tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59506641435766372492024-03-15T21:00:27.051-05:00Geezer with a Grudge<p>All Rights Reserved ©</p>
<p>"Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference."
- Mark Twain</p>
<p>I check the comments on this blog regularly. The idea is that we're going to have a conversation about the ideas I've presented. You should be aware of the fact that when someone emails me an interesting comment, the odds are good that I'll post that in the comments anonymously and reply to that comment on the blog rather than in email.</p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.comBlogger1376125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-39547080538517685542024-01-28T14:57:00.002-06:002024-01-28T14:58:54.134-06:00Getting A License in 1992<p>After I left California in late 1991, I spent exactly <a href="https://theratseyeblog.blogspot.com/2023/01/stpthe-canaries-in-coal-mine.html">one month in Indiana working for the dumbest company I’ve experienced</a> in my long life. After I’d given up that experiment as a loss-leader, I flew a bunch of resumes in westwardly directions and landed my first medical devices job in Colorado. The company moved me and all I had to do was get my lazy unemployed ass from Elkhart, IN to Denver in 60 days, when I’d start my new job. I’d shipped my two motorcycles ahead with the moving van, outfitted my 1984 Toyota Van as a marginal camper, and I was starting my westward meander with a dinner in Chicago with an old friend. He and another of his friends spent a good bit of energy arguing out a safe place for two black guys and a goober from Kansas for a late night dinner. We settled on a pizza place in western Chicago and, mostly, that worked out well. I didn’t have to pay for anything and didn’t realize until I stopped in Springfield, MO and realized that someone had lifted my billfold in the restaurant’s hatcheck back in Chicago. </p> <p>My step-brother lived in Springfield, which is why I’d taken that route, and I stayed with his family for a couple of days while I chased down credit card replacements and did the usual 1990’s routine for a stolen identity. The state of California and my insurance company were gracious enough to send me evidence that I was licensed and insured, but I did drive the rest of the way to Colorado without an actual driver’s license. Since I had no reason to be in a hurry, it took me almost a month to make it the 1,000 miles from Chicago to Denver. A few weeks after I arrived, I was living in a friend’s basement waiting for my new job to start. Not having an official license to drive meant that I had to take the whole Colorado driving test, including the driving part. After I had that, I had to take the motorcycle endorsement written and driving test at the DMV. </p> <p>I had a <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2015/11/my-motorcycles-1983-yamaha-xtz550-vision.html">1983 Yamaha 550 Vision</a> and a <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2015/11/my-motorcycles-1986-yamaha-xt350-enduro.html">1986 Yamaha XT350</a> to choose from for the test and I’d been spending most of my previous 5 years on the XT350 commuting in L.A. and riding offroad in the southern California and Baja deserts. I was as comfortable on my XT as any motorcycle I’ve ever owned and loved. So, it was a no-brainer; the XT350 it would be. </p> <p>It was January 1992, but the weather was practically Californian and I wanted to be legal as soon as possible. The written test was easy and I’d lucked into being able to go immediately from paper to the DMV alley where the examiner gave the test. The rest range was pretty weird. Since there wasn’t much room to work with, parts of the “course” was overlaid on other parts; like the cone weave, the swerve, and the quick stop tests. The cop administering the test had to reset the course for each section of the test, moving cones as required. All of the exam was incredibly easy (as all US motorcycle endorsements tests have always been) on the XT and the last test was the quick stop. I’d never had to take any sort of test for my motorcycle endorsement, because when I got my first license in 1964 you didn’t have to do anything but ask for an “M” stamp on your cage license. I was feeling pretty cocky and sure of myself by that last portion of the test. </p> <p>As I remember, the runup to the quick stop was about 50’; according to the examiner that was barely enough space for a lot of motorcyclists to get up to the required 15mph. He was a little irritated that day because he’d just flunked a couple of cruiser riders and a Denver cop for failing this part of the exam. I was having fun and didn’t take note of his mood (<em>I’m notorious for that kind of obliviousness</em>.) and I was absolutely convinced that getting my endorsement was a given. I squared up at the start line, gave the bike a little more gas than necessary and took off aggressively toward the stop-box. The examiner was obviously startled and as I went past him he seemed excited. A smarter guy might have played it safe, but at that moment in my life I felt more free to express myself and be me than ever before (or since). Worst case, I fail and have to come back in two weeks and do it again on the same test fee. The moment my front tire hit the stop-box line, I nailed the front and rear brakes, lifting the back tire about 2’ in a spiffy stoppie. The examiner had warned me about wheelies, but he did not mention stoppies. </p> <p>Turned out, he’d never seen a stoppie that resulted in a stop that didn’t also include a crash. Earlier that week, a couple of arrogant Denver cops (not motorcycle cops) had brought their Harleys in for the exam and both had not only sailed past the stop-box but had panicked so completely that they’d put themselves in the dumpster at the end of the alley. That was my examiner’s most recent experience with dumbasses overdoing the quick stop test. Turned out that I just made him laugh. I was so pumped up that I offered to do it again for both of our entertainment, but he’d had all the laughs he wanted for the day and I left with a Colorado motorcycle endorsement. </p> <p>Since then, I’ve been renewing and transferring that same endorsement from Colorado to Minnesota for the past 30 years. In late 2000, I started on the path to becoming a Minnesota Motorcycle Safety Instructor and I’ve given something resembling that same test to several hundred wannabe motorcyclists. I’ve seen a couple of stoppies, usually accidental, during the course and the endorsement test. I might shake my finger at the student and offer a bullshit warning, but who am I to flunk someone for showing a little style? </p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-16520176433955797682023-12-02T22:26:00.001-06:002023-12-02T22:26:19.660-06:00Beware of Bowling<p><em>Warning: This story is only as accurate as the author's memory.</em> </p> <p><font size="3"><font face="Arial">I have done a lot of moderately risky things in my life, but I will aways put <strong><em>bowling</em></strong> at the top of the list of scary, risky, painful, dangerous things that I will <em><strong>never do again</strong></em>. This is an old story and I’m sort of amazed that I haven’t told it before, but I did a thorough search of this and the </font><a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/"><font face="Arial">Wordpress blog</font></a><font face="Arial"> and didn’t find a single word about it. So, in the late stages of my life and whatever is left of my two-wheel “career,” I am going to explain my terror of all things related to bowling. </font></font></p> <font face="Arial"></font> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">It all started when I was just a kid. My father was a pretty decent adult athlete, although I guess he wasn’t much as a kid. Into his late 60s, he played competitive tennis at the Kansas state championship level, bowled consistently in the 230-250 pins territory, had a decent golf handicap, and when he was in his 40s he played basketball well enough to be recruited for the Washington Generals when the Harlem Globetrotters were in town. He was also a high school basketball, football, and tennis coach until he was well into his 60s. From about 5-years-old on a good bit of my life revolved around sports. Usually, thanks to asthma and other physical limitations, sports that I didn’t play particularly well. I never managed to play any of my father’s favorite games well enough to impress him and a couple of them—golf and bowling—were sources of irritation for both of us. Still are. Much later in life, I had a spurt of playing beach basketball in California, but that was a world and a game totally outside of his experience. </font></p> <font face="Arial"></font> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">Moving forward about a decade and I’m a twenty-something working-class husband and a father of two beautiful daughters, I worked a lot of 80-hour weeks, drove a worn-out 1969 Ford E100 panel van 100,000 miles a year across six Midwestern states without A/C or heat. I was employed by a con artist of a boss who generated a lot of angry and disappointed customers. My only escape from pressure, stress, and confusion was the occasional few hours I was able to spend on my dirt bike. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">After a couple of years in small town Nebraska, Mrs. Day, on the other hand, was getting desperate for a social life outside of caring for our two little girls and visiting with other mothers of small children. So, she signed us up for a bowling league, partnering with the only young couple she knew who didn’t have kids. I managed to slither out of the first two league games, claiming (honestly) that I had to work at the other end of the state those evenings. The third match was unavoidable. I couldn’t get out of it because my slimeball boss caved in to my wife’s complaints about her missing-in-action husband and “gave” me the weekend off. </font></p> <font face="Arial"></font> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">Other than rolling a couple of games with my father and brother during the occasional holiday break visiting my family in Kansas, I had managed to stay away from bowling alleys for a long time. By that point in my life, I had learned that “games of patience” do not play to my strengths. Anything that requires me to do the “zen focus” bullshit when I’m losing is only going to be frustrating. I played and loved basketball well into my 50s because catching up (or staying ahead) requires working harder. Same for racing motorcycles, to catch up or stay ahead you work harder and go faster. Golf and bowling require the player to concentrate on form and geometry and I suck at both. So, that evening at the bowling alley started poorly, with me tossing a couple of gutter balls and barely grazing the end pins in my first couple of frames. Mrs. Day wasn’t much better, but she wasn’t expected to be and our new friends were getting cranky only a few minutes into the evening, which promised to be long, boring, and pointless. </font></p> <font face="Arial"></font> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">I am an alcohol-lightweight. I have been drunk twice in my life and neither of those episodes had yet occurred. I can easily nurse a portion of a beer or a mixed drink for several boring hours at a party and one drink is usually my limit. About two beers into the bowling evening and I was losing interest in the game and I decided to redefine the fundamentals of bowling. Just rolling the ball down the lane was an insufficient challenge and I started trying to see how far I could heave the ball before it struck wood. I wasn’t going for altitude, just distance, but the ball began to make a fair amount of noise when it landed after I’d suffered through the first game of the three we’d committed to playing. About the time I started to think I was getting the hang of this version of bowling, probably at about the 3-4 beer mark, the bowling alley proprietor asked me to leave. Mrs. Day and her friends were embarrassed. Our new social life came to a screeching end and I don’t think I ever saw the other couple again. In fact. I don’t remember being at all upset at being done with my moment in small town social life. </font></p> <font face="Arial"></font> <p><font size="3"><a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1HmIrta2QlDy1X6TINPCYy6UeIrG2uzjy"><font face="Arial"><img title="rickmn2" style="float: left; display: inline; background-image: none;" border="0" alt="rickmn2" src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1Vf7niXTQXTDyB3esbzM9G-e-u3KOrkGI" width="244" align="left" height="178" /></font></a><font size="3"><font face="Arial">After the bowling debacle, I still had a weekend off. I had planned the next day, Saturday, for some recreational practice time on the limited-access roads I loved about 20 miles north of our home. I’d loaded up the </font><a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2015/09/14/my-motorcycles-1974-rickman-125-isdt/"><font face="Arial">Rickman</font></a><font face="Arial"> the previous evening, strapped a couple of five-gallon cans of premix to the trailer, loaded my privative 1975-style gear into the family station wagon, and headed north for some trail therapy. Sunday was race day and I’d signed up for my usual spot at the back end of the Nebraska State Intermediate class races. And I’d be wrenching for a friend who was actually competitive in the Expert class. </font></font></font></p> <font size="3"><font size="3"> <p><font face="Arial">As you might suspect, I was slightly hungover that morning. Having never been even a little hungover, I was clueless as to what that might mean.  The place where I chose to make my stand was in the sandhills about five miles east of Palmer, Nebraska and about the same distance south of the Loup River. Back then, this area had well over 100 miles of limited-access roads tied together in a way that allowed me to ride for hours without ever crossing pavement. And that was my plan for the morning. My excuse for running out on my family on a beautiful Saturday summer morning was that I would be “practicing for Sunday” at the races in Genoa. That was sorta true, but mostly I was getting as much alone-time as possible anyway possible. But I was unwittingly impaired. </font></p> <font size="3" face="Arial">I unloaded the bike from the trailer, strapped on my gear, gassed up the bike, and took off heading north toward the Loup River. The first section of the route I’d planned was over some mild hills thoroughly coated with deep, fine dust bowl blow-out sand. I don’t know if I have ever ridden a motorcycle more suited to that kind of riding. The Rickman didn’t have much low-end torque, but once you spun it up over about 4,000 rpm it would sail across the sandhills like a prairie racing catamaran. </font></font></font><font face="Arial">  </font> <p><font size="3"><font face="Arial">I had barely got the bike warmed up, less than a few miles from where I’d parked, when I let the bike slide down the side of a sandhill into a tractor rut. Normally, no big deal. Just haul back on the bars, give it some throttle, and sail back up the side of the hill. Hungover, I considered a brand new option: step off of the bike and bail out. I was doing about 50mph at the time and abandoning ship was a freakin’ </font><a href="https://bonpote.com/en/the-5-basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/" target="_blank"><font face="Arial">stupid</font></a><font face="Arial"> option. I discovered that immediately. The thing about the next few seconds that has stuck with me for 40 years was a sound I can only describe as “a pound of hamburger thrown hard against a refrigerator door.” Splat! </font></font></p> <font face="Arial"></font> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">Some undetermined, but calculatable, period of time later, I awoke imbedded about a foot into soft, hot sand. While I was unconscious, I’d hallucinated that I’d been tossed out of an airplane without a parachute. When I woke up, the dent in the sand, the pain, and the near-desert surroundings fit nicely with that hallucination. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">With some effort, the time I’d been unconscious could be mathematically be determined by the flow rate of fuel from my Rickman’s tank overflow hose. When I righted the bike, I discovered I needed to change the petcock to reserve to get the engine started. My guess was that I’d been unconscious for at least 20 minutes. Getting the bike upright was a challenge, I hurt everywhere, but mostly I couldn’t catch my breath. Getting turned around in that deep sand was another challenge. Getting the bike started and moving in the right direction was tough, but easier than the first two hurdles. By the time I made it back to the parking spot, I was having serious problems breathing. I absolutely failed to lift the Rickman’s actual 250+ pounds (216 pounds claimed weight<img alt="Animated Smileys Laughing - ClipArt Best" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.clipartbest.com%2Fcliparts%2FnTX%2Fojg%2FnTXojgqjc.jpeg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=dcd0978e586f5f97f075e399361130d6328a68c8b8221c141004b51a8dbacdc3&ipo=images" width="20" height="15" />) on to the trailer. In frustration, I climbed into the station wagon, reclined the seat, and decided to see if I might feel better after some rest. After a few minutes, I was so seized up and hurting that I couldn’t get back out of the reclined seat. And breathing was harder, not easier. </font></p> <font face="Arial"></font> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">Sometimes the old adage, “No good deed goes unpunished,” gets proved wrong in spades. Over the past year, I’d put a lot of effort into being friendly and useful to the area’s ranchers. I had helped chase cattle back through downed fences, ridden to the nearest ranch to tell the owners about damaged fences or escape cattle, and always stopped to talk (rather than run away like other dirt bikers usually did) when I met someone working the fence lines bordering the limited-access roads. </font></p> <p><font size="3"><font face="Arial">As I lay in the car imagining what the odds anyone would find me out on this remote road before I suffocated or starved to death, three actual cowboys rode up (on actual horses) and stopped to talk. I was barely able to say “howdy” and real conversation was beyond my capacity. After a bit, they figured out my predicament, pulled me from the vehicle, loaded up the bike and strapped it down, helped me pull off my boots and gear, turned the car around, and even offered to drive me back home if I couldn’t manage it. [<em>That wasn’t the </em></font><a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2013/07/13-when-dealers-were-interesting.html"><font face="Arial"><em>first</em></font></a><font face="Arial"><em> or </em></font><a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2021/12/my-hardestfastestlongest-ride.html"><font face="Arial"><em>last time</em></font></a><font face="Arial"><em> I’d be rescued by cowboys or </em></font><a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2014/03/two-wheels-are-still-better-than-four.html"><font face="Arial"><em>horses</em></font></a><font face="Arial"><em>.</em>]</font></font></p> <font face="Arial"></font> <p><font size="3"><font face="Arial">Because I was, and probably still am, an arrogant, macho/dumb male, I declined the designated driver offer, gritted my teeth, engaged the clutch, shifted into 2nd (to minimize having to repeat that painful movement), and took off for home. <font size="3">I had to pass through two small towns and about half of our hometown on my way home and braking or shifting quickly identified themselves as painful and impossible tasks. For the first and only time in my life, I desperately hoped a cop would stop me and arrest me, even shoot me and put me out of my misery. But I sailed through both towns and the north end of our hometown at 60mph without a glitch. I think I even blew through two stop signs on the way. The station wagon was a 1973 Mazda RX3 and it would easily do 60 in 2nd gear and start with a little clutch slippage, so I didn’t shift all the way home. </font></font></font></p> <p><font size="3"><font size="3" face="Arial">I pulled into our driveway, turned off the key and shuttered to a stop, but I couldn’t get myself out of the car. I blasted the horn until Mrs. Day and our little girls came out to see who and what was causing the racket. They helped me out of the vehicle, into the house, and on to the family room couch. After a bit, I thought a hot bath might help, so I went into our bathroom and ran a tub-full of near-boiling water. And I almost drowned when I discovered I couldn’t keep from sliding into the big old clawfoot tub and going down helplessly. I slept on the couch for the next few weeks because our bedroom was on the impossibly-distant second floor. </font></font></p> <font face="Arial"></font> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">When I finally made it to the local doc’s office, an x-ray determined that all 12 of my left-side ribs were broken or cracked. The closest thing to sympathy or assistance I got from my doc was, “That’s what you get for riding a motorcycle.” The injuries put me out of work for more than a month and, thanks to the usual 1970’s small business total lack of any sort of disability or healthcare benefits, about destroyed our family’s economy, . However, I had more than enough vacation time, so at least I got paid for a 40-hour week while I was out of work. A few weeks after I was back to work, I ran into the doc limping around our grocery store, on crutches with his leg in a cast. I sympathized with him by saying, “That’s what you get for playing with those damn skis.” </font></p> <p><font face="Arial">The long-term effect of the crash, the pain, and the extended recovery time was that for years afterwards when I got into any kind of extreme situation on a motorcycle (a little air, going a bit sideways, skittering along a sandy section of road or track) I PTSD’d myself into going through the worst part of that desert crash and usually found myself parked on the edge of the trail or track sweating and panicking over another crash that had only happened in my mind. It was several years before I could really enjoy offroad riding at any sort of respectable speed and <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2022/02/21/why-i-love-dawson-city/">look what that got me</a>. </font></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-47248910857855798392023-11-19T17:12:00.001-06:002023-11-19T17:12:51.241-06:00A Two-Wheeled Life<p>That is a pretty arrogant title coming from someone as uninspiring as me. Mostly, my two-wheeled vehicles have been transportation, first, and recreational, second. For 18 years, there was also a vocational aspect to my motorcycling when I was an <a href="http://www.msf-usa.org" target="_blank">MSF</a> instructor. I did have a brief, very low level regional (Texas and Nebraska) racing moment (about 10 years) with motocross, cross-country, enduros, and observed trials. That period of my two wheeled life was only partially recreational because to support that habit I ran a repair shop out of my tiny garage for six of those years and even sold Ossa dirt bikes for three of those years. Since I have been riding motorcycles since at least 1963 and the overwhelming majority of miles I’ve put on motorcycles has been commuting to work and school. My brother and I have mixed memories of when we started and which of us got the first motorcycle in the family. (<em>He thinks I was first and I think he was</em>.) We both remember how much our father hated motorcycles and how quickly shit could go badly when something he discovered one of his sons was doing something he disliked. (<em>My “favorite” example was him tossing a loaned electric bass and bass amplifier down the basement stairs when he discovered I’d made more money playing in a band one summer than he made all year as a high school teacher.)