1. Ever notice how many for sale ads you see where the bike has tons of aftermarket "performance" accessories but in the picture you can clearly see that the rear tire is squared off and the 10+ year old original? Like, Dude, your bike would handle better if you learned to ride it and put good rubber on it. All those carbon fiber bits and questionable engine/electronics work is lowering the value I'm willing to pay.
2. Funny how easy it is to get a friend with a truck when you're buying a bike from out of state, but once you're moving or something everyone is miraculously busy.
3. You know the guy in the leather vest who tells you that you should get a real bike? Then when you get a Sportster or Dyna or Star 1300 he tells you that you need to trade that in for a real bike. Notice how he has a lone "wolf patch" or "independent" patch and doesn't ride with anyone that has a real bike like he does? Yeah, that dude is a jerk.
4. The look on some dude/dudette's face when they walk into a restaurant and make eye contact with you and you both realize that you/your group blew by their minivan just a few minutes ago and grabbed the last big table, and now dude/dudette's gaggle of brats has to wait to be seated.
5. People are all ears when you're talking about what performance parts to put on their bike but the moment you start talking about tire psi/suspension settings/corner entry brake pressure their eyes glaze over.
Sunday, April 16, 2017
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Thoughts on Rain
Living in the Northwest your riding season is rather limited unless you're willing to ride in some degree of moisture. I know plenty of riders that won't even chance a ride to the coast if there is a possibility of some leftover dew on shady corners. Around here is only full on Dry from mid-June to October, so at some point you're going to get wet. February in the mid Willamette valley starts getting warm (mid 40s, sometimes as high as 60) and will tease you with just enough of a break in the rain to convince you to break out the 3-season gear and mount up.
Let me break down what I don't like about riding in the rain.
First off the cold/wetness of the ride itself. Now half of that is just that I don't have particularly great boots for it, they aren't waterproof, I wear a textile 3-season suit which isn't perfectly waterproof and isn't gortex, my helmet isn't warm or watertight and its too tight to wear a balaclava under comfortably. Lastly I just don't like having to spend fifteen minutes gearing up and feel like the Michelin Man when I'm on the bike. I have electric gear but that feels like I'm tethered and isn't entirely comfortable. So I suppose the adage is somewhat true: there's no such thing as bad riding weather, just inappropriate gear.
Bad visibility when there's other cars kicking up spray, mud, and pooled water make for complaints that can't be attributed to cheaping out on my gear. On a very basic level we cornering enthusiasts don't like rain because it means less grip.
Less grip means less available lean angle, less quick-flick ability, less available braking ability, and less acceleration ability right? So let me recap. Riding in the wet is uncomfortable and we have less of every kind of performance from our high performance machines.
How do we improve the riding performance in the wet? As with most things there's a lot of old wives tales (sorry, old biker tales), friendly but worthless advice, and solid facts. Instead of re-iterate someone else's advice I'll just point you to them. This is an excellent start: https://soundcloud.com/ken-hill-534763963/podcast-41-riding-in-the-rain-what-you-need-to-know
Let me go in a different direction now. What do I like about riding in the wet? The country roads are more empty. Fewer people are out driving for recreation, more road for me, and of course that its riding. I suppose I could enjoy the bragging rights of doing a trackday in the rain, but both times I've done that (as a newer sport rider) I went off roading or crashed. In March I was scheduled for a trackday and watching the weather habitually as the forecast went from rain to clear to rain and back to clear. At the back of my mind I was hoping for a tiny bit of rain so I could really learn the rain limits of my bike. The weather gods gave me absolutely perfect weather so I didn't get to find out.
Unfortunately as I've often said finding the limits of your bike usually involves crashing it and we don't want that. The day I bought the Interceptor it was raining horribly. The day I brought it home from the 12,000 mile service it was raining and windy. Many of the days I've gone out riding in the spring its been less than dry. Funny thing is that in all the wet I've ridden it I've hardly ever engaged the traction control. Either my tire choice is excellent, my riding is good, or else the traction control takes a lot of slip to engage. Same thing about the ABS, I have to try to engage it. I've only engaged ABS in traffic once due to oil/water mix at a stop light.
One of my first real rain rides was on my old R6 with Dunlop Qualifiers as a newly minted sport rider. I was on a country highway when the skies opened up. Rather than go home I did what any Keith Code disciple would have done. I concentrated on throttle control rule 1, I kept the bike upright by using more body off position, and I adjusted my lines to keep the bike more upright. Surprisingly to me the bike was stable and I didn't find the limit.
Lets talk about equipment. Modern tires are incredibly good. Every manufacturer says that their street/sport/sport touring/touring tires have excellent wet traction due to siping pattern and silicon content. Like most riders I used to dismiss claims like that as marketing, until I started riding more in the damp or wet. Repeat after me: modern tires are good. Trust your rubber. As with any other piece of equipment the tires need to be maintained and used correctly though. Getting sport tires warm in the rain without warmers can be a challenge, but its doable. Make sure your pressure is right and don't trust worn out or old rubber. The best rubber won't save you though if you ride badly.
