Canada or Bust!

Sort through your crayon box ... find just the right one ... yeah, that's it ... the one labeled "gone." Color me gone.

This'll be the first time I've ever ridden with a two-way radio piped into my helmet. I can talk to truckers ("Get the hell outta my way, Road Hog!"), ask about important points of interest ("Where did you say that friggin' cop is hiding?!?!"), and keep in touch with my riding partner ("Greg, I gotta stop to pee!"). It's a Midland 40-channel citizen's band and weather radio combined with a J&M headset. I had some reservations about hacking up the interior of my Scorpion helmet to install the headset, so I went back to the old Shoei that I quit wearing a year or so ago. No worries, though; everything went in just fine despite some insane Styrofoam-hazy moments between me and the Exacto knife. Seems to work like a charm, but this'll be its first true road test. I can use the headset to pipe my iPod tunes into my helmet, too, but I suspect at speed I'll need to switch to my earbuds. Pink Floyd and the drone of hundred mph wind just don't mix all that well.

My friends Greg and Elaine will be on their luxurious new Goldwing, relaxing, playing ping-pong in the rec room, watching satellite television on the bigscreen, and so on. Damn thing probably has a trunk monkey that fixes margaritas and nachos en route. When the ZZR and I are shivering in Glacier National Park, Greg and Elaine will be toasting their fannies on heated seats while the trunk monkey passes them hot chocolate -- complete with those little marshmallows bobbing like exclamation marks on the sea of euphoria that follows a truly epic ride. Some people are just spoiled, I tell ya!

Full ride report when the ZZR and I get back, approximately four thousand miles older and wiser.

Cruisin'...

Last thing and the Mighty ZZR is ready to rock-n-roll all the way to Canada and back (with scheduled stops in Rocky Mountain National Park, the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier, the Little Bighorn, Mount Rushmore, Devil's Tower, the Black Hills, and anything else interesting I find along the way!): cruise control.

More accurately called "throttle locks," I've never been a real big fan of cruise control on my bikes. I still remember Gary Miller (you out there reading this, Gary?) accidentally engaging the throttle lock on his KLR while off-pavement in Arkansas a few years ago. He wound up taking a wild (albeit brief) ride into a ditch, damaging his knee, and spending the rest of the weekend icing it down instead of riding. Of course, the bar end types that you have to give a real good twist (like the Throttlemeister unit shown above on my ZZR), versus the type where you simply thumb down a lever, aren't easily engaged by accident, so I'm not particularly worried about being a goober like Gary. (Now that I'm calling him names, someone will tell him and he'll come read the blog ... that's my theory anyway.) I mean, that sounds like something ZRod would do. (There, maybe I'll gain another reader. Ha!)

There's something about having the throttle out of my control that unnerves me. It's nice to be able to shake the numbness out of your throttle hand on those long straights. Flex your fingers. Scratch your right leg. But I'm always a bit leery of having the bike hurtling along at my usual speeds without my hand right there ready to shut it down. Things happen fast on a motorcycle. Think about it: at my usual ZZR cruising speed of 100 mph (okay, so maybe I should slow down, eh?) that's almost 147 feet passing under my wheels every second. If it takes me 2 seconds to put my hand back on the throttle and disengage the lock, that's almost the length of a football field that I've covered -- more than enough time to hit a deer or t-bone a careless soccer mom's minivan -- and I haven't even started braking yet!

The other thing that's always bugged me about throttle locks is that they're not a true cruise control. On long, straight, level stretches of road, you cruise along just fine at a steady speed, but how often am I on that type of road? The Interstate is about all I can think of that qualifies (well, okay, so there's also Highway 50 in Nevada and every bit of pavement in Kansas), but I avoid riding the Interstate (and Kansas) at all costs, generally only grabbing the superslab for when I just want to get home lickity-split quick. And at those times, when I'm really hauling ass, I'm generally the least comfortable locking my throttle. All it would take is some bonehead coming over into my lane as I flew past him. Most roads, of course, have grades -- up, down, up down -- and on those roads your bike is either speeding up or slowing down the whole time with the throttle locked. I find that very aggravating. It grates to no end on my anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive, need-to-be-in-control-dammit! mentality.

