California Snapshots

I went to California for the first time over the mid-winter break.  I was out there on a family trip so I didn't have many opportunities to ride, but while there I made a point of trying to understand California biking culture.  When you can ride year round biking becomes much less of a niche means of transport.

Here are some snap shots and thoughts from the trip:

LANE SPLITTING or FILTERING

This is something that is a real no-no up here in the safety North.  Talking to a cabbie about it, he said you need to be really careful about changing lanes.  If you hit a filtering biker while changing lanes in a cage you're likely to take the blame.

Riders in California expect cars to not crowd the gaps between lanes and will make them aware of it if they do.  I saw a guy on a sports bike revving the snot out of it to move an SUV out of his way while he was filtering.

At first lane splitting looked like a dangerous thing to do, but if it makes cage drivers more aware of bikers and offers a real advantage to getting through the attrocious L.A. traffic for riders, then I'm coming around.




LOS ANGELES IS BROKEN

From the moment we landed at the most disorganized airport I've ever been to (LAX) and the subsequent traffic chaos all around L.A., I've come to the conclusion that the place is broken.

Rides at Disney world appear to mimic the hell that is driving
in LA with remarkable accuracy - do people do this for fun?

The roads in the rest of California were lovely, but around L.A. they make Ontario's frost heaved slabs look smooth.  With virtually no public transit infrastructure and a fanatical car culture, L.A. is the kind of place you can expect to spend half of your life sitting in traffic.

On a coach trip out to Universal Studios I was able to look down into the cars sitting in traffic.  At any one time more than 90% of the drivers had a smartphone out on their laps.  We saw many accidents in the L.A. area - every single one was an unexplained rear-end collision.  I can explain those 'accidents'.

L.A.'s car culture has become L.A.'s distracted driving culture.  I'd rather drive in Tokyo or London than L.A. any day of the week.  They say Toronto's commute is now worse than L.A.'s, but Toronto (GTA ~6 million) is a tiny burg compared to Los Angeles (>18 million).  The dozens of highways that bisect L.A. aren't up to handling the full on assault of those millions of thumb texters behind the wheel.


  
L.A. STUNTING

While sitting in traffic (behind another unexplained rear end collision) we had a group of sports bike riders doing their thing on the access road next to the highway.  The group must have been almost one hundred big and were all revving, wheelying and otherwise stunting themselves silly on a sunny new year's day.



It was fun to watch them while we crawled along interminably in the never ending freeway traffic.  The bikes were all very customized with both paint and go-faster bits, and their riders looked like they were having a riot.

You might frown at their antics, but when you consider the alternative is to sit in the cavalcade of metal boxes on the freeway, texting before you run into someone, I'm not sure if they don't have the right idea.



I thought they were more entertaining than any of the very serious pirates we saw filtering by on their Harleys on the highway.





MULHOLLAND DRIVE

Is one of those icons of Southern California, so I made a point of making the drive down it.  It's a very long stretch of road that eventually turns into the Mulholland highway and goes all the way to the ocean.

We started at the beginning right out of Studio City in Burbank and the road was terrible!  I guess rich people don't live on this bit.  You'd need an ADV bike to make any time on tarmac this bad.  For a place that doesn't get much frost, I'm not sure how their roads can be this rough.

Fortunately, once you get past the first bit the pavement improves dramatically (rich people live here).  The ride is fantastic and the road (named after the engineer who built it) is a testament to imaginative road design over challenging terrain.  We turned off on the 405 and headed to the airport to fly home to freezing Ontario, but Mulholland deserves a look if you're in Southern California, just grit your teeth on the opening stretch.

PALOMAR MOUNTAIN

I've had a poster of the Hale telescope on Mount Palomar on my wall since I was a kid.  The chance to see it in the flesh was one of the highlights of this trip for me.  The trip up the mountain, from sea level to five and half thousand feet, looked pretty epic too.

I, unfortunately, had to do the road in a rented RAV4, which felt like a double decker bus loaded with lead.  The happier people at the top had a variety of two wheel conveyances to get them there, with sports bikes being the clear favourite - not a cruiser in sight.

