#9 A Good Day Well Spent

http://www.amazon.com/Geezer-with-A-Grudge/dp/B007RPQJ24

All Rights Reserved © 2001 Thomas W. Day

(Because of the time lag between the bike show and the first spring issue of MMM, my editor decided to pass on this column. However, I still like it so I put it on my own page of Geezer articles. In retrospect, I like it even better.)

Incredible, isn't it? January in Minnesota and we get to spend a weekend pawing over motorcycles that our local dealers would keep behind glass rather than expose them to every Tom, Dick, and motorcycling wannabe Harriet. As many things as they get wrong, you gotta give Cycle World some credit for being cool enough to put on that show. And the fact that Toyota pays for a bunch of the show makes me look upon my two rust-bucket Toys with a little more affection.

Here's my definition of a good day in January. First, it's Saturday, Sunday being uncomfortably close to Monday.

Having put my stuff together the night before, I don't need a lot of prep-time. So, I crawl out of bed about fifteen minutes before a buddy, Brett, picks me up for a trip into the pit of Minneapolis. I'm stumbling into my boots and coat about the time he pulls into the driveway. I'm out the door before he gets a chance to even think about turning off his car heater.

We've done this trip a three times in the past three years, so we have the schedule, finally, figured out. No point in getting there early, so we head for Keys and a breakfast built for six. It's a struggle, but we do what we always do and my dog wouldn't find a scent of a past meal from our plates. We still have an hour or more to burn before the Convention center doors open, so we talk about bikes and guitars and women. The sort of guy-talk where hope never stops springing eternal. Finally, we've worn out our welcome at Keys because a line of folks has built up at the door and they all look hungry enough to be threatening. We hit the road, aiming in the general direction of downtown Minneapolis, by way of Willie's Guitars, a shop Brett has never seen and I never tire of seeing. Willie's isn't open, but we blow ten minutes staring into the windows and fogging up the glass.

Finally, we're on the direct path for downtown Minneapolis. I'm not a fan of downtown, uptown, or around town Minneapolis. Jesse, the Gov, thinks St. Paul was designed by "drunken Irishmen" and I'm equally convinced that Minneapolis was laid out by a tag-team of drunken pro wrestlers. The highway and freeway system is about as user-hostile as Microsoft's legal team. There are only a few places in the city, which I visit as rarely as possible, where I can get in and out without getting lost. Today, the Convention Center turns out to be one of those places; at least on the way into town. I even manage to direct my ride to a parking structure, where we find a slot on the 2nd floor, just a few feet from the skywalk entrance.

On the hike to the Convention Center, Brett discovers that a long suffering Achilles tendon injury has finally healed. The day just keeps getting better and better.

At the site, I'm pleasantly surprised to find that not only did my favorite editor ask for a press pass, but the show's administration people actually issued one for me. I've obviously spent too much of my life in the rock and roll world, where you always assume that everything can and will be screwed up. Being the crude and rude guy I am, I leave Brett in the ticket line and head for the Suzuki booth. If you have never worn a press badge to a trade show, you really need to try it sometime. All riders should be issued press badges. At least I think it was the badge that made the difference. It seemed to me that the vendors and bike reps were a lot nicer to me than usual. I, in exchange, was a lot more ruthless to them. Two victims wearing Suzuki badges were forced, as best I could tell, to listen to me rant about the center stand that is missing from the SV650's accessory options while being available for the Hyabusa.

These guys actually paid attention to my argument, or pretended to, and took notes, or pretended to. I caught them glancing at my press badge, every couple of minutes, as if they were trying to decide what MMM was and if its readership was worth the abuse they were suffering. I milked my moment under the florescent lights for all it was worth and repeated the experiment at every booth I visited. The Harley guys weren't particularly interested in Suzuki SV650 center stands, though, so I'm going to write something mean about them at a later date.

Power is an evil thing. I don't get enough of it to even rate "obnoxious," let alone evil. Usually.

After a long day of exposing the limits of self-control to motorcycle vendors, we left the Convention Center, found our car in moments, and got lost finding our way out of Pro-Wrestler-ville. Eventually, we made it back to Willie's, which was now open, played a bunch of vintage guitars, bought a couple of noisemakers, and ended the evening drinking beer and eating bar food. January doesn't get any better than that.