So, if I'm not a big fan of throttle locks, why did I just put one on my bike for this trip? Well, there are those times, when road and traffic conditions permit, that it's nice to engage it for a minute or two in order to give your hand a break. Especially on a ride like the one I have coming up, one that covers so many miles and will see me on the road for 11 days straight. But, more to the point, it's been 3 or 4 weeks now since I followed Cricket up that nasty hill at CrossTimbers, got thrown off my dirtbike, and landed on my right thumb. The damn thing still won't bend like it should and aches incessantly. Yeah, I should have had it x-rayed, and it ought to be in a splint or a cast or something, I guess. But then I couldn't ride at all! I would, in fact, have to postpone the trip ... and that just ain't gonna happen.

I might be riding all the way to Canada with my throttle lock engaged and my thumb stuffed in a bag of ice. LOL.

Wish me luck.

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Photo Note: Yeah, I know that's the clutch side (in the photo above), so technically you're not even looking at the actual throttle lock, but that's the bar end that had the Throttlemeister logo on it, so I featured it instead. The throttle side looks exactly the same (you can see it in the photos below). While they're not cheap (for the ZZR, the cost is $125), in my opinion, the Throttlemeisters are the nicest and most functional cruise control on the market. I had them on my original Triumph Tiger and also have them now on the new Tiger.

Poor Man's Cruise Control: Don't want to spend $125 for cruise control? Being a cheap SOB myself, I can relate. Here's an option for you. It worked for me for years. This is a Caterpillar o-ring. I used to have the part number, but I've long since lost it. Probably doesn't matter; if you walk into the Caterpillar place and tell them what you're looking for, they've probably sold more of these to motorcycle owners than anyone else, so they'll know what you need. The o-ring is sized just right to slip over most motorcycle bar ends. If you slip it into the space between the bar end and the lower edge of the grip, friction will lock your throttle in place. To disengage, just use your palm to roll it back down onto the bar end. I've used these on various motorcycles with mixed results. Eventually, it tends to let your throttle slip a bit, so you have to make minor adjustments while riding. Since I never leave my throttle locked for very long anyway, the slipping was never a real big deal for me -- your tolerance/aggravation may vary. Here are a couple photos with the o-ring on the bar (disengaged) and slipped into the groove (engaged). [Addendum: the Caterpillar part number for that o-ring is 8M-4991.]




Another Option: I often use a Throttle Rocker on my bikes. By allowing you to stay on the gas by using the weight of your hand focused through your palm (versus actually gripping the throttle), it greatly reduces hand fatigue. Trust me, this is the best $11 you'll ever spend on your motorcycle. Just remember to remove it when you hit the twisty stuff, as it does tend to get in the way of the really fine throttle adjustments required to be fast and smooth in the curves. Again, here's a photo:


Safety Disclaimer: Use any of these things at your own risk, of course. I ain't responsible if you go out, lock your throttle, plow into a barn or fly off the side of a cliff at 100 miles per hour, and remove yourself from the gene pool. These things probably make riding a motorcycle even more dangerous that your mama already told you it was...

Tire Talk

Regarding last night's blog entry about my "screwed" tire, someone emailed to ask what I would have done if that had been a fairly new tire -- rather than one at the end of its useful life -- and what tire mounting and balancing equipment I have. I thought my answers might serve more people if posted here, so...

While many -- perhaps even most -- motorcyclists toss punctured tires, I tend to be a bit more frugal ("cheap" is what most people actually call me). I once had a brand new tire pick up a roofing nail. This was on the ZZR back in '03, I think. The tire only had about 700 miles on it. There was no way I was going to throw away a practically new $130 tire! I pulled it from the wheel and patched the hole from the inside. The patch held just fine for the remaining life of the tire (another 3,000 miles). Did I worry about it the whole time? Nah, not at all; I'm not a worrier. I didn't even change my riding habits, exceeding 100-120 mph regularly. "Weren't you worried about a blowout?!?!" some incredulous riders (i.e., ones who worry) might ask. Nah. A small puncture in the tire isn't likely to cause it to come flying apart. If the patch didn't hold, I'd wind up with a deflating tire, same as any other puncture (which I could just as easily pick up the very next day from another nail).

