Concours Oil Cooler Leak

Now that I've had a chance to run the Concours a bit and got some fresh oil in it I've discovered the first mechanical problem.  Oil is running from the oil cooler at the front of the motor.  It looks localized around the oil lines coming out of the oil cooler.  I'm hoping it's the gaskets highlighted (GASKET 14X19.5X1.4 11009-1461).  They're only a couple of bucks each and they might even be a standard size that I don't have to go all the way down to the dealer for.

With the fairings off I had a look around the rest of the engine now that it's been run a bit and everything else looks tight and dry.  With luck some cheap gaskets and re-torqued oil lines will mean a mechanically able Concours that's ready for the road.

You can see the wet oil line connectors at the bottom - fortunately that seems to be the leak.
There is no trace of oil higher up.

Connie with her skirts off again...

Dirt or Adventure?

I was out in the woods this past Canadian Thanksgiving and couldn't help but look at the mad logging roads we'd travelled down and wonder what they'd be like on two wheels.  I'm also considering a starter off-road bike for my son, so having something I could ride along with him would be awesome.

I've actually ridden into the cottage on the Ninja.  It was surprisingly surefooted on the winding gravel lanes, but with a capable dual purpose bike I could head off the roads and onto the trails and not be terrified about dropping it.

I'd initially focused on the KLR650 as a dual sport, off road capable two wheeler, but if off-roading is going to be a major part of what this bike is purchased for then weight is a key factor.  The Suzuki DRZ-400S is over 100lbs lighter while offering a better power to weight ratio.  It's a smaller machine and $500 more expensive, though I don't find smaller necessarily worse since I'm an Austin Vince fan.  With no fairing whatsoever it'll be all wind while riding whereas the larger KLR would cover road speeds better, though no fairings means less broken plastic when it's dropped.  Both machines have off-road sized tall seats and feel well sized for me.  After seeing a DRZ last summer I was surprised at how much presence it had, it's a mighty fine looking machine.

Both are single cylinder, simple machines, but you get the sense that the Suzuki has been updated more often whereas the KLR proudly wears its 20 year old tech on its sleeve.  The DRZ also dresses as a supermoto street bike and has a plethora of go-faster kit.  KLR extras seem to revolve around repairing basic engineering issues with this old design.

I guess a choice between the two would come down to what the bike would be used for.  If covering distances in more of an adventure bike way is the goal, the KLR is a first step into that world.  If I'm looking for an off-road machine that'll carry you to those places, then the DRZ seems a better choice.

Two very different approaches to riding off the pavement.

Old Motorbike Electrics

Turns out the Concours didn't need a new bulb, it just needed some more electrical connection cleaning.  After replacing the bulb that wasn't blown I finally took off the fairing only to discover that, like all the other electrical gremlins, it was a matter of dirty connectors.

After cleaning up the wiring harness, suddenly all the lights work again.  I posted what happened on the COG discussions and got this pearl:

COG wisdom

As usually happens in a case like this, you immediately see the good advice repeated. Only a couple of nights later I was reading Performance Bike Magazine. They do a bit each month on what to look for in finding an older model sport bike, in this case the thirteen year old Honda VTR1000 SP2. In the article they suggest that cleaning and protecting all electrical contacts on a bike that old is a good winter-time activity.  If it's true for well cared for sports bikes half as old, it's even truer for my field-found Connie.

As WillyP states above, bikes aren't built to keep out the elements, even the most covered bike is virtually naked compared to a car. Even in the case of a well cared for, covered sports bike, cleaning the electrical contacts is a worthwhile off-season ritual. In the case of a field-found Concours, it's where I should have started in the first place.  A breakdown and electrical cleaning is my go-to next time around.

As a project bike the Concours continues to teach lessons even as it becomes more and more roadworthy.

Dream Stable (this week)

This changes on a moment to moment basis, but in this moment, here is what I wish was looking back at me when I opened the door to the iron horse stable:

1) An outfit fit for my son and I:  A Royal Enfield Bullet Classic with a Rocket Sidecar.

