straycatt

I have a request. Don't play "The Monkey's".

Sounds good, mine loaded right up. The CCR was good. I was hanging around 'till he spun up The Monkey's, and I had to bail.

My Venture and I are in the early dating stage right now. We've been going together for just a few actual "riding months". Our first date was just this past September and then we played it cool for a few Michigan months. I got to first and second base fairly quick, but since I'm hoping this will be a long term relationship, I thought it best to take it slow to third base and home. Saturday was third base, I'm getting to know her pretty well now, so home can't be far behind. I'm finding the Venture is more of a sport bike than it appears. I didn't pick her up to drag running boards so I really hadn't pushed her that far, but now that I know how well she'll lay down......she's gonna spend some time on her side. Or rather, at least close.

The advice in the above posts is good. Turn your head to look thru the turn, don't look at the ground other than a glance for debris. Tight figure eights are done best by leaning the bike (full lock handlebars) to the inside of the turn and then leaning your body to the outside of the turn. That allows the steering geometry of your bike to make the tightest radius possible. Drag the rear brake, keep the revs up a little and slip the clutch some (friction zone). I use four parking spaces....two wide nose to nose with the other two, to do figure eights in. When you can consistently stay inside the lines and not run past the ends, you're pretty damn good. If you ever get a chance to watch the Police Motor officers ride or practice a skills Rodeo, do it. You can learn more from closely watching these guys than you can almost anywhere else short of a Palidino class. Flint Mi has what they call "Bikes on the Bricks" held in August or September. The big attraction is a Motor LEO Rodeo. The first year had 15 or so riders, last year there were more than 50 from all over the state. They are hoping this becomes the largest skills competition of its kind in this part of the country. Admission is free and it's a good time. Anyway, ride. I spend oddles of time just playing with my bikes, I ride. I have no doubt I'm not the best rider to ever grace the planet, and I can learn new tricks if there is something to learn from. But I'm fairly good, because I ride, and the only people that should matter to is me and my rear. I think the MSF Experienced Rider Course is named improperly. It should be called the Second Year Rider Course. If you've mastered these skills and use them occasionally you don't need this course. Having never taken the BRC I was expecting to be challenged. I wasn't. For $25 it was worth it. If I had paid $50, I'd have been upset. Bottom line, as always, try it for yourself. You may get more out of it than I did. Above all, just ride.

My local Ace didn't stock the blanks, but I did run across an area locksmith that does. $4.99 each.

That's all you got out of it? I must not be a very good writer then. (duh!) I tried to give an honest factual account of the day, with a little funny at the end. Consider it worth exactly what you paid me to write it. And btw, since I don't use a whole lotta' safety clothing, I do try to know what I'm doing and I spend time practicing to keep my skills sharp. Can I screw up? Certainly, but I make the effort to minimize the risk. I find it hard to understand how anyone could have a problem with it.