April 2001

2013 Motorcycle Show

In case you didn't get to ogle the three or four honestly "new" motorcycles in this year's Progressive International Motorcycle Show, here's what I thought was cool, silly, entertaining, overpriced, hilarious, beautiful, gaudy, and/or interesting. Sorry it took me a week to get around to downloading the pictures.

My favorite bike of the show was the new Honda CB500X and the CBR500 came in an interesting 2nd. I was, obviously, sort of amazed that Yamaha brought a 2008 WR250R to the show. From what I've heard, they can't give 'em away and are still trying to unload five year old inventory. Great bike, no market for a practical urban dual purpose bike. Now that I write that, it sort of seems insane. The CB500-series is intended to be a collection of 70+mpg fuel misers with similar performance characteristics to last year's brilliant NC700 bikes. Honda claims this is "going back to our roots." I desperately hope this isn't too little, too late.

Otherwise, I didn't see a lot of interesting stuff at the show. I tried to get the magazine's "money's worth," but it was hard to find a couple hours worth of stuff to look at. Maybe I'm just old and jaded.

So Many Things Explained

Being the media moron I am, I drove to downtown Minneapolis this morning for the Progressive Motorcycle Show. It's easier to say I did it than to explain why. A lot about the motorcycle business depresses me rather than providing a winter perk-up. The average age of the PMS spectators must be close to 100. The average weight is a little scary, too. (I mean of the motorcycles, of course.)

I've been going to the annual motorcycle show for almost 25 years. My first then-Cycle World Motorcycle shows were in LA, followed by 5 years of Denver shows before I moved to Minnesota in 1996. Back in the 80's, there was a fair amount of excitement before the shows because the manufacturers didn't pre-promote their new bikes in the media for a year before we actually got to see them. Also, there were a fair number of actual new models every year from all of the manufacturers. Since the turn of the century, the show is mostly about the new colors on the old bikes. Every couple of years, one or two new models might appear but, mostly, the bike show is about paint jobs and chrome and a half-dozen companies selling eye glasses cleaner.

This year's trip downtown was the most "interesting" part of my day at the bike show. For starters, I hate driving in Minneapolis. The city was designed by a band of illiterate professional wrestlers who took advantage of a sale on one-way street signs and randomly decorated the city with their bargain signage. Between the city's planned disorder and a variety of closed-for-repair streets and the usual Minnesota inability to move more than 3 cars through a 2 minute stop light, it took me almost 50 minutes to drive 15 miles to the convention center, which put me in the parking lot about 10 minutes before a meeting at the center was supposed to begin.

Like most badly managed cities in the country, Minneapolis has farmed out parking meters to a private company (in exchange for a little up-front cash to pretend-balance a previous year's budget). The new meter system consists of numbered posts with central parking ATM where you can use a credit card or cash to buy time. The software in this system is typically user-hostile and about as cleverly designed as most of the state's websites.

With ten minutes to spare, I lucked out and found a space right next to the meter-ATM. However, there were four geezers in pirate outfits surrounding the meter and by the time I got out of the car, they were joined by three other geezers (all wearing Hardly gear). The scene resembled a pack of chimps surrounding a computer that smelled like bananas. Twenty minutes later, I'm freezing and not one of the Harley chimps has figured out how to pay for their parking. Two have given up and gone back to their cars for heat. I'm joined by a young guy dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt. He seems to think that his lack of planning should put him in front of me in the line of deranged monkeys, but he's disappointed. Twenty minutes later, the last of the Harley chimps either figures out how to pay for parking or leaves willing to accept a ticket, I don't care which.

I pay for my space and run to the convention center, arriving at the Victory booth 15 minutes late. No one is there and I didn't see anyone from the magazine in the 3 hours I spent prowling the displays and taking pictures. I did see more Harley chimps than I usually have to tolerate in a decade and relearned that those characters can't walk any better than they ride, drive, or decipher parking meters.

Shaft, Chain, or Belt?