500cc Bullet Classic: $6350
Sportmax Rocket sidecar: $3500+~$1200 installation

The whole outfit would cost about ~$11,000 new... I found a used outfit for $8000, might find another for less.



2) A scooter for my wife: Vespa 946

It's a dream list so I'll go for the fantastically expensive Vespa, though Honda makes some mighty nice alternatives for one third the price.

The Vespa?  $9999 for a year old new one (!?!)

(the similarly spec-ed Honda PCX150 comes in at $3899).  I've found clean, used scooters for about $1000.





3) State of the art Hyper-bike:  

This has always been a Hayabusa, though I'd chuck it all in for the new Ninja H2R.

Hayabusa:  $14999

Ninja H2R:  ???



4) A Light Weight, Swiss-Army Knife dual purpose bike:

The Suzuki DR-Z400S: $7299

Over 100lbs lighter than a KLR, a super capable, light weight enduro machine that can manage weight, still has good power, but follows the Austin Vince minimalist ethos: nimble, efficient, ultra-capable off road.  Found a used one in good nick for about $4000.


5) A matching off-road bike for my son:

Not sure of the spec on this one.  It would have to be the one he feels most comfortable on because he's a cautious fellow.

~$2-3000 new - there seem to be a lot of used ones about for ~$1000



I'd be looking at about $50,000 in new (dream) gear.  On a budget I think I could pick up (used) the two dirt bikes for $5000, a hyperbike for $7000, a scooter for $1500 and an outfit for $3-5000.  So $16-18500 for a more realistic dream stable...

Inclusivity is what I'm aiming for with this collection.  We three could go for a putter on scooter and outfit.  My son and I could go off roading together.  Only the Hayabusa really smacks of selfishness.

Of course this will all change again next week, so I'm not holding my breath.

Dodging a Bullet: Assumptions of Safety & Extreme Defensive Riding

We had a tough week at work.  A colleague, the kind of guy who you assume will outlast you because he does everything right, was killed last weekend in a motor vehicle 'accident'.  I put accident in quotes because it's not really an accident when the other driver blows through a stop sign while speeding and kills you and your wife (and himself).

You'd be right to say I'm a bit angry about this, but I'm also rather desperately looking for a reason for it.  That things can happen for no reason bothers me, but they do.  They did nothing wrong.  They were driving home after dropping their son off at university.  They were driving in an SUV with a five star safety rating.  I want there to be a reason (the guy who hit them was drunk, distracted, somehow incompetent), but I fear there is none; there is no reason why they are dead other than the most basic one: motor vehicles are inherently dangerous and a number of people who operate them aren't able to do so well enough to ensure your safety.

If we are going to let pretty much anyone strap themselves into a metal box powered by exploding gases and shoot themselves down roads at high speed, we have to accept that there is an inherent risk, no matter how capable they may be, of death.  Whenever you get into any kind of motor vehicle you accept this risk, or you don't get into the vehicle.  

It's generally understood that getting on a motorbike makes this calculus so obvious that people can't help but tell you (over and over) how dangerous it is.  Those same people will go out and buy five star rated SUVs thinking they've beaten the odds.  Those big vehicles mean you'll always come out of a minor incident, and if you find yourself in a lot of minor incidents then I suppose they make sense.  Better to spend the money on a bigger vehicle rather than making efforts to reduce your inability.  Driver training courses are significantly cheaper than operating a large vehicle, but pride prevents most people from considering them.  We end up in an arms race with the most distracted, incapable drivers operating larger and larger vehicles for their own safety.

I've been trying to suss out government safety statistics.  I have a feeling that people who have taken motorcycle safety training have fewer accidents than the general public.  The kind of defensive driving presented to new motorcycle riders is foreign to most drivers in cages who don't respect the dangerous position they are placing themselves in.  I suspect that there would be way fewer accidents if everyone had to ride a motorbike for the first year of their license.  Exposure gives you a healthy respect for the dangerous mechanics of operating a motor vehicle at high speed.

