May 12, 2009
Garanimals
With the higher seating position on the ST4S, Roomie decided that she needed a full-face helmet to replace the ¾ helmet we purchased last year. Choosing a brand and a model was fairly straightforward—I was ready for an upgrade from the HJC I bought back in Maryland when we were strapped for cash. I had had Shoei's for years before that. Both of them were in advanced disintegration before I managed to get rid of them. More difficult than choosing the model was choosing the color: I first had a black Shoei, then a red one. Most recently the HJC was in Safety Yellow.
To commemorate the new bike and keep in line with my pattern of not repeating colors, I opted for a light silver RF-1000. Jill had chosen the TZ-R because it came in orange, but at the very last moment pulled the trigger on a Monza Red model instead. As it turns out, our helmets are a Garanimals-type match to the ST4S. See for yourself.
My helmet: | Roomie's helmet: |
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Posted by Underblog at 8:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 24, 2009
Spin Around the Block
As is customary when I purchase a new old bike (is an '03 an old bike yet?), I took it in to work to show it off. When I brought in the F650 last fall, I took one of my colleagues for a spin. She likes motorcycles, though she would never admit as much to her grandchildren.
Yesterday, I took the same route with a different colleague. She had never been on a motorcycle before, but she was an avid bicyclist. It was a lovely spring day—dust levels were down, folks were irrigating along the clear ditch, and schoolkids waved to us was we thundered by on the ST4. "It's just like bicycling, but with acceleration!" she said as we stopped at a light. She simply squealed when we crossed the Rio Grande on Bridge St.
We arrived back at work, grinning ear-to-ear.
Posted by Underblog at 6:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 12, 2009
Old School
The folks at PJ's sent me to PECO on 2nd St to get my brake hoses made. Doing so would speed things up and eliminate the middle man. I guess I spend enough there that they showed me a little kindness.
Anyway, I went over to PECO on my lunch break, forewarned by a colleague that I might be in for one of those "What is this off of?" conversations. Invariably those discussions are longer than they need to be since if the person has to ask they do not encounter much custom work.
Fortunately, I did not have such a conversation with the fellow behind the counter. Instead, he disappeared into the shop with my hoses. While I wondered what he was doing with my hoses, I struck up small talk with PECO's proprietor Tom Stewart. We shot the bull for a while, talking Trail 90's, R69 US's, and Aermacchi's until the Martin emerged from the back with a brand new pair of hoses, made while we chatted. Tom knows many of the old school vendors in town, including my neighbor at the welding shop. Old school vendors like Tom are the best thing about living in an urban environment: Folks who know their s*** and know the other folks in town who are just as well-informed. I am looking forward to becoming better acquainted with this community.
Posted by Underblog at 7:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 5, 2009
Free At Last
My folks moved from Palo Alto to Minnesota a few years back. Not "moderate" Minnesota (e.g. the Twin Cities) but the real Minnesota near the Canadian border. The Minnesota where wind chills commonly reach 50 below. Among my step-father's possessions was a 1993 Limited Edition Mazda Miata, which he had purchased new and driven across the country. This automobile is his pride and joy. Unfortunately the convertible season in Minnesota can be measured in weeks, two or three at the end of summer and two or three in spring. The rest of the year it is either snowing or raining.
So I offered to let him stash the Miata in my garage while he decided what to do with it. I put a Battery Tender pigtail on the battery and kept it charged (the battery is about the size of that on a Moto Guzzi). I drove it when I needed a backup to Biscuits&Gravy. Roomie and I took the Miata on a couple of day trips up to Santa Fe, but mostly the car just sat here taking up valuable space in my garage. In order to keep the Miata accessible as a spare vehicle, I had to pull all the motorcycles ahead of it or alongside of it. In order to use some of the bikes, another motorcycle or two had to be rolled out and parked out in the driveway and the process repeated when I got back home.
Business in the next year or so will bring my step-father back to the Bay Area, and he decided that he would like to have the Miata there instead. Hallelujah! So, finally, my garage lost the cage occupant it has known since it was constructed and the space is freed up for motorcycle breathing room. I can't wait to rearrange the shelves and have a nice neat row of motorcycles in the garage, and a lift free and clear ready to accept whatever bike that is up for maintenance or repair.
