It was pretty dry and cloudy this morning, but luckily I checked the weather report before heading to work. 70% chance of snow, heavier in the afternoon/evening, and temps right around freezing. I decided not to take the chance, and got back in my Volvo for the commute into the city. Good thing, too. By noon it was snowing all over the city. I ended up leaving work early in order to get home before it got too amazingly bad, and by the time I got home, it looked like this:

I'm so very happy I wasn't on the bike today. In other news, this was my lil' puppy's first experience with snow. I think he enjoyed it greatly.

We'll see what happens overnight. If this much snow turns to ice on the ground, there's no way I'm making it into work tomorrow...

I was chatting with a friend and ex-sailing student of mine a few days ago, and it turns out that she had been thinking of getting into motorcycling this last year. She took and passed the MSF course and spent awhile looking at used bikes in the area, before finally deciding that now wasn't the time. I told her a bit about my experience and directed her to this blog, thinking she might be interested to see how I'd gone about it. When next we chatted, she asked me "so exactly when did you buy your bike?"

It turns out that probably within a week of when I bought Zoë, this friend of mine had also test-ridden her - or had her husband, the experienced rider in the family, take a test ride. I guess it wasn't exactly what they were looking for; Zoë went back home with her original owner, and shortly thereafter I came along. I don't know if Zoë was too tall, too torque-y, too shiny and nice, or what; I just know she wasn't exactly what my friend was looking for.

It's funny. It's a small world out there. And in a way, this feels a little bit like meeting your girlfriend's ex-boyfriend; I know Zoë's been with people before me, but dammit, that doesn't mean I want to think too much about it. She tells me she's only got eyes for me now, and I trust her not to lie about something like that... :)

My odometer rolled over the 10,000-mile mark on the commute to work this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, that brings my long-abandoned n00b-O-Meter to something in the neighborhood of 3,832 miles. Funny, it really doesn't seem like it's been that long. I'm not at all thinking of selling Zoë, because I love her and I know I've a tremendous amount still to learn on her, but I have found myself eyeing bikes more often these days, thinking about what's next when it's truly time to move on... Maybe sometime late next year? But then again, of course, maybe never. Zoë seems to do everything I want from a bike, and she's so much hotter than the fully-faired sportbikes I see 'round here, tarted up like two-dollar whores with their Type R decals and fake-carbon panels.

Finally rode to work again today. There's still some snow on the ground up in Lynnwood and Everett, but the roads are all clear and dry. Temps are hanging out in the high 30s and low 40s, so no more snow is falling, and while it's not exactly summer riding weather, at least it's dry. I hadn't been on the bike in over a week, but she started right up and ran like a champ.

I can't say enough good things about my heated grips. My only complaint is that they're slightly too warm, even on the low setting. I've always been more tolerant of cold than of heat (hence the college in Minnesota...) and every couple of minutes I need to open my hands and let the icy air cool my palms. It's not a problem, really, but maybe one of these days I'll pick up the variable-setting Heat-Troller option and wire it in. Or I'll just stick a resistor inline with the grip heaters...

Even after only one week's break, I felt a bit of a confidence loss this morning, but it only lasted until the end of the first block. I guess some of this skill-development is sticking. :)

In other news, my girlfriend's birthday was a little bit ago, and her gift from me was a MSF Basic Rider's Course. She's stoked to try this addiction that's stolen her boyfriend from her; I'm happy that she'll have a great time and learn a bit how to behave when it's time to take her on pillion, and who knows? Maybe she'll get hooked and end up with a little Ninja of her own in the garage, so Zoë won't be so lonely on these cold winter nights.

Coming home from work tonight, traffic was fairly heavy; the freeway was at 20 miles an hour across all lanes. I was in the HOV lane, as befit my motorcyclist VIP status, but it didn't make any difference speed-wise. Conditions held that way for the first 20 minutes of the ride, and then just north of the Lake Forest Park exit, the road suddenly opened up. I gave Zoë the throttle and settled at a comfortable 70-75 mph. The speed limit here was 60, so I wasn't exactly lagging behind traffic.