Were I in my mini-van with my wife and son, I would have probably driven into this disaster just as that colleague of mine did.  Were I on my motorbike, I'd approach that intersection with the same everyone-is-trying-to-kill-me attitude that I've adopted since my initial motorbike training course.  On a bike I'd have sworn at the idiot who ran the stop sign after braking hard to avoid him.  In an insulated motor vehicle, remote from the world around me, I'd have assumed I was safely following the laws of the road until it didn't matter any more.

Followup:  just to make things weirder, this past week I died in a car accident (same name, similar age, lived about 100kms west of me) and a guy who started teaching at the same time I did and is a year younger than me also passed.  Maybe this is just what getting older feels like, you see others around you dropping out of life and can't help but wonder why you're still here.

Bike Bucket List

Tim's bike-hole, once a storage place for unused furniture,
now an insulated work space with two Kawis in it.

Season 1 ended with me getting my license, my first bike and getting over 5000kms of riding in, including a full month of long commutes.  The original bike bucket list included getting the license and first bike.

As season two began I was looking to expand.  Bike bucket list 2.0:

• build a garage worthy of the name (almost done!)
• have a bike holiday on some less-Ontario-ish roads (done!)
• ride more different bikes, done and done! (and that second one even got my wife scooter curious)
• work on my bike-craft (done & ongoing!)
• buy a fixer-upper (done!)
• do an overnight bike trip (didn't manage it... but the season isn't over yet!)

Here's the bucket-list 3.0.  Some of these might take a bit longer to complete:

• build a bike from scratch
• do the double ton on a bike:  200mph (I just read BIKE's Hayabusa story)
• do a track day
• get a race license
• compete in a season (with a van!)
• do a Viking Biking tour
• do one lap of Japan
• around the world with Max
• coast to coast to coast in Canada
• publish an article in a moto-magazine
• publish photography in a moto-magazine
• do the 1000 mile Iron Butt
• attend a MotoGP race weekend
• expand the stable:
• a bike to dance with one on one (light, single seater, lower displacement)
• a distance bike (get the Concours up to snuff)
• live the 3-wheel dream, get an all-purpose outfit for Max & I
• take Max to an off road school
• then do an off road riding school with him
• get off-road bikes for the cottage
• attend the Intermot Bike show in Cologne, Germany in October.

Some of these are well beyond what I can pull off at the moment, but you never know when circumstances might change.  Besides, if you're gonna dream, might as well dream big!  If I'm going to do that, retiring into my own little shop would be awesome!  Custom mechanical, digital parts fabrication and finishing!

Yogacycling

I came across YogaMotorSport on Google+ and began looking into yoga from a riding perspective.  It turns out many professional riders practice yoga.  I've never really done yoga before so I wasn't sure what I was getting into beyond some stereotypes.

via Michael Tan

Our little town has a nice yoga studio right down by the Grand River, a 15 minute walk away.  Awareness Yoga happens in a large basement studio with old stone walls and the sound of the Elora Gorge thundering away outside.  I'm a firm believer in ley lines, and there is definitely a lot of energy coming out of the ground in the middle of Elora.  It's a nice spot to do yoga.

I went in thinking it was some deep breathing and stretching.  It is that but it's also a lot of core strength building and I found myself sweating buckets simply following the workout.  I've had three classes so far and find the combination of stretching and strength training intense, but combined with the mindset you're encouraged to follow, it's also remarkably relaxing.  I don't come out of it all worked up like I do after a hockey game.  I come out of it calm and loose (though it tends to be sore the next day).

Yoga looks to flexibility, core strength and mental focus, all things that should be in frequent use while riding, I can see why professional riders do it.  I was lucky that my local studio does stiff guy yoga, it's a men's only class and I've got to say, it's a really nice change from your typical guy-sports workout, and something uniquely suited to motorbike riders.

Meditative rides through India

Motorcycle Yoga by Lisa Haneberg

Motorcycling & yoga... it's a thing!

Yoga & Motorcycling

motorcycle yoga mats

yoga and the motorcycle journey