Recirculating Cheese

I really ought to write this stuff down a little closer to when it happened. Y'know, like a journal or something.

Thu/Fri: Took the Motorcycle Safety Foundation Experienced Rider Course. Thurs 3 hours of classroom stuff, Fri 5 hours of exercises on the range (a large empty parking lot). I was the only one who actually rode a motorcycle to the classroom portion. Class was 12 white men between the ages of 20 and 50. You do the exercises on your own motorcycle, and I had the second-oldest, second-cruftiest bike there - the winner being another Kawasaki KZ550, maybe 1981 or 82. That rider was the only one who didn't pass the course - he panicked in the final skills test, locked up the front brake, and went down. I took a 10 point penalty (out of 20 allowed) in the cornering exercise, for not a) not rolling on the throttle at the start of the turn, and b) consequently cornering too slowly. It was a good class, and it somewhat got me over my fear or cornering (having laid down the bike twice in corners).

My butt was also quite flat by the end of the class, to say nothing of the hour's drive home (on 495 in rush hour). Another reason I might want to get a different (probably newer) bike. And the instructor was going on and on about how comfortable his new custom seat is.

Sat: Switching helmets, chaps, and gloves to horsey pursuits, I had a private lesson. One had a cold, another was competing in a horse show, and the third was probably watching said horse show. Rode Indy the ex-racehorse again, trying to get him to slow down and collect. Also did my first jumping in a couple years. (I tried jumping Cheyenne a couple times when I was first on him, but he really didn't see why he had to go over when he could just as easily go around.) Jen's got another ex-racer, name of Hailo, who, she informs me, kicks and bites, and has a bad ankle. But she's going to make a schoolie out of him. Honestly, Indy is coming along nicely, from what I've seen, so she may not be completly out of her head.

Between the motorcycle lessons and the horse lessons, I was struck by the similarities - head up, eyes up, look where you want to go. For that matter, it applies to skating as well. Posture matters more in skating and riding than in motorcycling, but it's not insignificant there. Heh, life is full of cross-training.

Sat PM: At the motorcycle course, I discovered that my chain is loose, so I spent a couple hours loosening and tightening bolts (some quite frozen), in an attempt to fix this. The shop manual says to measure the displacement at the point where the chain is tightest, implying that it's normal for a) the sprocket to wear unevenly, and/or to become asymmetrical, or b) the chain to stretch unevenly. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with either of these, but it was the case that the chain was tighter at certain points in the rotation. I tried not to think too much about that, and instead concentrated on how absolutely gunky the chain had gotten in only 13K miles (over 22 years, mind), and spent a while cleaning and re-lubing the chain. It's far from perfect, but it's not horrible.

Sun: Kylie and I picked a gallon of blueberries from our three (3) bushes. We clearly need to plant more, and soon.

Went for a longish trail ride on Cheyenne, who was only occasionaly bratty. And we came across a couple of trees down on the trail, making a rather low but deep jump, which he took with no hesitation. Also checked out a spot in the forest where we harvested Concord grapes a couple years ago, but, alas, the vines are all gone now. But I know where we can find others.

Today: Eh, about the most exciting thing was looking down in the toilet, panicking because the water was red, and remembering half a second later that I had beets for dinner last night.

You have to love Step 1 of simple motorcycle repair tasks, e.g.

• To replace the headlamp, first remove the mirrors. (They're half of what attaches the fairing to the frame. Remove the fairing, then remove the headlight from the headlight housing, then remove the headlamp (light bulb).)
  
  
• To replace the clutch cable, first remove the gas tank. (Really just lift it out of the way so you can see where the cable is routed underneath.)

The former was last week's fun fun, made more fun by the fact that the fuse blew at the same time as the headlamp, so I took the switch apart before I remembered the bike had fuses. Then find the fuse box, then try to find a replacement.

The latter was why I was late to work this morning. Y'see, the clutch cable broke about two miles from home. Without the clutch, you can't effectively shift or gracefully stop. (Or maybe you can, but your mad bike skillz are better than mine.) Sitting on the warm grass behind the 7-Eleven making phone calls, I discovered that the local motorcycle shop is a mafia front operation, or a Wal-Mart subsidiary, one or the other. They don't do motorcycle towing. They don't know anyone who does. It just never comes up in their business of...repairing motorcycles? Furthermore, they don't stock cables. Their parts department doesn't stock parts that actual customers might actually want for their actual motorcycles. Of course, this is the place that made no attempt to trace the oil leak that I specifically asked them to look at. It didn't occur to them to (say) check the oil filter O-ring (another part they didn't have in stock, and had to special order). Fuck you, North Reading Motor Sports.

Anyway, AAA doesn't do motorcycles. Francie came down with the minivan, but there wasn't enough vertical clearance to put the bike in there. Eventually, we RTF'd the Yellow Pages under Towing, found a place that does do motorcycles. It was an ordinary flat-bed tow truck, but he had a clue about how to load and tie down a motorcycle. (No, it's really not hard.)

In the meantime, it was a beautiful morning, and there was this nice lawn at the back of the 7-Eleven, and I eventually got to work by other means, and I got a replacement cable from the place near work, which had it in stock, thankyouverymuch, and I installed it this evening, The End.

I swear, I don't do any of my own automotive work anymore, not even oil changes, because modern engines are not designed to be serviced by ordinary people. But with a 21 year old motorcyle, and the aformentioned fucking useless local bike shop, I both can and have to service it myself. I mean, the first thing I did after taking it out of storage last year was pull and clean the carbeurators. So yeah, go me. Woo.