Looked behind me, and there was a large black SUV coming up fast on me. He settled in literally feet from my rear wheel - maybe five, maybe ten, but far too close for our speed. Within seconds of getting there, the SUV driver turned on his brights, as I apparently wasn't quick enough to get out of the way. My first thought - "my speed is fine, if they want to pass and they're being a dick about it they can damn well change lanes" - would have been my final decision in a car, but I realized my vulnerability on the bike, accelerated to find a gap to the right, and pulled out of the lane. The SUV driver surged angrily ahead, running it up to maybe 90 in his haste to get past, and once he was well past I merged back into the HOV lane.

Without even thinking about it, I flicked my brights at him after merging back. He'd been a tremendous asshole, and I wanted to let him know it. In a car this would have been fine, but it was a big mistake on the bike. The SUV driver stepped hard on the brakes, dropping speed fast, down to maybe 40 mph. I am glad I was paying very close attention, and that traffic was light; it was no problem to scrub my speed and I never even came close to him. I don't know whether his intention was to cause a collision, or just to say "you were too slow, how does it feel?" but either way, when he realized that I was stopping as well, he accelerated away.

This is where I surprised myself. It was the hardest thing in the world to hold my slow speed, let the fucker go, and not do anything about it. I've never been an aggressive person, and so I never thought I'd have a problem slowing down and letting some asshole "win," but it was terribly difficult. When he dropped his speed my first instinct was to leave the lane and pass him, get out and away at a speed he couldn't match, but I realized I didn't want someone like that behind me, and I didn't know what he'd do. I know it was safer to let him go, but all the same, it was a real task to swallow my pride and leave it alone.

This is instructive to learn. I've always known that we can't pick fights with cagers, because we'll lose every damn time, but I never imagined that I'd have any difficulty walking away from one. I think knowing that, understanding my first reaction ahead of time, will make it a lot easier in the future - but what I still need to figure out is the reason behind my reaction. God knows I've had idiots try to get me to race off a light before, and I've never bitten; what was it about this tool that made it so personal?

...oh, and I need to stop flicking my brights at folks when they do something stupid, dangerous, or that I just plain don't approve of. You never know who's behind the wheel - are they off their meds? did their wife just leave 'em? did they just get laid off? do they fancy themselves gangstas? I really don't want to find out the answer to this question the hard way.

I've been reading David Hough's More Proficient Motorcycling: Mastering The Ride recently. It's quite similar to his first book, but focuses more on practical exercises to improve your motorcycling skills instead of the wide overview of motorcycling in general. Highly recommended; the exercises are a lot less detailed than those detailed in Parks' Total Control but are still quite useful, and the wealth of other information that Hough provides is great.

One of the focuses of an early chapter is what Hough calls "wimp-o-phobia;" the conscious / subconscious reaction we have when someone passes us, cuts us off, rides faster than us, or takes any sort of action that would imply that we're not as skilled as they are. I'd like to say that as a scientist, a "man of reason," I'm immune to this sort of thing, but it's clearly not the case. I would direct the reader's attention to my recent encounter with road rage as an example of letting my pride get in the way of a safe ride.

And while I certainly wouldn't classify it as quite the same thing, I did notice a bit of a similar reaction on the Mt St Helens ride two months ago - occasionally I did find myself pushing a bit past my percieved limits in order to keep up. It was nothing crazy, and it certainly wasn't the fault of the very talented and polite riders who were along with me - everyone was very clearly oriented on riding their own ride. But all the same, I remember entering a few corners where I was a little concerned by the end. I remember coming out of one particularly hairy S-curve in the Alder Lake twisties, and telling myself "I do not need to ride this way." I think it's instructive to keep in mind one's tendancy to push a little bit harder, the maybe-subconscious desire to be "one of the guys" instead of "that newbie who can't keep up." Maybe being mindful of this tendancy will help to keep it in check before the fact, rather than having to talk myself down when I find it starting to affect me.

As if there was any question, Hough ends (or nearly ends) the book with The Ten Commandments of Motorcycling. The very first one:

Perfect your roadcraft. Good roadcraft means being less stressed as well as avoiding awkward or dangerous situations. Be courteous and acknowledge courtesy to you. Never be provoked.

Words to remember, I think. I clearly still have a lot of work to do in this department...