The guys hanging out at Mother's Kitchen (great veggie food!) were an all ages sports bike party, with Keith Code look-a-likes and younger riders all chatting amiably about the their machines and the road.

Bikes ranged from super sports and even sport tourers like the Interceptor to light-weight nakeds.

It was a cool day in late December when we went up the mountain.  The temperature dropped from high teens to about twelve degrees at the summit - all sunny though.  The riders didn't seem cold.  Riding up that insanely wiggly 20+ miles of mountain road would be an aerobic workout of the first order.

The observatory itself is completely free to the public, offers parking and a museum with crazy-cheap merchandise (if astronomy hoodies are your thing).  You could spend a perfect day riding up and around Palomar mountain before going for a walk around one of the biggest mirrors in the world.

With a variety of roads, a state park, the observatory and that lovely little restaurant, Palomar mountain just outside of San Diego is a great destination for any biker, and a must see for those bikers with the astronomy bug.

A few days after our trip up there it snowed, but for most years this is the exception rather than the rule.


PRICES IN A YEAR ROUND BIKING CULTURE

While in La Jolla (just north of San Diego), I checked out some of the local bike shops.  The prices are heart stoppingly low if you're used to Canadian numbers.  You might find a one piece leather suit up here for $600 on the bottom end, but down there the same level of kit is half the price.  Out of curiosity, I wondered what it would cost to outfit myself to ride with all new kit down here.  At Cycle Gear in San Diego it ended up being a shade over $300 for a new helmet, gloves, boots, riding pants and jacket... unreal!


SUMMARY

If you like to ride, California offers some fantastic roads (not in the L.A. area) that beg to be explored.  We also hit Joshua Tree National Park on our travels and it is other wordly!  There are few straight lines, even riding the hilly highways around San Diego would feel special to someone from table-flat Ontario.  There is a vibrant, large biking culture that shows through in the shear variation you see.  I can't wait to go back and experience the place as it was meant to be experienced, on two wheels.

Bike Bag: Tesseract Dream Motorcycle Accessory

It's as crazy as it looks, and
utterly fantastic!

I'm sitting on the beach in Lajoya California as a I write this. It's a comfortable 18° Celsius and I'm missing my bike. I can always rent something down here, but the road I just did begs a bike I'm familiar with; I was watching the guys in their worn leathers and sports bikes with envy.

The road to the Palomar observatory is a knee down roller coaster that takes you five thousand feet up to one of the biggest mirrors in the world. It's a road that makes me wish my Ninja was here instead of a rental bike that doesn't feel familiar and is, quite frankly, designed for looks rather than athletics; virtually all rental choices are cruiser or retro based.

After watching Interstellar I started reading about tesseracts and multi-dimensional mechanics. The first thing I'd create with my new-found multi-dimensional engineering skills would be the Bike Bag™!  You press the zipper up against a wall and roll your bike and gear in.

The idea's been around for a while.

 Once you zip it up you can roll up the zipper and put it in your pocket.  When you get where you're going you put the zipper up on a wall again and when you unzip it there is your bike and gear ready to go.  A carry on bag and an airline ticket and I'd be ready to ride pretty much anywhere I landed.

I'd have been able to tackle the road up to the big eye in the sky with something other than cautious optimism with my preferred road weapon.

Variations on a Theme

Trying some variations on the blog logo.  It'd be a nice idea to include the bike of the moment in the logo as way of showing when it was written.  The first logo has the 650r Ninja in it:

Now that I've got the Concours sorted, I'm trying out some headers with Connies in them:

Some more updates since mechanicalsympathy.ca and a new bike came along...

Connie's Ready For Some Miles

It hasn't been easy, but then that was kind of the point.  The leaking engine on the field-found '94 Kawasaki Concours seemed like it would never stop dripping, but it finally has.  I've learned a lot in the process and become familiar with the layout of the bike.