</em> Between bicycles and motorcycles, I have lived a lot of my life on two wheels. </p> <p><a href="https://www.cycleworld.com/story/motorcycle-racing/dick-mann-racer-champion-tuner-legend-dies-at-86/">Some people get to keep doing this sort of thing a really long time</a>. <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2021/11/rip-denny-delzer-collectorrestorer-of.html">Some of us die doing the thing we love</a>. Most of us, get shoved off of two wheels due to old age and infirmity. I don’t know if I’m there yet, but the last few years and, especially, this fall have presented a lot of obstacles that seem ominous. In early 2019, I started to have bouts of double-vision that seemed to be untreatable until after I had been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis (MG) in June and medications (I love prednisone!) began to control the symptoms. By then, <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2021/05/03/customization-and-me/">I’d sold my 2004 V-Strom</a> both due to the vision issues and declining upper body strength that made my wonderful near-400 pound motorcycle impractical and, probably, dangerous. The next spring, at the beginning of the COVID shutdown, <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2017/03/27/bikes-ive-owned-and-loved-a-lot-or-a-little-yamaha-wr250x-supermoto/">I sold my WR250X</a>. At the time, I figured I was finished with motorcycling. I was 72 years old and looking at my father’s history and decline due to MG and fully expected to be in a wheelchair and trying to figure out what was happening on a big screen LCD television from a one-foot viewing-distance. </p> <p>Did I mention I love Prednisone? </p> <p>Thanks to terrific medical care from the Mayo Clinic’s Neurology Department and the perseverance of my doctor there, I got most of my function back by late 2020. My grandson had donated a beat-to-snot Rad Rover eBike in 2019 and I’d revived it and started riding it that winter, quickly discovering that me and ice still don’t mix. By the spring of 2020, I was on that bike for practically every local errand or half-assed-excuse to go somewhere by myself. As of this past summer, thanks to the incredibly generosity of an old friend, I have a Specialized electric mountain bike that has a suspension rivaling my WR250X. A collection of physical setbacks made riding a lot this past summer difficult, but I managed to put more than 1,000 miles on the old Rover and just short of 400 miles on the Specialized bike. That’s not impressive by any standard, I know. But it is what I managed this year. </p> <p>I had some big, hopelessly optimistic goals for this past summer and I managed to achieve exactly none of them, except the bare minimum 1,000 mile goal for the Rad. Back in March of 2023, I weighed somewhere between 234 and 238 pounds. I only barely remember seeing those startling numbers on my bathroom scale and at the doc’s office, but those hefty values stuck with me. I gave myself a target to shoot for and a reward: under 200 pounds by the end of summer and a long motorcycle trip to . . . somewhere. Obviously, I didn’t make it. I’ve been stuck between 198 and 202 pounds since the end of September, which means no tour this year. My poor, setup to travel, barely-and-rarely-used 2012 Suzuki TU250X sits in the garage with far fewer miles than either of my bicycles on the odometer. </p> <p>Mrs. Day is fond of saying, “It could always be worse.” Which is almost always undeniably true. About the middle of October, I woke up one morning to discover my right knee was almost useless. I couldn’t support myself on that leg at all. I think it would be safe to say this is the worst (and the first) “injury” I’ve ever experienced that wasn’t preceded by . . . something: a fall from a bike, stumbling down a cliff, landing wrong from a jump or a ladder, or some event that I could tie to why the hell my leg isn’t working. A month and a half later, it still isn’t wholly functioning, but it has cost me a good bit of the physical conditioning I’d built up during the summer. This is how old people end up in wheelchairs, they wake up after a good night’s sleep crippled. WTF!</p> <p>Since I retired in 2013, I’ve had a few “this is it” scares. Sooner or later, one of ‘em will be the one that puts me into a cage for the rest of my life—maybe an ambulance, maybe a hearse, or just our Honda CRV—but a cage nonetheless. I used to tell my motorcycle safety students, “Always worry about people who are so incompetent they need 4-wheels to stay upright.” From where I wobble now, I think that was amazingly good advice. </p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-46511164551278552772023-10-10T11:47:00.001-05:002023-10-10T11:47:18.775-05:00Noisy Kids Who Go Nowhere<p>I was sitting in my backyard, mostly enjoying the quiet country environment, but being intermittently blasted by various noise machines: motorcycles, jacked up pickups, sportscar-poser Honda Civics, totally illegal-for-street-use ATVs, and other noisy toys. After the umpteenth laughable Hardly yard implement passed by, I started thinking about the two motorcycles I've owned with aftermarket exhaust systems and the one with a hacked up stock pipe.</p> <p>Back in 1993, I bought a like new <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/bikes-ive-owned-and-loved-a-lot-or-a-little-1992-yamaha-tdm-850/" target="_blank">1992 Yamaha TDM</a> from a doctor. I have no idea what he thought a TDM was, but he had spiffed it up with a custom Corbin seat, a Kerker pipe, and some nice luggage. By the time I got home, less than 20 miles later, I went to work replacing the Kerker with the stock pipe (which had been included in the sale). I found a victim for the Kerker with an ad at my local Yamaha shop and got $250 back from my sale price.</p> <p>A few years later, I bought a barely used <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/my-motorcycles-1999-suzuki-sv650/" target="_blank">Suzuki SV650</a> from a kid in a Michigan suburb. A friend in Ohio picked up the bike and I took a train to his place to ride it home. The SV  had a Two Brothers pipe and by the time I had ridden the 800 miles back home I was ready to remove the Two Brothers pipe with a sledgehammer. Again, I found a dumbass in Minneapolis who sold me a stock SV pipe for $25 and another dumbass who paid me $250 for the Two Brothers.</p> <p>My last loud pipe experience was with my <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2017/03/27/bikes-ive-owned-and-loved-a-lot-or-a-little-yamaha-wr250x-supermoto/" target="_blank">Yamaha WR250X</a>. That bike's original owner was a nitwit who took a hacksaw to the last 4 inches of the stock pipe. Having totally screwed up the fuel injection mapping, the bonehead also removed a chunk of the air box and the air filter in a failed attempt at regaining some kind of performance. Again, I found a dumbass on Craigslist who sold me a stock WR pipe for $25 and someone on Facebook who sold me the entire WR air intake system for another $25. </p> <p>In all three of these instances—two carbureted motorcycles and one fuel injected—returning to stock not only quieted the motorcycle down it improved the performance. I'm not saying that an aftermarket pipe <em>can't</em> improve performance, but I'm saying most of the idiots who diddle with aftermarket pipes are too lame to do all of the dyno, rejetting, intake redesign, and fuel mapping work necessary to compensate for the reduced back pressure. </p> <p>In the case of the WR250X, I even had the opportunity to drag race multiple times in multiple situations a substantially lighter Rider on a WR250X with an aftermarket pipe, a power commander, and a hacked up intake system. Mostly, we determined that the two bikes were not measurably different power-wise, but the noise difference convinced the other rider to start looking for stock parts. Even riding side-by-side near his bike made my ear-plugged-ears ring. </p> <p>Now, back to today where I am listening to multiple mediocre-at-best motorcycles blubbering as loudly as a freight train, ridden (to use that word loosely) by total unskilled idiots disturbing the peace for no reason other than their obvious personal insecurities. This isn't a brand new thought, but it is one that has occurred to me repeatedly through this summer: I think it is a safe bet that damned few of the people with loud exhaust systems <em><strong>ever go anywhere</strong></em> on or in their vehicle.</p> <p>I'd be willing to put some money on that, in fact.</p> <p>From a bunch of years of accumulating odometer readings on motorcycles up for sale on Craigslist around the country, it's pretty obvious that the more crap someone piles onto a motorcycle the less likely they are to actually ride it. My late step-brother was an example. He poured more money into his Harley then I have invested in all of the cars and motorcycles I've owned in my life. Seriously. And for him, a trip from one end of Springfield, Missouri to the other was “a long ride.”</p> <p>In the several hundred thousand miles I have ridden motorcycles in my life, I ran into all kinds of people on the road, riding all sorts of motorcycles, and almost universally <em>the people who ride the most miles ride the quietest motorcycles</em>. Even some of the big mile characters on vintage motorcycles, where a stock pipe is only available from salvage yards, do their damnedest to keep exhaust noise at a minimum.</p> <p>There is nothing about the output from the exhaust pipe that tells you anything useful about the operation of the motor. In fact the less noise the exhaust makes, the more likely you are to be able to hear upcoming engine problems. More importantly, the pounding your ears take from excessive exhaust noise adds exponentially to the fatigue in a long day's ride. Obliterating what little information your ears can provide about hazards and traffic, doing permanent damage to your hearing, and adding to your distraction and fatigue is not conducive to putting in long (thousand mile) days.</p> <p>And usually, when I've been forced to talk to these noisy pipe characters I hear that they think a hundred miles is an excessive day. And lots of them are really proud of themselves for riding 20 miles to a bar, spending the afternoon drinking and eating, and wobbling their way back home. So along with knowing that the loud pipe character is an asshole, it's pretty safe to assume he or she is a wimp.</p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-32978502461669749142023-09-06T13:41:00.001-05:002023-09-06T13:41:40.643-05:00Why I Think They Are Wrong<p><font size="3" face="Arial">The constant reminder that the “</font><a href="http://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalcy_bias" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">Normalcy Bias</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial">” plagues motorcyclists into making fatal and foolish decisions is one of many reasons I decided my Motorcycle Safety Foundation (</font><a href="http://www.msf-usa.org" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">MSF</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial">)/Minnesota Motorcycle Safety Center(MMSC) instructor career was not worth continuing. Years ago (2006), I wrote one of my all-time favorite essays, “</font><a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2023/09/06/54-panic-reactions/" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">Panic Reactions</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial">,” where I described a phrase I came to use almost as often as “good job” in my motorcycle safety classes, "Every panic reaction you have on a motorcycle will be wrong." As part of my answer to every question a student might have had would be my constant hunt for “escape routes.” The latest version of the MSF’s Basic Rider Course (BRC) de-emphasizes risk to the point that instructors were reprimanded for talking about things like escape routes. There, of course, is a reason for that: 1) The MSF is owned by the Motorcycle Industry Council (</font><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwilsd35vZaBAxX-g4kEHcfyBRMQFnoECDAQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmic.org%2F&usg=AOvVaw37XvRzoNq-y9Jvmjt2jhcK&opi=89978449" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">MIC</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial">) and their overwhelming incentive is to put butts on seats; 2) The MMSC is funded by motorcycle license endorsements and their overwhelming incentive is to make it easy for anyone in the state to obtain and retain an endorsement. Years ago, I was asked to present a “This I Believe” talk to the Unitarian Universalist society to which my wife and I belonged and what I believe in is that “</font><a href="https://theratseyeblog.blogspot.com/2018/06/incentives-are-everything.html" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">Incentives Are Everything</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial">.” Sadly, I find absolutely no evidence that humans are anything more than a slightly evolved animal and that 99.99…% of human activity can be explained by self-interest and incentives. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">I get why the </font><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwilsd35vZaBAxX-g4kEHcfyBRMQFnoECDAQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmic.org%2F&usg=AOvVaw37XvRzoNq-y9Jvmjt2jhcK&opi=89978449" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">MIC</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial"> is uninterested in actual motorcycle safety. Like every corporation on the planet today, today’s profits over-ride any future self-interest; you gotta satisfy those “</font><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/private-equity-deadspin/" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">equity investors</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial">” first and everything else be damned. The MSF’s mission statement is pretty clear, “<b>MSF is the country's leading safety resource and advocate for motorcyclists</b>. We create world-class education and training systems for riders of every experience level. We raise public awareness of motorcycling to promote a safe riding environment.” “Public awareness” is not motorcycling’s main problem: incompetent motorcyclists is overwhelmingly the biggest problem, illegal noise is second, and a close third is the outright hostility toward the motorcycle gangs that largely represents motorcycling in the public eye. Neither of the two groups I was once associated with have a reason to care about those problems. The state’s civil servants are all old enough that they’ll be long retired before any change happens and the MIC’s executives will be long golden parachuted out when the economics behind US motorcycling finally drops the coffin lid on motorcycles and public roads. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">In the past couple of months, I’ve had to listen to at least a dozen motorcyclists and ex-motorcyclists describe their “</font><a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/do-you-suck/" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">had to lay ‘er down</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial">” stories. Not a one of those fairy tales was even slightly believable. If you can’t competently use your brakes, you sure as hell can’t pull of that stuntman bit, but what you can do is panic, scream, and fall over and, then, make up some bullshit story about how you planned it all and it either worked out or didn’t. At least three of the goobers telling me their sob story were hobbled for life from their motorcycle episode. Even they imagined doing something other than simply and stupidly fucking up and falling down when they crashed and disabled themselves. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">Back to the “normalcy bias,” one of my favorite books (and podcasts) is <em><a href="https://youarenotsosmart.com/all-posts/" target="_blank">You Are Not So Smart</a></em> and the chapter on normalcy bias describes people frozen in their seats as a crashed airliner catches fire and burns down around them, while their brains chant “this can’t be happening, everything is normal” until the air is sucked from their lungs and they are fried or blown to pieces. The only way to avoid being trapped by your disbelief is to prepare in advance, to consider the options in a disaster, to look for escape routes, and to think about the steps necessary if escape becomes necessary. Every place you go and everything you do should be accompanied by this process, especially in Crazyville, USA where the NRA has armed every nitwit, fanatic, and <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12466883/Proud-Boys-Joe-Biggs-sentence.html" target="_blank">pissed-off momma’s-boy</a> <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjXtpCpypaBAxU3kIkEHZyKDYYQFnoECA4QAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newyorker.com%2Fculture%2Fcultural-comment%2Fthe-rage-of-the-incels&usg=AOvVaw3kVlp0glpABbPHGdkThWW0&opi=89978449" target="_blank">incel</a> with enough weapons to empty an auditorium. On the highway, an intelligent motorcyclist knows that bicyclists and pedestrians are the only road users who present <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2021/06/10/start-seeing-unicorns/" target="_blank">a lower threat than a motorcycle and, as such, we’re invisible</a>. The only protection we have are escape routes and a vehicle capable of using them <em>[sorry cruiser and trike guys, you’re likely dead since your invalid bike can barely manage asphalt]</em>. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">You could argue that riding while constantly worrying about being run over by a distracted, incompetent, and/or angry cager takes all the “fun” out of riding a motorcycle. You could delude yourself into imagining that <a href="https://www.motorcyclecruiser.com/rural-roads-more-dangerous-urban-says-nhtsa-study/" target="_blank">riding rural highways minimizes those risks</a>. The only real protections you have are your skills, your preparation, and luck. [<em>Never discount luck.</em>] An insurmountable obstacle for me to consider continuing my “safety instructor” career was the organizations’ discounting risk in favor of “more butts on seats.” I love motorcycling and motorcyclists (not bikers, they aren’t the same people) and my life was greatly enhanced by 60 years on a motorcycle, but filling the roster with untrained, unprepared, and unskilled riders is going to kill this form of transportation and I don’t want to be part of that. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">The best guess is that <a href="https://settelawoffice.com/articles/motorcycle-accidents-cost-us-16-billion" target="_blank">motorcycle crashes cost the US economy $16B</a> and <a href="https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-size/motorcycle-bike-parts-manufacturing-united-states/" target="_blank">the entire US motorcycle industry produces a gross income of about $5.6B in 2022</a>. The damned industry and our idiot licensing systems and godawful training approach produces an income that is not-quite 1/3 of the cost of motorcycling to the nation. In comparison, the <a href="https://www.zippia.com/advice/automotive-industry-statistics/" target="_blank">automotive industry produces $1.53T in gross income</a> and <a href="https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/traffic-crashes-cost-america-billions-2019" target="_blank">the cost of automotive/truck crashes is about $340B</a>, or one-fourth the national revenue from cars and trucks. Any half-rational nation would start purging motorcycles from public roads a few minutes after absorbing those numbers. We are closer to half-witted than half-rational, but that just means it will take longer to happen. But it will happen. </font></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-91327428929893004072023-07-10T15:08:00.001-05:002023-07-10T15:08:52.218-05:00VBR 5 and Me<p><font size="3" face="Arial">A while back, </font><a href="http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2016/10/motorcyclist-gets-it-right.html" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">Andy Goldfine</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial"> invited me to be a guest storyteller at the 5th Very Boring Rally (Aerostich’s 40th anniversary). I have had a long, enlightening, and valuable friendship, first with Aerostich, and, after I moved to MN in 1996, with Andy. </font><a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2011/05/what-you-missed-yesterday.html" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">I bought my first ‘Stich gear in 1983</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial">, after moving to California from Minnesota. I wore that suit until I replaced it with a </font><a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2009/02/product-review-aerostich-darien-jacket.html" target="_blank"><font size="3" face="Arial">Darien in 2008</font></a><font size="3" face="Arial">, not long before I rode my V-Strom to Alaska. Mostly from when I moved to Minnesota, my collection of ‘Stich gear has grown steadily and every product I purchased from the company exceeded my expectations along with the company’s legendary customer service. