate and registration and, if you get stopped, let the officer know that you are taking it out of the state and that you bought it from me."

I thought this was pretty interesting. Then, on getting the bike back home and getting to know it a little, its interesting to see how little he cared for keeping the bike legal.

For example, he pulled the carbon cannister and intake box to put 4 K&N air filters and a slip on exhaust on it. A carb kit makes it rich and probably increases the emmissons by an order of magnitude. He thought the turn signals were ugly, so he put on these little, dim aftermarket replacements and took off all kind of other things like reflectors, stock mirrors, etc. The strangest one is that he didn't like the location of the horn, originally located at the side of the radiator. So he hid it, up inside a pocket in the fairing. You couldn't hear it at all with the engine running.

So recently, I've been taking a little time to undo some of the things this officer changed to make his bike look like the hooligan bike he thought it should be. So the next time you see an officer of the law, wonder if you will if this is a hooligan cop too?

The KLR ABS Dilemma

2010-04-17T07:31:00.003-04:00

The Kawasaki KLR650 may have many virtues, but strong brakes are not one of them. KLR people joke about KLR ABS, even though as a cheap motorcycle, there is no fancy electronic anti-lock braking system (ABS) available. KLR ABS is the fact that, with the stock front brake, its impossible to lock the front wheel on dry pavement. Not enough braking power. You certainly can't do a stoppie with a KLR.

Meanwhile, IIHS has come out with a study that shows that motorcycles equipped with ABS are 37% less likely to be involved in a fatal accident than motorcycles without ABS. Its not in the IIHS study, but ABS also prevents stoppies, so I guess this guy will have to do his kissing the usual way.

In the case of a motorcycle, the most important factor in braking stability is avoiding front wheel lock-up. If you lock up your front tire, several bad things can happen. The best of these is that you can't change direction and slide head-on into an accident. More likely is that the front end will slide out from under the bike causing the bike to low side and the bike and rider slide uncontrolled into the accident. Finally, there is the possibility that you will pull an uncontrolled stoppie and fly over the handlebars.

So all things considered, it makes sense that ABS keeps the front wheel from locking up and the rider able to both stop and turn the bike.

Which brings me to the KLR dilemma. Riding with the weak stock brakes, I know that braking stability is pretty good on good pavement and I can brake aggressively and not lock up the front tire. On the other hand, I have to wonder if I couldn't be stopping shorter, if the brakes were stronger. As it happens, there is an inexpensive aftermarket fix for the brakes, a larger front disc kit which increases the available braking power by about 25%. Installing the big disc would let me stop shorter, but would take away my KLR ABS.

So the dilemma comes down to longer stopping distance all the time versus the potential to screw up and lock the front wheel in an emergency stop. To bad its not easy to add electronic ABS on top of good brakes on an older bike.

California Reflections

2010-04-07T17:42:00.009-04:00

They say that you start losing your sense of home after only a few days on the road. After three weeks or so, you have transferred your sense of home to some new place or the road itself.

Being gone for 8 weeks, I'm sure I lost my sense of home. In fact, after three weeks back home, I'm still waking up in the middle of the night not knowing where I am.

The first part of my trip, I was moving from place to place, so the road became my home, but the last month was spent in one place in Northern California. I think I got a sense of home and a pretty interesting, close up view of that community.

So I thought I would take the time to talk about the differences between wine country California and semi-rural Michigan.

To start at a 10,000 foot view, Chelsea and Healdsburg don't seem that different. They are both about the same age, started on agriculture, about the same size, and have similar architecture in the old town zone.

However, when you get a little closer, the differences appear. Chelsea has had a mix of industrial and agriculture for most of its life. Recently, its become a little bit of a bedroom community for Ann Arbor and Detroit, but in a middle class way.

In contrast, Healdsburg has had a strong agricultural base since the beginning and, with the popularity of California wine, has become a place to party and a place for second homes of the ultra rich from San Francisco.

Also, Healdsburg is food crazy. Everyone in town seems to be farming something. The dealer carefully grows a rare and delicious orange that is prized by fancy restaurants. He sells them to the restaurants or, in the case of Cyrus, a Michelin 2 star restaurant in Healdsburg, he barters them for dining.

There are said to be 50 fine dining establishments in Healdsburg, along with innumberable wine tasting opportunities and wineries. Some of the old families that have been growing grapes and making wine for generations are treated like royalty. They rank higher on the social ladder than some of the very rich and famous people with summer houses.

And a social ladder there is indeed. It ranges from the owners of Williams and Sonoma or the head of Wells Fargo on down to the poor illegals that were living under a tree behind the dealership. As I am only a professional engineer, I felt definitely below the middle and didn't feel welcome in the fancy establishments downtown. More than that, we were actually turned away from a restaurant, apparently because we didn't look "good" enough.

So most of my time was spent among the little people and eating at nice, but less expensive restaurants. I was curious how Chelsea food would hold up when I got home. I'm happy to say that I still enjoy Thompson's and Mike's and all my other haunts, even if its not as fashionable as Healdsburg.