Are electronics worth it? It depends. The last decade has seen many bikes from 250cc beginner bikes to 1000cc supercharged track bikes getting some form of ABS and or Traction Control. To an extent you can divide the ABS offerings into two categories: basic ABS installed on bikes to meet legal requirements (see Euro requirements) and good ABS (see lean sensitive, KIBS, anything tied to an IMU).
Traction Control in a very basic sense is the ability of the bike to reduce power to the rear wheel when it detects it spinning (losing grip). Lets think about what that means. It means that you have to have lost grip already before the system can step in to reduce power to let the rear regain grip. Another way to put it is this: you have to be on the throttle for your expensive TC system to do anything for you. So you can either fight your TC system by chopping throttle once it engages or you can work with it and keep consistent throttle (which you should be doing anyway) and let the results of years of engineering work for you. On four wheels I've seen plenty of AWD/TC enabled Subarus in the ditch in a snow storm; the drivers were trying to steer out of a slide and jamming the brakes instead of hitting the gas and driving out of the slide.
In closing I'd just like to say that I dislike the rain, but it really isn't that bad. Some day I'll have a bike with supersport tires for the summer and track, and another with amazing wet sport touring tires just for the rain with a matching waterproof hi-viz outfit.
Let me break down what I don't like about riding in the rain.
First off the cold/wetness of the ride itself. Now half of that is just that I don't have particularly great boots for it, they aren't waterproof, I wear a textile 3-season suit which isn't perfectly waterproof and isn't gortex, my helmet isn't warm or watertight and its too tight to wear a balaclava under comfortably. Lastly I just don't like having to spend fifteen minutes gearing up and feel like the Michelin Man when I'm on the bike. I have electric gear but that feels like I'm tethered and isn't entirely comfortable. So I suppose the adage is somewhat true: there's no such thing as bad riding weather, just inappropriate gear.
Bad visibility when there's other cars kicking up spray, mud, and pooled water make for complaints that can't be attributed to cheaping out on my gear. On a very basic level we cornering enthusiasts don't like rain because it means less grip.
Less grip means less available lean angle, less quick-flick ability, less available braking ability, and less acceleration ability right? So let me recap. Riding in the wet is uncomfortable and we have less of every kind of performance from our high performance machines.
How do we improve the riding performance in the wet? As with most things there's a lot of old wives tales (sorry, old biker tales), friendly but worthless advice, and solid facts. Instead of re-iterate someone else's advice I'll just point you to them. This is an excellent start: https://soundcloud.com/ken-hill-534763963/podcast-41-riding-in-the-rain-what-you-need-to-know
Let me go in a different direction now. What do I like about riding in the wet? The country roads are more empty. Fewer people are out driving for recreation, more road for me, and of course that its riding. I suppose I could enjoy the bragging rights of doing a trackday in the rain, but both times I've done that (as a newer sport rider) I went off roading or crashed. In March I was scheduled for a trackday and watching the weather habitually as the forecast went from rain to clear to rain and back to clear. At the back of my mind I was hoping for a tiny bit of rain so I could really learn the rain limits of my bike. The weather gods gave me absolutely perfect weather so I didn't get to find out.
Unfortunately as I've often said finding the limits of your bike usually involves crashing it and we don't want that. The day I bought the Interceptor it was raining horribly. The day I brought it home from the 12,000 mile service it was raining and windy. Many of the days I've gone out riding in the spring its been less than dry. Funny thing is that in all the wet I've ridden it I've hardly ever engaged the traction control. Either my tire choice is excellent, my riding is good, or else the traction control takes a lot of slip to engage. Same thing about the ABS, I have to try to engage it. I've only engaged ABS in traffic once due to oil/water mix at a stop light.
One of my first real rain rides was on my old R6 with Dunlop Qualifiers as a newly minted sport rider. I was on a country highway when the skies opened up. Rather than go home I did what any Keith Code disciple would have done. I concentrated on throttle control rule 1, I kept the bike upright by using more body off position, and I adjusted my lines to keep the bike more upright. Surprisingly to me the bike was stable and I didn't find the limit.
Are electronics worth it? It depends. The last decade has seen many bikes from 250cc beginner bikes to 1000cc supercharged track bikes getting some form of ABS and or Traction Control. To an extent you can divide the ABS offerings into two categories: basic ABS installed on bikes to meet legal requirements (see Euro requirements) and good ABS (see lean sensitive, KIBS, anything tied to an IMU).
Traction Control in a very basic sense is the ability of the bike to reduce power to the rear wheel when it detects it spinning (losing grip). Lets think about what that means. It means that you have to have lost grip already before the system can step in to reduce power to let the rear regain grip. Another way to put it is this: you have to be on the throttle for your expensive TC system to do anything for you. So you can either fight your TC system by chopping throttle once it engages or you can work with it and keep consistent throttle (which you should be doing anyway) and let the results of years of engineering work for you. On four wheels I've seen plenty of AWD/TC enabled Subarus in the ditch in a snow storm; the drivers were trying to steer out of a slide and jamming the brakes instead of hitting the gas and driving out of the slide.
