nosrednayduj | Entries tagged with motorcycle

Well, apparently I'm selling it.

I haven't ridden it since I last posted about my motorcycle in May. There was one day that I thought I was going to, but then the appointment was canceled. Monday, I have a dentist appointment 7 miles away, which is sort of bicyclable, but a little far for a weekday morning.

A month ago I listed it on craigslist for $3000 after seeing that Kelly blue book thought it was worth $2750. Well, nothing happened, and I dropped the price once a week. And then, just as the ad was about to expire, some guy came and offered me $1900, and I told him I'd take $2000, and he said okay.

He came today to check it out, and gave me a deposit of $200 by Venmo, and he'll get me the rest of the money and come pick it up later this week. I think I'll say goodbye to it on Monday by riding to my dentist appointment.

Then, we will see how many times I am sad when the weather is good, I'm going somewhere alone, I don't need to take any cargo, and I can't do it by bicycle. If it turns out to be a moderate amount, or, I decide that even though it's not very many times, I am sufficiently sad, I will investigate electric motorcycles. Most likely, I will just be done.

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.

I haven't updated in a while – the big news is that the other kid is learning to drive! He's doing pretty well. He's over 18, so he doesn't have to go through the draconian rules that minors have to contend with, so mostly we are teaching him to drive, but we are also going have him sign up for a couple of professional lessons before the test. For example, neither Valerie nor I is excited about teaching him to parallel park. So far, he's mostly been chauffeuring Valerie around to errands for practice, but we've also had some just driving around parts. We are using the Leaf, so at least we are not emitting greenhouse gases while we are doing this. I do plan to have him try driving the Prius some time, just to have a different car. Not sure when we're going to let him at the Tesla.

Jocelyn is spending the summer in Portland. She's got an apartment with two friends for a year, so she will live off-campus next year also. There was some talk about some circus thing which was the impetus for staying there, but that doesn't really seem to be happening. There might be interesting circus stuff in the fall, but I'm not holding my breath. She spent a couple of weeks with us at the beginning of the summer, so she did get her waterskiing experience and stuff like that.

I've been getting at least one waterski ride per weekend. Every once in a while, I try to figure out how much I spend per ride, considering the price of the boat and motor and gas and all that, which of course has some guess about the lifetime of the boat and the motor. It's a fair amount, but I'm good with that. (Given that each ride is about 2 minutes, let's not figure the per hour price.)

My motorcycle is repaired, and it seems to work great. Now I need to find places that are appropriate for me to ride it to (going alone, good weather, and no cargo).

Bicycling, I am still on track for more than 2000 for the year. Today I rode 19 miles and averaged 11.6, which is pretty good. (For me.)

My next trip to California will be in early August, and I'm not exactly looking forward to the airplane flight, because I feel like, if nobody else is wearing a mask, I'd better wear an N 95, and while I'm fine with those for a couple of hours, it's going to be a real stretch to do a minimum of six hours, and possibly eight, depending on whether I can find an empty enough space in the connecting airport to make me happy. I'm also a little concerned about "when am I going to eat".

The new shock absorber for my bicycle came in! I rode down to have them install it. It fits great and fixes the small geometry problem that my kluge had. They were amused to see the block of wood and so forth. I rode about 200 miles on the block of wood.

I decided to order the aftermarket muffler set for my motorcycle, for $200. I will call the shop when it comes in and pay another approximately $200 to have it installed. Hopefully there will not be any issue with it fitting right…

I rode my motorcycle or the first time this year a week or so ago.

"Loud pipes save lives" – that is a phrase used by some idiots who think that making deafening noises through the neighborhood is fun, and that their loudness makes it so that all four-wheel vehicle drivers know that they are there, and therefore those drivers do not hit them. Really, it's just an excuse for "I need to show off how awesome I am" from some idiot who is not awesome at all.

Sadly, people probably think that of me, because apparently my rusty exhaust system has developed a large hole, and it makes a ton of noise.

So, today I called the shop to inquire about getting it fixed. Official parts would cost $600; unofficial parts cost $200. Labor will be in the $250 range.

I have hardly ridden my motorcycle since the pandemic. I have ridden 500 miles in the last two years. It's not like I was a huge rider before that; it was about 2000 miles a year.

So, is it worth $500 to have a working motorcycle that I will ride 300 miles this year? What is the difference between the price I can get for a working vs. nonworking motorcycle? (It's "working" – it runs, and it goes from one place to another, it just is really noisy, and presumably more polluting, though I don't imagine I actually have a catalytic converter.)

Before I discovered that it was not really working, I was actually contemplating whether to sell it, and was thinking "I will maybe wait until the next big problem that it has". Little did I know that it already had the problem while I was contemplating. If I sell it, then I will be slightly sad whenever I have a place I could go on my motorcycle, and have to drive a car instead. The stars don't very often align, because it has to be good weather, a place I'm going alone, where I don't need to take or pick up cargo, and where it's reasonable to show up in "weird clothes", and that I have the ability to carry or store said weird clothes (my protective gear). At least, the car I drive will be electric…

Last year, I had a big birthday bash. This year, obviously that wasn't happening.

