Motorcycle mystery

[nosrednayduj]

Last Wednesday I took my motorcycle to square dancing, and when I got home, I took the key out and attempted to stick it in my jacket pocket like usual. I was wearing my gloves still, and I wasn't sure if I succeeded, and so the next day I glanced around the floor of the garage and did not see the key.

Today, I motorcycled to work, and the key was not in the jacket pocket. So I grabbed the spare because I was running late. Get to work, do work, go back out to the parking garage in the evening.

The missing key was on the floor of the parking garage.

How did it get there? I have not been to work in the intervening time.

Best I can figure out, I dropped it on the tank bag, which is magnetically held to the gas tank, and the key stuck to the magnet, and then when I was getting things out of the tank bag I dislodged the key where it fell on the floor, and I did not notice because I was wearing earplugs as I always do when I am going to ride on the freeway.

In other motorcycle news, last Wednesday evening I attempted to use the highbeam, and it did not give me any illumination. So I called the shop today, and I learned that my motorcycle is getting elderly, and thus the parts are "vintage", so I have a bulb on order and an appointment to get it fixed. Since it will not pass inspection with the highbeam out.

Still dithering about whether I am going to continue to be a motorcycle owner, because mostly I don't ride a lot. Though, I'm going to ride it again tomorrow, because my work computer is sad, and I talked to the IT people today and they want me to bring it back tomorrow to see if they can figure out more about why it is sad. So that'll be three days in a seven-day period, which seems like enough to keep it. We'll see if I continue, or if it sits in the garage for months again.

Comments

[apparentparadox]

I'm curious as to how your motorcycle likes sitting around for long periods of time. Not that I would ever get one, just curious.

We go back and forth on whether to get rid of our second car (a 2005 Prius). We rarely use it, and have to keep it on a trickle charger so the 12V battery doesn't go dead. We recently loaned it to a friend who needs a car, so we're practicing being a one car household right now.

[nosrednayduj]

It likes it just fine, as long as I give it stabilized gas. The blue enzyme-based stuff, not the old pink stuff. I'm riding enough right now that I'm not stabilizing in every fill up, but in the fall I will start doing that again. I do also charge the battery periodically if it seems to be a long time, like more than two months.

[apparentparadox]

I've been a little worried that maybe we should think about stabilized gas. But, it hasn't seemed to be a problem so far -- the car goes when we need it to (as long as we've kept the battery charged).

One of the problems with the Prius is the whole "keyless entry" stuff, which drains the battery. We could turn that off, but then you have to use the stupid mechanical key to get into the car, which is a pain.

[nosrednayduj]

Even if your car runs on the elderly gas, it could be layering gunk into the rest of the engine. So it's a good idea to stabilize it to help the volatiles not outgas. It's also a good idea to drive it a significant distance periodically (we've been doing that about once every two months, like 25-50 miles) and a short distance (5-10 miles) once every two weeks. We got this advice from a car nerd. Since we basically killed our previous van by neglect, we have been following this advice in our more recent cars that end up not getting a lot of use. Though, I don't follow this advice on my motorcycle, and it seems to be doing okay. Maybe motorcycles expect you to not use them six months of the year and are more resilient. At least mine is old and simple. No fuel injection here.