Of course, the Healdsburg countryside is beautiful. I don't think Chelsea can really compete. Chelsea doesn't have rolling mountain hills or redwood forests or scenic vineyards but then, Chelsea doesn't have earthquakes or mudslides or wildfires or California taxes.

Speaking of taxes, how about 9% sales tax, 2% property tax, 11% income tax, and they are still going broke. It looks like the cost of living is just about 150% of Michigan, only you don't get paid more to live there. Its a privilege to live there and pay.

So Healdsburg is a really pretty place and a wonderful place to visit. But if you like friendly over snotty, if you like reasonably priced, if you like to be able to afford to do more than work and live, then Chelsea doesn't look to bad unless you are already rich.

Italian Bob

2010-03-28T18:40:00.003-04:00

Although Mr. Wilson got me started on this blog business, he doesn't post much anymore, so every once in a while I feel the need to post about the things Bob is up to. Some of you know this, but about a month ago, Bob bought a motorcycle.

Its a Moto Guzzi Breva 750 and he has been enjoying it and riding it quite a bit. I'm guessing that he is approaching 1000 miles in the month he has had it, which is pretty good since it was still raining for the first couple of weeks. This is a picture of Bob's actual bike from the dealer's website before he bought it.

As he says, its very interesting to have a motorcycle that likes to turn. The bike is great around town and very good on the twisty secondary roads, but is a little small for high speed, long trips.

I'm happy that he found something unique in character and so very Italian. His garage must be very interesting with the Breva parked along side his Beck Spyder and his Alfa Spider. Nice going Bob.

This picture is a nice view but not Bob's bike and has a few farkles that he hasn't gotten to, yet.

Gratuitous Yosemite Pictures

2010-03-25T20:21:00.003-04:00

I finally got my camera back and could upload some pictures.

Now that I'm back home, I'll try to get some thoughts together on my time in California.

Yosemite, the 30+ year difference

2010-03-12T21:52:00.000-05:00

More than 30 years ago, I graduated from college, accepted my first "real" job, and decided to take a month off before starting that job. My idea was to explore the country in my little Austin Healy Sprite and to visit friends from college who had dispersed across the country. Somewhere in this adventure, I visited Yosemite, enjoyed the roads, took some pictures, and was on the next adventure. Although beautiful, I never told many stories of Yosemite, in part because it didn't seem all that adventurous.

All those years that I lived in California, I never made it back to Yosemite. Now 12 years after leaving California, I've been back.

So what's different after 30+ years? Well, the trees are a little taller.

Just kidding. How about, I have a better camera?

How about going there in winter (February) when the snow is gorgeous and the crowds are smaller.

The smell is wonderful. You can't beat the smell of a damp forest and melting snow running into a brook.

The problem 30 years ago was that it was a little too pretty, a little too civilized and controlled. At least I had a little British sports car with the top down and that I never knew when it was going to break down to provide adventure. Now we all wear designer outdoor gear, drive in reliable SUVs or vans loaded with every creature comfort. We have become a National Parks Poster version of ourselves and it makes me sad that we don't embrace risk the way we used to.

Not Me!

2010-03-04T12:23:00.002-05:00

You'd never catch me trying anything like this. Thanks to Doug for passing it along. Enjoy the video.

http://www.wimp.com/scarytrail/

Helmet Hair, itch, itch, itch

2010-03-01T22:27:00.004-05:00

One of the major distractions of motorcycle touring is that, after the first couple of hours, the hair on my forehead begins to itch and there is a nagging desire to stop, take off my helmet, and scratch. I guess its the being bent backwards at the roots or the motion of the helmet relative to my head over time.

I also know that its the shape of my helmet. My old HJC was a little tight in the forehead and I'm sure the extra pressure didn't help the blood circulation. The new Shoei is a little better, but I still had itch in the Shoei after a time.

This weekend, I may have come across a potential cure. I have been travelling for more than 6 weeks now and my last haircut was last year. This is the longest my hair has been since long hair was fashionable in the 70's. So last weekend, using my old HJC helmet (thank you, John), I rode for 5 hours with occasional stops. The long hair folded straight down into my face and, amazingly, no itch.

Now others have done the shaved head thing and I suppose that would work too, but I'm not ready for that.

August, 2011 Update

I don't usually pass on commercial interest comments, but the comment on M-Gen is interesting. Looks like a scientific approach to the problem of helmet itch. I haven't tried it. It's kind of pricey and has to be shipped from England, but it is interesting enough to pass along.

Z Rex

2010-02-28T21:24:00.007-05:00

I'm not sure exactly where the blame falls. In the end, I must take responsibility.

On one level, the problem is that I've pretty much done everything I want to do to the KLR. That left me with time to think about other motorcycles and other motorcycle projects.

Then, there was the enclosed motorcycle project which started in my mind again when I showed the Monotracer to someone new and got me to thinking about what I would do differently. Part of any enclosed motorcycle project would be a donor bike with good horsepower and torque to power a heavier vehicle and, whatever the layout chosen, the wheelbase is going to grow significantly. I decided that a chain drive left my options open, since its easier to stretch a chain than a shaft.