I admit I might have been a bit more concerned had this been the front tire, because a front flat is a bit more difficult to ride out when compared to the rear. I do so hate tank-slappers! I'm also a bit less confident of the "plug type" repair method (where the hole is plugged from the outside, without removing the tire from the rim), although I've also heard of riders doing thousands of miles on plugged tires. Though I carry a plug kit on my street bikes, I've never had to use it and tend to categorize this as an emergency or temporary repair versus something I'm going to live with for the remaining life of the tire. Of course, "temporary" is relative to where you are and where you're traveling to at the time. In the middle of a trip to Alaska, a "temporary fix" might have to last hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles. My thinking about patching the hole from the inside is that the combination of tire pressure and centrifugal force isn't going to allow the patch to shift or come loose, whereas both those forces are actually working to shove a plug out of the hole.

"Your life isn't worth the price of a new tire!" some riders will say. Well, yeah, but if I thought like that, I wouldn't ride at all, would I? Motorcycles are inherently dangerous no matter how you slice it. I mean, is losing my life worth the 15-minutes of fun to and from work every day on a bike? Of course not. It's not even worth that great 10-day bike trip I recently made to Mexico and back, but that doesn't mean I'm going to sit at home and watch Dr Phil instead. I evaluate the risks on a daily basis ... and then I ride. To my way of thinking, a patched rear tire still falls within the acceptable risk inherent in riding motorcycles. You're free to disagree, of course.

I should add that my thoughts here apply to tires with a clean puncture in the running surface of the tire. Not a punctured sidewall. Not a cut or tear or more serious damage. There's acceptable risk and then there's sheer stupidity. Draw your own line between the two.

As for tire changing and balancing equipment, excuse me while I roll on the floor and laugh hysterically for a minute. I've got some tire irons ... that's about it. If I don't bust a few knuckles and utilize my entire vocabulary of curse words, it's just not tire changing. I prop the wheel on a couple two-by-fours (to protect the brake discs) and subject it to a whole lot of jumping up and down, pounding with my fists, and threats. Occasionally, I get creative with something I find at hand. (I'll conclude with one of those creative techniques, just so you feel you've gotten something useful out of reading all this.) The practical side of doing it myself and doing it the hard way is that I know I can handle roadside repairs -- keeps me in practice, doncha know -- which is very important to a dualsport rider who might find himself a hundred miles out in the boonies with a flat tire.

What about balancing? My approach is simple: I don't do it. In the last four years, with five different street bikes and more tire changes than I can remember, I haven't had a problem. My reasoning is that tires are manufactured these days to fairly exacting standards and for the most part are true in and of themselves. The real variance lies in the wheels -- valve steam placement primarily -- which were originally balanced from the manufacturer/dealer when I bought the bike. If they were balanced correctly to begin with and haven't thrown off a weight or been damaged, they should remain balanced when mounting a new tire. I do take note of and use the tire manufacturer's balancing spot (generally a yellow dot of paint letting you know the lightest part of the tire; line it up with the valve steam on your wheel), but fewer and fewer manufacturers are even marking their tires these days, probably an indicator of what I said earlier, that today's tires are pretty well balanced right from the factory.

If I eventually have a problem, I'll either take that wheel-tire combo to a bike shop and pay to have it balanced or I'll build a simple balancing stand of my own (if you do some Googling, you'll find plans from other motorcyclists that have done this), but -- knock on wood -- I haven't had a significant problem in the last four years, even on my ZZR1200 which has been rock-steady all the way out to nearly 160 mph (actual mph as verified by GPS, not indicated) on tires that I mounted by hand.

For some reason, this time around, I did have a hell of a time breaking the bead on the ZZR's tires, especially the front. The new tires went on easy as you please, probably because of how long they'd been softening in the hot sun on my driveway, but getting the old shoes off was a bugger. (Here comes that tip I promised.) I eventually used a technique I picked up from other dualsport riders. I dragged the ZZR's wheel over to my BMW Dakar and used the Dakar's sidestand to break the bead. According to BMW, the Dakar weighs 425 pounds with a full tank of gas -- much more than my puny 170 pounds. Worked like a champ (you'd expect nothing less from a $9,000 bead breaker!), and I'll be sure to use this method again, especially if I find myself out on the trail with a flat sometime. Of course, this technique isn't possible if you're riding alone.

Over the years, I've heard of other crafty methods for breaking a bead: running over it with an auto, creating a fulcrum with a couple two-by-fours, C-clamps, etc. Got a clever tire-changing technique you'd like to share? Hit that comment link below...

"Sometimes You Get Lucky..."