Another oil change this afternoon. This time I managed to avoid spilling oil all over the damn place, too. I tend to change oil and oil filters a bit more frequently than the manual suggests; I don't know whether it does any good or not, but I figure it can't hurt. Tried another oil in an attempt to save a few bucks; last time I used Mobil-1 MX4T, at $11.95 a quart from the motorcycle dealership. Unarguably it's great stuff, but almost $50 just for the oil doesn't thrill me. At the recommendation of a Bandit-riding tech at another motorcycle store, I picked up 4L of Castrol ActEvo 10w40 for $18.95 total. According to the service folks, it's great stuff; I'm moderatly skeptical as it's not a fully synthetic oil, but what do I know?

I was due for a chain lubing today also, and of course you can't lube a cold chain effectively, so that meant a ride. It was severely cold today, just a bit above freezing when I headed out, but clear and dry. I headed back down the route I used to take to work before feeling comfortable on the freeway, along Locust Way, to see if the twisties were more fun now that I've got a vague idea of how to corner properly.

They were.

I saw a surprising amount of bikes on that little route. I guess I'm not the only one who knows about it. It's not exactly a "hidden gem" of a road, but it's a whole lot more fun than I-5 and it runs straight down to Lake City Way, so it is a good way to get into town. I spent most of the ride focusing on the cornering drills from Hough's book, and going back to the Basic Riders' Course instructions (slow, look, lean, roll), trying to smooth out my turns and pick appropriate lines. As usual, I feel better now than I did before, but I've still got a long way to go...

Hopefully one of these weekends I can get away for a longer ride again. I miss the warm (or at least not-freezing) fall days. This spring I'm going to really rack up the miles, I think.

Last night there was some pretty serious fog goin' on; heavy, thick, and opaque. Visibility was very limited. Not a big deal; slow down, leave lots of following distance, spend a lot of time wiping off your visor, and you'll be fine.

This morning, however, the dark side of the fog appeared: when I got up, my thermometer showed 29 degrees, and the fog had frozen into a thin layer of ice all over everything. There are parts of the road where it's been worn away by passing tires, but there are still patches of ice all over the place. I intended to take the Volvo to work, but noticed that there were some Very Bad Things happening under the hood before I'd gone a mile, and turned back.

Forced to try the bike, I took it very slow and easy, but still encountered an ice-driven rear wheel skid. I think the layers on the road are mostly ok, but I had to pull off to check something in my tailbag, and as soon as I reached the shoulder I felt the rear wheel lock up under braking and start to skid. I babied it down to a stop with a very light brake, realized that I should maybe just give the roads an hour or so to thaw, and headed back home.

Lessons learned:

1. Ice is not a good thing.
2. I really need to either fix my car or get a new (well, used) one to replace it.
3. At very low speeds, if you release the rear brake during a skid, you don't get flung into a deadly high-side, the way you supposedly do if you lock the rear at speed and then come off the brake. Still, I'd recommend not trying Lesson 3 at home, kids, and I'll try not to do THAT again as well.

It continues. The last two days have been cage days. Very icy in the morning, even enough to skid the Volvo, and so far too much for me on the bike. It had damn well better start warming up soon, I need my moto fix!

It's been hellaciously cold all week. I've basically been stuck in the Volvo, while Zoë languished in her tent. Last night I took her into the city to meet some friends for dinner, which wasn't exactly comfortable as the temperature dropped right quick after the sun went down, and the ride back to Lynnwood was in air just above freezing. I'm starting to seriously consider a Gerbing or Widder 'lectric vest...

Today, though, it was a little bit warmer, in the low 40s, and with clear skies and sun, I couldn't resist taking the bike out. Lots of errands to do this morning, but I finally got everything taken care of around 3pm and had some time to just ride. I broke out my long-neglected copy of Destination Highways Washington and looked for interesting, short roads in the Everett/Lynnwood area, and found what they call SEA TE-F (Lowell-Larimer Rd - Marsh Rd). This is a short section of two-lane shoulderless road, winding through the "farmburbs" just south of Everett. The west side of the road rises into low hills which cut the road off from I-5, just a few miles to the west; the east side of the road drops down to the plain cut by the Snohomish river and countless little creeks, and in the distance the Cascades tower over everything, well-snowcapped and lit by the last of the daylight.

