Hangin' with the Dirty Pirates

I'd heard a new motorcycle service shop had opened in central Phoenix a few months back, so when I decided to have a few things checked out on my new (to me) 2001 Kawasaki KLR650, I decided to give the new guys a chance at my business. Dirty Pirate Motorsports is located on the south west corner of 7th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, which happens to be just a few miles away from my office. Sweet. A convenient location is always a good thing.

I had heard good things already from several customers of the new shop. Apparently these guys had been around town for some time working for other shops, but I couldn't quite put faces with their names. When I rolled up to the shop, I was pleasantly surprised to see Eric Hancock coming out to greet me. Cool! Eric was formerly the service manager for Ducati/Triumph Superstore and is a certified Ducati Technician. I have had many positive transactions with him. He and his guys had worked on several of my bikes and I'd always been happy with the experience. Jeff is also a veteran motorcycle tech with a long history in the area.

Eric and his partner Jeff had decided to strike out on their own earlier this year, and so far, things are going well. Their shop is a traditional open storefront style building and it invites potential customers to walk in and see what's going on. This seems to suit Eric and Jeff who are both quite readily engage you in conversation and are happy to discuss any and all topics relating to motorcycles. They're both avid riders and are frequently found at the track testing and tuning their race bikes.

Eric explained that he chose the open storefront concept because he wanted his customers to be able to observe the work being done on their bikes. Cool with me! As someone who does a lot of work on his own bikes, I want to make sure I know what's being done and I want to verify that it's being done correctly. I'm sure that makes me a pain in the arse to some techs, but Eric and Jeff totally embrace the concept, and I think it's going to earn them loyal customers.

My KLR has been getting poor mileage and I was concerned that it wasn't jetted correctly. D.P. Motorsports has a Factory Pro EC997 dyno with a four gas analyzer, so they have the perfect tool to troubleshoot the issue. Rather than just slap my bike on the dyno, however, Eric hit me with a bunch of questions. What is the bike's service history? When was the last time the valve clearance was checked? How do you ride it? And several others. See, Eric KNOWS KLRs. As a long-time tech at a Kawasaki dealership, Eric has worked on more KLRs than he can remember He's intimately familiar with their quirks and idiosyncrasies and he knew right where to go to look for the problem.

Since I had recently acquired the bike and didn't have a service history, Eric recommended we check the valve clearance first. Obviously, you'll never get a bike running correctly by changing the jetting if the valves are out of spec. Fortunately for me, my valves were within factory specs. Throughout the short process of checking the clearances, Eric let me watch closely and ask questions. Since the bike is new to me, I am a sponge, soaking up every bit of knowledge about the bike I can find. He shared some tips and tricks he'd learned, such as how to get the piston at TDC without using a wrench to turn the crank. Simple, but a time saver. He also gave me lots of good information about other topics with regard to maintaining the KLR in top condition. Some techs might think of this as giving away business - telling the customer how to do things that might otherwise bring them in for service. Not Eric and Jeff. They're of the mind that excellent customer service will earn them repeat customers and lots of referrals. I think they're right.

Eric was sure to check the air filter condition after I told him that I had a K&N in there. Turns out it was clogged shut with dirt. I kinda suspected that might be a problem, but hadn't checked it myself yet. Doh! He also did a compression test and I was happy to see a reading of around 130 psi - well with spec. After checking the valve clearance, compression and installing a fresh spark plug (which required Eric run to the dealership to pick up, as he didn't have one in stock), Eric reinstalled the now clean air filter, buttoned things up and sent me off to Dyno Man Jeff.

I had been observing Jeff working on another customer's bike and he too was fully engaged with the customer as he pulled the fork leg off the late model Triumph Sprint ST. In addition to being The Man with the dyno, Jeff's also the suspension expert. D.P. Motorsports is able to help with any task from set up to service on your moto's suspenders.