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">I was the first speaker in the VBR5 series and I didn’t have high expectations for a turnout. Andy and his marketing team must have over-hyped me substantially; or the draw of a free lunch overcame a fair number of motorcyclists’ better judgement. We had a nice crowd of about 15 rider/spectators and nobody threw tomatoes or other produce at me. Some disagreements, especially on the AGAT propaganda, but I’m used to that. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">The industry has changed a lot since my first experience with a Roadcrafter and US motorcycling is either in serious decline or at a moment of serious change. In 2022, Honda sold 17M+ and a peak of 22M unit/motorcycles in 2018 worldwide, but on 32,000 of those in 2022 were US sales (0.19% of total motorcycle sales). When the US motorcycle market crashed in 2007, the worst year of the US recession only amounted to about a 0.05% drop in world motorcycle sales. The average age of a US motorcyclist has increased nearly one year each year for the past couple of decades. When the Hardly/chopper Boomer boom ends, which will be damned soon, something is going to pop. With the insane <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/motorcycle-accident-statistics/" target="_blank">public costs of motorcycle crashes</a> “the GAO further found that motorcycle crashes’ total direct measurable costs were approximately $16 billion.” The fact that the total USA motorcycle market had an estimated 2022 revenue of $6.24b USD out to be a total wakeup call for the public who foot the bulk of that $10B in totally unjustified taxpayer expense. If you add up the drunk riders, the unlicensed riders, the reckless riders, the unprotected riders, and the uninsured (medical and/or vehicle) riders, you are looking at a responsibility-free recreational vehicle that is ripe for recreational vehicle status and a public road banishment. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">There is, finally, the beginnings of a couple of responsible motorcyclist organizations; since the AMA vacated that for the marketing riches of being <a href="https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/after-two-firings-and-a-resignation-the-amas-dc-office-is-nearly-unstaffed" target="_blank">nothing more than an industry spokesbabbler</a>. <a href="https://bonpote.com/en/the-5-basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/" target="_blank">Stupid</a> crap like this Rick Gray side-stepping shuffle-dance (<a title="https://www.nonoise.org/resource/trans/highway/motorcycles/ama.htm" href="https://www.nonoise.org/resource/trans/highway/motorcycles/ama.htm">https://www.nonoise.org/resource/trans/highway/motorcycles/ama.htm</a>) is typical of the AMA’s uselessness. However, both Andy’s <a href="https://www.ridetowork.org/" target="_blank">Ride to Work Day campaign</a> and <a href="https://smarter-usa.org/about-smarter/" target="_blank">SMARTER</a> (Skilled Motorcyclist Association–Responsible, Trained, and Educated Riders) are trying to bring motorcycling as a reasonable transportation alternative, along with the responsibilities associated with that privilege, up front and personally. It might be too little, too late but it’s also better late than never time. </font></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-23871614582265740012023-02-07T14:57:00.001-06:002023-02-07T14:57:17.865-06:00The Things We Get Used To<p><font size="3" face="Arial">I am a lurker with a bunch of local motorcycle guys who pass on rumors and facts about motorcycles and motorcycling. The latest batch of bqack-and-forth was about Hardly’s LiveWire sales; or lack of sales (569 motorcycles last year). Yesterday’s conversation was punctuated with a quote, <font face="Arial"><font size="3">“<a href="https://www.webbikeworld.com/why-livewire-motorcycles-arent-selling/" target="_blank">At highway speeds, no real motorcycle gets more than 100 miles of range</a>.” </font></font></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial"><font face="Arial"><font size="3">I figured that the WebBikeWorld.com scribbler must have been talking about EV “real motorcycles?” Motorcycle repeaters just seem to become dumber and less literate every decade. <font size="3" face="Arial"><font face="Arial"><font size="3">I know at least one Zero owner who would disagree with that claim. He commutes 140 miles from the mountain desert to San Clemency several times a week on a 2020 Zero somethingorother. (Don’t know the model.) That rider was pretty jazzed about fuel savings, and bragged about it often, until his electric bills went through the ceiling in the last year. You’d think everyone in southern California would be powering their homes/vehicles with solar, but I guess not. </font></font></font></font></font></font></p> <p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">At least from my fixed-income and old fart vantage point, the price of EV vehicles is still an overwhelming obstacle for most everyone but the idle rich. But that is kind of true for motorcycles over 650cc in general. <font size="3" face="Arial">For example, the 80hp LiveWire S2 at $15k is their “cheap” EV bike, while $30k for the LiveWire One was priced for Jay Leno and his buddies. </font></font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">As a reference bike that I might consider (if I were a decade younger), at about $12k Suzuki’s 2023 V-Strom 800DE is packed with features, 85hp, a 280 mile range, a Quickshifter, ABS (switchable), three riding performance modes, four traction-control settings, and low RPM assist. Comparing that to the LiveWire S2 still seems like a no-brainer. In every important category, except carbon emissions, the ICE bike wins. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">But that is not the point of this rant. To me, $12,000 seems like a <em><strong>LOT</strong></em> of money for a motorcycle. $30,000 is an insane amount of money to spend on a freakin’ toy. And, for 99.99…% of motorcyclists, a motorcycle it’s used so rarely it barely qualifies as a toy. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">I’m still stuck where any motorcycle costing more than $3k is “too expensive.” Since 1982, all 10 of my street bikes have cost less than $3,000 (most were under $2k) and, while they were all “used,” most of the were barely broken in after 2-10 years with their original owners. Granted, my current motorcycle is a 2012 250cc “beginner’s bike” that had 700 of climate-controlled-garage-stored miles on the odometer after 10 years with the original owner and the TU250X wasn’t expensive new ($4,100). Before my street bike period, all of my dirt bikes cost less than $1100, with a brand new Suzuki RL250 being the most expensive of the bunch (at $1100 in 1974) and the rest costing less than $500, including a new 1974 Rickman ISDT125 and my wife’s new 1975 Yamaha MX100. Those were my first and only new motorcycles and I’d been riding for a decade before that. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">My most expensive <strong><em>car</em></strong>, so far, as been $9000 (a used 1988 Nissan Pathfinder in 1994 and our current 2012 Honda CRV). Most of my cars have been under-$2500 beaters and lots of them were under-$500 60’s and 70’s VW Beatles. The most I’ve ever paid for a freakin’ <em>house</em> was $104k in 1997 and our current home cost $88k in 2015 (a repo bank sale by the dumbest bank in recent US history, Wells Fargo). Any vehicle that costs a significant percentage of a house is nuts. But a motorcycle? Not even if I had Keanu Reeve’s money or Leno’s. </font></p></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-29191382977217218032022-12-14T21:31:00.001-06:002022-12-14T21:31:08.781-06:00My Favorite Boots<p>Way back in 1995, when I lived in Colorado and was just getting into watching national observed trials I bought a pair of expensive motorcycling touring boots from Ryan Young’s booth at a US National event near Colorado Springs. I’ve written about these boots before; <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2017/10/product-review-gaerne-goretex-boots.html" target="_blank">Gaerne Goretex Boots</a>. I’m not going to rehash the fantastic quality of <a href="http://www.gaerneboots.com/" target="_blank">Gaerne footwear</a>. I’ve done that before. Nothing the company makes today is anything like my boots. When I finally got around to reviewing these boots in 2017, they were already long out of production. </p> <p>Not long before we moved to Red Wing, I bought a pair of Merrill winter boots. Warm, insulated, waterproof with a rubber outer shell, and sort of fragile. They lasted a half-dozen winters, with occasional use mostly when I was shoveling the driveway. But they pretty much self-destructed in the closet and came to pieces when they finally died. </p> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1cK7274LZ7CN7ciHV1rMHoQYjdTRgEmsb"><img title="" style="float: left; display: inline; background-image: none;" border="0" alt="" src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1e-XOGlNIni5Kn6QtfcOMGEjG4vSY3QTp" width="244" align="left" height="213" /></a> <p>I’d forgotten that I was winter-bootless until the first snow storm of the season. We got about 6” of heavy wet snow in early December and I needed to clear the driveway that evening so I could get my wife to a doctor’s appointment early the next morning. It was about 10<sup>o</sup>F outside and still blowing snow. Everything in my closet is moderate-to-warm weather footwear, except my old Gaerne boots. They still fit, they’re still waterproof and relatively warm, and the Vibram soles grip the frozen ground just fine. </p> <p>These boots are almost 30-years-old and in many ways as good as new. They fit me like an old, well-broken-in glove. I suspect they will be in my closet until my kids clear out our estate. </p></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-57417702391775194962022-11-20T13:01:00.001-06:002022-11-20T13:01:55.952-06:00Did A Shoe Just Drop?<p><em><a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=103MZEP6lgvc2PLghl4G4JoK2nP3Rl3z3"><img title="Rider's Digest logo" style="float: right; display: inline; background-image: none;" border="0" alt="Rider's Digest logo" src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1wSjs58h76YklVUVZl0AY9L4Azez2U1sS" width="193" align="right" height="192" /></a> <p>Way back in May of 2022 (which seems like years ago now only 6 months later) my friend, editor, and co-conspirator from England Dave Gurman, had the crazy idea that there might be a market for a 25th anniversary coffee table book version of the <a href="http://www.theridersdigest.co.uk/" target="_blank"><em>Rider’s Digest</em></a><em> magazine. He sent out a call to many of the people who had written for the magazine for pictures, articles, and art. This is the essay I submitted. Dave was hoping for enough advance subscriptions to pay, in advance, for the book but it didn’t happen and the idea, like many brilliant ideas, died from lack of finances.</em> </p> </em></p> <p> <p>In early 2019, Ms. Day and I went on a cruise with some friends to check out the Panama Canal, a few of the Caribbean Islands, Costa Rica, and living like rich people with little-to-no responsibility and more food than we could ever hope to eat; but I gave it (the food) a good try. As it turned out, that was a high point or the tail-end of a long peak. Less than a month after we came home to –20<sup>o</sup>F Minnesota, a pickup with a frozen and dead battery, and several feet of snow in the driveway, old age landed on me like a Hulk-tossed bus. Driving through the Twin Cities to see a friend’s going-away concert, the world suddenly got really complicated when the single freeway exit lane drifted into two shifting lanes; one over the other, sometimes. I picked the right one, managed to get us off of the freeway, out of traffic and stopped, but that was the beginning of a year of instability and loss. </p> </p> <p>Over the next eight months, I went from being moderately optimistic about being able to carry on my usual physical activities to wondering how soon I’d end up like my father at the same age. At 75 he was trapped in his house, spending most of his days less than a foot from a big screen television, watching sports and trying to make out what was happening. That was the last 15 years of his life. After years of being an invalid, the culprit was found to be myasthenia gravis (MG), “ a chronic autoimmune, neuromuscular disease that causes weakness in the skeletal muscles,” according to Google and the Mayo Clinic. Supposedly, MG is not hereditary, but my father was diagnosed with MG at about the same age as me now and I’m suspicious of that theory since that’s my problem, too. </p> <p>Just before the season began in 2019, when it became obvious that I wouldn’t be able to reliably perform many or most of the demonstrations for the MSF courses that I’d been teaching for 18 years, I resigned as a Minnesota state “motorcycle safety instructor.”  I put the instructor-bit in quotes, because the state/US training/testing/licensing is now so dumbed-down that it is pointless and exists solely to put butts on seats, regardless of skill or physical ability. It was a good time to quit, the money was good but the mission and purpose was nonexistent. </p> <p>The previous summer, <a href="http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-end-of-era.html" target="_blank">I sold my beloved and highly personalized 2004 650 V-Strom</a> to a young man who was the perfect next owner. (Usually, I claim not to “love” any inanimate object, but my V-Strom was as close to a trusted friend as any “thing” in my long life.) Just before a 2018 trip to Canada, I’d discovered that my upper body strength was no longer up to the task of manhandling a 450 pound motorcycle. After installing new tires, I was backing the bike into my garage when I let the bike tip slightly away from me and it dropped hard against a retaining wall and the driveway. I was totally unable to slow the fall, let alone save it. I busted as much plastic (and confidence) in that no-speed incident as I did crashing at 60mph on Canada’s Dempster Highway in 2007. </p> <p>It was a sad wake-up call, a reminder that, at 70, I was on the far end of the rapid downhill side of the “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3940510/" target="_blank">strength and muscle-mass loss with aging</a>” curve. In 2018, I had some hope that I could cling to motorcycling on my 2008 Yamaha WR250X but, by early 2020, MG put an end to that. I didn’t have much faith, in the spring of 2020, that I would ever again be able to competently ride a motorcycle. Double-vision meant that there was no chance could I pass my “<a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/creating-a-baseline/" target="_blank">baseline</a>” competency test. So, I sold the WR in April and I was motorcycle-less for the first time in 40-some years and remained without a motorcycle for the longest period in almost 60 years. </p> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1ZJWhYklZud0X-3Jz0ucerHG07tDcAbb3"><img title="" style="float: left; display: inline; background-image: none;" border="0" alt="" src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1dLcvL8XlERekwBMOyoodRK3Li7mtlSdH" width="244" align="left" height="178" /></a> <p>My substitute bike has been a Radpower Rover eBike that my grandson handed down to me in late 2018, after he pretty much trashed it riding through one long, road salt-saturated Minneapolis winter. Even that bike pushed my competency  in low-light situations or when I was tired. “Fortunately,” my MG symptoms are primarily ocular (my left eye involuntarily wanders and closes at inopportune times). The “fortunate” part is that my neurologist has, so far, been able to beat back the symptoms with prednisone and assorted immune system suppressants. But it took a while, more than a year in fact. As of today, I am sort-of-back and have been for a little less than a year. </p> </p> <p>[<em>A perverted use of the word “fortunately” is something that I’ve heard a lot of in the past 3 years: “If you’re are going to suffer from myasthenia gravis, ocular symptoms are the easiest to treat” and “Fortunately, if you are going to have cancer at your age, thyroid cancer is the one to have” and so on.</em>]</p> <p><img style="float: left; display: inline;" alt="https://geezerwithagrudge.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/2012-tu250x-2.jpg" src="https://geezerwithagrudge.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/2012-tu250x-2.jpg" width="331" align="left" height="175" />In late April, 2021, a Craig’s List search that I created six years earlier finally produced a hit: <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2021/04/28/maybe-not-the-end/" target="_blank">a 2012 TU250X for $2600 “practically brand new with 700 miles on it and not a scratch on it” and it was located less than 60 miles from my home</a>. Just a few days earlier I had written a <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2020/10/what-really-signals-end.html" target="_blank">whining blog entry about selling my Aerostich and Giant Loop gear</a>, assuming that I was not going to find a motorcycle to tempt me into testing the road and myself again. Turns out, Trump is right whining does get you what you want, at least, sometimes. I bought the bike, brought it home, immediately started farkeling it up and . . . it sat in the garage unridden for most of last summer. I put almost 2,000 miles on the eBike but barely managed to add another 700 miles to the TU’s odometer by the end of the season in 2021. </p> <p>Motorcycling was all about transportation for me. I rode to work almost every day for most of 40 years, unless I was driving a company vehicle. There were a lot of Colorado and Minnesota winters where I rode most of the year, too. Fewer toward the end than in the middle, though. After I retired in 2013, I still taught a fair number of motorcycle safety classes and if you don’t ride to your own motorcycle safety classes you’re a fraud, at best. For the first 5 post-retirement years, I took advantage of my location to travel by bike, but the decline in the functional need for both my traveling and commuting started to cut into my motorcycle miles even before MG clobbered me. </p> <p>Today, I’m 74, overweight but in otherwise fair physical condition, and the last three years feel more like a decade has past. Or more. If you’ve read anything from my <a href="http://geezerwithagrudge.com" target="_blank">GeezerwithAGrudge.com</a> blog, you know I’m hyper-critical of bikers and other marginally-skilled people wobbling through the world on two wheels. That applies to me, too. After this layoff, my physical problems (especially MG), and the fact that I am freakin’ ancient, I am critical and suspicious of my capabilities and skills. My wife is just getting used to me being around the house, after 55 years of marriage to a wandering workaholic, and she’s really not interested in caring for a crippled-up old man who busted himself to bits unnecessarily on a motorcycle. I’m not anxious to become that maimed idiot, either. </p> <p>At the moment, I have a nice collection of mostly-healed busted bones, torn muscles and ligaments, and scars from head-to-toe and while they often remind me of impending weather changes they don’t keep me from doing stuff. My last significant injuries took a long while to heal and they still bother me more than way worse stuff that happened 20-40 years ago. For most of my life, my planned solution for any sort of fatal illness diagnosis, overwhelming mental illness, or any kind of lingering end-of-life boredom was “buy a faster motorcycle.” Turns out, the problem with that plan is that you need to be able to ride well enough and fast enough for that to be a confident solution. Today, I’m just trying to figure out how to get myself back on the saddle. </p> <h6><b><i>All Rights Reserved © 2022 Thomas W. Day</i></b></h6>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-37536265962867079902022-11-09T14:26:00.001-06:002022-11-09T14:26:15.265-06:00Before #1: Geezers on Beemers: (AKA: Steamboat Springs 1997)<p> </p><p><img align="right" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEhs-xEhcvZSqpes-CJFmKk90XjqYlqHL7IPzFoN-ELyIAdoPKyERI3bi5wNi9pbzzfCb-GqQtt8hzQh3OxnULWB9iJVduncRwz8RA0PbkZSHnr5aftQ0N8FEb_Bv7qp23ALK3NkppvmAsr2QGCBHjLxddqvhyphenhyphenugiMpAUb3tfSm8HAFuecfu11RFGwQcPXHKkmHtZJxhC0jHVjX6Qqj03LJE25a8uQ=s0-d" style="display: inline; float: right;" />All Rights Reserved © 1997 Thomas W. Day </p><p>[<i>For the last many years, I’ve said Geezer #1 "</i><a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2013/05/1-what-are-we-riding-for-original-from.html" target="_blank"><i>What Are We Riding For? (The original, from whence The Geezer came from October 1999</i></a><i>" was the first thing I ever wrote for Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly magazine. I wasn’t lying, I was just wrong. I have been working on a Wikipedia entry for the magazine and as part of that I researched as much as I could find about the magazine’s history. In the process, I read through a bunch of old MMMs, sorted my own collection by date, and discovered that in the Winter 1997 M.M.M. #14 issue there was an “On the Road” article. . . by me. This article, in fact. While I absolutely remember the trip, sort of, I absolutely did not remember even knowing about MMM before 1999. Turns out, that was wrong, too. In September 1998, I contributed “Look Ma, No Feet!” an article about the 1998 US Observed Trials event in Duluth. So, now the story I’ve been telling myself and everyone else about my history with MMM is bullshit and I do NOT know what the truth is.