So I finally managed to hook up with Bear, who had offered to let me bring the bike to his place of work and put it on the scales. (thanks Bear 
)
Okay, so in my head I’ve got a number – 5lbs here, 10lbs there. Bear assured me that the scales were spot on and that they’d been recently calibrated. Suffice to say, when I first saw the reading, I was initially disappointed
So we chatted about it a while, looked at what else could be done to reduce some pork (carbon wheel$), realized that certain add-ons had an impact (e.g. frame sliders) but finally came to the conclusion that while it was a ways off from the 100lb mark, for the money spent, 40+lbs is not too shabby (and definitely noticeable when riding). I guess if I really want something lighter, I’d be better off buying a different bike.
(umm, nah, I think I’l keep this one 
)
Tags: Conclusion, Frame Sliders, Money, Porker, Scales, Wheel
I’d gone for a ride a couple of week ago, on my XR1200, up to the RockStore. The route up there, along PCH, can kinda suck sometimes because of traffic and cops, but once in the area there are some decent roads up through the Santa Monica/Malibu mountains. Also, I really just like hanging out at the RockStore – you meet all kinds of people and see all kinds of bikes – it’s a fun place to hang and shoot the shit with other riders.
On my last ride out there on the XR, I met up with and started talking to some guys from AIPRacing. They commented that they liked what I’d done to the XR and asked if I’d like to show the bike, at their vendor booth, during the upcoming Easyrider Show in Pomona Fairplex this weekend.
I’d been to the Easyrider show before. If you’re at all familiar with the magazine, you’ll know why I couldn’t help thinking to myself – sure, the XR is a Harley, but it’s not exactly what one would expect to see at this custom bike show – wrong genre and I don’t really consider my bike ’show quality’.
So I mulled it over for about a week, talked to some people about the idea, gave Bill at AIPRacing a call to ask a few questions – it wasn’t going to cost me much (other than entry fee), I get a weekend pass to the show, and there’ll be a few people there that I know that will be good to chat with – oh, but the weather this weekend in SoCal is perfect and I could be out riding…
Richard, a colleague from work who also rides and recently moved to the Long Beach area, came over to the house around 5:30am Friday morning with his truck. Together we loaded the bike up and headed off to work. At the end of the day, we were off to the show grounds. It was fun setting up and getting a sneak peak at some of the entries.
Saturday morning I went back to the show grounds where they let vendors and entrants into the show, for two hours prior to the opening, to finish setting up and to give the bike a final spit and polish.
Easyrider Show, Pomona, CA
I still don’t believe this is the right kind of show for my bike, but hey, it’s something different amongst a sea of chrome, fancy metal work and glittering paint jobs – and while I could be out riding this weekend, hanging out at a bike show, shootin’ shit with other bikers, is a decent second best.
Tags: Bikes, Colleague, Cops, Custom Bike Show, Easyrider Show, Friday Morning, Fun Place, Harley, Long Beach, Malibu, Pomona Fairplex, Rockstore, Santa Monica, Saturday Morning, Show Time, Sneak Peak, Spit, Vendor Booth, Weather This Weekend, Xr1200
Hanging up his sock with hopes of Santa coming…
Not to far from my house is one of those ‘Chinese tool importer warehouse cheap as chips stores’. I drop in there every now and then to pick up a cheap throw-away something or other.
Turns out they sell a motorcycle tent.
I don’t have any room left in the garage, and I needed some way to protect the scoot from the sun (and the rain, even though we only average 12 days a year here in SoCal), so I figured I’d give this thing a try.
Surprisingly the construction, while minimum spec, is sufficient and the various bit’s and pieces fit together reasonably well. The instructions were clear. I had it up in about an hour and the scoot fits perfectly.
The tent is 10′Lx5′Wx8′H and cost just over $100.
Tags: Cheap As Chips, Gimme Shelter, Minimum Spec, Motorcycle, Sun And The Rain, Tent, Tool Importer
I’d been thinking about a commuter vehicle for some time, something with a minimum carbon footprint; efficient, small, affordable. Until recently, I’d been catching public transport (PT) to and from work, which consisted of a 3 mile drive to a park and ride, a train (light rail) ride to downtown LA, a bus that takes me to the west side and from where the bus drops me off, I walk a mile to get to the office.
I’ve been catching PT for several years now.