Nothing too magic about the dyno diagnostic. If you know anything about dynos, you know the Factory Pro dyno differs from the ubiquitous Dynojet dyno. It does things a bit differently, and its makers claim it provides a more true measurement of your bikes power characteristics. As a result, the HP readings it delivers aren't directly comparable to those commonly seen from the more common Dynojet. *shrug* I don't care as long as it makes my bike work good. Actually, I do care, in that I like to know geeky details like that. But I digress.

Jeff did his thing and did his best not to trip over me as I was clicking away with my camera. Apparently the previous owner knew what he was doing, because the dyno and gas analyzer showed that my jetting was spot-on. Yes! Hopefully the clogged air filter was the source of my problems, but it was good to know for sure. My bike was making a whopping 39 horsepower. Wow! Not a number you brag about to your sportbike friends, but right inline with what one would expect from a low-tune 650cc thumper.

After paying my very reasonable service bill, I went on my way knowing that my new pride and joy had been handled with care by professionals who know what they're doing. That, and I'd learned several excellent bits of info about my bike that should keep it out of the shop for many miles to come. But if I ever do need to take it in, I know who I'm going to call.

Burnt out back burner.

Its been a long time since I have posted in the SWR forums and even more so on the blogs. I feel I have fallen short and was blind sided by my procrastination on my writing desire. Which slowly found its way to the back burner until the light on the stove fluttered out. I had decided long ago that I wanted to be a writer. And chose the best subject to write about... Motorcycles...

I'm a student at MMI and being around others that love motorcycles is a great experience. And you get to hear what everyone's plans will eventually be once they finish the school. Whether they are simply daydreaming or are dedicated enough to follow through with their dreams is to me, up in the air. But, I will say that when you are surrounded by people with different dreams and become good friends with some you (and by you I mean me) start to lose track of your own dreams.

I got caught up in the moment. And my vision of being a great successful writer people would look up to and look forward to reading my articles, soon started to turn into a fictitious reality instead of a true aspiration that it once was. I simply lost track of what I was passionate about and fell for someones elses "idea". Not their passion, but simply a means maybe to try and make money and be "set" for the rest of their lives. I just seem to have that personality that is easily persuaded it seems.

From here on out I will posting more blogs. I don't care if people read them or not. Its more for me to keep myself in check and focused on what I really want.
I already know what I am writing about next as a matter of fact.

Thanks for reading if you indeed do so. I appreciate it and I hope you take a good read at my next blog.

To ride or not to ride!

As the years roll past and I spend a lot of time on the road I have seen spills, crashes, flops, flips, concussions, road rash and death. Every time something like this happens we pull it internal and weigh the good from the bad and decide whether it's worth it to stay on two wheels or wrap it up for "extreme scrapbooking".

I have enjoyed a terrific life on two wheels. I have been scared once or twice by other people's actions and some of my own. But I feel that with every close call, wreck or tip over I am able to learn something from it and move forward in my quest to beat the odds and live a long life on two wheels.

But what makes the difference? Chance? Luck? Skill? Experience? I say yes to all the above. Some things to me are just common sense and part of my internal make up. Other things about riding have come harder, but I continue to learn as I move forward.

So what is all this rambling about? I want people to take a look at why they ride and how they ride..... we all have a common bond with the love of the road/trail on two wheels! That's why we wave to each other... it's sharing that camaraderie and the unspoken dedication it takes to stay alive on the road. It doesn't matter if you are new on a bike or as old skool as it gets....... it's that one guy (neighbor, friend, mechanic, random guy on the side of road) that spends a bit of time with you and shares that nugget of information that helps you through your next situation..... I want to be that guy in this blog.... if one thing I share here helps someone through their next situation or prevents that situation my work is done.....

There are so many different things to cover here... I will try and break it into groups and and lay down the ramblings as they come to mind. Some of these we all know, some are common sense (to most) and some are just tips and tricks picked up along the way!

Attitude

I know you have those days when you get on the bike and it seems that everyone is out to get you. Take a good look at yourself and the way you are driving. Sometimes that is the hardest thing to do. Are you speeding, tailgating, aggressive, etc? Pull back a bit, relax and create yourself better luck!

