Motoblag

I’ve never had the best of luck with motorcycle dealers.  A quick rundown of the local shops:

Yamaha dealer: horrific customer service.  Act like they are doing you a favor when you order parts.  If one of their good ol’ boys customers is in the shop shooting the shit, strap yourself in for a long wait for being recognized.

Independent shop: Just as bad service as the Yamaha shop.  See: tire change.  With a new tire purchase, they stated mounting would be free if I bring in the rim.  On picking it up, they attempted to charge full mounting price, tire disposal fee, then a balancing fee on top of it.  Failed to fill tire to recommended pressure.

BMW/Honda/Kawi/Suzuki shop: better customer service, decent selection of gear and accessories.  If you have to order something you must call them every other day to not only make sure they ordered it, but see if it showed up.  That’s right, they’ll sit on your order until you call them.

Honda shop in Montana: failed to properly reinstall the axle on a friend’s bike.  That is a life threatening safety issue.

All these experiences reinforce my motto: Nobody cares about the well-being of your motorcycle as much as  you do.

Last week I enlisted the services of a friend to help me pick up my new bike.  Say hello to my new 2006 Triumph Scrambler:

I’ve only put about 500 miles on it, 300 of which from riding it back across the state.

I think it’s just what the doctor ordered.

Three days, two pages.  Give it a read.

After completing the first day of S/TEP training, I took the 599 to my sister’s place in Vancouver.  Rolling up, I dismount and remove my riding gear.  Once my luggage was off the bike and inside, I went out to move my bike in the driveway.  During this I was giving my sis a quick rundown of the course and as I finish positioning the bike, I mentioned how hard the grass field was on the bikes.  Linkage can rattle loose, brake pads are roughly treated and other symptoms of heavy duty use.  This made me feel really good about the 599 being such a soldier and not needing any extra maintenance.

All the way up the driveway my front brakes are making some pretty wicked racket, like I’ve a stuck piston in a caliper.

Then I try to put the 599’s kickstand down.

It’s stuck.

I’m pushing down as hard as I can and the stand won’t budge.  I try reapplying pressure but it had nothing doing with my plans.  After a bit of sweating it finally deploys and I can set the bike down.  Phew.

On my knees, I check the front brakes.  Sure enough, one brake pad is showing more wear than its counterpart on the other side of the rotor.

Mentioning the training rigs having a tough life and being thankful my 599 isn’t that way caused my bike to start showing its mileage 300 miles from home.  Doh!

The front brakes turned out to be a heavily worn brake pad slider pin:

Parts are on order, these don’t appear to be normal wear items.

I spent last weekend down in beautiful Hood River, Oregon, learning how to pilot an outfit through Adventure Sidecar.  The weather couldn’t have been better and the class was wonderful.

If the weekend taught me one thing, it would be three wheelers are vastly different than solo bikes.  This is mentioned in every piece of three-wheel-specified literature I’ve read but it didn’t sink in until I actually rode a sidecar rig.  The noticeable yaw under acceleration and braking was very, very strange.  Surprisingly, direct steering wasn’t as difficult to use as I would have expected.  Even switching between riding my Hornet to the class and then using the training rigs wasn’t a problem.

If the weekend taught me two things it was to be a bit more humble!  I enjoy practicing my braking skills and like to think they are far above the average rider.  It turns out my street skills were almost useless when braking offroad on a KLR with a sidecar attached.  My tiny hope of the bike just being hard to stop and my skills were fine was squashed when another student grabbed the same rig and stopped in half the distance at the same speed.

Doh.

By the end of the weekend, the superb level of instruction left me with confidence in my three wheel skills and a startling lust for getting a hack sooner rather than later.

Tailgating drivers aren’t entirely stupid. Some part of their brain knows they need a bit of sight distance, so if you’re in the lefthand third of your lane, they’ll scoot over past the fog line to see past you.

Have some fun with them. Scoot over to the center of your lane and watch them move over even farther onto the shoulder. Eventually they’ll figure it out and recenter themselves in the lane.

Scoot over to the left side again. Within a few moments they’ll be back on the shoulder and you can start over again.

Occasionally you’ll even run across a driver who figures it out and they’ll back off. Until then, have fun!

Sadly, our wedding weekend coincided with spring break for many universities.  Combine this with various travel safety notices telling folks to avoid Mexico for travel and you’ve got a recipe for popped collars and unsavory members of the Greek communities doing what they do best.

Getting on the elevator after our post-ceremony celebrations, an inebriated student barely stumbles in to the elevator and finally succeeds in pushing the button for his floor.  After this achivement, he loudly proclaims “floor nineteen, where the ballers are stayin- oh shit who’s on floor twenty five?!”

The following day was open enough to let my new bride and I to catch a Cirque du Soleil show.  We cough up the bucks and busy ourselves for a few hours before “O” starts.  Once we finally get seated, we’re next to a family from somewhere up north, from their accent.  The father mentions how excellent our seats are, being perfectly centered.  He proudly adds he purchased the tickets almost six months ago and inquired when we acquried ours.  After I quipped “Oh, an hour or two ago” he was much quieter.

My fiancee and I tied the knot down in Las Vegas, Nevada almost two weeks ago!  We couldn’t be happier and I now have an official partner in crime-  I mean life.

Now for the sweet, sweet rewards of married life: cheaper insurance and taxes.  Awww yeah.

Motorcycle teachin’ starts back up in a few days and my motorcycle is in the driveway under six inches of snow.  This will work splendidly.

Having my finger checking the pulse of a lot of forums, everywhere you look there are people preparing for the coming financial apocalypse.  Most folks don’t know quite what to do so they buy up ammoe and guns.

What a great way to make it feel like you’re actually doing something productive.  Tangible assets for fueling dreams of being Rambo, stabbing zombies in the face with an ice pick.