Because one of MMM's contributors recently suffered a catastrophic chain failure on her Versys, a bunch of us got into a conversation about shaft drive vs. chain drive vs. belt drive. My editor, Sev Pearman, is radically in favor of shaft drives over practically everything, especially chains. One of the technical contributors and a recently successful racer, Dave Soderholm, argued for belt drives. I'm old, not easily convinced by emotional arguments, and stuck with the experience of my lifetime, so I'm mostly on the side of chains and have no particular objection (other than cost) to shaft drives and seriously doubt the reliability of belts because Harley uses them and they are only found on cruisers and other toys (like electric bikes).

Here is some of the text from that discussion:

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From: Cat on a Kawasaki 
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2012 6:38 PM 
 Subject: Why my next bike will be shaft driven 

 Sunday ride, nice weather, going to get my nails done then off to a barbecue. Wait, what the hell...? (I watch in my mirror as my chain spins away on the road behind me) This is on 35W southbound, south of the Lake exit and north of the US-10 W exit. ONE vehicle stopped -- ONE!!!? -- a Goldwing rider and his wife. I'm glad they stopped. And I'm /very/ disappointed with the rest of the motorcycling community.

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From:  T.W. Day 

Was it a replacement chain, a new/old chain, or a clip/riveted master link? I've been on bikes since the 60's and I've never had a catastrophic chain or sprocket failure. Obviously, they happen, but drive shafts fail too.  I had a CX500's bevel gear toss a tooth on a trip to SoCal in the 80's. I lucked out and it happened (or jammed) at low speed. I was able to pull the final drive apart, pick out the pieces, and limp back home where I rebuilt the thing. I've had infinitely worse luck (1/0) with drive shaft bikes than chains, when it comes to catastrophic failure. 

Thomas Day 
Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly Magazine 
http://http://mnmotorcycle.com/ 
http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/ 
thomas@motorbyte.com
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From: Cat on a Kawasaki 

It was a master link on a replacement chain that had about 8000 miles on it. The chain chopped a chunk of aluminum out of the protector-thingie (I have no idea what that part is called), but there weren't any cracks or other damage. Whew! I still don't know why the clip came off. I found the master link in the chain lube goo - it was bent as if it had taken some pretty good pulling stress before it finally gave out.  

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From: "T.W. Day" 

Thanks for the update. That's an interesting failure mechanism. In at least a couple hundred-thousand motorcycle miles, on and off-road, I've never had that happen. I'd be suspicious that the master link clip had been installed improperly, had been reused, or that the master link plate had not been compressed all the way, allowing the clip to sit on the edge of the pin grooves rather than firmly in the grooves. There is a good reason for using riveted master links, but I've never been afraid of the field-repairable style links and haven't had a failure in 40 years of riding. 

I have had three drive shaft bikes; a 1979 CX500 Honda Deluxe and a pair of XTZ550 Yamaha Visions. They were all reliable performers, if a little overweight. There is maintenance to be done to the rear drive and most riders blow it off, sometimes resulting in short drive life. The rear drive oil should be evaluated every time you replace the rear tire and that is a messy, time-consuming process. Some folks recommend changing that oil every time you replace the engine oil. Usually the splines at the end of the drive need to be greased at the same intervals. I know guys who have never changed that oil and lucked into long mileage and I know guys who blew off the maintenance and ended up with $2,000 in driveline repair costs for their lack of effort. I know at least one guy who did all of the maintenance required and still had a rear drive fail at 20k miles. "Maintenance-free" is a marketing delusion, especially if you go anywhere interesting on your motorcycle. 

Rocks are a drive belt killer. A moderately hard fall can bust drive shaft cases. A long ride in a hard rain can completely de-lube a chain and set it up for early failure. You buys your toys and you takes your chances. 

If you've read my stuff, you know I am unaware of this "motorcycle community" of which you speak. Motorcyclists are just people with no more connection to any overall community than the typical American voter. Waving aside (the motorcyclists' equivelant of saying "I'll pray for you" or "I'll hope for the best, assuming I don't have to put out any effort to help you"), I've had as much luck with old and young guys in pickups stopping to offer assistance as I have motorcyclists. For some reason, guys in driving pickups and wearing cowboy hats have been more valuable to me than anyone in or out of a helmet. 