I had a pretty good birthday anyway. I made blueberry French toast casserole the night before for Valerie to put in the oven in the morning (since she gets up earlier) so we could have it piping hot for breakfast. Since she was up early anyway, Valerie had borrowed this object, and had plenty of time to inflate it before I got down for breakfast, so I walked into the dining room and there was this ridiculous thing!

Just the previous day, somebody at work had decided we should be having social hour occasionally, so I had said "let's start Wednesday at lunch and wish me happy birthday!" So I got to put the ridiculous thing on video, and that was kind of fun.

In the afternoon, I had an optional errand in Somerville, and I decided to take my motorcycle since it was 52°. I got a little cold, but not bad. There was a lot more traffic than I expected, since I went at 2pm, I expected there really not to be much. Anyway, it took longer than I expected, so the amount of work I got done that day was not very much. But, it was my birthday!

Then, for dinner, I decided that we should have party food. See, for the big birthday bash the previous year, I had purchased a bunch of those frozen hors d'oeuvres, and had not managed to put them out, because there was so much other food. At some point earlier in the year we had party food for dinner, but there was still some left. We still have some of the little hot dogs wrapped in dough, and the first time there is some potluck or party, I will bring them.

And of course, we had cake for dessert. Jocelyn wasn't home to decorate it, but our friend Peg rose to the occasion.

Crossposts: https://nosrednayduj.livejournal.com/339952.html

I had an errand today in Somerville, and it being a beautiful day, I rode my motorcycle. As I went through Davis Square, there were enormous numbers of people cheering and honking and making all kinds of commotion. I had no idea what was going on. (Now I do! Yay!)

After I got home, we went on a bicycle ride. Ken decided it should be a "victory tour" for Biden/Harris, so he took our lawn sign and attached it to his bicycle, and we rode through the centers of local towns and around parking lots of malls. It was fun – we got a number of cheers (outdoor dining was good for a lot of them, as well as from car windows), horn honks, etc. We also got a number of messages from the other side shouted out of car windows, both "Trump 2020" and "Trump 2024". I was thinking that 2024 people must mean Ivanka... The cheers had the clear majority though.

Current Mood: jubilant
Crossposts: https://nosrednayduj.livejournal.com/331371.html

So things are not all rosy in California. My mother is not liking the assisted living facility, and there are definitely some problems, and my stepfather is upset that she's having a bad time, and feels guilty that he left her there. So he wants to take her back out. We spoke with the management and tried to ameliorate some of the problems, and she said she had a pretty good day today as a result, but there were new problems that cropped up. So my guess is that he's going to take her out on Monday or Tuesday. He's got nine hours a day of his usual morning helper lined up to cover the daytime (I wonder if he's considered the fact that he's going to be on the hook for five hours of overtime as a result), and he says "I can do the night care". I'm skeptical that this is a long-term solution, and I'm skeptical that my stepsister will put up with it.

I contacted a geriatric care manager in Chico, and he gave a suggestion of a place that has two bedroom apartment assisted living, which would mean they could live together there. It would be more expensive, but would cover the safety problems that both my stepsister and I are concerned about with just my stepfather being the overnight caregiver. I asked if they could leave the apartment facility to go out, as my stepfather likes to go to the golf course, and they said that it was "not advised" but "we are not a prison, so as long as they follow safety precautions while they are out it's okay". Who knows what this would really translate into in terms of walking out and getting in your own car. (Is there parking? I didn't ask that.)

I could also rent them a house and get separate overnight staff, but that would be quite a bit more expensive. Maybe we wouldn't need every night; maybe we could get by with three or four nights a week of coverage, and then there would only be one person involved instead of a whole service. Maybe we could get a recommendation from their current daytime person, whom they love, which might make them trust the person more.

Anyway, it's looking like another trip to Chico will be in my future. Maybe we can wait until it's not 105° out. Not sure if we can wait until California's not on fire, since prior experience suggests that doesn't stop until late November. I'm really not sure what the right final solution is, and I'm really not sure how to handle all of the interpersonal issues.

Meanwhile, today, I rode my bike, and then I rode my motorcycle too, since it hasn't been moved in two months.

Crossposts: https://nosrednayduj.livejournal.com/328544.html

So, like everyone else, we're not going anywhere. This means, that we're driving our SUV even less than we previously drove it. So, I took it to the gas station this morning and put gas stabilizer in it. You should do this to your cars too! Get the enzyme based stuff, which is generally blue; don't get the old Stabil brand pink stuff. The old stuff doesn't work as well with gas that might have alcohol in it. Put it in at the gas station, add a couple gallons to wash it down into the tank and start it mixing up, then drive a few miles to get the stabilized gas distributed throughout the system.