</i></p><p><i>The version that follows is what I submitted. Unlike lots of the stuff I wrote for MMM, this article was edited quite a bit, but I’m too lazy to pick out what was different in the magazine’s version.</i>]</p><p>Every year, since I moved out of Colorado, my expedition to the Steamboat Springs Vintage Motorcycle Week gets a little tougher. Last year, I flew to Denver, borrowed a friend’s Honda Hawk, and nearly missed my flight home when my luggage fell off of the Hawk in the middle of traffic on I-70, spreading my belongings and plane ticket all over Colorado. This year, I decided to ride the whole 2,400 miles. Next year, I may try walking.</p><p>My bike is a ’92 Yamaha TDM, which is a weird cross between a crotch rocket and a dirt bike. It’s probably the closest thing Japan will ever come to importing a Paris-Dakar style bike to the US. Out of some weird allegiance to my dirt biking past, I put dual-purpose tires on the bike this past winter. Because of that strange heritage and hardware, I actually hoped to do some real cross-country touring this trip. Some people do not get wiser as they get older.</p><p>Because I had a few days of vacation to burn up, I left for Denver early Sunday morning, September 7<sup>th</sup>. Steamboat’s Vintage Motorcycle Week was September 10 to the 14<sup>th</sup>. The start of my planned route was diagonally across Minnesota, via highways 169 and 60, to Sioux City. Early in the day I passed the Mennonite settlement of Mountain Lake, MN, where there is a "phone museum" and other exciting attractions. I’d always thought of Mennonites as hardworking, honest types, but this place had to be their equivalent of a Florida swamp real estate scam. There is no no mountain and no lake, as far as I could see, anywhere near Mountain Lake. I have a new sort of respect for Mennonites.</p><p>I stopped in Heron Lake for my first fuel stop. I discovered, by drenching my bike and feet in gas, that the fuel shutoff was defective. With the helmet and ear plugs in place, I nearly dumped two gallons of gas on the ground before I noticed I was creating a Super Fund site. From here out, I did my trip documentation after filling the tank. It didn’t surprise the lady at the counter though. She said, "that side don’t register, this side does," when I told her about the screwed up pump. I kept an eye on the mirror, as I left town, half hoping for a mushroom cloud to compensate me for the wasted fuel.</p><p>Just south of Worthington, I tailed a yuppie in a Range Rover who showed no fear of Iowa’s CHP. He got me through that mind-numbing state in record time. I stopped at an interstate rest stop in Iowa where an old lady with a highway department uniform told me "I used to be in the bidnez worl’, that’s why I’m workin’ here." I thought she meant the business world ruined her life, but she was just working for the exercise. Go figure. Just south of Sioux City, I hooked up to highway 77 and to some even less regularly maintained roads.</p><p>I used to live in north eastern Nebraska and I mistakenly thought that gave me some ability to pick my way across the state. I ended up on a newly graveled road, about 10 miles north of North Bend, that was terminated by a large crane and a missing section of road. When I stopped to look at the construction damage, my wheels sunk past the rims. My next short cut took me though about 5 miles of really deep gravel and sand. By the time I escaped that desert riding experience, my front fender had a 3" hole pecked into the back side and my chain picked up about an inch of slack.</p><p>After relocating asphalt, I picked up 30 at North Bend and headed west. I failed the "will to live" test and stopped for a hamburger in Columbus, NE (Actually, I figured that ought to be the safest place in the US for a beef-eater, after that city’s most recent 15 minutes of fame.) Making up for lost time, I stuck with 30 to Grand Island and jumped to I-80. By the time I got to Gothenburg, NE; 630 miles from home, I was wiped out. I stayed in a truckers’ motel that night and set the alarm for a 5:00AM takeoff.</p><p>Poor road maintenance almost bit me in the butt this morning. I had a low rear tire and thought I’d developed an oil leak when I stopped in Julesburg, CO. The tire was low, but OK. I washed the engine and discovered the oil leak was just chain lube that was heating up and dripping off of the engine cases. I promised my self I would watch my oil level and temp gauge carefully for the rest of that leg of the trip, just in case. I managed to hold to that promise all the way to Denver, about 120 miles. Later in the trip, my failure to extend this pledge to the whole journey would haunt me.</p><p>By noon Monday, 372 miles later, I was in Denver. You can’t see the mountains until you are about 55 miles from the city. Mountain cloud cover suddenly becomes mountains and the air seems cooler and fresher. The last 50 miles into Denver seem to go quickly and the horizon’s view is terrific.</p><p>When I stopped, my butt hurt. My kidneys were falling out in chunks. My bike needed about 10 hours of serious maintenance. Being the high tech, serious maintenance guy I am, I lubed and re-tensioned the chain, put duct tape over the hole in the fender, washed the bike, checked for loose hardware, washed my laundry, and hung out in a bar until Wednesday morning.</p><p>Six of us left my friend’s home for Steamboat Wednesday at about 8:30AM. We were probably the weirdest collection of motorcycles on the highway that morning: a Yamaha TDM (mine), two Honda new Magnas, a ’78 Kawasaki Scepter, and an ’83 Yamaha Venture. After a few miles, we strung out across the highway in a several mile long "touring pattern."</p><p>We intended to get to Steamboat by noon so we could catch a little of the dirt track speedway racing in Hayden that afternoon. We’ve made that plan five years in a row. Like the other years, this year we didn’t get to Steamboat until 1:30PM, our trip schedule was sabotaged by several coffee, fuel, and meal beaks. Some of the group, including me, thought the lodge’s hot tub looked more interesting than another 100 miles on the bikes. Those who stayed watched the clouds cruise the mountain tops and drank beer. Those who left got to Hayden just as the last of the racers were leaving and got caught in a short rain storm on the way back. I try to make each of my millions of mistakes only once.</p><p>The next day, I went to town by myself because none of my group was all that hip on the trials event. This is the sport with which I ended my 15 year off-road competition career. In fact, the years defined as the end of "vintage" were state-of-the-art just before I quit trying to luck into a trophy. Every once in a while, Steamboat makes me reconsider my constant fear of knee injuries and I think about buying a Bultaco Sherpa T or a Yamaha TY and doing a little cherry-picking. Steamboat’s vintage traps are almost all easy enough that a good rider could zero out on a street bike.</p><p>This is also the day where the "geezers on Beemers" sub-title for Steamboat really becomes appropriate. There seem to be an incredible number of retired executives, military officers, and other non-working class types doing the vintage-bike gypsy tour. They live in 40’ luxury campers and tow bike-trailer/work-shops that make my garage look puny and unequipped. A few of them even have trophy wives in tow. Since most of these guys are pretty near my age and I don’t have any of that stuff, I try not to make too many comparisons or I’ll get discouraged.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ7aP8QqxA8gJ5f-pp90jRRNpyv8yGLbD6f0Nu1UgHjW3d3nAUguRtuvbQZkq3RJlRYQNtfNnn-2dY7K013KZvxw1SO0uxI99StaURCgdp9OBV2PeTsXC2UeLApGBRSzg8uIPga91PFNW3vgfbVFkjUmmi745GzARUtYQ5bmn4pcdxBKliqTD6lEbmoA/s716/trials_hillclimb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="716" data-original-width="476" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ7aP8QqxA8gJ5f-pp90jRRNpyv8yGLbD6f0Nu1UgHjW3d3nAUguRtuvbQZkq3RJlRYQNtfNnn-2dY7K013KZvxw1SO0uxI99StaURCgdp9OBV2PeTsXC2UeLApGBRSzg8uIPga91PFNW3vgfbVFkjUmmi745GzARUtYQ5bmn4pcdxBKliqTD6lEbmoA/w144-h217/trials_hillclimb.jpg" width="144" /></a></div>I really get a kick out of seeing how many ancient bikes have been modified for trials. I didn’t even know BSA or Greeves made a 125 or that anyone was riding trials pre-WWII before my first trip to Steamboat. This is like a dirty, live-action museum with some dirty, active museum caretakers riding the exhibits. It rained a little about 10:00AM, just enough to send me back to the bike for my jacket. As soon as I had two arms full of stuff to carry, the weather got hot and I spent the rest of the morning sweating and grinding dirt into all of my body parts. I don’t know who won, probably some geezer with a collection of Beemers and a Yamaha TY in like-new condition.<p></p><p>Friday is vintage motocross day. Another of my favorite events. Again, I was up and out before the rest of the group. I spent the early morning walking through the pits, taking pictures, listening to experts talk about the history of various, long-dead motorcycle manufacturers. It’s still hard for me to reconcile Rickman, Bultaco, Ossa, Norton, BSA, and the rest of the deceased as being not only dead, but long dead. Seeing these bikes back in their prime, sometimes much better than prime, is a lot of retrospective fun.</p><p><a></a><a></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcz3A-OjJh27-L-q2eAi7Vh7xzT4XtV9KAtvqf0MPNzN7pBBDIQbfxX3jV129HkWmNfV3uherkyv1SWJb0u6T99kGrEs11DeoDiA9PeiY87ZLvYU89hU_6oJezg4DGc8yKIKj7duC22QlzMVM3YTHsjl6upVoD6olOUakzXjQTeGnxP6mgCRey1I19tg/s862/tdm_group.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="862" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcz3A-OjJh27-L-q2eAi7Vh7xzT4XtV9KAtvqf0MPNzN7pBBDIQbfxX3jV129HkWmNfV3uherkyv1SWJb0u6T99kGrEs11DeoDiA9PeiY87ZLvYU89hU_6oJezg4DGc8yKIKj7duC22QlzMVM3YTHsjl6upVoD6olOUakzXjQTeGnxP6mgCRey1I19tg/s320/tdm_group.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Speaking of dead-ends, three other TDM’ers showed up for Steamboat. We belong to an Internet mail-list for our bike and some of us have been writing each other for a couple of years without ever putting faces to names. I recognized a couple of the guys by their bikes. Yamaha orphaned the TDM after importing it to the U.S. for two years (1992-93). Most of us have done a lot of little things to personalize our bikes and it was fun getting to see the mods I’d been reading about. Everyone got a good laugh of the state of my front fender and the general condition of my bike compared to those whose owners, intelligently, avoid dirt roads. We experienced our "fifteen minutes of fame" when another biker recognized us as "those guys who met on the Internet." We took pictures, talked for a couple hours, and headed in four directions for the rest of the weekend.</div><p></p><p>The actual races are almost anticlimactic. It’s always a kick watching Dick Mann win. He was a Baja hero of mine when I was a kid. He’s still heroic at sixty-something. Dave Lindeman, a Denver fireman, put on a good show in the Open Twin Expert class, dueling and beating Rick Doughty’s zillion dollar Rickman/BSA on a cobbled up Yamaha XL650.</p><p>But lots of the actual races are pretty boring. There are wads of timid, over-forty wannabes who barely turn their bikes on in the straights and come to a lethargic near-stop at every corner. The race to the first turn is often more humorous than exciting. Everyone is so concerned with avoiding contact and a crash-and-burn that they barely make it to the turn, let alone work for a decent position on the other side. In the bulk of the races, there is rarely more than two half-decent racers. The other two dozen geriatric cases are nothing more than track obstacles when the fast guys start lapping them. The upside, for me, is that I regularly get pumped about buying an Elsinore and stealing a trophy. The downside is after making a couple of deep knee squats, I remember why the majority of the riders are going so slow. Getting old is hell. The body can’t even remember how to do what the brain told it to do.</p><p>Fairly late in the afternoon, the races are over. We cruise the streets of Steamboat, looking at bikes we will never own. This really is a BMW convention. I doubt there is a bike BMW ever made that isn’t represented here. Seems like there are more Harleys this year, too. Maybe that’s why the local paper doesn’t have a single word about the events. In years past, I could read about what I’d seen the previous day in the local rag. Not this year. There must be several thousand bikers in town and the only mention of motorcycles was when a local biker got smacked by local cager. It’s not like this is a pack of Outlaws, tearing up the bars and defiling local women. A pair of women, climbing out of a Jeep Cherokee on their way to lunch, asked one of my buddies if we were a "biker gang." He told them, "Yeah, after our nap, we’re gonna take this town apart!" That’s about the speed of everyone at Steamboat. Sedate. Old. Mostly intent on finding a good restaurant and a decent hotel. I guess we still found a way to scare them.</p><p>I didn’t cruise much Friday night. We really did find a great place to stay and I headed back, well before dark, to sit in the hot tub and watch the clouds and the mountains flare and fade in a crimson tinted sundown lightshow. Beer, a good book, a hot tub, and tired, old aching joints really go well together. If a local female stripped herself and jumped into my hot tub, I might have defiled her but I’d have more likely been pissed that she got my book wet. I bought my beer at the Clark Store, so I didn’t even have a chance to think about trashing a bar. I’m a pretty poor excuse for a biker, I guess.</p><p>Saturday is vintage road racing and the first opportunity we have to look at the concourse. We buy pit passes, which are $20, and head for the pits. I’m not much of a connoisseur of street bikes. In fact, I never paid any attention to street bikes at all until I’d been riding and racing for almost 15 years. I still don’t really know one cruiser or crotch-rocket from another. I don’t much care about cars either. But there are some really neat, loud noises coming from the pits and one of my friends has a great time describing all the bikes to me. I lecture on the dirt bike days, he does the street day.</p><p>About two hours into Saturday, I got bored. This is a terrible thing for a "reporter" to admit, but I’d have rather been riding than watching. When I fell asleep and lost track of where the rest of my group had gone, I decided it was time for me to hit the road. I’d planned on leaving that day, anyway, and it seemed like the time to do it. I wandered around the course for another hour, trying to find everyone, with no luck. I stuck a note on a friend’s seat and started getting ready for the long ride back to Minnesota.</p><p>Sunday is the modern road race. I have been going to Steamboat for 6 years and I’ve never stayed for the modern road race. My justification for leaving early is that I can watch modern crotch rocketing any weekend during the summer and I never do. Why blow a good day of riding watching someone else have a good day of riding? Like all the years past, I left on Saturday and missed the really fast guys. They’d just discourage me, anyway.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VTc4w6jagcZhZp_S0d58tbUoclgWpeN3uAcG67oaFjWuJ_QbNgvKn7bPsbV8czMrgILwDx2gs7Oww2ShaZ6z0G57Vu3qf7uuAYa7hvgMyutg8o3vzEqu5DMy0nXcHTkl-Hkpv3reGUjZq171fggASHq8T5T1-xf84727PV6L4KF5gh8eq-UWxspRsw/s872/tdm_in_sd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="518" data-original-width="872" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8VTc4w6jagcZhZp_S0d58tbUoclgWpeN3uAcG67oaFjWuJ_QbNgvKn7bPsbV8czMrgILwDx2gs7Oww2ShaZ6z0G57Vu3qf7uuAYa7hvgMyutg8o3vzEqu5DMy0nXcHTkl-Hkpv3reGUjZq171fggASHq8T5T1-xf84727PV6L4KF5gh8eq-UWxspRsw/s320/tdm_in_sd.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The real reason I wanted to leave early was that I wanted the extra riding time so I could go back the long way, through Wyoming and South Dakota. I retraced my trip into Steamboat back over Rabbit Ears Pass. About 30 miles east of Steamboat, I turned north on Colorado 14. This is one of the prettiest roads I’ve traveled in Colorado. It’s a neat combination of mountain plains and ranch land. The road isn’t particularly twisty, but it does curve its way through a beautiful section of the Rockies. The road is well maintained and completely unoccupied by cage or cop. I made good time to Walden, where I picked up 127 and continued north to Laramie, WY.<p></p><p>The scenery doesn’t stop when you leave Colorado. Good roads and great views all the way to Laramie, where I copped out and took the freeway (I80). After 300 miles of awesome two lanes, I80 was a complete bummer. But I stuck to it to Cheyenne, where I swapped freeways and took I25 north to Wheatland. I spent the night in Wheatland, at another truck stop. Leaving Steamboat early allowed me to knock off 250 unproductive (destination-wise) miles before I seriously head for home.</p><p>The actual route I took from Wheatland to Deadwood is up for discussion. I know I stayed on I25 for a few more miles to Wyoming 160. I know I swapped off of 160 to 270, because I had breakfast in Lusk, WY. I’m not sure I stuck with 270 all the way to Lusk, though. A good portion of that trip was on dirt roads. I mostly used the sun as a compass and tried to keep going north at every intersection. I popped out of the last section of dirt road on highway 85, just a few miles south of Lusk. I had been on reserve for about 30 miles when I filled up in Lusk. I’d like to tell you 270 to Lusk is a terrific road, well worth traveling, because it is. I’d like to tell you that I strongly recommend this route for the scenery and adventure, because I really enjoyed that aspect of the trip. The fact is, this is a route that requires a great suspension. The road (the real road, not the dirt road) is heavily traveled by farm equipment and is pretty rough. The TDM ate it up, but a crotch rocket or cruiser would deliver a severe pounding. You decide.</p><p>Leaving Lusk, I forgot to reinsert my ear plugs. Good thing. I heard several nasty noises and pulled over for a maintenance stop. You’ll probably notice that I haven’t mentioned maintenance since just before I pulled into Denver. I hadn’t done much since then. Another brain fart. The older you get, the more of them you’ll have. I discovered the front fender had a new hole, this one on the front, from poor tire-to-fender clearance and flung gravel. I pealed away pieces that were touching the tire and "fixed" that problem. I also discovered my chain was really wearing out fast, probably due to the off-road portions of the trip. It was actually hanging up at spots as they passed over the countershaft sprocket. I bought a can of WD40 and thoroughly cleaned the chain. I lubricated the chain and made some more promises to myself regarding maintenance.</p><p>The next section of the trip was sort of frightening, considering the condition of my bike. There is next to nothing between Lusk and Deadwood, 140 miles of nothing. There are some towns listed on the map, but they are barely bumps in the road. Some of them aren’t even that. But I took this route because I was bored with the trip across Nebraska and Iowa, so I figured it was worth continuing. Not that I had much of a choice.</p><p>Wyoming is a great state. I suppose every state has a motto. Nebraska blabs about some mystical "good life" that no visitor or resident has seen any sign of. Iowa yaks about "liberties" and "rights" and parks a cop on every road to make sure no one ever even dreams about freedom. Colorado’s "nothing without providence" is totally meaningless. But Wyoming is the "big country" and you don’t have to look far to find real cowboys just like the one on their license plate. Some of those cowboys drive farm trucks on highway 85. I only saw four vehicles on the road between Lusk and the South Dakota boarder. All of them were doing 90+ mph and they all waved when they went by me. I would have stayed with them, but I wanted to live through this section of the trip with chain intact. There is nothing, in any other part of this country, like the concept of "safe and reasonable" as a speed limit. It almost makes me feel like an American. Out there, Mamma Government is in short supply and nobody misses her.</p><p>The weather totally cooperated. From the beginning of this day until I hit the plains, just west of Wall, SD, the sky was clear, the temperature was in the low 70’s, and the wind was nonexistent. South Dakota’s Black Hills are a national treasure. South of Deadwood, 85 winds through the hills like the best Rocky Mountain highway. There are miles of twisty, narrow highway that parallels beautiful streams and cuts through wooded valleys and farm land. I could take a summer long vacation, traveling the roads of the Black Hills, and never grow even a little tired of it.