 Mark Lawrence, by the way, is one of my favorite maintenance resources for practically all things motorcycle. His take on drive shave maintenance is worth reading. Mark was way ahead of the curve on the V-Strom 650 and his advice has kept my bike going strong through some tough times and places.

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 From: Soderholm, David 

 Belts are the way to go - strong / light / quiet / clean / lash free / minimal input into suspension..........perfect drive for a street bike. 

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From: T.W. Day 

 I've never had or ridden a belt drive bike. I've always questioned the strength and durability of belts. Of course, nothing I've ever owned has been a committed "street bike." Sooner or later, we're going riding on dirt roads and I suspect that could be a weak "link" for belts. Since a belt is, by design, a continuous loop, doesn't that mean considerable disassembly for replacement? 

 -------------------------------------------
From: Soderholm, David 

That's a good point Thomas, but most belt drives have a very long to life time interval period on replacement. They are also tested for rock and gravel off road during development. They are very tough.......
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From: Sev Pearman

The shaft drive thread 
Pfft Anecdotal evidence 
And all 1800 Goldwings are shaking death traps. I know, cuz the innernets tell me. 

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From: "T.W. Day" 

If "anecdotal evidence" is all we have, it's infinitely more valuable than myth and wishful thinking. The only discouraging word I have about the Tenere is the 42mpg bit. A shaft, one way or the other, is barely a consideration for me. I liked that bike and liked my XTZ550 Visions. If the Tenere came in a 65mpg 550 and at least $4k cheaper, I'd be on it. My point is that shaft drive is a wash, in the long run. And I've had a few of these bikes for long runs. I've never had a single sided shafter, though. That might have some serious advantages, maintenance-wise. The Honda Hawk is one of my favorite machines, concept-wise. I don't know anyone who put big miles on one, though. I know people who have them, I'm just not impressed with 15k miles of use


Does the fact that BMW put a chain on their F800GSe do more than provide "anecdotal evidence?" (I know, the picture was on the internet.) At one of the first Cycle World bike shows I attended in Minnesota, BMW displayed one of their their non-factory Paris Dakar boxers, which was chain drive. I have always wished I'd taken a good picture of that bike. I never seem to have a camera out or an audio recorder running when it really matters. Clearly, I do not belong in the news business. 

Let's face it, it doesn't much matter to people in my socio-economic bracket. There isn't an interesting shaft drive available in my low-ball price range. There is no chance I'm going to own a five-digit motorcycle, ever. There is little chance I'd ever want a drive-shaft cruiser, which might be in my price range but I'm not that old, yet. (I don't plan to live that long, either.) So, if there is a small reliability/price advantage, the initial cost overwhelms the conversation. If that were all there were to it, I'm sure all factory on and off-road race bikes would be belt or shafties. Since they are overwhelmingly chain driven, there is clearly more to it.

 -------------------------------------------
From: Sev Pearman

I don't think that is accurate. Permit me to add this observation

Cruisers and tourers may run belts (a/o shafts) due to fixed FD ratios.  No one cares to adjust it do the FD ratio is fixed. Having said that, BMW & M-G offer a variety of REAR pinion ratios to alter overall ratio

Sport bikes and offroad machines have stayed w chain because it is easy to adjust when gear ratios are changed

If not, a rider would have to stock x different length belts for as many possible FD gear ratios

This is a question of final drive ratio adjustment, not reliability


 I pity the poor salesman who has to sell you any machine 

:•D 

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From: T.W. Day

I always buy used from owners, never dealers, at the lowest price I can beat out of the seller, and rarely want anything badly enough to worry about the deal if it falls through. No salesman wastes much time on me because it is, apparently, obvious the moment I walk through the doors than I'm just looking. I bought my first and last new bikes in 1974 and only new car of my life in 1973. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I rarely go back for a whipping twice, unless getting my ass kicked at the race track counts. 

Do you have evidence that chains are standard because of the adjustibility or is that opinion?  

I doubt that a lot of gear ratio modifications take place in the Dakar or in enduros and cross country races, Isle of Man, and the rest of the endurance racing world and I suspect that if reliability was a serious issue with chain drives, even road race tuners would find a reasonable way to adjust gear ratios; as you've mentioned BMW and MG do already. I don't think the drive issue is as clear and simple as you appear to believe. I think the racetrack is equivalent to tens of thousands of miles of "normal" use, so if drive shaft systems possessed reasonable power-to-weight and efficiency performance and provided a reliability advantage, we'd be seeing them on the track. 