By the time I got to the road, the light was just starting to fade into early evening. Temperatures were beginning to fall off, but my heated grips kept the chill at bay for a while. There was still a bit of snow along the edges of the road, and a few patches of gleaming white ice here and there, which I managed to avoid. The Lowell-Larimer section of the ride wasn't all that twisty, but the poor condition of the road and presence of ice kept me slow and on my toes. Not many other cars around, which was a plus. The final section, Marsh Road, heads straight east through the fields to meet up with Rte. 9, and has a couple of quick and exciting 15-mph turns to challenge the unwary.

All in all, though, this route wasn't anywhere near as interesting as the short ride on the Olympic Peninsula that I took from this book back in September. I wandered about until I found my way back home, and then realizing that I hadn't had any particularly challenging or exciting twisties, I decided to hit good ol' Locust Way as the sun finished setting. As usual, Locust was a good place to work on my form and practice my lines, as it's only very slightly twisty - just enough to make you work, not enough to make you work hard.

It looks like this cold-and-dry snap is over. Forecast calls for rain and higher temps for at least the next few days. While I won't welcome the rain, getting out of this thirty-degree weather will be nice.

Warmer today, and since the rains started again, the last remnants of snow are all gone. I took the bike today, and learned (again) the discomfort of leaking raingear. As always, my Firstgear overpants leak in the crotch - an artifact of the seating position on my bike, where the downslope of the tank and position of my legs forms a little depression where water collects and seeps through the zipper. When I got out of my gear at work, after a half hour in pretty light rain, I looked like I'd long since abandoned bladder control. The jacket's all right on the inside, so that's what counts, but the outer layer gets so waterlogged that the whole thing adds about 10 pounds.

I'm starting to think that by next winter I need to just suck up the tremendous price and buy myself an Aerostich Roadcrafter suit. The internet is full of glowing reviews of this suit; not as abrasion resistant as a full suit of leathers, but close; almost entirely waterproof; comfortable in just about any conditions; about 15 pockets; high quality; the best customer service in the world. Of course, I'll look exactly like a Power Ranger, instead of just a little bit, in my neon-blue jumpsuit, but what can ya do?

Also, I found a pretty damn good deal on another XM Radio unit today; actually, about the best possible deal, as it was free. It's the Audiovox XR9/XCS9. I picked it up as it is a cradle-mount unit, rather than having individual wires plug straight into it, which should be less of a hassle when mounting. It has a better screen as well. It's also a bit bigger than the Roady, though, and looks a little out of place on the bike - and the buttons look a lot tougher to work with gloves on. I'm not yet sure which one I'll end up using, but for the price you can't go wrong. The real reason I picked it up, though, was that its power adaptor and antenna are exactly the same as the Roady's. I was intending to buy an adaptor and antenna seperately so that I could use the unit both on the bike and in the car, without having to un-wire everything to transfer it over, but the cheapest adaptor I could find was $10 and the cheapest antenna, $29. Free for both is a much better price. :)

Does anyone else sing in their helmet? I do. All the time. I expect I'm getting some serious Funny Look Points when I'm stopped at a crosswalk, belting out whatever terrible song's currently stuck in my head, but I'm not too concerned. I figure I'm getting the Funny Look Points anyway, so I might as well earn them.

We are warned constantly that diesel fuel, oil, and all that good stuff is slippery as hell. We are told to watch for it on the roads, avoid it when possible, and keep the bike vertical and the speed constant when forced to ride over the stuff. We are told that if we don't do these things, we will lose traction and crash dramatically.

This is true. Please remember it in the future, O gentle readers.

Your humble narrator encountered a nice, large oilslick this morning coming in to work. There is a building near the UW Hospital that's under construction - a Genomics facility, I believe - and there's a constant stream of trucks involved in that construction. One of them today was obviously in need of some maintenance, as it had spread oil over most of the lane. I noticed it, realized there was no way to avoid it other than the sidewalk, and steeled myself to pass over it. And then, of course, realized that I was half a block from an intersection, the light was red, and there was traffic in it. No choice but to try and stop on the oil.

This is a challenging task. I was luckily not going too quickly. Knowing that the front brake was off-limits, I brought Zoë to a stop with the rear only. The real wheel locked and skidded when my speed dropped low enough, and despite what I've been told, I feathered the brake and let the wheel spin back up. At crawling speeds I'm not worried about a high-side; I am worried about skidding the rear 90 degrees from my line of travel, though.