So I'm prepping the Mighty ZZR (she prefers to be referred to in that manner: the Mighty ZZR) for the 3,500 or so miles I'll be doing soon: cleaning and oiling the air filter, changing the engine oil and filter, mounting new tires, checking over everything for anything not quite right, etc. As I remove the rear tire and give it a hearty bounce prefatory to rolling it over and wrestling off the retiring rubber, I notice it just doesn't feel right. The tire pressure must be off. But that's odd, I think, because I just rode this bike a couple days ago and it was fine. Then something gleaming from the surface of the tire catches my eye. Sumbitch! How fortunate that the tire was minutes away from the trash anyway, huh?

Sometimes you just get lucky...



Incidentally, the ZZR1200's new shoes are Avon Storms, the replacement for the Avon Azaros, which have performed very well for me. I expect the Storms to be even better. My buddy Greg even mounted Storms on his CBR, and I'll be doing the same soon, though I admit I've had reservations about putting an ST tire on a 160hp liter bike. Greg's tires performed great on his CBR in Arkansas, though. You just have to remember that they don't warm up nearly as fast as a sport tire.

With the Azaros on my ZZR, I was able to get 6,000 miles out of the rear ... versus less than 4,000 miles with anything else I tried. Some ZZR owners report higher mileage (they must not be a throttle monkey like yours truly). As they say, your mileage may vary.

"Where have you been lately on your motorcycle..?"

Found this cool website and thought I would share. From TravelBlog, you can generate a map highlighting all the states you've visited. The map below shows all the states in which I've traveled on my motorcycles in the last 3 or 4 years. Click the image to enlarge it, of course.

In the next couple of weeks I'll be adding a large chunk of real estate from the Pacific Northwest.

Destination: Aerospace America, Tinker Air Force Base

The ZZR and I set out to do something today that we haven't done in a long, long time: go to the Air Force Base on a day when I didn't have to go to work. Ack! I think the last time I went to the air show at Tinker was back around 1984, shortly after I started working there. Plain and simple, I just don't like crowds.

Aerospace America does a fantastic job putting on the show, and you really owe it to yourself to go if you're anywhere close -- after all, the admission is free: all part of making you proud to be an American. If you missed it today, it'll be going on tomorrow, too. Check their website for air show times.

Know what the coolest thing is about airplanes? I'll give you a minute to think about it. Need a hint? Remember that this blog is generally about motorcycles.

Of course, most people came out to see the Blue Angels do aerobatics in tight formation at ear-popping speeds. (Don't even ask, because I haven't a clue why an Air Force Base would have a Navy flight team performing as their headliner.) When I was a kid of about 11 or 12 years old, my dad was stationed at Naval Air Station Pensacola and we lived in base housing. This would have been in the early seventies. NAS Pensacola just happens to be the home of the Blue Angels, and they would practice right over my house all the time. Pretty cool. My Cub Scout troop was even sponsored by the Blue Angels. Somewhere, I still have my neckerchief from those years, emblazoned with the troop number and four Blue Angels flying in formation (they weren't flying the F-18 back then -- what was it, an A-6?), probably a valuable collector's item now.


But here we have some gen-u-ine Air Force planes, representing 50 years of air superiority. Top to bottom: F-16 Falcon, P-51 Mustang, F-15 Eagle, and F-4 Phantom. The jets are flying really, really slow, so as not to run the prop job into the ground. Ha.


There were performances by various stunt pilots, like this Oracle sponsored biplane.


And we were attacked by the Japanese (a reenactment of the bombing of Pearl Harbor using the actual planes from the movie Tora, Tora, Tora). Lots of explosions and smoke and totally cool.


The F-15 showed why it is still the fastest thing in the air (note the afterburners).


A B-2 Bomber snuck up on us.


There were more guys flying upside down and sideways and doing all sorts of things certain to make most of us mortals toss our cookies if we were onboard.


The Army's Golden Knights paratroopers did their thing, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.


I like the flag a few of them were flying.


And much, much more!

All in all, a great way for the ZZR and I to spend the day, even if I did get nauseous going on base on a day when I didn't have to.

And what's the coolest thing about planes? They lean in the right direction when they turn, of course ... just like a motorcycle.

They're Taunting Me!

I am so lusting after Ducati's new 1100cc Hypermotard! And it seems lately that everywhere I turn, there are reviews espousing it's pure, unequivocal moto-hooligan perfection: the latest issue (July 2007) of Cycle World, Superbike Planet, and Motorcycle Daily -- just to name a few. Talk about the ultimate machine for that gnarly section of Arkansas Highway 123!