Posted by Underblog at 5:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 17, 2008
Observations on the New F1
Now that the bike is finally in-hand, I have begun the process of sorting out and repairing what has been done to the F1 previously. I discover that the battery has the pigtail for a Battery Tender installed. Excellent! Unfortunately, I find that the previous owner had for some unknown reason cut the ring connectors off the pigtail and installed the bare wire under the battery terminal screws. Backwards. Now that the Tender is on the battery with the clamps, the battery has taken a charge nicely. Regardless, a new AGM battery is on its way.
The episode of the Tender Pigtails makes me very concerned for the overall health of the F1's critical systems.
Posted by Underblog at 7:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 15, 2008
Arrival!
Last night, I received a call from Mike, the driver from DailyDirect / HaulBikes.com. He sounded pretty exhausted and asked if he could drop the bike off first thing in the morning. That was fine, I told him, since I had been waiting this long another night without the bike was not going to kill me.
This morning, I was out at Troy's at 7:00am. No truck. I wandered back to the house, dropped off my coffee cup, and returned. I was going to call at 7:15 and tell Mike that if he wasn't there by 7:30 that someone else would have to take delivery. No big deal, really, since I had already made arrangements with Troy's to do just that.
Mike was great: First off he apologized for the delay, though it was within reason; next, he knew right off the bat that the stand was with the bike and let me walk it over while he jockeyed the bike out of the trailer; finally, he went over the bike with me scratch by scratch until I was ready to walk it home. I made it back into the garage with about 10 minutes to go until I had to run downtown for an appointment. Parting is such sweet sorrow!
At first glance, the bike will need a couple of things. I think I have solved the fuel line dilemma by reversing the fuel lines: The RH fuel tap will serve the rear carb and the LH the front. Carbs don't care which side they get their fuel from! The wiring needs to be redone in the most major way. I may break down and simply purchase a new wiring harness from bevelheaven before this thing is street legal. The race stand is a POS, with the ears completely bent pigeon toed. I hope my Pit Bull will fit; I will feel more secure about relying on the stand if it can be used instead. Pit Bull is a huge improvement over the pit stand that came with the bike. The battery appears to be shot: It has been on the Battery Tender all day and it is still blinking yellow as if there were no battery there at all. Perhaps the PO has disconnected the battery. And there are the "known unknowns": a custom side stand will have to be fabricated or the Alazzurra one the PO gave me will have to be adapted.
The tires and the carbs are huge! Both were much larger than I was expecting. And they are not Malossi's but rather genuine Dell'Ortos. It says so right on the casting! And it is true: you could fit a toddler's fist in the exhaust. The overall feeling of this bike is quite small. Riding this thing is going to be a blast, and I want to do it justice.
Posted by Underblog at 7:03 PM | TrackBack
November 28, 2008
Nesting
It would be disingenuous of me to declare that I am grateful that the F1 has not shown up by now. Monday morning the shipper will get a call from me, just as they did last Monday. Hopefully they will know more about when my bike is scheduled to arrive.
In the meantime, I have been using the holiday weekend to clean up the garage make room for the F1. Notably, I moved the espresso machine off the bench, consolidated some boxes, relocated the Battery Tender 4 to the opposite wall (so tired am I of tripping over the 25 ft extensions!) and generally threw or put stuff away.
It will be cramped in there with another bike, but I have a plan: the Trail 90 will go back behind the Miata, and the F1 up on the lift. Net loss of space? Only the former free passage from the garage doors to the double doors on the side, now taken up by the BMW.
Posted by Underblog at 4:53 PM | TrackBack
Narcissism of Small Differences
If it had not happened in reality, it would be difficult to imagine. The Benelli community—fans of a small Italian marque of motorcycles— is riven asunder by a dispute over whether the deTomaso multi-cylinder bikes are copies of the Honda's or not. Or perhaps the dispute is over whether the copying was inspired or due to a lack of creativity on management's part. The dispute is so arcane even I, a card-carrying Benelli and Italian-bike dweeb, cannot keep track.