All ended well, and the shiny side stayed up, though the pedestrians on the sidewalk were no doubt treated to an interesting sight. I'm just glad that I didn't encounter this on a steep downhill grade; I wonder what could have been done in that situation?

I just finished The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles by Melissa Holbrook Pierson. This is a book that every rider of a philosophical bent should certainly read. This book is part historical investigation into the early days of motorcycling, part travelogue, part paen to the Moto Guzzi (of which Pierson is an utter devotee), and very well written. Pierson's prose is very inventive and humorous, self-deprecating at times, and well informed. I get the impression that she's a quietly competant rider, rather than a brilliant, race-winning one, and you won't find tips for perfecting your lines or installing an aftermarket exhaust here, but you will find a wonderful exposition of what it is that draws us to our bikes, to the feelings that dwell in our minds on the back of our bikes, in the rain, at night, at speed.

I'd recommend it highly, and I'll be passing it on to my girlfriend tonight, to hopefully explain (in part) what I feel when I'm riding, in words more beautiful than those I can manage.

I am engaged to be married, as of last night.

Actually a bit of an odd story: I had bought a ring, wrapped it in a small box in a bigger box in a bigger box, and put it in the pile of xmas presents. Slated to be opened on Sunday, of course, when I planned to ask Jen to marry me.

Last night my girlfriend took me out to a very swanky dinner (Le Gourmand in Seattle) and beat me to the punch. She'd bought a ring too, apparently. I got a fair number of amused looks from the staff and other diners; when Jen mentioned to the waitress that we were engaged, she asked to see the ring (looking at Jen, of course), and I sheepishly raised my hand to show it. (There should be a "blushing" smilie for this.)

So we got back home, and I mentioned that after such a great dinner, she should open one of my presents, and tossed her the ring box...

Not the way I'd anticipated this working out, but it was suitably ironic and weird. A good fit for us, I think.

Windy here last night. I woke up to the doorbell this morning; it was my next-door neighbor, seeking my help. It turns out that my ghetto garage-tent thing had blown over in the night, hopped the fence, and inverted itself in the neighbors' front yard. We manhandled it back over the fence and into place around Zoë, who had miraculously stayed calmly on her centerstand while the garage flew away.

I guess I'll need something other than a quartet of cinderblocks to hold that thing down...

In other news, the Viagra Spammers have found this site. I've deleted six comments in the last two days hocking cheap meds, and have switched the comment system to requiring my approval before posting anything. So, spammers, go away. If this doesn't work I'll turn 'em off entirely.

Merry Christmas or whatever takes your fancy, everyone.

Hate to do it, but there were another seven comments advertising impotence meds posted today - I'm disabling commenting completely. This makes me sad, but not as sad as having to constantly be deleting this crap.

Spammers: I suggest you die in a fire.

The rest of you: feel free to keep reading, I have only the greatest love and respect for ya.

Today - all day - was Valve Adjustment Day. I was significantly overdue for it, from a milage standpoint, as a valve adjustment was called for at 7500 miles, and Zoë's just over 10k now, but I figure: better late than never. It seemed like a pretty time-consuming and technically demanding task, and so I called on the infinite knowledge of the S-T.n folks, as well as my Suzuki and Haynes service manuals, and figured I could probably slog my way through it.

The time-consuming part of this service is not the valve adjustment itself, but rather the disassembly required to get the valves exposed. In short, the seat, fuel tank, spark plugs, "breather," left-side fairing mount, and a variety of assorted hoses need to be removed and set aside before the valve cover can be taken off. Getting the cover off is also extremely challenging, as long as the engine's within the frame, as clearance is extremely limited - it tends to catch up on the cam chain assembly, and took some finagling to get removed.

Here's a pic of Zoë sans seat, tank, and rear side panels.

...and once the parts are all off, they should be set aside in a safe and relatively clean place, as the task is only beginning... Here you can see the valve cover to the left; its bolts have been replaced so none of them go missing. Above is the tank, with vent hoses still trailing from it; fuel and vac hoses were disconnected and remained on the bike. The aluminum box in the middle is the breather, which bolts on to the top of the valve cover; I had to remove it in order to get the valve cover out of the frame. Plugs are lined up at the top of the shot, in cylinder order.