I also did my motorcycle, since it doesn't seem like I'm going to be motorcycling to work anytime soon, and I'm not going anywhere else either. I suppose I could joyride, and I might do that sometime, but mostly I joyride on my bicycle…

We haven't done the Prius, because we are still going various places, and in overall energy consumption, it's not much worse than the electric car, which is having some low tire pressure problem (slow leak? We just took it to the car place for this slow leak, and we don't know if they're open to re-repair…) if we seem to be using the Prius too rarely, then I'll stabilize its gas too. I just ordered more stabilizer, which should come next week, so that's why I'm not just doing it now. I ordered the fancy marine stuff, since eventually we will launch the boat, and I will want to stabilize its gas as well.

Being pretty happy we didn't get around to buying a car yet :-)

Crossposts: https://nosrednayduj.livejournal.com/320139.html

It was beautiful yesterday and today. I didn't think about this Sunday night, and I didn't have time to unwinterize my motorcycle Monday morning, so I just drove the car. Last night, though, I remembered, and so I reinstalled the battery, checked the tires (low, so I pumped them up), and started it to make sure it would run. All good.

But, this morning the rear tire was not just low, but completely flat! I pumped it back up, and when took the compressor nozzle away there was hissing, as air came pouring out of the valve stem. Well, drat.

This might be my fault; the compressor nozzle doesn't really fit very well onto the rear wheel because there's too much mechanism in the way, so I had it at a bit of an angle. Maybe that torqued something that didn't want to be torqued. But what else can I do? I have been able to fill it at some gas stations whose nozzles are at less of an angle -- but many gas stations are the same as our compressor. And it was pretty low, like 15psi, so I wasn't really happy about riding even for a few miles.

Some time I'll see if the valve can be tightened and if that will fix it. Otherwise, I guess I'm loading it on the trailer and taking it to the shop. I haven't the vaguest clue how to get the rear wheel off. There's really a lot of mechanism back there!

Crossposts: https://nosrednayduj.livejournal.com/295723.html

Yesterday I had a surprise opportunity to ride my bicycle home from work. Good thing I've been practicing! I was still pretty lame. There was a headwind, but mostly there was just being pokey.

25.66 in 2:43 for an average of 9.4, not quite the personal worst, but close to it.

Today I got to ride my motorcycle! However, it has a problem. The way motorcycles shift is you bap the lever either up or down with your foot (depending on which direction you wish to shift), and it returns to the center position after bapping (and shifting). However, today, it did not return to the center position. So I had to carefully poke my toe under or over the lever (which is sort of what I normally have to do anyway), and gently return it to the center position. I hoped that this was due to some sort of grit or corrosion, and shifting it N times on the way to work and back would work out the kinks and it would fix itself. No go. Tomorrow I'll find all the moving parts (there's rather a chain of events to get the force to the place it needs to be applied), and put penetrating oil on them and wait a couple days. If that doesn't work, I'll take it to the shop and find out if there might be a spring missing or something.

Crossposts: https://nosrednayduj.livejournal.com/281403.html

It was 65 today. Tomorrow too. I rode my motorcycle to work. In February. I can't remember for sure if I also rode in January this year, I think so, but if I did I didn't blog it. I rode some time that it was warm after it had just rained and snowed so the road spray got me very filthy, but it might have been in December. If it was in fact January, then I'm on my way to another "12-month riding year". There was one some years ago; don't really remember when. So I'll have to make sure to actually ride during all the months! December is sometimes the tricky one, though often it gets the winterizing ride, as is November. Sometimes the summer too, because I'm too busy bicycling!

Crossposts: https://nosrednayduj.livejournal.com/278718.html

I thought about waterskiing because it was so calm, but I was worried about the amount of gas. I needn't have been --- there ended up being about 1.5 gallons. Unfortunately, my motorcycle only had about 1.2 gallons of capacity, and when I tried to siphon the remaining quart or so into the Prius, I was not very successful. I think our siphon starter is bogus. I think I thought this last year too, and I thought we did something about it, but I couldn't find anything besides the old gross one.

Draining the motor oil from the boat is a pain! There's a 9/16 bolt way up inside a hole that needs to be removed, and of course when you get it removed, it spills horrible oil all over you and you drop the bolt in the pan which is rapidly filling with oil. Gross! I should have used a nut driver, but I didn't think of it, instead I used an extra long socket (which we conveniently had) but then I got oil ALL OVER IT. Maybe it needed lubricating anyway?

Then, when I went to fill the oil, I only used 2 quarts, when it said I should use 2.3. But the dipstick was way oily (yes I cleaned it first) and the motor was quite level when I checked. Maybe waiting an hour will make it drain into more places and more oil will fit.

Anyway, at least that job's over for the year. Only one more chance to get gross: winterizing the motorcycle! But first I have to drive it enough to use up the boat gas.