I don't even have any room left in my garage and the cost of insuring and tagging all my bikes is already driving me to the poor house, but Daddy wants ... oh does Daddy ever want!

If you haven't read about the Hypermotard yet, hit one of the reviews linked above. Be sure and have a napkin handy for wiping up the drool. What a great time to be a motorcyclist!

Great Public Awareness Campaign!

Check out the videos at Please Look Twice. Very clever advertising for motorcycle safety.

Couch Potatoes, I am here for you!

Buy an airline ticket these days and you might notice something new. For an optional fee, you can make your flight "carbon neutral" -- the idea being that the fee you've paid offsets greenhouse gas emissions by supporting clean air projects like wind farms, solar panels, planting trees, etc.

Believe it or not, trading on environmental guilt and EPA compliance has become a multimillion dollar industry. Big corporations are involved in the sale and trading of global warming "credits." Rock bands, businesses, and even the Superbowl are using carbon neutrality for promotional purposes. Expedia.com and Travelocity offer customers the option of canceling the CO2 emissions resulting from airline travel. The EPA estimates that the average American generates 10 tons of carbon dioxide annually; companies like Atmosfair and NativeEnergy (two reputable organizations involved in the trading of carbon neutrality) estimate this can be offset for $100 to $200.

When I learned about this, I made one of my usual off-the-wall, "everything must be related to motorcycles in some way" connections and got to thinking about the guilt that must be felt by couch potatoes. You know the type: sitting in their favorite Barcolounger in boxers and a beer-stained wife beater t-shirt, Budweiser in one hand and a bag of Cheetos in the other, gut doing the bowl-full-of-jelly thing in synch with the laugh track of their favorite sit-com. Or maybe they're camped out on the sweat-stained, rump-sprung sofa in an oversized jersey featuring the number of their favorite athlete, howling at the game on the boob tube, leaning to one side every now and then to rip off a fart. In the tide-like ebb and flow of channel-surfing, they occasionally run across a repeat of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman in Long Way Round, or Ricky Carmichael running just enough AMA motocross races to spoil James Stewart's 2007 party, or even one of those silly chopper shows on the Discovery Channel, and they think, "You know, I should get off the couch and do something like that." A second later, however, they've moved on to the next channel in the lineup, chuckling over something like America's Funniest Home Videos or puzzled by the complicated plot of a Baywatch repeat.

But the guilt remains, festering like a lost pork rind in the folds of a circus fat lady. And the poor bastards really need some way to offset it. Something akin to a big corporation buying carbon neutral credits to make up for the pollution they're generating.

So I'm offering here -- for the first time ever! -- the opportunity to buy Adventure Rider credits. You pay me to go riding for you. Just stay there on the sofa, soft drink and double-stuffed Oreos at hand, and I will go riding for you and send back photos. Your money will be used for tires (Lord knows how fast I go through those!) and gasoline. While you're safe on the Lazy Boy, I'll ride my sportbikes at totally ridiculous and unsafe speeds, risking life and limb. While you relax in air-conditioned splendor, the dualsport and I will suffer the extreme heat of America's deserts and the chill bite of her mountains. Bugs will coat my body, hail stones will ping off my helmet, and friendly police officers will ulcerate my stomach, but I won't complain one bit, mind you, and you -- you, oh guilt-free hedonist! -- shall be free to worship as you choose at the opulent alters of comfort and entertainment.

Paypal works just fine. Money orders. Cashier's Checks. Heck, I'll even take personal checks! Need me to ride by your home, so you don't even have to go to the post office? Just say the word!

You can live your life couch potato neutral ... doing what you love, guilt free ... while I get to do what I love. Talk about a win-win situation!

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Serious Footnote: You can learn more about carbon neutrality by visiting the website for the nonprofit organization Clean Air-Cool Planet.

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Addendum: Within minutes of posting this, a couple different people emailed me, saying, "You big dummy, you didn't give them a paypal address for the money!" I really only intended the blog entry as humor, but, what the heck, if you want to help sponsor my rides (I know there have been several riders at advrider.com who've had month-long tours sponsored entirely by donations), I ain't gonna argue. I'll even list you as a sponsor in the ride report. Paypal donations will be gratefully accepted at bahwolf@aol.com and turned immediately into rubber and fuel.