Situational Awareness

When I was a kid and use to watch my dad drive. He was so sly in how he kept his eyes on the road and his mirrors. It wasn't long till I was doing the same thing as a teen driver. I wanted to know what was behind me, in front and beside me at all times. This technique helps me with situational awareness. Situational awareness allows you to react to a POTENTIAL situation before the people even know they are going to do it! With a motorcycle it can be more difficult due to some peripheral constrants with sunglasses, helmets and poor mirrors... but it is still one of the most important skills to develop. Is the guy weaving in the lane next to you? Could he want to get over to turn left at the next light? Can you see him on the cell phone? Is the lane merging? Trying to understand what is motivating this guy for the next mile in front of him? Can you do that for all the vehicles with in 50-100 ft of you? It is not enough for you to control your own little world, you better be looking at other people's options too!

In the Motor Vehicle Division's training book it talkes about leaving yourself and out at all times. I can tell you when that door shuts and you have no out you are absolutely leaving yourself with minimal options to react to a SITUATION.

Defensive Driving

Situational awareness allows you to drive defensively and try to keep you out of harms way. Become a people watcher. Try to keep from putting yourself in people's blind spot. Don't speed in traffic. People cannot react to you not being there one second and the next second you are blaring past them. Understand it's not their fault at that point.

Mechanical Soundness

I cannot stress enough to keep your ride as mechanically sound as possible. Brakes, acceleration and handling are needed to keep you from harms way! My family always ragged on me for getting such an aggressive bike but I turned it around and say: "Wouldn't you want the best brakes, acceleration and handling to get out of trouble?"

Experience

The body is amazing in the way we can adapted to our world. Not many things physical/mechanical come natural. The body and mind have to learn how to interact. The more you do it the more it becomes natural and easier to react too. Practice, practice and practice. That is the only way you will ultimately learn how to effectively control your bike. You can read about it and go to classes to learn the fundamentals, but they will all tell you that you need to apply that real time on the bike to get it right!

Experiences

No I am not duplicating titles here... I have a very important point to make here. Say for instance you are driving along "at the speed limit" and someone runs a stop sign making a right turn in front of you.... he did it so close that you could not possibly stop in time and speed up to beat him into the intersection... now you went from 45 mph to 60 mph... you are emotionally trying to deal with what just happened, you are now speeding and another car does a left in front of you for another close call...... I call this emotionally stacking! It is dangerous! You need to regain your situation awareness and concentration immediately after an incident and live in the NOW! Don't set yourself up by not being ready for another potential situation. This goes back to ATTITUDE! Get that right attitude back, relax and make your luck again.

There are so many little things you can do to improve your enjoyment of riding without becoming a victim. I hope some or all of this helps someone in the near future! Thanks for listening!

Greg
aka Motoman
www.emotoman.com

The Faces

I commute on my bike daily since I sold my car before moving out to Phoenix. And I have noticed a big change in my lifestyle as well as my road presence through other people. I'd like to say that I am a safe rider for the most part. I ride as if I am invisible to every pair of eyes I make contact with using my own eyes. As well as the eyes that don't even take head to my somewhat ominous presence. I say Ominous because of the people who do notice me as a motorcyclist.`Maybe the looks wouldn't be so fervent if I wasn't riding a bright orange sport bike around town. But I can feel people staring at me and instantly my head auto pilots away from the road and on to that piercing gaze I'm sure I can feel more than spider man can feel his spider senses. And they are not curious looking faces. They are uh... Lets say menacing faces. Not like this...



But more along the lines of this...


It makes me feel as if I have done some sort of wrong doing. And then I begin to question myself. Did I maybe...? I don't know about other riders out there if they happen to get this gaze. But I do every day I go out not just once but many times. Whether I'm on my way to work or just going around the corner to the store. Every once in a long while things will mix up a bit and I will get some sexy faces. Not like this...



But like this.