The previous owner rode around with the fairing off.  The abuse to the bottom end of the engine from road debris cost me an oil cooler.  I tried to get it repaired through the metal shop at our school, but it turned out not to be an easy fix.  I eventually gave ebay a try purchasing a replacement oil cooler through Pinwall Cycle Parts.  I'd highly recommend them.  The cooler I got off a '97 was in fantastic shape, got to me very quickly and cost 1/8th what a new one does.

With the bottom end sorted out it's time to look to the fairings.  The bike has been dropped on one side, and the fairings need some TLC.  With the fairings sorted the bike should be ready to go come the end of the snows.

That's a new-to-me oil cooler that works like a charm

The rest of the bottom end has been cleaned up... no drips now.

Motorbike Wants

I've been re-watching Jo Sinnott's Wild Camping.  That Roof Helmet she wears looks fantastic.  It's a French designed, multiple function helmet with a fighter pilot vibe.  The Desmo Flash in Orange and black gets itself on my want list.


ROOF Desmo Flash from Canada's Motorcycle:  $550


I've heard a lot about Aerostich.  It started when I read Melissa Holbrook Pierson's The Man Who Would Stop At Nothing.  For serious long distance riders, the Aerostich is pretty much the only choice.  Armoured, weatherproof and virtually bullet proof, it'd be nice to have the last word in motorbiking overalls, but they don't come cheap.

Aerostich Roadcrafter Classic:  $1014 

(Black Friday deal! usually $1127!)

I'm hanging in for a fix on the oil cooler on my new-to-me, found-in-a-field Kawasaki Concours, but what I'd really like is a new one.  They aren't cheap, I'm looking at about $500 with shipping and customs costs - which is only a couple of hundred less than I bought the bike for.  I could pick one up from ebay used for about sixty bucks delivered, but it might not be much better than the one I have.


$500 new - not going to happen. Han would never by a new part for the 'Falcon.  I'm going to aim for the $70 delivered used bit and see how it goes.

The Shiny New Kawasaki Versys

I've always had a soft spot for the ugly-duckling Kawasaki Versys.  I've even suggested that it be the first bike to ride coast to coast to coast in Canada when the Dempster Highway is finished.  The Versys points to a time when bikes weren't styled and marketed to a genre.

The new Versys is no ugly duckling, and I'm looking forward to throwing a leg over it at shows this winter.  I'm also hoping that Kawasaki Canada will put this bike out there as a viable alternative to other light-weight / multi-purpose bikes.  An adventure bike doesn't need to be some off-road inspired, knobby tired monster, and the Versys could be that swiss-army knife of a bike.

My first experience with the 650 Versys was less than stellar.  I suspect a lot of that had to do with how much the Versys felt like my Ninja.  I'm not looking for hard suspension and a purely road focused bike with the Versys, I'm looking for something more flexible.  I'm hoping that the new bike offers the kind of clearance, suspension travel and all-round usefulness that the old one lacked.  That it offers much more leg room and a less road bike inspired stance is a great start.

The adventure bike-set seems to have a lock on the all-purpose motorcycle at the moment, but there was a time when multi-purpose motorbikes weren't duck-billed monsters.  The Kawasaki Versys could reinvent that pre-adventure bike ideal of a multi-purpose machine without the big nose.

Finally Putting The Ninja To Bed

That's one clean Ninja! And the water isn't solid outside today.

We got swamped with snow and very cold weather early this year, but we're enjoying a thaw now.  It's finally given me the chance to clean up the Ninja and put it to bed for the winter.  I fear I've been neglecting the Ninja while the Concours demands attention, but leaving it goopy over the cold months wouldn't do it any good, and it really cleans up pretty.

Once I get a bead on the oil cooler situation, I'm hoping to get the Concours back in shape and then begin working on the fairings and paint.

I picked up a metal, vintage Triumph sign for the garage.

After a wash and some lubrication, the Ninja's ready for bed.

Meanwhile the Concours is still oil cooler-less.  I'm waiting to
see if our machine shop teacher can seal the crack in the banjo bolt housing.