The fact that belts are practically non-existent outside of the low-performance, maintenance-ignorant cruiser market says a lot to me. I have no objection to drive shaft power transfer, but I'm unconvinced they are the bulletproof, no-maintenance, cost-effective drive line you're hoping they are. 

I'm also unconvinced that encouraging already-barely-conscious riders to buy "let's pretend these are no maintenance" bikes is a good idea. Going over the chain is just a small part of what ought to be good, regular maintenance. It's not difficult to make daily maintenance a reasonably clean activity. It does force us to look at axle bolts and adjustments, and to scan other parts of the bike. It gets us closer to the "Zen" of motorcycle maintenance and that's always a good thing. 

Now, when you get back from 2,500 mile (2,000 off-pavement) North Dakota ghost town tour and can still say, "Time on Victory bikes has made me a believer in belts as well," I'll reconsider. Until then, I'll see your "pfft" (although I'm not sure what means and raise you a couple of "humphs." A few piddling miles around town doesn't convert me to abandoning a system that has only improved dramatically in my lifetime. 

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Some of you folks are more experienced, technically more capable, and bigger thinkers than me. What are your thoughts, opinions, and what facts can you bring to this debate table? 

2012 Progressive International Motorcycle Show

In case you're not able to go, here are a few highlights:

This used to be the Cycle World show, but it's run by Progressive Insurance this year. Same show, same vendors, not many new bikes. I'll talk about that later.

In Case You Didn't Go (2009 Cycle World International Motorcycle Show)

Here are some of the pictures I took of the things I found interesting and/or amusing:

What the Show Showed

I spent a few hours staring at bikes, bikers, gear, and the usual suspects at the Cycle World Motorcycle Show this afternoon. There are, in fact, some cool new motorcycles, but (as my editor, Victor, suspects) they will probably be economic failures.

Honda, Yamaha, and Kawasaki have new 250cc dual purpose street bikes. A variety of companies have mid-sized bikes, most of which are not new. Honda put a lot of effort into displaying their new Fury VTX chopper-thingie. It is one of the silliest vehicles I've seen since my last visit to Pioneer Village in central Nebraska. The average age of the characters surrounding the Fury had to have been over 60. The same sort of geezer was seen climbing off and on of the Polaris Vision.

Friday afternoon wasn't a good day to judge the turnout or the character of the Minnesota crowd, but I talked to several people who said the show was down at least 20% at all stops. There is an air of desperation you can almost taste coming from the vendors. The customers emit something more like resignation.

I got home in time to watch a PBS movie called "Horatio's Drive" about the first cross-country auto trip, in 1903. About half way through the movie, our youngest daughter called to tell us she'd been laid off by Bank of America. She is an optimist and is convinced that she'll find a job soon. I've been through this sort of economic mess before, in the 70s through the 80s, and I hope she's right, but I worry for her and my son-in-law.

Times have been bad before. The country was less organized, more socially-segregated and stratified, and more destitute in 1930, but we don't know where we are in the curve of the current economic catestrophe.

If I get my druthers, we'll struggle through this recession/depression for long enough that many of the social inequalities and irrationalities get fixed but not so long that the nation seriously suffers. I'd like to see a little resurgence of American frugality and, along with that, a little attention paid to small motorcycles because of their economy and practicality. I don't, honestly, care if gas costs $5 a gallon at the end of the decade. That might be good for motorcycling, too. I would provide some initative for us to cut free from foreign oil.

I wouldn't mind if the whole gangster biker fad died a painful death. If the Angels, Outlaws, Bandidos, and the rest of them all end up replacing the crowd in Guantanamo, I wouldn't care. If even looking like that bunch of degenerates caused bikers enough trouble that leather fringe, bandanas, and Valley People butt-less chaps became fashion misstatements, I'm good with that.

In the end, maybe Honda will have to back off of their Orange County biker junk-mobiles and return to promoting the Nicest People. That's a future I can look forward to.