</p><p>I made it to Deadwood in one piece. Stopped for gas, lubed the chain, washed the windshield, checked the tires, and thoroughly inspected the bike. Then I walked to the Deadwood Historical Society museum and wasted an hour looking at the coolest of western history. There are Harleys all over Deadwood. It’s only a few miles from Sturgis, which must account for all the heavy iron.</p><p>I still hadn’t eaten when I left Deadwood. I was making, and having, such good time that I couldn’t convince myself to waste any of the day in a restaurant. Slightly north of Deadwood, I struck interstate and there I stayed until Minnesota. Once you pass Wall, the home of Wall Drug, there isn’t much to say about South Dakota. Every diddly-butt town has some kind of tourist trap. None of them are worth stopping for. It’s not just that there’s nothing to see in those towns, there’s nothing to see in that part of South Dakota. It’s just miles and miles of flat, boring plains. Most of the state’s rest stops are "out of order," probably to force travelers to waste time and money in the state’s tourist traps. I stopped for gas at Wall, Chamberlain, and Sioux Falls. There isn’t much more to say about the space between any of those cities.</p><p>The wind was killer, once I passed Wall. It was 50+mph and I felt like I was making the world’s longest right turn. 420 miles of right turn. I wanted to make Sioux Falls by nightfall, but I was forced to take a stretch break every 50 miles. My arms, back, and butt were going numb and the road never seemed to end. I swear that some of the mileage signs increased the distance to Sioux Falls as I drove east.</p><p>The only break in the monotony comes a few miles before Chamberlain, SD. The Missouri River valley almost instantly changes the scenery. It takes you from flat, barren plains to green rolling hills in only a few miles. The river is awesome, especially after 200 miles of desolation. It’s as wide as a lake and as blue as an ocean. Unfortunately, 10 miles east of Chamberlain, I’m back in a windy desert. That evening, 650 miles from where I left that morning, I pulled into Sioux Falls and headed for a Super 8.</p><p>The next morning, I tried to sight-see in Sioux Falls but failed to find any interesting sights. I left town at about nine and headed for home. I repeated the original leg of the trip by exiting I90 at Worthington and take 60 to 169, through Mankato, and on to the Twin Cities.</p><p>I got home a little after noon. I popped the cap on a beer, filled up the hot tub, and fell asleep dreaming about high mountain passes, unlimited speed limits in Wyoming, and gorgeous snaky roads in the Black Hills. I woke up, sweating, later that night when the dream turned to wind blasted, straight and boring South Dakota interstate dotted with hundreds of Iowa Highway Patrol cars.</p><p><br /></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-52483227332633413432022-10-12T17:03:00.005-05:002022-11-16T10:47:51.561-06:00There Are Tires and There Are Tires<p><font face="Arial" size="3">Earlier this spring, a friend rode his Suzuki TU250X from Santa Fe to the west coast and back. On the way back, he got hammered by winds that were almost enough to exhaust that little single-cylinder 250 into a low gear and wore himself out keeping the bike on the road. Yesterday, I did a piddly 50-mile round-trip ride in my local area. On the way back, I experienced 30-40mph side and head winds and re-discovered the joys of skating on a motorcycle. The bike, literally, slides a foot or so across the lane when a big gust hits it strongly. It’s not that different from riding on loose gravel or even a sandy country road, but it’s a little disconcerting and definitely tiring after a few miles. And I wasn’t loaded up with a week’s worth of gear and camping gear, so my experience was a small sub-set of his on the high plains of Idaho. Still, it brought back a lot of memories about motorcycle tire evolution in my lifetime and experience. </font></p> <font face="Arial" size="3"> <p><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1Bkh3jBiEda60ZK7R5oHJ5AKrTRnjI9mO"></a></font></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1YcCchZrcNUPZgE0M82MjbbLG_5ULc80VK-jAuEH8kyhi7xc6slGfyfQBdFMkloYh_EtlR0GBC7xZquBaCdDLvg3sPddmzwx4KCbpI1otm9cuT2tfsTpgQqDFjYwcXZjWSDBmNk93EfD1ZL4nl1Gjyv59aNQEX4GfSyKZL6TGCmLCNtSbGWCSeXRkiw/s653/cx500.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="653" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1YcCchZrcNUPZgE0M82MjbbLG_5ULc80VK-jAuEH8kyhi7xc6slGfyfQBdFMkloYh_EtlR0GBC7xZquBaCdDLvg3sPddmzwx4KCbpI1otm9cuT2tfsTpgQqDFjYwcXZjWSDBmNk93EfD1ZL4nl1Gjyv59aNQEX4GfSyKZL6TGCmLCNtSbGWCSeXRkiw/s320/cx500.jpg" width="320" /></a></font></div><font face="Arial" size="3">When I bought my first street bike, <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2015/10/19/my-motorcycles-1980-honda-cx500/" target="_blank">a ‘80 Honda CX500</a>, I got my first taste of getting hammered by the wind <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2021/12/03/my-hardest-fastest-longest-ride/" target="_blank">when I rode that bike from Omaha to California in 1983</a> to start a new job. Between Omaha and western Kansas on my first day of the ride, I got my ass kicked by strong winds constantly blowing that oversized, under-powered boat from one side of the highway to the other. Since that bike had barely more than 1,000 miles on the odometer, I’m fairly certain it was still wearing the stock tires when I evacuated the Midwest for California. Probably 4-ply, bias-belted, symmetrically patterned tires like the ones in the Honda ad picture to the left and above. Those tires were consistently awful on waffle-steel bridges, gravel, newly paved roads with loose grit, wet surfaces, and any irregular surface. Not that great on regular surfaces, either. And, of course, the bike was more like a sailing ship than a land vehicle in the wind. </font><p></p> <font face="Arial" size="3"> <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6jnjVFOndlWVuerMBkXJMZ2PKSw90BfhP1aoZKIr2LXxU4nNhhjyytRpWSBQpK5ds6xguFM9LCbIJYHiGzOidJ3FfriSqh0BAs5l57lRK0h0EYW93oGMQrE46s69FjS839ZzBk86jNBDPboRiJg-ZuLfe6WdcczHVwfAFcZTDMuhdXobNmeDLvZp51w/s474/th-3730822470.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="474" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6jnjVFOndlWVuerMBkXJMZ2PKSw90BfhP1aoZKIr2LXxU4nNhhjyytRpWSBQpK5ds6xguFM9LCbIJYHiGzOidJ3FfriSqh0BAs5l57lRK0h0EYW93oGMQrE46s69FjS839ZzBk86jNBDPboRiJg-ZuLfe6WdcczHVwfAFcZTDMuhdXobNmeDLvZp51w/s320/th-3730822470.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Not long after arriving in California, I had to reshoe my bike and the first tires I remember making a difference were bias-belted <a href="https://www.dunlopmotorcycletires.com/tire-line/elite-3/" target="_blank">Dunlop Elites. The trick is increased contact patch, irregular grooves in the tire to move water away from the contact patch</a>, and the difference in the ride and stability was revolutionary. Most of the problems I complained about in the above paragraph vanished with the Dunlop shoes. Especially wet surface stability and grated bridges became mostly non-issues. And I stuck with those tires on all of my bikes except the two dual purpose bikes I owned for the next 8 years. The last bike to wear Elites was my <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2017/02/06/bikes-ive-owned-and-loved-a-lot-or-a-little-1983-yamaha-xtz550-vision/" target="_blank">XTX550 Yamaha Vision</a>. I moved from California to Indiana to Colorado with that bike and a <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/bikes-ive-owned-and-loved-a-lot-or-a-little-1986-yamaha-xt350-enduro/" target="_blank">Yamaha XT350</a> Enduro. <p></p> <p>Not long after moving to Denver (Parker, actually), I stumbled on to a killer deal on an <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2017/02/20/bikes-ive-owned-and-loved-a-lot-or-a-little-1992-yamaha-tdm-850/" target="_blank">850 Yamaha TDM</a> and that bike, owned by a doctor who farkled up the bike to the max but rarely rode it, came with Michelin radials. They were, as I remember, tires that I’d considered out of my budget up to then, but I don’t remember what model of tire they were. What I do remember is that the TDM was the most stable, sure-footed motorcycle I had ever ridden at speed on any surface. From that bike on, every motorcycle I’ve owned that could take a tubeless tire got high-end radials: from my TDMs to my <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2015/12/14/my-motorcycles-1999-suzuki-sv650/" target="_blank">SV650</a> to my <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/bikes-ive-owned-and-loved-a-lot-or-a-little-2004-v-strom-650/" target="_blank">V-Strom</a>. And all of those motorcycles and tires convinced me that weight, style, and the rest of the excuses motorcyclists use for “needing” a large, heavy, unwieldy motorcycle are clueless. </p> <p>But yesterday, back on a small motorcycle with old-fashioned bias belted tires, I was thrown back in time to the bad-old-days when tires were designed intuitively rather than using science and engineering. I have a pair tires in the garage waiting to be installed, but the miser in me wanted to get at least enough use out of the damn 10-year-old OEM Cheng-Shin CS Marquis Chinese junk to satisfy something-or-other waste-wise. Before writing this essay, I hadn’t really looked at the OEM tires. After writing “10-year-old OEM Cheng-Shin CS Marquis” I realized how stupid that argument is. Those tires were installed on the bike to protect the rims in shipping. No rational person would be dumb enough to ride a motorcycle on public roads wearing those sad faux-tires. </p> </font></font>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-81851376462224166192022-10-10T11:36:00.001-05:002022-10-10T11:36:53.067-05:00Life Is A Small Window<p><font size="3">Yesterday, I did something I haven’t done since sometime in mid-2018, I rode my TU250X about 50 miles from my small town home to the Twin Cities to meet a friend for lunch. I know that seems like a small thing and 5 years ago if someone like me described that as an “event” I’ve have worked hard to politely nod my head in acknowledgement without at least grinning a little. 10 years ago, I’d have laughed. I was/am an asshole, I know, but I did start calling myself a “geezer” (in a monthly publication and in this blog) when I was 50, so it’s not like that is some kind of sudden realization. For the most part, the 120 mile round trip was uneventful, in a good way. The TU is absolutely competent in normal city traffic and I’m still moderately competent, when my eyes are working correctly. My biggest problem yesterday was the fact that I’m definitely a lot more sensitive to light than I was pre-cataract surgery, so I’m stuck wearing glasses inside my full face helmet and face shield when the sun is out. Two sets of lenses puts some stress on my MG (myasthenia gravis) weakened left eye, which made managing double-vision symptoms difficult for a few miles. As soon as the sun went below the horizon and I could dump the glasses I was fine. </font></p> <p><font size="3">MG isn’t a curable disease. It will continue to plague me until it or something else puts me in the dirt. Yesterday was an anomaly from my last 4 years of life and, as such, it was a brief open window of freedom. People like me who have mostly skated through life without many injuries or problems that weren’t self-inflicted naturally forget that this life we enjoy and take for granted won’t last. Sooner rather than later, the window of life that we learn is “normal” when we are young begins to close and, if you are half-aware, you learn to appreciate the moments of fresh air that you still have. Yesterday’s ride was a true moment when that window opened and I was allowed to feel that “I’m not dead yet.” </font></p> <p><font size="3">In fact, riding home as the sun went down, there was a brief moment when the sun going down in a blaze of yellow, orange and red, blue and purple cloud cover on my right was spectacularly balanced by a huge, bright orange full harvest moon rising on my left. That lasted for about 5 miles and 5 minutes of when I rode along the ridge of two valleys before turning east and riding down into the Mississippi River Valley toward home. I got a glimpse of the moon just as I came down the last rise toward my home stretch, but after getting the bike parked, unwrapping myself from my ‘Stich, when I tried to show that natural wonder to my wife it was hidden behind cloud cover. Another brief window of life. </font></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-7529335940071445502022-08-26T10:05:00.004-05:002022-09-02T17:24:21.475-05:00Fuel Tests<p>In case you have any confusion about the quality of fuel produced by large amounts of agricultural welfare payments, check out this video on what ethanol does to aluminum and rubber parts: </p> <p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/UvS_D4_lF5U" title="YouTube video player" width="450"></iframe> </p> <p>This is pretty enlightening, too:</p><p></p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F-yDKeya4SU" title="YouTube video player" width="450"></iframe></p><p>
And, finally, a motorcycle guy tosses in his several cents: <br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/chsGBhB5g7o" title="YouTube video player" width="450"></iframe></span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: arial;">
With all of that said, I have been only marginally careful with my "end of season" fuel. I have used Stabil since the late 80's, anytime my bike is likely to be unridden for more than a few weeks. In my carb days, I often disassembled those damn pieces of plumbing for various reasons, mostly altitude changes. The inside of every one of my bike's carbs were spotless. Seriously, they shined like they'd been polished. The same goes for my snowblowers and lawnmowers. They are the only carbureted motors I own now and I do an inspection at the end of every season. I do try to keep non-ethanol, non-oxygenated fuel in those motors or run them out with Stabil in the last tank before I store them. </span></span><br />T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-11540398733745090072022-08-22T09:15:00.001-05:002022-08-22T09:15:01.242-05:00Boiling the Frog<p><font size="3" face="Arial"><img style="float: left; display: inline;" alt="Welcome: The Boiling Frog Story" src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F-avFDG4WLva8%2FTdB95e6VYnI%2FAAAAAAAAE2Q%2F3fD1SfdUeEk%2Fs1600%2FArt%2B%25257E%2BFrog%2BBoiling%2B%25257E%2Bby%2BTim%2BSheppard%2B%25257E%2B01-01.jpg&f=1&nofb=1" width="231" align="left" height="204" />I had my own special boiled frog moment this week and it reminded me of how easily we settle into to what we’re used to and how quickly we can compromise what we think we “like” or expect from things we use. I’ve been riding my 6-year-old ebike (a late-2016/early-2017 RadPower Rover) since my grandson trashed it badly enough to give it to me in late 2018 in pretty much barely-salvageable condition. He’d commuted in Minneapolis/St. Paul for the year he owned the bike, crashing on the icy roads often, doing little-to-no maintenance, and doing the Millennial thing of ignoring problems until they become insurmountable obstacles. (If I believed in an afterlife, I’d be looking forward to seeing how that characteristic plays out in the long run. I’m still betting on robots over humans.) Over a couple of 2018 winter months, I chased down the non-functional electronic causes, repaired and replaced a lot of obvious mechanical problems and broken parts, and got the bike back to working bit-by-bit. One aspect of getting familiar with a complicated product in that manner is that I sort of reset my expectations as each bit “came on-line.” </font></p> <font size="3" face="Arial"></font> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">Since that initiation, I’ve continued to upgrade the bike and maintain it, sometimes discovering problems that weren’t obvious to a newbie early on. The battery had been particularly abused by sub-zero storage and operating-temperature operation along with crash shocks. When I first started riding the bike, I was using the throttle a lot and, as a result, my range was fairly limited. Over the last 4,000 miles, I’ve learned to use the throttle sparingly and to count on the Pedal Assist System (PAS) to determine most of the bike’s power contribution. A couple of years ago, pre-Covid, I was making 40-50 mile trips on at least a monthly basis. In the last two years, a 20-25 mile trip had become my norm for a long ride, with most days in the 10-15 mile territory. Other than putting the bike chargers on a timer, I don’t do anything special to maintain the batteries. <p><font size="3" face="Arial">Last week, Mrs. Day gave her 2019 MiniST a battery "test." We were about 8 miles out when she was stung by a wasp. She's very allergic and, I thought, freaked out, turned around and went full throttle back home and to head for our local clinic. My Rover was already down to 3 bars (from 5 on the battery status indicator) just from riding at PAS2 to that point. Mrs. Day is a minimalist and always rides in PAS3 and 3rd gear on the derailleur. To try to keep her in sight, I kept the Rover in PAS3 and pedaled hard. She was clearly running full throttle (20mph) in full motorcycle mode and she vanished into the distance. I figured she was so freaked out that she wasn't watching the battery status, but I was wrong (again). She still had 4 bars on her battery when she got home. I had been on one bar for the previous 4 miles. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">I began to suspect that might need to replace my almost-6-year-old, 5,000 mile battery.</font></p> </font> <p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial"><a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1AwvM8_8Ad25y2mKvn9Vf5rWpGKz3o7_n"><img title="" style="float: left; display: inline; background-image: none;" border="0" alt="" src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1rdaIrrthPJdqqh3MEP7QR2dYivCd1fev" width="244" align="left" height="222" /></a> <p>After the big wasp run, I “re-engineered" my grandson's discarded Mini battery bracket to mount on the Rover and, now, I have a newer far more powerful battery on the Rover. The Mini battery, when new, has about 150Wh more capacity than the Rover “dolphin” battery. Over the last few years, my range has been steadily declining and shortening my range to the point that I was pretty much starting to think anything over 25 miles was risky. </p> </font> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">I needed to do a LOT of maintenance to the Rover and the cool weather and that battery comparison experience finally motivated me to </font><a></a><font size="3" face="Arial">do it. I cleaned and packed the rear hub bearings and lubed the nylon gears (1st time for that in almost 5,000 miles), cleaned and packed the front bearings, swapped the worn out rear tire for one of the old originals (the front is still ok), installed new brake pads and cleaned and roughed-up the disks, cleaned and lubed the chain and derailleur bearings, repacked the bottom bracket bearings, and generally cleaned and lubricated anything that caught my eye. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial"><a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1sErKiDbXupLUZEy9GkQ_HVzbLymFZcL0"><img title="" style="float: right; display: inline; background-image: none;" border="0" alt="" src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1SvM082A_rNIeoAPvVzvgGI9jgglFkqgw" width="244" align="right" height="226" /></a> <p>For the battery installation, I had to drill mounting holes for two of the 3 battery bracket screws (harder than it sounds because the holes also needed fairly precise countersinking to allow for the Rivnut heads on the bottom side of the battery frame. I installed 45A Quick Connectors in a very tight space between the bracket and wiring entry to make battery replacement fairly simple. Time for a test ride.</p> </font></p> </p> </p> </p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">It’s probably psychosomatic, but the bike feels way more powerful. That could be real because the internal series resistance of the old battery cells has been increasing, which is the actual cause of battery depletion with age. As I mentioned, the Mini battery has about 150wh more capacity than the original Rover battery and is slightly lighter. I came home, after at least 12 miles of PAS3 operation (a total of 18 miles) and a couple of block-long full power uphill runs with 3 bars remaining (while at power). I think Cannon Falls is back in my range. Over the next several days, I took on tougher rides with more big hills and longer trips. It was obvious that the old battery was on its last legs. </font></p> <p><font size="3" face="Arial">It is also obvious that this is another example of how we become used to what we have and if what we have degrades slowly we won’t notice the degradation until we’re either forced to compare it to something similar or we suffer an outright failure. </font></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-32681415533557792412022-08-12T14:02:00.001-05:002022-08-12T14:02:28.067-05:00Payback Is A Bitch<p>I’d been on the road (as a cage passenger, sadly) sans-electronics for a few days and when I came home my email inboxes were filled with the usual crap. I don’t know how people survive with cell phones and the inability to automatically screen callers, texters, and email. I flag practically everything as “spam” and I still ended up with more than 150 pieces of crap in my email accounts after 4 days and, at most, there were a half-dozen things to which I actually want or need to pay attention. And all that is after my spam filter has automatically trashed about 50% of everything sent to me. One of the things that caught my eye was from a local motorcycling (not biker) group. One of the members linked a few pages of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/us/new-hampshire-truck-driver-acquitted.