A couple of weeks ago I was surfing around the web and happened onto the local community college ad for the beginner and experienced rider courses. I was curious to know how far in advance they were booked to. The beginner class is full to June, even having class every Fri/Sat/Sun from April thru September. The experienced rider class is held only one Saturday with an early AM class and late PM class. For a whole $25 I thought I'd give it a try. I called admissions to sign up for the AM session and was told "sorry, no can do. Lack of interest canceled the AM class, but we do have space in the PM course." Readers Digest version, they take up to 16 bikes per class and there were 10 riders there including yours truly. Now in all fairness, it was raining off and on for most of the day, so I suppose that's a reason for the no-shows, the class was fully booked. Nine guys, one girl. Riders ran from a low of 25 years old to a high of 55. Experience level was surprising to me, and a tad scary. The 30something guy riding a very nice shiny newer Goldwing said he had a total of about 30 days riding experience. I'm sorry, did you say you're first bike is a Goldwing and you've been riding for 1 month? Yup, that's what he said. At least he had his M endorsement. A couple of the guys had several years on various bikes, but the norm seemed to be 1 year give or take. I was the old man with my 40some years. There was only one rider that professed to regular (or ever) practicing parking lot drills. I felt a little lonely. lol There was the usual assortment of HD's, the Wing, a Triumph Tiger, FJR, FZ, V Star, an V Strom, and my Venture. Class time sucked. Or at least I assume it sucked as about 1/3 of the class had paperwork that said the class started a 1:30 when it actually started at noon. I was really bummed to be late. (yeah right) The riding drills were pretty much the same thing as the BRC and almost bored me to tears. Most of them I did once or twice and then parked to watch the other riders. Now that was fun. Nobody dropped anything, but they did come close a few times. The high point of the entire thing was the last drill. A large elongated oval with a kind of "swerve" on one side. They split the group in half and had five bikes at a time play follow the leader. The first group had all of the less, ah...stable, riders in it. They pretty much crawled around the circuit. The other group was the FJR, a Dyna Wide, V Strom, Tiger, and Venture. A comment was made along the lines of it being alright to step up the pace a tad, and we were off. We all stayed on the rubber with only the Dyna and myself dragging parts on every corner, and the instructor slowing us down only once. I never did get out of first gear. I know, it's not a race, but it's supposed to be fun, and that made it fun. All in all, it wasn't a waste of time, but it came close. Now bear in mind that is the opinion of a rider with more than 40 years on two wheels, who still does slow speed parking lot practice on a regular basis. I was a little surprised that I did as well as I did considering that I've had this Venture for only about 1200 miles. I bought it late last fall when I sold my Spirit 11. For some of the newer riders, it likely did a bit of good. The Goldwing guy was absolutely more comfortable at the end than when he got there, and the lone girl, riding a 1200 Sporty, was still shaky but said she felt better for having done the class. She told me that her first X-way ride was on the way to the course. I'll admit I didn't really expect to get a lot out of it. I was surprised at how easily the Venture scraped running boards. I hadn't had one drag before, and this class did accelerate the experience for me so if nothing else, it was worth that lesson. Plus, it was fun pulling into the lot wearing my non DOT beanie, sneakers, fingerless gloves and just a t-shirt in the light rain, then changing to stuff they'd let me ride in while I met the group. Any time riding is a good time and for $25 it was worth it

Golf green eh? OK, but every time I ride my bike onto a golf green it seems to irritate those guys walking around with the funny looking sticks.

A couple of these ATGATT threads got me thinking (oh nooooo). What do you use your bike for? If you need to run to the corner store for a gallon of milk, and your an ATGATT kind of guy (or girl), do you gear up or do you just not ride a motorcycle? What's your cut off point on riding, gear up for a 30 minute ride but take the car for a 20 minute jaunt? The reason that I ask, is that I don't. Wear all that gear that is. If I'm in the yard washing the dog and she tips over the dog shampoo, and I need to run up town for another bottle....I'm going in what ever I happen to be wearing at the moment and I'm going on a motorcycle. If I going to the beach, I'm riding there in shorts and taking a towel. I ride everywhere I go, for the most part. So, what do you do? This doesn't need to be a big, safety gear debate (probably turn into one though). I'm just curious how you decide whether or not to ride.

Good get on the fire truck. I've got a red maple in the back yard, but its leaves are almost purple.

How ironic. While I don't lane split, I do wear the tshirt, shorts, flipflops and a nutshell that is not DOT, and I don't care how I look or what other people think either. To each their own....

So, Mr July not withstanding....do we need a different target or just a little more time with this one?

According to the guy I bought my Venture from, the headlight glass has been cracked for several years. There seems to be no discoloration of the lens or the reflector, so until it becomes a problem, I have other things to worry about....

Good deal Karl. I was just thinking about setting up a little get together ride.

The Venture that I bought last fall has the S.O.M.A. light on it, so I have no idea how old that light assembly is. That being said, about half of the LED's were out, so I contacted Rivco to see if they had any type of warranty on their LED's. No dice. So, I pulled the housing apart and cut the end of the LED strip until I had 14 good LED's. Then I centered the strip in the housing and used silicone to fix everything in place. I would not buy another one. It seems like the LED strip should last almost indefinitely if it was a quality unit. That and on mine you can wire for either running lights or brake, but not both. I may try the one from R MARK on ebay. :2cents:

I'm not trying to belittle your vast amount of 2 wheeled experience, but at 51 years old I've been riding for more than 42 years now on just about every type of motorcycle made from trials to road racers. No I don't know everything, but I do know a lot. In my experience you DO have control over most situations that PLACE you at risk for an accident......assume that every left turning driver is going to turn in front of you, and take the appropriate action thereby reducing your chance of accident. I too, was run off of the road, or rather I chose the off road route when, last summer a drunk tried to run thru me from behind. Why didn't he kill me? Because I was paying attention and anticipated what he was likely to do. It could have gone bad, but instead was no more than a ride through a ditch and field at 55 mph with some weeds in the spokes. In order to be involved in an accident two things have to happen. You or someone else has to screw up, and then YOU have to not be paying enough attention to take action to avoid the original screw up. Simple as that, and lots of people avoid these accident for their entire riding life. I'm not saying "don't wear safety gear". I'm saying 1. Don't try to justify using fear to force people into wearing what YOU think is proper, and 2. that learning to ride well and be observant of what is going on around/ahead of you will do more for your safety than any form of protective clothing ever will. Please accept my good regards for any of your family/friends that may have been on the short end of a mishap.