A pleasant sight = ) Thats about it. Its rare but every once and a long long while I do get the occasional meat head guy yelling at me to do a wheelie.


"Com'on man! throw that front end up!"

But I don't comply. I just keep on riding. Well, that is something I have noticed allot since I have started commuting on my motorcycle. Let me know what you have noticed in your years of riding!

~Hath

Spyder Trikes?!

This particular blog isn't about any riding experience but about a new type of ride out there on the road. And supposedly on the rise in sales.

Its called the Spyder. It has three wheels and looks like a backwards tricycle we use to ride as kids. The only thing it can compete with is a Lancer Evolution on a quarter mile track. Not to bad right? Well, when you compare to performance motorcycles it is bad. Especially for the price. Base price for this hard core monster $15,599. Base price for an R1 $11,699.

This...



Or This...




Now don't get me wrong. I think that this will be great for people that don't want to venture into the two wheel realm. Or those who could be handicapped. You get the feel of wind over your body and 360 degree view you would on a street bike. But without the excitement of leaning into turns and really feeling "in tune" with your machine. Mine respectively a sport bike I commute on. (00' CBR 600F4)

Although I do believe that those who fear to take a seat on any two wheeler and who decide to just suck it up and live a little will find that a true motorcycle will be much more satisfying. I have seen a few of these Spyders out on the road in NC. I don't see them lasting at all. That is if they can even get started. Its an in between battle that just doesn't seem as if it could work out. Look back on the days when they had three wheeled ATVs. I've ridden them and they are more dangerous and unstable than any motorcycle I've ridden on. Now they have discontinued them because of that very reason.

All they did with the Spyder is switch the wheel positioning around and added stabilizers. Just spruce it up with technology and everything's alright now... Right?? Well, I don't know because I haven't ridden the Spyder. I like to think of of it this way though. ANYTHING on two wheels runs naturally by laws of physics known as gyroscopic effect. Keep momentum going and the bike stays up... period. All you need is a persons natural stabilizers to balance things out until momentum is fast enough. Then physics takes over.

I don't like how allot of people claim that motorcycles are "unstable" machines. The only things that make a motorcycle unstable is the rider. If you choose to ride irresponsibly then you are the one who is unstable and should not ride. Pretty simple I think. Same thing applies with cars as well as this backwards trike.

Another advantage about the motorcycle world is that motorcycles are allot more diverse. You can choose from cruisers, adventure, touring, sport touring, sport, dual sport, motards, and so on. All of them different sizes and weights. The Spyder is simply that. A Spyder, nothing more and nothing less. Not much to much to choose from for the cost of over 15k. If it floats your boat then cool. Go ride your little heart out. Just don't wave at me expecting a wave back.

404 mile Loop

Nothing can replace the feeling of riding in 90 degree weather while climbing in elevation and at the same time the temperature descending in elevation on the thermometer. It is true that my jacket didn’t stop the chilled air from finding every way possible inside to give me goose bumps. Although it was hard to distinguish the cool air goose bumps from the thrill of riding in a brand new environment goose bumps.

The first stretch from N Fort Mcdowell road to Happy Jack was a nice relaxing ride. It was very scenic with the occasional crazy cage driver wanting to race around corners at 110 mph to try and prove that dying in a cage is much cooler than dying flying through the air for a few hundred feet before coming to an abrupt stop. And of course we can’t forget the drivers who like to take it slow at the worst possible time. We hit the first set of twisties I think between Strawberry and happy Jack. I got excited and my heart started to pump franticly just wanting to go through the turns as fast as my ability will allow me to do so. But we were interrupted by a jeep hauling a small trailer going up about 20 mph slower than I had liked. But that’s ok because it gave me time to take in the scenery going up. We finally got to Happy Jack stopped at a small gas stationed and began to fuel up. I was taking in the backdrop to the gas station. A guy not too sure what his name was walked up to us to take a look at our bikes. We chatted it up with a him for a little while. He said he rides a Ninja 250. After a good half hour or so we parted ways with Derek and Tom and I continued onward.The second stretch was pretty simple. We just cruised at about 70 mph or so enjoying the scenery the cool air and I also enjoyed just thinking away. It was pretty calm all the way up to Sedona. Once we hit Sedona though I was blown away by how the landscape changed so quickly.