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DFDm4TiPkORI6N5ALNbK97fNsyxTneWMVcO7xqSOZz0OJFekVmUhSpvoeJlNIFPyAx48qVb18B4qjsD_o-4CO4KS6wMvt-z7my-ErYa2e6CPeIzSAhIwh6pcdhdEX53nEK2qnGEuRw0tV92_4mUotoBmtVPFn8tPHtDxl-PNuEf0ucvlFwA7cFLGmVyd2M6LsAcxFQAEbFTR5842U76dBaMbAHLfq1bk5gKIel3-JnWiE_J5ypBpYxW4Hfi7xh1LbMohCOw8e8rO4kJUlmYCsF1VZmg8usUqsC1w&smid=url-share" target="_blank">the jury decision in the case of a truck driver who crossed into the oncoming lane and killed 7 bikers</a>. WebBikeWorld has some additional information on the case <a href="https://www.webbikeworld.com/dummy-duis-jury-finds-trucker-with-seven-count-motorcycle-homicide-not-guilty/" target="_blank">here</a>. where it is noted that “One of the motorcyclists had a BAC nearly double the state's 'too drunk to drive' limit.” The poster speculated that the jury found Volodymyr Zhukovskyy to be innocent because “the jury was filled with idiots. Or the prosecuting attorney was an idiot and didn't present any of this <em>[drug use]</em> information to the jury. Or maybe Westfield Transport is run by the mob and they threatened to harm the family members of the jury?” </p> <p>Possible. But I have a different theory.</p> <p>Since the trucking company has bankrupted due to civil payments to families and survivers, I think this case is pretty much done in civil court. It could be the state will bear some liability due to the driver's past history and the fact that he shouldn't have had any sort of commercial license. Somebody else’s problem. </p> <p>However, I wonder if the real takeaway from this decision is that the jury, like most Americans, are fed up with motorcycles. The general impression of motorcycles and motorcyclists are taken from the unnecessary and arrogant noise, regular well-publicized bad behavior, and the general impression that most motorcyclists are dangerous, sub-human, psychopathic gangbangers. A more successful tactic for the prosecution might have been to spend a lot of time bringing in experts to establish that motorcyclists are sorta (at least closely related to) humans. Hardly has worked pretty hard to create the sub-human image. You'd think/hope there would be some downsides to promoting anarchy, violence, and chaos. </p> <p>About 20 years ago, I was on the MN Governor's Motorcycle Safety Council. A friend and co-worker, who was also on the Governor's council and was an ABATE officer (most of the council was made up of ABATE gangbanger wannabes) were walking to lunch in downtown St. Paul and talking about motorcyclists' public image. Most of the kids I knew at the school thought motorcycling was for "old people and assholes," but my friend disagreed with that general image. </p> <p>His disagreement held up until a couple of noisemakers went past us and pretty much everyone on the street said something along the lines of "crash and die assholes." Once exposed to the real world, his take on many of ABATE’s positions changed enough that he quit his club office and took a back row seat in most of ABATE’s key political positions. </p> <p>So, back to my take on the jury decision: Since police are clearly terrified of bikers and their gangs, maybe the jury just decided legalizing motorcycle highway carnage is the only way to get the bangers off of the street? </p> <p>For calibration purposes, we got back last night about 9PM after a long vacation return trip (long for us). Went to bed about 11pm and spent the night being noise bombed by nitwits on Hardlys (and other garbage fish) on our un-policed county road well past 2AM. Personally, I keep hoping Amazon will sell a hand-held holographic projector sometime soon. People living in those noise traffic zones could project deer, moose, bears, cops, baby carriages, etc on to the streets in front of the local idiots on blubber-mobiles and entertain themselves watching the goobers try to remember where their brake levers are. My street is decorated all summer long with morons and their unmuffled, 2 hp bikes, and 4 hp sound systems. "If wishes were fishes" there'd be a whole lot of Hardlys buried in half-rotted carp. </p> <p>A couple of years ago, a friend and I were talking about the herd of anti-vaxing, science-denying goobers who were (and still are) decorating hospitals with their dying breath and crazy conspiracy theories. I’m not a big fan of humans and so my take was “That just seems like the usual price for <em><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/one-among-many/201308/stupid-people" target="_blank">stupidity</a></em>.” </p> <p>His response was, “Being stupid shouldn’t be a death sentence.” </p> <p>“Dude, that is always the result of being stupid,” I said. In fact, that is exactly how evolution works, it’s the whole point of the Darwin Awards. </p> <p>Likewise, after 75 years of Hardly’s convincing every white male that looking like an unreconstructed off-on-bail convict on a last binge before a couple of decades behind bars is “manly,” we have a problem. Minnesota has a “road guard” law that allows a moron with a reflective vest and a paddle to stop traffic indiscriminately for any unreasonable amount of time to allow totally useless, law-breaking, and decadent bikers to parade through any street or road in the state. You don’t think that tactic creates animosity? I’d bet it generates enough hate for motorcyclists from at least 50% of the inconvenienced population that you wouldn’t want them on a jury if you wanted that jury to convict anyone of killing a motorcyclist with any kind of weapon. Sit through two of those clown parades and you’ll be running them down yourself. </p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-78255722507684671132022-07-25T12:54:00.001-05:002022-07-25T12:54:07.074-05:00Rollin’ Bowling Pins and Wobblin’ Morons<p> For the last few weeks, I’ve been pretty much stuck on 2-pedaling wheels. My myasthenia gravis and the double-vision symptom are back with a vengeance and I don’t drive more than a few miles on good days and the motorcycle is likely parked until I sell it. Odds are against me that, this time, drugs will suppress my hyperactive immune system and I’ll get my life back. This Sunday, my wife got bored and decided we need to go for a drive somewhere we haven’t been for a long time; Taylor’s Falls, MN; about 75 miles north of our house. That’s a long drive for her and I wouldn’t be much help behind the wheel after the first 40-50 miles, when the double-vision kicks in for the rest of the day. </p> <p>We got up and out early, mostly to take advantage of my eyesight working, usually, for a couple of hours in the morning. After a stop for breakfast, we made it through Stillwater before that tourist town’s crush began and arrived at the Franconia Sculpture Park before their volunteers even managed to put up a donation bucket. It has been at least 8 years since we visited this terrific multi-acre outdoor gallery and we almost had the place to ourselves until about 11AM. From there, we went to downtown Taylor’s Falls, found a convenient place to park, and walked to the Interstate Glacial Park for a hike along the cliffs of the St. Croix River. Around 1PM, we moved the car to a favorite local drive-in and had lunch. So far, so terrific. </p> <p>After lunch, traffic was really starting to build up and going back the way we came through town was going to be a long, slow, slog while Minnesotans and other tourists struggled to crawl through the one light in town going either across the river to Wisconsin or back southwest toward the Cities. So, we went another way and wandered through the city to where we could jump the line and head back the way we came, right at the intersection of the light. </p> <p>About 5 miles down the road toward Stillwater on MN95, in the oncoming northbound lane, were at least 100 blubbering, unburnt fuel-spewing goobers on an assortment of motorcycles heading for the unsuspecting, already overloaded town of Taylors Falls. The intersection of US8 and MN95 (where that one light lives) was already piled up a half-mile or more north on MNwith rural goobers, tourists, bikers, bicyclists, and pedestrians. </p> <p>When that gaggle of bikers lands at that intersection, it’s save to assume that one of the idiots will be a Minnesota “Road Guard.” The 2012<a href="https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ots/mmsc/motorcycle-road-guard/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank"> Guard idiocy</a> is one of the dumbest, most short-sighted, most anti-motorcyclist bills our half-witted legislature has ever created. "Minnesota State Statute 169.06, subdivision 4(f) authorizes motorcycle road guard certificate holders to stop and control traffic for motorcycle group riders. Drivers of vehicles stopped by a flagger may only proceed if instructed by a flagger or police officer." All it takes is $30 and "three hours [<em>of remedial training including</em>] . . . classroom time and practical training at a live intersection near the training site" and you can pretend to be an important asshole stopping all sorts of legitimate traffic to allow a parade of idiots on motorcycles to spew fumes and fuel, to disturb the peace with all sorts of blatantly illegal noises, and demonstrate the usual biker incompetence for as long as it takes for the idiots to waddle indecisively through an intersection. </p> <p>When those morons in their rolling bowling pin formation landed in Taylors Falls, I’d bet the local psychic temperature went up at least 50<sup>o</sup>F. The town was already full, so if they stopped anywhere it would be the middle of Bench Street where they could imagine themselves to be the center of adulation while pretty much everyone in town and in any other kid of vehicle fumed and plotted against the next solo motorcyclists they found on the open road. We were glad to be out of town heading in the opposite direction and felt lucky to have avoided the bulk of the incoming disaster. We won’t be going back to Taylors Falls on a weekend anytime soon. </p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-916399206511316312022-07-07T11:17:00.001-05:002022-07-07T11:17:02.318-05:00Better Than A Passport<p>In 2007, I made what is going to be my one-and-only trip to Alaska by motorcycle. Lots of things went wrong with that trip, mostly because I was burned out, discouraged, frustrated, and clueless about what to do next. My employer, the late-not-particularly-great <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNally_Smith_College_of_Music" target="_blank">McNally Smith College of Music</a> (previously the very great Musictech College) had fired my boss, <a href="http://www.scottjarrett.com/">Scott Jarrett</a>, very likely the best thing that ever happened to that school outside of the Director, <a href="https://www.discogs.com/artist/1092117-Michael-Mckern">Michael McKern</a>, who hired both Scott and me and the cream of the school’s technology group. Scott is one of the closest, best friends I’ve ever had. And when he was knifed in the back by a pack of low-life, lucky-beyond-belief academic goobers and the two eponymous nitwits who were doing their best to turn their unearned golden goose into a pile of ashes I was torn between quitting the best job I’d ever had and going my own way or keeping the job and going my own way inside their totally chaotic “organization.” I’d <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2022/07/07/alaska-adventure/">planned the Alaska trip</a> as part of my usual “system” of isolating myself to figure out hard stuff. </p> <p>As I explained in an earlier essay, my wife had “plans” for how my solo trip would be curated by a friend of hers who was also trying to organize a ride to Alaska. He’d been there several times before, if I remember right, and had an agenda. His agenda and mine had almost nothing in common. </p> <p>After a series of clusterfucks, incredibly long days that often wore on for more than 1,000 miles, and a decision that I didn’t make that resulted in me being somewhere I didn’t want to be and a crash that prevented me from going where I wanted to go later, I ended up crossing the Copper River by ferry out of Dawson City and riding to the Top of the World border crossing without a US passport (another long story).  As an <a href="https://www.bellsalaska.com/highway/top-of-the-world-highway/" target="_blank">Alaska tourist site</a> explains it, “<em>The length of the Top of the World Highway is 175 miles/281 km and connects Dawson City in the Yukon to the Alaska Highway at the Tetlin Junction. The Highway is only open from mid-May to mid-October, however, it has been known to close earlier due to snow. Many travelers use the Top of the World Highway when driving between Fairbanks, Alaska and Dawson City, Yukon, which is 398 miles/640 km. The distance from Tok Alaska to Dawson City is 187 miles and the distance from Dawson City to Chicken, Alaska is 106 miles/171 km</em>."</p> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1s_u8mq3UUo0cpGUn-UW4_vQyQd85CYIb"><img title="June 10 033" style="float: left; display: inline; background-image: none;" border="0" alt="June 10 033" src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1oJElr8tASHImAFMrnqb4LW7rxnEDTYOp" width="244" align="left" height="184" /></a>The Poker Creek Port of Entry was open when we arrived there on June 10th, but G.W. Bush had changed the rules for Canadian-US travel shortly before my planned departure time and I’d decided to risk it hoping my expedited passport would get to me before I needed it. Worst case, the US wouldn’t let me back in and I’d have to settle for being Canadian. I could live with that. Hell, at the time I was considering taking a teaching job at the Banff School of Fine Arts in the desperate hope of moving to Canada before Bush trashed what was left of the country and economy. So, the threat of not being able to “go home” was pretty weak. In the picture (above) you can see Michael doing the paperwork to cross from Canada to Alaska. When I rolled up to the window, the Border Patrol guy pretty much told me to go back to Canada. </p> <p>I backed up to where you see me in that picture, hauled out a camp chair, my eBook, and a canteen and granola and proceeded to get set to stay awhile. Mike, now on the other side of the border was perplexed. Worst case, I’d ride back to Dawson, find a campsite (all the hotels were booked for <a href="http://www.dcmf.com/about/festival-alumni/" target="_blank">the Dawson City Music Festival</a>), and worry about my next move when I felt better. <a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1wVaihmKmCSzfXhzVAYP2upg68IoWNs0c"><img title="June 10 034" style="float: right; display: inline; background-image: none;" border="0" alt="June 10 034" src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1C3ixoGZ7-3mD2MCkog3L7UQzFYekTPtR" width="244" align="right" height="184" /></a>I didn’t have to wait that long. There wasn’t a lot of traffic through that remote crossing and the border guy was curious enough to walk over and talk to me. When he realized I was there for a while, he started asking questions about my passport, where I lived, where I worked, and what the hell I was doing in his place blocking non-existent traffic? While we were talking, a couple of guys came through the border, twice, heading toward Canada and coming back an hour or so later. One of the guys had driven his Hardly off of a cliff and called a buddy to bring his truck and trailer to carry back the remains. I have no idea how they managed to rescue that half-ton hippobike. </p> <p>So, while we watched the two guys and their load slide down the hill toward Chicken, AK, we continued to talk about my “predicament,” which was more of a problem, I guess, for him than me. At that moment, I hurt badly enough that I would have settled for a nice hole with some dirt tossed over me. My list, discovered several days later when I finally found a doc in Valdez, included several broken ribs, a separated shoulder, and a fractured index-finger metacarpal on my right hand. Pain focuses you mind, though. The stress from my situation was dramatically lower than it had been for the last year or so and I was beginning to put a lot of things in perspective. “Finally,” as Mrs. Day would say. </p> <p>Growing bored with our stalemate, the border guy got more aggressive/inquisitive in his questions. His last question was “Where were you born?” My answer, “******,” (concealed to protect my personal data) was a godawful eastern Kansas town that I’m sure no self-respecting terrorist would know about or pick for any reason. He waved at the crossing gate, which did not need to be raised for me to get around it, and said something like “Get outta here.” </p> <p>And I did. </p> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1sis-NMDxdEBOdyix-ct7RXX5yubX5oXz"><img title="June 10 055" style="float: right; display: inline; background-image: none;" border="0" alt="June 10 055" src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1HgtL4l3LP2CYh6FIOOX0y7ywP3MPko_0" width="244" align="right" height="184" /></a>Michael was waiting not that far from the crossing and seemed to be relieved that we were still traveling together. I think my wife had somehow made him feel responsible for my welfare. He is that kinda guy. The US side of the Top of the World Highway is/was a mud trail. The Canadian side was a pretty decent gravel and asphalt road. It had been raining for days when we crossed and headed down that 4500-foot section of the mountains and it was slipperier than hell. I saw several trucks and motorcycles sunk to their axles and beyond when they had missed a turn. Usually, there was no stopping to help, either. Either because the road was too narrow, too slick, or the dumbass trucker behind me was intent on tailgating me until he slipped off into a ditch himself, I more often just had to keep going. With my injuries, there wasn’t much I could do to help anyone, anyway. </p> <p><a href="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1BLqTX86VowRL97Rof4XzfrXwM-GofrvC"><img title="June 10 056" style="float: left; display: inline; background-image: none;" border="0" alt="June 10 056" src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1-K6mn9e7SxpQ61bu762cPOBJPH2Y8vGh" width="244" align="left" height="184" /></a>The first stop on the US side is Chicken, AK. There isn’t much to see or do in Chicken, except in my case to borrow a hose and blast off a thick coating of mud and clay from my ‘Stich, boots, and the bike. The rear brake was totaled from being coated by mud, but the disk mostly seemed to be newly “machined” by the abrasive material. So, I put a new set of pads on the rear wheel and cleaned things up as best I could. We had lunch at the Chicken Cafe and headed out toward Glenallen. And Glennallen is where we spent the night in a converted railroad car that had been used as housing for the guys who built the Alaska Pipeline. The next day, Michael headed for the ferry to Juneau and I met up with my son-in-law’s cousin.</p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-82212341527407304232022-06-29T15:29:00.002-05:002022-08-25T12:53:30.579-05:00The High Cost of Being Stupid<font face="Arial"><img align="right" alt="Figure 1 - The basic graph" height="280" src="http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/stupidfi.gif" style="display: inline; float: right;" width="224" />About a year into the pandemic, I was marveling at the anti-vaxers willingness to test their own immune systems often followed by their panicked attempts to jump to the head of the line in healthcare and even begging for a vaccine after being hospitalized and even just before going on a ventilator. My friend said, “Stupidity should not be a death sentence.” And I disagreed. “Stupidity has always been an evolutionary driver behind large scale mortality and morbidity, have you not heard of the Darwin Awards?” “Yeah, that’s true,” he admitted. </font> <p><font face="Arial">In his “<a href="http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/?fbclid=IwAR2-QCT5b3RWDcrp_LzWTIXw8Dcyu7Emm3HI41l3tUe-lNL3DEmW0kK8MLY" target="_blank">The Basic Laws of Stupidity,</a>" Carlo M. Cipolla defined a stupid person as “A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.” <font face="Arial">Keep that definition in mind as we take another look at loud and illegal exhaust systems.(In the illustration at right, you can see Cipolla’s 4 classifications of human intelligence: <b>H</b>elpless, <b>I</b>ntelligent, <b>B</b>andit, and <b>S</b>tupid. If you follow the link to Cipolla’s article, you can learn a lot more about the characteristics of Stupid.)</font></font></p> <p><font face="Arial">Several years ago (2008, to be exact), I foolishly and optimistically wrote a Geezer column for <a href="https://issuu.com/minnesotamotorcyclemonthly" target="_blank">MMM</a> titled “<a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.wordpress.com/2022/06/28/76-hearing-damage-and-motorcycling/" target="_blank">Hearing Damage and Motorcycling.