In closing I'd just like to say that I dislike the rain, but it really isn't that bad. Some day I'll have a bike with supersport tires for the summer and track, and another with amazing wet sport touring tires just for the rain with a matching waterproof hi-viz outfit.
Monday, April 3, 2017
Perils and Positives of Group Riding
The pendulum of the motorcycling experience tends to swing from an intensely social experience to times of extreme solitude. On one hand you could go to a World SuperBike or MotoGP Race and be around 80,000 of your closest friends in a frenzied carnival of fast motorbikes, merchandise, and overpriced beer and on the other hand you may find yourself hundreds of miles from the nearest person on a highway in the middle of Alaska with nobody to impress with your stories but the bears. I've spoken before about how nice it is to be away from it all riding by myself on a rainy highway so its only fair to elucidate upon nearly the exact opposite: the group ride.
My first group ride was back in 2010 when I was a new rider on a Baby Ninja. I had read about all the awesome sport bike group rides on the forums and I was eager to be a part of one. The group of superbike riders kinda put up with me (bless their hearts) and waited for me at various intervals. Out on hwy 96 in California I proved my worth though when the fast guy on the Ducati 1098 ran out of gas (tuned bike, he refused to put regular into it at Happy Camp). We were miles from the nearest gas station with premium and guess who had a Camelbak with a hose they could use to siphon gas out of a GSXR, into a discarded Budweiser can, and into the Duc.
The group type? We're all in this together. Fortunately/unfortunately I've been in groups like this plenty. Fortunately because there are people, more or less total strangers, who are willing to help each other out if they get in a bind. Unfortunately because bikes break down and sometimes people crash. Groups are fun too. Its comforting to see that someone ahead of you made it through a sketchy corner, it means you can too. A little friendly competition is also fun, but beware the presumptive fine where a TC will issue the same ticket to everyone in the group even though he only caught one doing it. He knows we won't take time off from work to return to Nowheresville to fight it and its free money. Unfortunate for my wallet I've been there and done that.
Of course every rose has its thorn. One wouldn't think that a larger group of sportbikes would make lower average times on a route but it happens. Generally the groups make good time while riding, but all the downtime adds up and compounds the more people are in the group. You see once a group stops, people start smoking, start talking, start checking their phones, and without a designated leader (that commands obedience) to say "suit up lets go" the group will be stuck there for thirty minutes or two cigarettes. Add in other difficulties like large groups hitting gas stations at once or trying to get served at restaurants and you see how much time you lose.
There's all sorts of other things that tend to go wrong when you announce on a public forum the ride. Squids show up without any gear and or with bikes that barely run. People of all skill levels show up. On more than one ride I've been the one waiting for the slow newbie. If we set the way-back machine to 2010 there was a group ride that never even left the meetup spot because a handful of JackCo Sheriffs showed up and started writing fix-it tickets on people's bikes. The consensus is that they had either learned which website we were organizing on or else the group had become too predictable. The newbie on the stock Baby Ninja didn't get a fix-it ticket that day, but that group disbanded faster than you can say Chicken Strips and only a few ever ride together anymore, organized offline.
It wouldn't be fair to pick on just sport riders. During my short tenure as a cruiser rider I tried to take part in several cruiser events including but not limited to a Poker Run. The Poker Run is ubiquitous among the cruiser culture almost as much as salad bowl helmets and leather vests with bumper stickers (excuse me, patches). My beef with Poker Runs is that for the most part each stop is at a bar. As a participant you can't just stop in, get your card, and leave, because the next stop won't have people at it yet and there's no incentive to get there early. At each stop everyone stops, drinks, smokes, then ambles on to the next. Do you want to know what I think? Of course you do, you're reading my blog. I think that its darned irresponsible to be bar hopping on a 200hp 900lbs motorcycle with nothing between you and the ground but a "helmets suck" salad bowl and some flimsy leather. Naturally I can't just pick on alcohol. In Oregon Marijuana has become commonplace almost overnight since decriminalization. On more than one ride I've seen people toking then riding. Whatever I guess, its their skin if they crash. Excuse me if I think consuming central nervous system depressants then going faster than nature can possibly have evolved us to travel on our own seems like it might be a bad idea. Hold my beer and watch this.
Here in the middle Willamette valley I've been fortunate enough to have mostly really good group rides with the only detractors being how slow it is to get people going once they stop.
On a recent ride I found myself playing tech marshal on people's bikes. A number of new people were there and I saw everything from bald tires to rusted parts, to an axle missing the end nut and halfway out of the fork. On the other side of the grid there were meticulously maintained newish bikes that get ridden as fast as the bikes look. I guess it takes all kinds.
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