In any case, feelings are hurt on both sides of the argument and folks feel attacked for sharing their own point of view. As is the case in such matters of little import (this reminds of me of my favorite grad school joke: Why are academic rivalries so intense? Because the stakes are so low!), more time has been spent discussing the hurt feelings and attacks than discussing the merits of the respective sides. Needless to say this sort of thing seldom happens between various brands of Italian bikes, much less between Italian bikes and Japanese bikes. Even the Ducati world is too large to accommodate this kind of strife. Uff da!
Posted by Underblog at 2:47 PM | TrackBack
November 18, 2008
Notes on a Thread from the 851-888 List
This week, a mint condition 851 Tricolore came up for sale on eBay. The early 851's were made for two years only, 1988 and 1989. They were quite the imited-edition motorcycle, with only several hundred being sold. They were tremendously expensive (in the neighborhood of 20 grand at Munroe Motors in San Francisco, if I recall correctly). The bikes had Marvic two-piece wheels, full-floating front disk brakes, and were just about the most exotic thing one could buy for the street.
By 1990, Ducati had figured out that demand was strong for these bikes, and that an economy of scale could allow them to mass-produce the motorcycles at a greatly reduced cost. Consequently, by 1990, the price of an 851 had dropped by approximately half. Moreover, the quality of the motorcycle had improved considerably. Owning a piece of exotica often means putting up with "bleeding edge" technology.
One of the regular listers on the 851-888 List shared that he recalled that the Tricolore F1 (like the one on its way to me from Oregon) was what first attracted him to Ducati's, and that some day he will own a Tricolore 851. Another regular lister recalled that when he test rode a Tricolore he was surprised by the machine's "rawness" in comparison to his 1990 851.
So what makes us middle-aged folks (men for the most part) buy these old motorcycles? Clearly, a combination of factors is at work: the desire to obtain something that was once unattainable, the riding of a motorcycle about which one has dreamed, proof to ourselves that dreams do not die and that we are capable of making them come true.
But how do we evaluate the bike of our dreams? Is it worth it to purchase a motorcycle with 16 inch wheels for which finding appropriate tires will always be a challenge in order to have the very bike we saw at Munroe Motors in 1988? Is rarer always better? A tricolore will hold its value much more so than a later 851 or 888, but how much riding will one do on such a treasure? To what extent does a motorcycle's existence as a "garage queen" diminish its relationship to the rider? If the bike is merely trailered from place to place (some folks are known to disconnect the speedo when loading the bike in order to preserve the lowest possible mileage), then the rider-motorcycle relationship becomes merely an owner-motorcycle relationship. On the other hand, what is the point of compromising on one's dream bike?
For me in my present current financial state, I cannot afford a $20,000 piece of decorative art. Each of my bikes provides me a visceral experience that I simply can't quantify. And I think that for now at least, that visceral experience includes firing it up and taking out in to the real world every once in a while.
Posted by Underblog at 8:29 AM | TrackBack
November 17, 2008
Side Stand Shenanigans
The 750 F1 currently on its way to my garage from a garage in Oregon (by way of Wisconsin) possesses neither a center stand (as it came with originally) nor a side stand. The center stand removal was probably a good idea, since a common criticism of the F1 is that the stand impaired ground clearance. The limited-edition Montjuich, Laguna Seca, and Santamonica machines all came with side stands. Fitting a side stand from a Cagiva Ala Azzura using the frame lugs for the center stand would be an easy fix, but for the fact that those pieces of the frame have been removed from my F1.
Ducati TT1 and TT2 motorcycles (predecessors to the F1) came with no provision for a stand of any sort, since they were all sold as track bikes. The TT2 I rode around Italy had a small cavaletto that one installed between the frame and leaned the bike on. One carried it around to have a stand for places where a wall was not handy. I may end up fabricating a stand to be used in the same manner.
Another solution is to mount a side stand to the right-hand engine case lugs. Several of the roadworthy TT1/2 replicas and factory racing machines have had them added. The hitch in this plan is that almost all side stands operate from the left hand side of the machine. The TT2 solution will have to work from the right hand side since the exhaust exits on the left hand side. So: I will have to find a stand which operates from the right hand side or cobble something together that is wholly custom. Perhaps the old side stand from the Morini can be made to fit?