On the plus side
- I get to read a lot (in the mornings – afternoon commute is standing room only),
- I get some incidental activitiy (walking),
- it’s cheaper than owning and operating a car,
- it’s environmentally friendly,
- and it’s far less stressful than driving in LA traffic
On the negative side
- A one way trip takes close to 2 hours
- I have to get up early to be at work on time (4am)
- In winter time, It can get fricken cold in the mornings – and then stinking hot in the afternoon
- The afternoon commute is standing room only – and in summer time, it can get hard to breath
- There are some real nerdowells that take public transport
- Oh, the things I have seen and the stories I could tell…
Right around where I work, the city is currently laying new train tracks – a light rail from down town to the west side. That will be great for me – it’ll mean 2 trains and no bus, so it should be quicker. Unfortunately, construction won’t be complete until late 2011. In addition, the construction, which seems to have ramped up of late, has meant pedestrian access along the street where I’d walk from the bus has been closed off. This means I can’t – at least for the time being – catch PT.
My choices then are left with either ride or drive to work.
I love riding, but not to work – at least not on the bikes that I currently own. That and getting geared up and bringing in a change of clothes (appropriate work attire) is a hassle.
Driving it is then. Problem is, I don’t have the patience for it, nor do I seem to have the stamina to maintain focus in bumper to bumper traffic for the hour and a half that it takes to cover the 26 mile freeway drive home.
I started thinking about other options – so we’re still talking about driving/riding, but was there a better tool for the job?
I had put together a spreadsheet to research numbers on currently available small cars including; SmartCar, Honda Fit, Nissan Versa, BMW Mini, just to name a few. I compared gas milage, vehicle cost, seating and storage, service intervals, options and so forth, but nothing really stood out. Clean diesels are only just creeping into California – most are too expensive, and hybrids, IMO, aren’t really worth it (not to mention that they’re not as environmentally friendly as you’d think (but that’s another story).
Then one sunny day, not too long ago, while riding around Long Beach, I stopped in at a local Aprilia dealer for a look around. It’s a fairy new store, nicely decked out. They are also a dealer for Vespas and Piaggio.
I’d seen the MP3’s before – kinda thought they were cool – especially liked the 500 version. In the store they had a 500 kitted out with a windscreen and Givi trunk which got me thinking.
I ‘d been on the (maxi) scooter bandwagon some time ago when the gas prices were really high, and came pretty close to picking up a Suzuki Burgman 400. For what ever reason, it didn’t happen.
Fast forward to late 2009 – the MP3’s have been around for a few years and for the most part, have proven to be fairly reliable, ad have decent fuel economy. The windscreen and trunk on the 500 in the store made it that much more appealing. That and there are probably a few used ones out there that can be had for a reasonable price.
I found one. It was a 2009, with 1200 miles on the clock. It’s out of state, but even with the shipping cost it still came out to be a good deal. So I nabbed it. Bought it a couple of weeks ago but I’d been waiting for it to be delivered, and today it arrived.
2009 MP3 500
I spent probably close to an hour reading through the user manual – seems complicated until you get out and ride it.
This was my first ride on a tripod (that’s what I’ve named it) – I’d test ridden other (2-wheeled) scooters before – I found myself laughing most of the way as I rode it around my neighborhood. Took it for a short stint on the freeway — it seems more than capable. Tomorrow I’ll ride it to work, and hopefully confirm that as a commuter, it’s the right tool for the job.
Tags: Bikes, Carbon Footprint, Choices, Clothes, Commuter Vehicle, Freeway Drive, Gas Price, Light Rail, Patience, Public Transport, Scooter, Summer Time, Traffic, Train Tracks, West Side, Winter Time, Work Attire
It’s been a busy few weeks, and social commitments had largely kept me out of the garage. But while my parents were visiting, some new bits and pieces showed up for the XR; Braking wheels, billet triple clamp, rearsets and a Thundermax ECU/Auto tuner.
Installed the triple clamps, wheels and ThunderMax and loaded the appropriate map. Got the rearsets back from the powder coaters and finished installing them last weekend. Sunday I took it out for a maiden voyage. I didn’t ride too far – down to San Pedro and then over PV to Marina Del Ray and back.