There was also the question of salvage versus usable motorcycle as the donor. I spent part of the Christmas holiday and some evenings on the road looking into salvage motorcycles and figuring out that they just aren't that great a deal.

Then I arrived at Nissan to find that Chris Winkler and Eric Heuschele had sent their bikes down to Arizona to ride in the good weather. Eric was coming later, but Marco Diniz was going to ride Eric's bike, a new to him Kawasaki ZRX 1100.

I looked up the specs on the ZRX and it looked pretty good, good torque with a wide torque band, chain drive, and available at pretty low prices. Seemed like a good donor bike for my project. Now Eric's bike is a perfect condition, Eddie Lawson replica, so its far too nice to be a donor, but it got me thinking.

When we arrived in Northern California, we had the first day off and it was a beautiful Sunday. The weather was not very realistic for winter, but sunny and 70 deg F. It got me to thinking about how nice it would be to ride a motorcycle on these beautiful twisty roads in this gorgeous countryside. That's when I made my big mistake. I thought, why not just look at Craigslist and see if one of those ZRX's like Eric's is available. I could buy it and ride it while I'm here, then ship it home. And there, in Craiglist, was a 2001 ZRX 1200, an even better choice for my eventual project with more displacement, torque, and power. The price was right and it lived just 2 miles from my hotel.

The next morning, I figured out how to get the bike home, if I bought it, then called and set up an appointment to check out the bike. It was the least popular color, black with blue and silver (who cares!), and had been used enough and farkled enough that I wouldn't care about messing with a classic. The good news was that it was owned by a cop who was a fanatic about maintaining his toys. A deal was soon struck and I picked up the bike last night.

This morning, I made a few adjustments and took off for a 200 mile "get to know ya" ride.

First of all, the power is immense. With me aboard, the combined weight is about 650pounds with 122 Hp from the factory. That's a Viper power to weight ratio. It's got torque too. I don't think I've managed to get to wide open throttle yet.

The exhaust is aftermarket and it has that nice "ripped cloth" sound of a good inline 4 cylinder. The idle is a little lumpy and the flywheel must be very light because it revs instantly. The best part is the popping on engine decel. I know a lot of people like the sound of a good V twin, but I like this just fine and I think its pretty high up the list of excellent motorcycle sounds.

The bike has a much heavier front weight distribution than the KLR, so if feels like if flops over in low speed corners. Marco said this bike likes to turn a lot more than his VMax. Imaging the difference between the VMax and the KLR.

This bike is extremely at ease on the freeway and generally likes speeds over 45 mph better than it likes 15 mph hairpin curves. John Chamberlin talks about his BMW being a great highway bike and his Yamaha being a great around town bike. I expect that the ZRX and KLR have similar differences, but I think I'll still be taking the KLR on long trips. Even though the ZRX is rock stable on the highway, the seating position, road surface flexibility, and relaxed cornering of the ZRX don't compete with the KLR. Yes, I'm a little cramped from the waist down on the ZRX. I'm also pretty sure I would have done Ca Hwy 128 today at a higher average speed on the KLR than I could even after I'm more comfortable with the ZRX. That's OK though, what a hoot the ZRX is on the straights and in high speed sweepers.

I probably should have waited and bought something that was more practical like a Caponord or Tiger 1050, but those bikes are a lot more expensive and I really like messing with the bike and developing it to my tastes.

No, I'm not a Kawasaki fanatic. 2 at once is just a coincidence. And yes, my yellow helmet and jacket don't match the new bike, but I like the yellow for visibility and I don't care if they don't match.

My ride today was pretty much a dream motorcycle road. Up the Old Redwood Highway to California Hwy 128 west toward the coast. First a lunch stop for BBQ at the "Hamburger Ranch and Pasta Farm" in Cloverdale. Then over the mountain and through the hills on the twisty part of 128.

After Navarro, the vineyards disappear and you follow the river through sweeping corners amongst the redwoods. You've got to be a little careful in here, because some spots stay damp all day long. Note the banking on the curve in the background.

Later, you emerge on the coast with a short ride up the Pacific Coast Hwy to Mendocino.

Hey, not every photo has to have a motorcycle in it.

But its a dry fog

2010-02-22T21:40:00.004-05:00

Some mornings, the fog is warm and practically massless here in Northern California. When I go for my morning walk, my face and hair get damp on the front side, but the sides and back stay nice and dry.

OK, I've been in California, north bay to be specific, for a little more than a week now and here are a few ways that I know I'm in California.

- Millions of drivers that act like they are sleepwalking.
- A Sunday afternoon traffic jam (see above).
- A sign in the eastern San Joaquin valley, not near anything at all, "Vacant Land, 40 acres plus or minus, $250,000 per acre"
- A middle aged couple, both women, holding hands while shopping in a grocery store in a small town far from San Francisco.
- A small town middle school with its own skate park, half pipe, ramps, and rails, all in concrete.
- Walking in Armstrong Redwood Forest and hearing a sound from the general area of a tree ahead. Arriving at the tree, finding a middle age women sitting and meditating inside the tree in a space between the roots. We nicknamed her the "ommmm lady."

Dan in Armstrong Forest.

Redwood Elephant