The third section from Sedona to Jerome was also pretty calm. May have been a bit boring at some parts but for what came up later made it all worth it. What was cool was Tom pointed out towards the mountains to our right and then starting nodding his head. When I took a look at the mountains I saw Jerome sitting right there on the side of the mountain looking down over us and the entire valley we were traveling through. It took a good 45 minutes before we started once again climbing in elevation. I was getting giddy seeing all the switchbacks going up in Jerome. We had to keep it slow though. Because every switch back was different tier of the city. It was like climbing up stairs. Once we got through Jerome and starting going down the back side of the mountain the road starting throwing all sorts of turns at us. I was tempted to go on ahead but my suspension was not in such great shape for the condition those roads were in. So I held back and decided to wait for the roads following Prescott.

Tom and I got down the back side of the mountain Jerome sat on and we started heading through Prescott Valley. We finally hit Prescott so Tom and I decided to stop in Prescott and have a beer or two (Which I owe Tom a beer) then we hit the road again. Once we got going the road started to throw all sorts of turns at us. And with road conditions at the best I’ve seen all trip long I couldn’t just sit back and take my time anymore. I took off with a smile on my face and the “Come get me attitude” The most exciting part of the day. It was easy to find the rhythm of the road and just sweeping in and out of every turn. Then we hit a small stretch of road that lead to Yarnell’s back side for a descending array of narrow turns for a few miles. After that we headed straight to Wickenburg then off to the Valley. Total miles traveled were just over 400. I’m gonna try it the opposite way next time around. And have more details.

~Hath

It's going to be a long summer

So I got my first taste of summer riding yesterday. Of course, it's only going to get worse. Riding home from work yesterday, heading down the 17, decided to pass the exit to get to the 202 and just continue on to the 10 East. I'm just coming up on the 19th Ave exit and I see it. The line of cars, truck, 18-wheelers. Sitting. Not moving. Of course, I was in the far left lane and couldn't hop off the freeway in time so there I sat. Oh, I'd move about 6 feet every thirty seconds or so but the only other thing I could think to do with my time was stare intently at my temperature reading. It was like learning to count all over again, saying out loud how hot the bike was getting with every change in number.

I decided that it would be best to head to the shoulder and let the bike cool down a bit. This was after it had reached about 30 degrees in excess of normal. I got onto the right shoulder, shut her down and hopped off the bike. It was hot. That 105 degrees felt like 117. There were no bridges, no signs, nothing from which to seek shade. About 5 minutes after I stopped, a trucker driving by handed me a bottle of water out of the cab of his truck. It was so cold, so delicious and definitely a life saver.

Time to re-enter traffic, I suppose. I hopped back on the trusty SV, edged my way back into traffic but the guy behind me didn't like that much and thus felt the need to get right up on my rear wheel with every stop. I had enough. Despite knowing that the shoulder is not to be traveled on, I hopped back over and began cruising at a responsible 10 miles per hour, almost as a way to apologize to the motorists I was passing. I decided that this would be a better option since 1) I didn't want to either break down or get hit, thus causing more traffic issues on the freeway and 2) I figured running the bike at 10mph would at least allow it the chance to cool down a little.

This plan took me about 3/4 of a mile until I saw the moto-cop in front of me, about 50 yards up the shoulder. I figured that would be a good time to migrate back into traffic and luckily, we finally passed the accident and I was on my way.

Lessons Learned:

• Buy a hydrating vest. Now.
• Always bring water no matter where I'm going.
• The shoulder is a viable escape route from tailgating cagers in a stand-still.
• Truckers are awesome.
• Water is awesome.
• Motorcycles overheat quickly when just sitting.
• Cagers hate it when you try to get in front of them, even if they're sitting perfectly still.