As you’d expect, it felt and rode totally different. Not sure that I really gave myself enough time to bond with the bike. The triple trees have a 0 degree offset (1.5 more than stock), the wheels probably shaved an additional 20 lbs of weight, the TMax opened it up and the rearsets change the ergos and gear change inputs. These are all rather significant/dramatic changes. Consequently I took it fairly easy – my main goal was to make sure nothing was amiss.
What needed to happen next was to get the bike back over to Race Tech and have them put it on the Computrack to re-calibrate the suspension settings. So I gave Todd a call and scheduled an appointment.
I dropped the bike off this afternoon (11/17/2009).
The guys at the shop were really excited that I bought the bike back – seeing what I’d done to it, they’re looking forward to working with it again. They mentioned they had a lot fun prototyping the suspension for it when I first bought it to them, because everything they did made it that much better – and I concur 
They asked if they could hang on to it for a few days – “no problems” – I’d rather they didn’t rush it.
They really are a great bunch of guys to work with – personable, knowledgeable, and it’s apparent they enjoy what they do…
Looking forward to riding my new, new bike (when I get it back)
Tags: Billet, Braking Wheels, Clamp, Computrack, Ecu, Ergos, Marina Del Ray, New Bike, Powder Coaters, Rearsets, Stock Wheels, Suspension Settings, Tmax, Triple Clamps, Triple Trees
no, I’m not talking about the song from Staind, but now it’s in my head – not necessarily a bad thing.
Mum and dad dropped in for a visit as part of the last leg of their tour of the world – two months touring through Europe (which we we’re invited on but couldn’t get the time off work 
). They left Germany and dropped in to visit with us for two and a half weeks before heading back to Australia.
We have a small house and we use our second bedroom as a sitting/TV room. We had some prep work to do before they arrived in order to comfortably accommodate them; making room in the the closet, we replaced the futon (which we had entirely too long) for a nice leather sleeper sofa, and tidied up the books shelves – all things on my master ‘to do’ list – guess now I needed to get it done!
Cindy and I took the two and a half weeks off while they were here – I was almost maxed out on vacation and Cindy had ample days accumulated.
In the 10 + years that I’ve been living in the US (wow, has it really been that long…), I’ve shamefully only been back home – to Australia – once. In that time, my Mum’s visited twice and my Dads been here three times.
While they were here, we took a few day trips – Solvang, Santa Barbara, Huntington Gardens, Santa Monica Pier, Peterson Museum, Flat Track racing and to an iMax to see Where The Wilds Things Are. They also took a day for themselves to go to the Queen Mary which they enjoyed. The rest of the time was spent hanging out and doing stuff around the house – gardening, installing new bathroom cabinets, cooking, walking Mati – they’re both very active and have trouble sitting still.
Cindy and I had looked at taking a trip out to the Grand Canyon, but we struggled to find a dog sitter.
It was a good visit, and of course good to see them again.
Whether it be in Australia or Germany/Europe, hopefully next time it will be us traveling to see them.
Tags: Australia, Bathroom Cabinets, Cindy, Europe, Futon, Germany, Grand Canyon, Huntington Gardens, Imax, Leather Sleeper Sofa, Mum And Dad, Peterson Museum, Queen Mary, Santa Monica Pier, Shelves
A while back I saw a picture of a labrador puppy using a cob of corn as a chew toy that got me thinking about dogs eating vegetables -- so I started asking around (I’m still relatively new at this dog thing…). Seems (some) dogs love vegetables and as you’d expect -- unless you know otherwise -- generally speaking, vegetables are good for dogs.
My dog-owning-coworkers suggested raw baby carrots. We tried, but it didn’t seem that she was really into it. So then we tried canned baby carrots -- hmmm. We now periodically add a few to her regular dry food as a mushy treat.
So then I decided to try the corn cob -- raw form -- and what do you know! I kind of expected her to eat the whole thing, and initially she tried, but she quickly figured out that it’s the kernels that make for good eating.
Not only is it fun to watch her eat, as she nibbles on the corn much the same as I would, and holds it and rolls it with her paws to make sure she gets them all, but it’s also good knowing that it’s a healthy treat that I get to monitor in her poop, a day later, as I clean up for her in the backyard
Tags: Baby Carrots, Back Yard, Corn Cob, Coworkers, Dogs, Dry Food, Httpv, Kernels, Labrador Puppy, Love, Nibble, Paws, Vegetables, Www Youtube
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