Do you know the story of "roadrash girl" whose picture you posted? Her name is Brittany. It was a case of someone doing something stupid, and they took an innocent with them. Here's a link to her story. http://sportbike.natkd.com/road_rash.htm My point was and is, Rapters cut and paste above isn't designed to offer factual information on the risks of riding with less than the maximum safety gear. Its whole purpose is to frighten its readers into making an emotional decision based on the results of an event, that for most riders, will never happen. And they use all manner of verbal horror to do it. I likely spend as much time as anyone around old and young street riders, racers and dirt bikers. By far, the majority of these guys have very few injuries my self included. Visible, long lasting, catastrophic, or otherwise. Most of the damage old riders have sustained came from racing (in my case motocross) or drinking. Don't want to need all of that safety gear net? Don't race or drink and ride, and you've lowered your odds of mishap substantially. I'll spend my safety dollars teaching riders to ride well and within their abilities, rather than endorsing the use of safety apparel that promotes an attitude of invincibility and the mindset that it's "OK if I fall down, I'm wearing my safety gear". I believe in the theory of risk compensation. The safer you make a given activity appear, the more reckless its participants will behave until that activity gets back to their risk comfort level.

Fear sells.

That's the same one on my scoot and the wife (at 5' 4" tall) loves it. She says it just about locks her in place.

I sent Clearview an email about getting one of their vents, John replied that they'd be happy to sell me one and even include a template for the cutout. Seems like it was $59 plus shipping. These shields are very easy to work with if you're just a tad careful.

Read the Motorcyclistonline link above, there is a valid argument for not using a Snell hat. The statement "$10 helmet for a $10 head" is just funny. If a hat meets DOT (or Snell for that matter) then everything else that costs extra is just fluff and extra profit for the manufacturer. The "$10 helmet" line was from an old advertisement by Bell. They really got some mileage out of their advertising dollars if that campaign is still selling product. The lids that come with a DOT sticker you attach yourself are ALWAYS non DOT novelty helmets, and can NOT be compared with DOT and Snell hats. Those of us that wear non DOT hats are fully aware (or at least should be) of what we are wearing and only wear them to make a show of complying with totalitarian government requirements. If you choose to wear a helmet, what ever helmet you choose, be aware that according to the NHTSA helmets are only about 37% effective at preventing head injuries. That means that they FAIL in their intended purpose 63 times out of 100.

Hmmm, a number of things come to mind, but I'll be brief. I'll preface by saying that I work on my own stuff, always, because no one is going to do as good a job on my stuff as me. Now, do you really think it's a good idea to yell at a guy who is about to take your ride apart and, by doing so have your life in his hands? Next, if a scratch will "buff out" it's not a scratch. I used to be all anal about my hardware. Always parked my scratch and door ding free cars taking up two spots. Got nervous if someone wiped their hand across my bikes paint. Stone chips were a major life catastrophe and were fixed immediately. Now, I'm calmer. Things happen, a scratch adds character. A little personality if you will. Do I still take due care? Of course, but there are other things far more important in my life now. Should the mechanic have taken better care of your scoot? Probably. But going off because he brushed your fender with his pants and sat a part on an unprotected counter is over the top in my opinion. You asked for honesty.

Here in Michigan, if you can find a plate from the year of your vintage ride they will permanently register it to your bike. I had one that I bought on Ebay for my '73 Suzuki. It was a still in the wrapper never used plate. $20

I can't speak to the cruise, but no the speed-o-meter isn't smooth like in a car. It will jump up and down a few MPH.

I was originally trained as a machinist and then a plumber, not a lumberjack. I had thought about devising an, ah, sculpture or I mean tool of my own design. But Jeff offered and I'm happy that he did. It was a no fuss no muss operation with that tool, but anything that works....... It really is a bummer to have to buy single use tools. The end wrench for the steering stem nut, socket for the rear axle nut, socket for the clutch nut, etc.. I spent $15 for a 30mm socket that I may never use on anything else. It's really great when someone will lend you their tools. It's not worth shipping a $15 socket, but an $100 clutch tool? Hecks yes.