</a>” I had some wild hope that there was a rational way to get motorcyclists to think about how much damage they were doing to themselves while they were irritating everyone else on the planet. I thought this statistic would be an eye-opener, “My generation, the Boomers, is experiencing a higher rate of hearing damage than our parents suffer at their more advanced age and the generation following us is even worse hit by hearing loss. The reason is noise exposure.” Not a chance. When I wrote that article, I owned about $10,000 worth of professional audio test equipment and had access to multiples of that number through my employer (a music school), friends in the audio testing industry, and professional relationships. Nothing I experimented with gave me any significant different data than my own gear. Riding a motorcycle is tough on your hearing, even if you are careful: good quality full-face helmet, high quality ear plugs, and a quiet motorcycle preferably with a decent fairing. Change any of those 3 decisions and you are gambling with your hearing. Once you’ve damaged your hearing, you are unlikely to live long enough for medicine or technology to bring it back. </font></p> <p><font face="Arial">My wife, for example, is definitely not stupid although she often falls into Cipolla’s “helpless” quadrant. She worked as a professional sculptor for 40-some years, which means she spent a lot of time with a Sawzall and shop grinders. She stubbornly resisted hearing protection for at least 30 years. Today, if she’s watching a movie or television, captions are always on. She misunderstands practically everything said to her, often comically. In any kind of crowd, the conversations around her are worse than meaningless. In the last decade or so she became almost meticulous about wearing hearing protection, the big earmuff things, but it’s too late. It doesn’t hurt to start protecting your hearing anytime, but once there is damage it will only get worse. </font></p> <p><font face="Arial">I was goofing off in downtown Red Wing yesterday when a pack of biker goobers and a couple of unnecessarily noisy diesel pickups went by. As usual, the noisemakers got the disgusted stare from bystanders that they so desperately crave, but it struck me that as awful as those vehicles sounded at 100’, they were at least 10-20 decibels louder on the bikes or in the truck. The <a href="http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-SoundAndDistance.htm" target="_blank">inverse distance law of sound pressure decay</a> masks that one obvious even to the math-disabled. For the motorcyclists, it might even be worse because so much of the exhaust noise that they are so proud of is field-restricted by the road under the noise generator, which means substantially more sound pressure is directed upward toward the rider rather than omnidirectionally toward the intended bystanding victims. </font></p> <p><font face="Arial">Since I started riding street bikes in 1979 I’ve owned three motorcycles with illegal aftermarket exhaust systems. I bought them used and they came with that crap installed by the original owners: a <a href="http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/search?q=850+tdm" target="_blank">1992 Yamaha 850 TDM with a Kerker exhaust</a> and a <a href="http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2015/12/my-motorcycles-1999-suzuki-sv650.html" target="_blank">1999 Suzuki SV650 with an even noisier Two Brother’s Two-into-One M2-Oval Exhaust System</a> and my beautiful <a href="http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2012/04/yamaha-wr250x-supermoto.html" target="_blank">Yamaha WR250X</a> that came with a hacked up stock pipe. The TDM also came with the stock pipe, so I yanked the Kerker, sold it, and bought something useful with the money. The WR and SV’s original owners had tossed the stock pipe, but I found a super-cheap stock pipe on Craig’s List and sold the Two Brothers POS a couple of years later. I just tossed the hacked-up WR pipe. What I learned from those experiences is that all that noise did make me feel like I was going faster than I was (as The <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm" target="_blank">Marching Morons</a> author predicted 70 years ago) and that riding either of those otherwise terrific motorcycles more than a couple hundred miles in a day was torture. The fatigue that kind of noise produces is uncomfortable and dangerous. </font></p> <p><font face="Arial">Which brings me to my point about the connection between illegal, noisy exhaust systems and stupid people. Yes, they are making a statement that they are untouchable by the law; which are often biker gangbangers themselves. Yes, they are irritating everyone they ride anywhere near. However, they are also driving themselves deaf in the process and deserve absolutely no sympathy when that bill comes due. So, in Cipolla’s terms, Stupid bikers are definitely doing lots of damage to the peace and quiet of every place they ride, and even causing some actual physical harm to those close enough for hazardous noise exposure. But bikers are “deriving no gain” from their noisemaking as every statistic on the planet demonstrates that loud bikes receive no safety benefit from their noise and, in fact, those same people are over-represented in crash, morbidity, and mortality statistics and for all of that the bikers are also making themselves deaf in the process.</font></p> <p><font face="Arial">That, my friends, is stupid. </font></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-76218202210700062042022-06-25T16:43:00.001-05:002022-06-25T16:43:58.157-05:00I Am Jealous After All<p>While I was in my backyard working on one of my wife’s godawful honey-do projects, a couple of mostly bald, scroungy pony-tailed, noisy and blatantly incompetent Hardly goobers fell over in the driveway of the abandoned dump next door. For some reason, one of the geezers felt the need to adjust something, probably his truss, in this very large and pretty damn flat driveway and instead of parking he decided to fall over “Laugh-In Tricycle” style. The other Willy Nelson-wanna-be followed his bro into the driveway, bumped into the first downed bike and fell over in the opposite direction with his pony tail dangling well into the outside tire track on our country road. I listened to them bitch and moan and struggle to get out from under their hippobikes and after about ten minutes they were back in Greasy Rider mode and on their way to the nearest bar. Not only did they not look even a little embarrassed during the whole episode, but they kinda had that arrogant, biker-badass scowl on their faces as they wobbled down the road. </p> <p>I, for one, am jealous. If I were that oblivious to how ridiculous I look, I’d fuckin’ wear a Speedo to the damn grocery store. Nothing else. My wife said if she had that kind of self-confidence she wear a see-thru blouse and a mini-skirt to City Council meetings. These guys really think people are looking at them thinking “Wow! That dude sure is cool!” Trust me, they aren’t especially if they have shout to hear themselves think. </p> <p>I know bikers think I look like a “fuckin’ spaceman” in my Aerostich gear, but who cares what they think? They are more often bloody grease spots littered all over our country roads and city streets, so their sense of style is mostly a comedy act as best I can tell. But it is hard to top that kind of oblivious confidence.</p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-41033845936269635982022-04-29T23:05:00.003-05:002022-05-26T19:57:01.515-05:00A Dog's Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMDDfqFVuaO1k_z00zkszgRRiY7kHZGgq7n5ObWZPDkuKjed4OcpdA97O9WZmj8bDGCUFTy77aC3gGu2zH2ksoXeFvnTgP4pezt77EsXBi8px3sdY5Up7jppFu5jsdSz1lH6-UmXIQncK5njlR3GF8ub6n79afhToVyuTb2p92KFErGgwbX3Ngm14n_Q/s831/2013-11-11%20Monday%20(9).JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="831" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMDDfqFVuaO1k_z00zkszgRRiY7kHZGgq7n5ObWZPDkuKjed4OcpdA97O9WZmj8bDGCUFTy77aC3gGu2zH2ksoXeFvnTgP4pezt77EsXBi8px3sdY5Up7jppFu5jsdSz1lH6-UmXIQncK5njlR3GF8ub6n79afhToVyuTb2p92KFErGgwbX3Ngm14n_Q/s320/2013-11-11%20Monday%20(9).JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><i>I began writing this piece on 4/19/2022. I plan to work on it until our close friend, Gypsy dies. It isn’t a journal of those sad days. It is intended to be an obituary of the most amazing non-human life I have ever experienced. Gypsy died on 4/29/2022 at about 12:30PM. In death, as in life, she did her best to be as thoughtful as possible. </i></span></p><i></i> <p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">This week, as I begin to write this essay, which is very likely to become an obituary, Mrs. Day and I are watching the last days of our 15-year-old best friend, Gypsy, play out. She joined our family, often as the smartest member, a little more than 14 years ago, near Mrs. Day’s birthday in September, 2007. She was a shelter dog and she and a sister had been caged convicts in a puppy mill that the Minneapolis SPCA had raided a few weeks earlier. Gypsy looked like a cross between an Australian Shepherd and a Blue Heeler, so that’s what we described her as her whole life. Her sister appeared to be a classic, black and white spotted Australian Shepherd. Both dogs were being treated well by the adoption agency where Mrs. Day found her and they appeared to be calm, friendly, and intelligent. It could have been a quarter-flip as to which dog we picked, but Mrs. Day really liked the Heeler color and markings. So, we went home with Gypsy (the name Mrs. Day gave her, not the name the shelter had given her). Our previous dog, Puck, who had lived with our daughter’s family for a few years, had died a few days earlier and Mrs. Day was convinced our granddaughter needed a dog to live with. I still hadn’t finished mourning the dog before Puck, a chow mix who had died 5 years earlier. I doubt that I would have ever brought another animal into my life if Mrs. Day weren’t so resolute that we “needed” one. </span></span></p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><p>The ride home was a warning of what the next 15 years would be like. Gypsy whined, shivered, and paced frantically in the back seat of the car all the way home. As soon as the car stopped and she jumped out, she was “normal” again. For at least 15,000 miles of our lives, Gypsy put on that same show every time she was in a moving vehicle of any sort. She was terrible to travel with by vehicle. If we’d have wanted to walk from Minnesota to California, Gypsy would have been all for it. </p><p>The first day Gypsy was introduced to our household, she knew she belonged there and did not ever want to leave. We had a cat at the time, Spike. Spike was a neutered male who pretty much thought he owned the house. When we first got him, Puck was already part of our household. Puck accepted that kitten as if they’d known each other their whole lives. Likewise, when Gypsy arrived terrified, shy, and confused. Spike took a good look at her and walked away, back to his usual routine. Until <a href="http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2013/11/one-man-cat-down.html">the day Spike took off on us</a>, after about a week living in our camper, they were the closest of animal friends. I am not lying here, but I wouldn’t believe it if you told this story to me: Spike would catch and kill rabbits, squirrels, and other wildlife in our Little Canada backyard and deliver them to Gypsy to devour for the cat’s entertainment. I really wish I’d have taken a picture of that behavior. Spike would just drop the dead animal at Gypsy’s feet and she’d make the prey vanish as if it had never existed. Barely a puff of fur left over, at most. When our most recent cat, Doctor Zogar, came into our family, Gypsy gave that nasty little brat the same kind of generous welcome Spike had given her. Gypsy played with both cats as energetically as if they were all kittens from the same mother, but she was always careful not to hurt them. I can’t say that care was repaid with any sort of kindness by Zogar. (Who I always called “Stinker.”) Zogar regularly spiked Gypsy’s nose and tried for eyes occasionally. I never hit Gypsy in anger, ever, but I batted that damn cat across the room fairly often when he hurt my dog. </p><p>Mrs. Day took her for a walk in our Little Canada neighborhood that first afternoon and Gypsy slipped her collar and ran off several blocks from home. Mrs. Day was convinced her $300 “investment” had run off and vanished on the first day, but Gypsy was waiting on the front porch when Mrs. Day came home. For several weeks, Gypsy didn’t want to leave the house and had to be forced out the door into the backyard to relieve herself. If we weren’t quick enough, she had decided the area in front of my office closet was a satisfactory “bathroom.” In a few days, the carpet and floor under the carpet were ruined. </p><p>We had a fenced yard, but she was unhappy inside that fence. So, I bought a “wireless fence containment system”: essentially a transmitter with a shock collar. I sent the collar to the lowest shock setting and walked her around the wireless fence perimeter, which I’d marked with flags. She freaked out at the first shock and we only stayed near the border long enough for the collar to beep after that. We did the same routine the next day, without the shock and she had it figured out. From then on, she was the smartest animal any of us had ever known. She marked out exactly the boundaries of her electronic “fence” and patrolled that area like a military guard. She did discover, much later, if she ran through the border and kept running down to the lake shore she’d either escape the shock or it would be brief enough not to be a problem. She rarely did that, though. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQwNkeUOmlOCvlc6VegS6gWf_KA7GELz1SdMP58CeemfihSIfwcSxo1XzOkqbXqbBzZdFbqZXcOISiSDnENnXd43caXhxR2dHaZ7n6AuYhPCJGSonWEmmsSrpCdraX119b4IdUPRQ02NSOgLPzx8piSIm-QsNyJKDBn4Xop7tfV2mVI8iDiDZDERkkHA/s2272/2014-02-18%20CoR%20(34).JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1704" data-original-width="2272" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQwNkeUOmlOCvlc6VegS6gWf_KA7GELz1SdMP58CeemfihSIfwcSxo1XzOkqbXqbBzZdFbqZXcOISiSDnENnXd43caXhxR2dHaZ7n6AuYhPCJGSonWEmmsSrpCdraX119b4IdUPRQ02NSOgLPzx8piSIm-QsNyJKDBn4Xop7tfV2mVI8iDiDZDERkkHA/s320/2014-02-18%20CoR%20(34).JPG" width="320" /></a></div>In December of 2011, I had a full hip replacement. I was determined to be mobile again in time for the 2012 motorcycle safety training season, which would start in mid-May for me. I had even loftier, less realistic goals for before that deadline and I was slowly failing to meet any of those targets thanks to pain and Minnesota winter. By then, Gypsy was a spectacular Frisbee dog along with several dozen other amazing tricks and behaviors; including being able to jump into my outstretched arms on command, leap head-high (to me) to snag any object out of my hands in a running, flying leap, and jump on to any reasonable object around 5’ high from a standing start. One of my favorites was called “go ‘round.” On that command, Gypsy would run the perimeter of our yard full blast, which was as fast as I have ever seen any animal run. I’d seen something like that in the sheep dog demonstrations at the fair and Renaissance Fairs. My grandson helped teach her the trick by running ahead of her until she figured out the routine. Then, no one alive could have kept up with her let alone lead her. She was the dog I’d dreamed about when I didn’t even know I liked dogs. (I delivered newspapers as a kid and read water meters for the City of Dallas for 3 years. At the end of those experiences, dogs were never high on my list of interests.)<p>So, as I was struggling with maintaining my rehab discipline I kept up our afternoon walks and tried tossing her the Frisbee. The problem with the Frisbee was that I had initially trained Gypsy to drop the Frisbees at my feet. We would sometimes do a kind of relay toss where I’d flip her a Frisbee 15’-20’ out and she’d return it on the run, drop it at my feet, and keep running in the same direction where I’d toss her another Frisbee. (<i>I wish someone had video recorded us doing those things, but I’m the only person in my family who knows how to use a damn camera.) </i>After the hip surgery, bending over to pickup a Frisbee from the ground was close to impossible. Gypsy figured that out on her own and started handing me the Frisbees about waist-high. That became a huge, incredibly distracting and enjoyable part of my daily physical therapy and, thanks to my dog, I was back walking 11 miles a day and teaching a full schedule of motorcycle classes in early May of 2012. My dog was my best, most dedicated, most sympathetic physical therapist and I can only hope I never need that kind of help again because she won’t be there to take care of me. </p></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxi0sJhW8deJa1-gifUX2o5Lj91TbQD-yfLsYcRpwfDjaIYgoHZBFZp5XZGqfCD5SF-_De2u5W9SdEvgIzw3Q' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>If you are one of those unperceptive, species-centric goobers who believes that animals do not have a sense of humor, Gypsy would have laughed in your face and you would have to be a complete fool not to know it. She had a wonderful laugh and a smile that was, literally, ear-to-ear. Her joy in running, jumping, wrestling, and performing her many tricks/behaviors was undeniable. On my worst, darkest depressed moments, Gypsy could make me smile and laugh. As happy as she often made me, I don’t think I ever realized how sad I would be at the end of our life together. As I write this, I feel like my head is overfilling with tears and sorrow. It physically hurts as badly as the worst headache I have ever experienced. I can’t imagine being willing to go through this ever again. <p></p></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><p>Gypsy had so many tricks (“behaviors” for the politically correct crowd) and she’d taught herself most of them. Speaking of the sense of humor, one of the first things she did was when someone would say “cute face,” she’d cover her face with both paws and act shy. That unmistakable guffaw would often follow that if someone would pet her and talk baby talk at her. She had the most gregarious hand-shake of any animal on the planet. She would raise her right paw even with the top of her head and swing it into your hand to shake. It looked like she was someone almost impossibly happy to meet you. The usual “roll over,” “sit,” “lay down,” “stay,” “speak,” and dozens of other words and actions were almost naturally in her vocabulary. We had to spell words like “walk,” “hike,” “go out,” “outside,” and anything else that might imply going for a walk or she would be whining at the door, looking up at her leash, waiting to go for a walk. Like most dogs of her breed, “heel” was a tough command to obey. She could do it, but she’d much rather take off to the end of her leash and nose about. Early on, she was a plow horse but she learned that obeying “don’t pull” got her a lot more freedom. She also understood “right” and “left” even off of the leash. </p><p>While Gypsy might have been the worst traveling companion possible, whining in spectacularly irritating and painful ways non-stop for whatever the length of the car ride, she was the best camp dog imaginable. She was fearlessly protective of Mrs. Day (as seen at left worrying about Mrs. Day on the back of a horse) and kept us aware of everything and everyone who came near our campsites 24-hours/day. She slept at the foot of our camper bed, every night, and always seemed to have one eye open for threats. Once, when she was tried to the bumper of our camper, a coyote had the gall to try and cross the outside edge of our campsite and Gypsy nearly pulled the camper uphill to get at the coyote. The coyote ran away with the knowledge that he’d have been in a fight to the death if Gypsy had gotten loose. People, however, were automatically given a pass unless Mrs. Day seemed nervous. And she was always ready to go for a walk, on a leash or not, and delighted to do it. </p><p>She liked everyone and loved many. For most of her life, she was free to roam our backyard and when delivery people came into the yard to drop off packages, she was always quiet and friendly. Many of them came to like leaving packages at our home because they got to visit with Gypsy. Deer, rabbits, and squirrels, not so much. One of my favorite indoor activities was, when I would spot a squirrel attempting to mangle one of my bird feeders, I’d let Gypsy out into the yard and say “squirrel!” She’d dash into the yard, looking for squirrels, and chasing any who were dumb enough to ignore her into the trees, over the fence, or up the hill into the woods. She loved terrorizing squirrels and rabbits and would not tolerate deer or other large wildlife in her yard. Mrs. Day’s hostas will likely be substantially less lush without their guardian. </p><p>Her will to live is inspiring. As of today, April 25th, she can’t eat or drink anything without throwing it back up. Her energy is a microscopic fraction of what it was a week ago and she was a shadow of herself then. Every morning, she drags herself out of bed and walks to the back door to be let out. (Yes, she has always been smart enough to know where her home is and did not need a fenced yard or tether until the last couple of weeks.) She is mostly operating on habit, since she isn’t ingesting anything she rarely expels anything. It is very much like she doesn’t want to inconvenience us with the process of her dying. If you are one of those who believe dogs are incapable of love, I can’t imagine what I could say to you. Even when she is on her last legs, she would rather sleep on the floor near Mrs. Day than in a comfortable bed in the living room. She has a bed in the bedroom, too, but in these final days she wasn’t to be closer. </p><p>Gypsy died today, 4/29/2022, at about 12:30PM. She had a rough night, mostly waking up and thinking she was alone. She didn’t seem to be in pain. For the 2nd time in the life we’ve known her, she soiled herself last night and when I carried her outside to lie on the deck bench she was still responsive but had no strength at all. She couldn’t even hold her head up and I had to carry her like a baby, supporting her head when I laid her down. We went for our last walk 10 days ago, it that one didn’t last long due to her strength. The day before, we walked almost a mile and she was slow but still moving well at the end of that walk. </p><p>Her will to live throughout all of this miserable week was inspiring and humbling. She did not want to give up and we did not feel that we had the right to make that decision for her. She was struggling out of her bed and staggering to the back door to be let out up to Tuesday evening. Wednesday, I carried her out after she was able to get up but couldn’t walk without falling down. We stood in the backyard for a while, listening to birds and night sounds, but she needed to lean on his leg to stay upright. Thursday, she soiled herself and wet the bed overnight. She was conscious most of yesterday and responded to being touched and our voices, but we think she was in a coma most of the day. </p><p>Last night, we left her in a bed we’d made for her in the living room but about midnight just as I was going to bed she started whining for the first time in a week (Gypsy whined a lot, that was her “voice” for communication, so the silence over this past week has been weird.) and we laid down beside her. That was what she wanted. I carried her into the bedroom where she had a “bed” and she was fine most of the night, but she woke up twice afraid and I comforted her until she was quiet. I honestly think Mrs. Day’s snoring helped keep her calm for most of the night. Me, not so much. </p><p>She seemed to be comfortable on the outside bench and she was there for about 4 hours before I discovered she had kicked off one of the blankets and died. She had been alone for about 5 minutes. I guess she was being considerate to the end. </p><p>Life is short, precious, and painful. And if you are as special as our dog, when you go your loved ones will miss you desperately. </p></span></span><p><br /></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-71582033655172951782022-04-24T22:47:00.007-05:002022-05-26T19:42:11.550-05:00Good Ole' American Quality? <p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><span><span><span> Mrs. Day watches a lot of streaming television. Today was no exception. We're on a sad death watch for our 15-year-old Aussie dog and that means we're shackled to the house for an undetermined period and that Mrs. Day has a great excuse to spend the day doing art work in front of the television. Being the helpful guy I am, I drop in occasionally to suffer with her. We're both suffering the odor of an old dog on her last legs and I am suffering television. One of the painful moments today was a binge on Seinfeld's "Comedians Getting Coffee" (or something like that). I am not one of "Jerry's Kids" and I usually think he is about as funny as a favorite pet on death's door. His visit with Bill Burr was no exception. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><span><span><span>Jerry is one of those goobers who thinks incompetent engineering that makes a lot of pointless noise is "soulful." That particular program was in a 70s Mustang, which was a particularly pitiful excuse for a machine. While Jerry and Burr were carrying on about subjects they know nothing about, like engineering, I fiddled with one of my dumb retirement hobbies: model vehicles. Mostly, I assemble Tamiya motorcycles, but I've had this damn Revell VW kit in my pile of models-to-be-built for decades and I decided to mess with it this past week. <br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglYO2NHklDq60Mj8dFU-bEP0DBvk3SyUYGQCFu3yyxW4LdhLfyMOOtobwBMOmb5ZsHG87ZA_C5s-JpKRZFeXiR3Wp4lOTU2nDD2rk_xyYyeRVRQ2usjJs1lzQOPWcStOM9UI31HyQKm_9X0eDhR8NGhq55A_EB5_Hzgi_zcOBxykEk9m9b_LN76fDFBA/s1080/Revell%20VW.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="1080" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglYO2NHklDq60Mj8dFU-bEP0DBvk3SyUYGQCFu3yyxW4LdhLfyMOOtobwBMOmb5ZsHG87ZA_C5s-JpKRZFeXiR3Wp4lOTU2nDD2rk_xyYyeRVRQ2usjJs1lzQOPWcStOM9UI31HyQKm_9X0eDhR8NGhq55A_EB5_Hzgi_zcOBxykEk9m9b_LN76fDFBA/s320/Revell%20VW.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></span></span></span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><span>If you ever wanted to closely examine a good example of why manufacturing in the USA disappeared almost overnight, this kit would be a good place to start. It is, to put it mildly, a piece of shit. The pieces are poorly formed, the extrusion frames are huge compared to the part sizes and often there is more flashing on the parts than there are parts, and the detail is just embarrassingly mediocre. A few weeks ago, I spent a really fun few days assembling a Tamiya RZ350 Kenny Roberts Replica, so my standard of comparison is very recent. After I finish assembling this model, I'll probably just leave it in the box for some poor relative of mine to find after I'm dead. It will not be something I'll ever be proud to show off. </span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><span>While I've worked on this model kit, I have been constantly reminded of David Halberstam's book, <i>The Reckoning</i>, a mid-1980s book about the fall of Ford and rise of Nissan. In describing the state of the US auto industry at that time, Halberstam listed the collection of lowered expectations American car buyers had to accept if they were going to "buy American." Things like patterned seat covers that were installed with not interest at all in maintaining some kind of consistency in the pattern direction or plumb line, missing fasteners in visually obvious places, paint jobs that looked as if they'd been applied with a half-empty spray can, and plastic parts like radio knobs and windshield cranks that fall apart on first use. This model reflects all of that kind of lack of concern that 70s American labor was famous for. It is a painful reminder of how quickly power can become weakness. This model was sold in the mid-80s abo<span>ut the same time Halberstam was examining the American auto manufacturing. Revell, of course, is no longer an American company; it's currently based in </span></span></span><span><span>Bünde, Germany. Like pretty much every </span></span><span>manufactured product that requires assembly skill, those skills are found elsewhere today. I bought mine in a model shop's going out of business sale in Colorado in the 90s. <br /></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX4im_MbN3plJ9-cU1k0JJyJCWzU8XJkeqi-Jigvok4ivwCbWO0a_GQB8q4Di7StXwHnuxzQFF8lQvtNsUGvCDanUVsbfF1iy_edIzWlEViiXkkM1rvyVu2izy1zaVTEUQWDLt926K5HHW1-qRwJAEAB3X8BvUJ4otG4iuxu7bU3NNzr70oph3Cu4hzQ/s3300/Revell%20Instructions.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2550" data-original-width="3300" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX4im_MbN3plJ9-cU1k0JJyJCWzU8XJkeqi-Jigvok4ivwCbWO0a_GQB8q4Di7StXwHnuxzQFF8lQvtNsUGvCDanUVsbfF1iy_edIzWlEViiXkkM1rvyVu2izy1zaVTEUQWDLt926K5HHW1-qRwJAEAB3X8BvUJ4otG4iuxu7bU3NNzr70oph3Cu4hzQ/s320/Revell%20Instructions.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>In the 60s and 70s, tech writers like myself often made fun of Japanese translated manuals. Even Robert Pirsig did it in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. We were wrong. It's hard to tell from the picture at right, but this is the assembly document from the Revell model. You might wonder what's wrong with it, until you tried to assemble the model. Steps 1-6 are about putting together body and suspension parts. Step 7 is about installing the front suspension and the footwell cowling to the "chassis." That suspension piece you see at the fat left of the chassis just appears there like magic, then it disappears in 8-10, and magically reappears in step 20. That is the kind of crap that would make a kid migrate to Japanese models. like the dozens of Tamiya models I have built and never buy another Revell product as long as he lived. Not only was Revell incapable of building a quality model, they couldn't layout a competent assembly manual. <br /></span></span></span><p></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-52577795761580614302022-04-03T16:19:00.007-05:002022-04-03T16:19:49.197-05:00Love This: Yamana TY-E2.0<iframe width="450" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oL7kNzzsXuc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-1370548811137549322022-03-22T21:15:00.001-05:002022-03-22T21:15:17.647-05:00When Looks Beats Works<p><font size="3">I just finished reading an entertaining and informative Kevin Cameron Cycle World article about cooling fins, "</font><a href="https://www.cycleworld.com/story/blogs/ask-kevin/motorcycle-air-cooled-engine-fins-explained/?utm_source=sendinblue&utm_campaign=CYW%20Sunday%20Best%20022722&utm_medium=email" target="_blank"><font size="3">The Fascination With Fins</font></a><font size="3">." [<em>You might be disappointed to discover there is nothing about Finland in the article</em>.] There is some terrific stuff about how practical engineering and ascetics often combine to make some very artistic mechanical systems. Lots of information about how motorcyclists didn’t take to the look of fan-powered air-cooled motorcycles because the look reminded “motorcyclists of the weak putt-putt engines in lawn mowers and golf carts.” The most important byproduct of air-cooled engines is that the limits to moving heat via air requires that what Kevin calls “Ideological Purity” (the look of air-cooling) also requires engineers put a cap on peak output before the heat fries the motor. Shade tree mechanics have fooled with removing those limits and testing the power-limit assumptions for at least 100 years and scrap and junk yards are full of the results. Liquid cooling just works better. Liquid cooling even works better for high efficiency electric motors (and batteries). As much as I hate plumbing, it’s pretty obvious that it is necessary.</font></p> <font size="3"></font> <p><font size="3">Scanning around the reader comments and a couple other new bike articles was an education in how much humans value appearances over function. For instance this guy who “bought a new [<em>Honda</em>] 500x a few months ago. Love the bike. I would however like a second brake disc, I think this will be a good upgrade. Mine brakes just fine, but they could of course be better. I also think a bike just looks better with twin discs.” It would have never occurred to me that someone would like a front wheel laden with an unnecessary 2nd disk and the associated complications just because “it looks better with twin discs.” I absolutely don’t see the overpowering attraction of symmetry and the fact that a large single disc delivers more stopping power than two small discs. For my money, brakes are generally ugly so the less space given to to lookin’ at them the better. </font></p> <p><font size="3">But I’ve long since realized that what I like to look at and what a whole lot of people like are totally different. </font></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-9485963625520714732022-01-08T12:47:00.001-06:002022-01-08T12:47:22.527-06:00I Shouda Been A Contender<p><font size="4">When I was young, still “made out of rubber and magic,” and full of unfounded confidence in my invulnerability I restarted my motorcycling life with a purchase of a <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2016/12/bikes-i-owned-and-loved-lot-or-little_7.html" target="_blank">1971 Kawasaki 350 Big Horn</a>. Motorcycles had been a big, then a small, then a non-existent, and back to big part of my life from when I was 15 until a year before my first kid was born in 1971. I didn’t buy the Big Horn new. It had belonged to an old Texas rancher who imagined that he could easily step down from horses to a motorcycle and discovered that he’d be relegated to a pickup instead. Today, I can relate to his dilemma, but back then I just saw his age-related misfortune as an opportunity. I paid a fraction of new price for a barely used bike and immediately went back to my old off-roading habits. </font></p> <p><font size="4">In those days, Hereford, Texas was a slightly prosperous west Texas ranching and cattle-feeding town with a side order of sugar beets and cotton. Today, it is practically a ghost town. Then, we had Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki, and Eurotrash dealers, a hill climbing area, a barely-out-of-town motocross track, and hundreds of miles of poorly maintained farm-to-market roads that, often, were barely more than tractor tracks leading as far away as a rider would want to travel on an off-road motorcycle of the day. One of the guys I worked with, a welder named “Charlie,” was a local “bad influence” motocross phenom who rode a 250 Kawasaki piston-port motocrosser and who had found the Big Horn for me. He and I spent a fair number of evenings and weekends banging tanks at the Hereford track and flipping over backwards showing off at the hill climb area. It was all his fault that I almost missed the birth of my daughter, Holly, because he’d signed us both up for a Sunday race in Dalhart the weekend she decided to venture into the world. </font></p> <p><img style="float: left; display: inline;" alt="South Canadian River – Las Animas County, CO | San Isabel National Forest" src="https://www.uncovercolorado.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Canadian-River-basin-map.png" width="278" align="left" height="176" /><font size="4">Since becoming a father ruined that weekend’s escape, A few weeks late, I signed the two of us up for the end-of-season race, the Canadian River Cross-country. A 120 mile race that started on the west end of Lake Meredith, a pitiful hole that might have been a lake at some time, but was just a big ditch most of the year in the 70s. From there west to New Mexico, the Canadian “River” was a long, wide trench with spotty pools of water, usually surrounded by rocks. I do not remember where exactly the race ended. 1971 was a <em><strong>LONG</strong></em> time ago. I remember my wife was really pissed that, after working a 90 hour week, leaving her home alone with a new baby, I was going to escape all of that bliss for a day and “go racing.” I was probably the least excited-to-be-a-young-father guy on the planet at that moment and her arguments were absolutely valid but unconvincing. Charlie was coming because he had a pickup and a great tool kit, but his interest in Cross-country was so slight that, after the first section, he turned back, loaded up his bike, and drove to the end to wait for me to show up so he could go home and get back to motocross. </font></p> <p><font size="4">I was “determined.” When I lined up with the other open class bikes, maybe 20 of us, it was the first race I’d been in since my rough scramble days on the Harley 250 Sprint. The juices were flowing, I thought i was ready to race and, even, win, and my Big Horn was faster than snot. Heavy as a buffalo, but really powerful for the time. In recent years, I’ve been told that my motorcycles are “unfit for off-road purposes,” and I just laugh at that idea because most of those characters wouldn’t even consider a mess like the Canadian River Cross-Country on a 2022 enduro. My Big Horn was heavy (400+ pounds), barely-suspended with Boge shocks (maybe 3 1/2” of travel) and the stock forks, only made real power (33hp) when the motor was wound up past 4,000 RPM, and ungainly as hell. Every bike I’ve owned from my <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2015/09/my-motorcycles-1974-rickman-125-isdt.html" target="_blank">125 ISDT</a> to my <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-top-ten-bike-list-9.html" target="_blank">XT350</a> to my <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2015/11/my-motorcycles-1992-yamaha-tdm-850.html" target="_blank">TDM850</a> or <a href="https://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2015/12/my-motorcycles-suzuki-v-strom-650.html" target="_blank">V-Strom</a> adventure bikes have been far more off-road capable than that Kawasaki so-called “enduro.” In late-1971, I had no idea that there were much better options and if I had been it wouldn’t have mattered because they weren’t available or affordable in West Texas. </font></p> <p><font size="4">The flag fell and off we went. I’d spent some time boning up on the warning flags and less than 10 miles in that education paid off. Just before we entered a tight, blind, hard left in the riverbed, one of those flags fluttered just enough to clue me in that there was a hazard. The hazard turned out to be a substantial pile of rocks that was littered with bikes, bike parts, and riders. I managed to come to a stop before piling into the guy who was in front of me. He didn’t. I paddled through a narrow passage and climb to the other side of the rocks and kept going. From here out, my memories are really clouded. </font></p> <p><font size="4">I know I crashed at least a dozen times in the next 100-some miles. I remember seeing a fair number of bikes and riders stuck in swampy sand, piled into rocks, logs, and each other. I remember, somewhere near the end, smacking my engine case on some rocks, busting the cases, and slowly losing the transmission fluid over the remaining miles. I remember only being able to shift from 1st to 2nd with no neutral or other gears in the last few miles. I remember losing power like crazy and barely motoring past the finish line. Charlie was there waiting for me and we loaded my bike back into his pickup. I remember drinking something, probably beer, on Charlie’s tailgate waiting for the results. I definitely remember a long period of no motorcycle, lots of overtime, and recriminations from my wife, while I reassembled and repaired the damage to my bike from that race. </font></p> <p><font size="4">My big memory, biggest in fact, of that race was discovering that because “only” three open class bikes finished, the organizers decided that they would only trophy to 2nd place, instead of 4th as planned and announced. I guess they wanted to save money on their crappy $5 plastic trophies. I got a fuckin’ ribbon, instead, but my finishing position wasn’t even listed, since I didn’t trophy. I raced motorcycles for another ten years, ending with a series of busted ribs, toes, and fingers. I never again came close to being on the podium. I pointed, in Nebraska, well enough to progress from Novice to Expert in the “Enduro Class,” but that was a quantity-over-quality achievement. </font></p> <p><font size="4">In the 1980s, when my daughter was skateboarding with her soon-to-be-famous boarding friends in Huntington Beach, she used to wear a tee-shirt that said, “I wish I were as fast as my father remembers he was.” I guess that is about as close as I will ever get to a motorcycle trophy. </font></p>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5950664143576637249.post-49602446667481499282021-12-27T23:03:00.001-06:002021-12-27T23:03:56.746-06:00Breakin’ ‘Em in or Breakin’ ‘Em Down?<font size="3"> <p>Way back in January of 2007, I bought a brand new, custom-fitted <a href="http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/search?q=darien" target="_blank">Aerostich Darien suit</a> as part of my prep for an Alaska trip the coming spring. Looking back at the review I wrote in 2008 for that suit, I’m slightly ashamed (only slightly) of my cowardly description of breaking in the suit, “After wearing the Darien suit almost every day for two months, it became much more flexible.” Yeah, that’s not how I broke in my Darien. If you have never owned a new <a href="http://aerostich.com" target="_blank">Aerostich</a> suit, you might not believe me when I say their “abrasion-resistant Mil-spec 500 Denier Cordura®" is "stiff as a board," but it pretty much is. I have no idea how they fold those suits into a neat package because that stuff folds about as easily as a refrigerator box. </p> <p>I had owned a very old <a href="http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2016/10/motorcyclist-gets-it-right.html" target="_blank">Aerostich Roadcrafter</a> before the Darien and I pretty much knew what I was getting into, even if that memory was more than 20 years old. I did ride to work a few times that winter and everything helps, but I’m going to admit to you in this rant how I really broke in my Darien during the winter of 2007. My grandson was about 11 at the time and he spent a lot of his weekends with us at our Little Canada house. Our backyard had a fairly two-tier steep cliff drop-off into Savage Lake and we sledded that hill often, even had large sledding parties when the snow was good enough and the lake was frozen solid. Most of the weekends between January and March that year, my grandson, my wife Elvy, and friends and family would bomb down that hill on sleds, snowboards, cardboard sheets,inner tubes, and I was right there with them in my Aerostich. Just me and that 500 Cordura and the Darien’s armor and the hill. I’d toss myself over the edge and slide on my back, belly and/or sides out on to the ice until that suit was as soft and pliable as it was ever going to be. I did not “wear the Darien” to break it in, I pounded the snot out of it. Not me, the suit. That tough material and terrific back, hip, shoulder, knee, and elbow padding and my helmet, gloves, and boots more than served the purpose of a sled and I got the suit broken in and ready to ride 13,000 miles that spring while having a terrific time being a maniac with my grandson.</p> <p>In 2012, Icon gave me a really good deal on a pair of their <a href="http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/2015/06/product-review-icon-patrol-boots.html" target="_blank">Patrol Boots</a>, which I reviewed for <a href="http://mnmotorcycle.com">Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly</a> in 2013. I liked the boots quite a bit and wore them often for 2-3 years, but I never really liked either the hassle of latching up the dual adjustable stabilizer straps or getting my bunged up “<a href="https://www.foothealthfacts.org/conditions/haglund%E2%80%99s-deformity" target="_blank">Haglund’s deformity</a>” heel past the section between the uppers and the inside of the boot. I’m old, I’ve never been particularly flexible, and the weird twisted position I have to get into to latch up the boots is a hassle. So, the boots have mostly sat in my closet ignored and unused for most of the 9 years I’ve owned them. I tried to give them away, but nobody wanted them. This year, my very old, very used Merrell winter boots rotted to pieces. I started looking for replacements, but a good winter boot is easily in the $100 territory and I’m unlikely to live long enough or walk far enough to justify a $100 boot. So, I drug out the Icons and, damn they are excellent winter boots: warm, water resistant, tough, and super comfortable; just not quite broken-in. </p> <p>Soooooooooooooooo</p> <p>Remember the Darien break-in tactic? I’m going to abuse the snot out of these boots stomping around in the snow all winter. Next spring, if I survive (something a lot of us are saying in this COVID world), I hope to have them and me broken in enough that I use them on the motorcycle a lot. </p> </font>T.W. Dayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04078254371483458356noreply@blogger.com1