Here's a shot of the innards of the engine, beneath the valve cover. You can see the dual camshafts, one on each side of the shot, and the cam chain running left to right near the middle. The #1 and #2 cylinders are shown, #1 closest to the camera. The spring-lookin' things to the left of the cylinders are the exhaust valves for #1 and #2; the intake valves are hidden by the camshaft in the right of the shot.

More valve porn. This is from the other side of the bike; you're looking at the #4 and #3 cylinders here. #4 is closest to the camera. Intake valves are apparent on the left side of the shot, and the exhaust valves are on the right.

(at least I hope I identified the intake valves vs the exhaust valves correctly, or this adjustment was a very, very bad idea.)

After exposing the valves for adjustment, the cover needs to be taken off the signal generator, on the right side of the bike. Here is a shot inside the signal generator. Using a large (19mm) wrench, one rotates the cams using the big nut inside the signal generator until the cams are properly aligned to allow valve adjustment. At a given cam position, you can adjust either #1 Intake and Exhaust / #2 Intake / #3 Exhaust, or #2 Exhaust / #3 Intake / #4 Intake and Exhaust, so the cam is set, the valves in a given set are checked, and then the cam is advanced and the other set adjusted.

On the Bandit motor, the intake and exhaust valves are set to different values; .004 - .006" for intake, and .007" - .009" for exhaust. The actual adjustment procedure is pretty straightforward; measure the valve gap with an appropriately-sized feeler gauge, and if adjustment is necessary, loosen the locknut with an 8mm wrench and set the setscrew with the Ghetto Valve Adjustment Tool (a square-drive screw in the end of a dowel, made by yours truly because no local shop had the Suzuki tool in stock). Adjust, re-tighten, check, and move to the next valve. The only reason this was time-consuming was that I adjusted all 16 of them, and then repeated it because I wanted to make sure...and found that I'd adjusted every one too loose. No idea how that happened. So I repeated it twice more to be certain, and torqued down all the locknuts tight. I hear it's bad news if one comes loose when the engine's running.

I did the measurement by sticking in the appropriate-sized feeler gauge - I used .005" and .008" for intake and exhaust, respectively - tightening the locknut down, and then adjusting to juuuust a bit of pressure on the gauge. I'm not sure if this was the right way to do it or not, but when I went back to check after the fact I checked both the size I originally set it to, and a slightly larger gauge (.008" / .010"). As long as the original size still fit and the larger one did not, I called it good. If there is another method, I'd love to hear about it.

All that was left was to put everything back in reverse order. I sprayed down the valve cover with contact cleaner to make sure there weren't any little bits of gravel waiting to work their magic on the inside of my engine, spread some liquid gasket on the appropriate junction points, and buttoned everything back up.

She runs. I have no idea whether I made anything better; pretty much all the valves were too tight, initially, and now they're spot-on. When I lit her up after the adjustment, she went right into a very smooth idle, where normally I'd have to use some choke to get her running. She also used to hang at higher RPMs for a moment after coming off the throttle, when in neutral; in my short run this evening, I didn't see that, so I'm hopeful that I've tuned her a little bit better than she was. But that remains to be seen.

While this was a time-consuming task (probably 5-6 hours all told), it wasn't a particularly hard one. If you've got a valve adjustment coming up, give it a shot! I feel a lot more comfortable about exactly what's going on inside the mill now than I did before.

When I'm on the bike, I try to empty my mind of distractions and focus on the ride. For the most part I'm pretty good at it; obviously I still need some work, but the majority of the time I'm riding I'm not paying much attention to anything but the ride. I feel this is a pretty important thing to minimize risk.

But occasionally I'm ambushed by some really sticky thought; something important I forgot to do, or a complicated problem at work, or whatever, and I can't for the life of me get it out of my head. I can push it away briefly, but it always seems to come crawling back. I really don't feel comfortable when I'm distracted like that; I know my reflexes are pretty good, and my instincts are right more often than not, but I'd rather not trust my safety on two wheels entirely to them.

This mental focus is something that still needs my attention.