It's a piece of art, but I can't justify spending over $500cdn on a seat for a bike that cost $800.
Nice eh? That's the dream seat for the Concours. The old one has split and is so tired it's about as comfortable as a park bench. This Corbin seat is the four hundred dollar (US) answer to that question. The Corbin Seat Configurator is fun to play with even if you can't justify the cost. You can create some really disco designs. It lets you select variations in pattern, colour and material for the seat, sides, welt and stitching. If you like motorbike seats you'll be distracted by this for hours. I wish I could swing that Corbin seat but I just can't justify a $500 seat on an $800 motorcycle, though I wish I could.
It ain't no Corbin super model, but it'll do the job
A more sensible alternative was found on ebay. This seat cover would replace the tired old one. It also comes with padding built in which should shore up the tired seat - though once I've taken it apart I might just replace the padding anyway. The maker is a retired automotive upholster who runs an ebay store with good ratings where he makes custom seats for a wide variety of bikes. At less than forty bucks Canadian (though the shipping doubles the price), this will (hopefully) resolve the seat cover and comfort issues for under $100 Canadian. I've already done a half assed job sewing up the old seat (it's impossible to do properly without taking the cover off because the stitching is all on the inside). When the new cover comes in I should be able to stretch it on in no time. I still wish I could've managed that Corbin though, it's a piece of art. Maybe next time.
I've spent a lot of time on back roads and regional highways but have seldom ventured onto major freeways. I'm not a fan of driving in cities, I find people to be quite idiotic and when you put a lot of them together it reaches a critical mass. Put those same distracted idiots in giant metal boxes while you're out in the wind and the maths just don't work out, so I don't do it if I can help it. Rather than cater to this avoidance I went right into the heart of darkness yesterday: downtown Toronto. A Grand Lodge meeting at the Royal York had me making the 240km round trip predominantly on major freeways.
First day of HOV with one person per box, and you wonder why Toronto has traffic problems. The HOV lanes for the Pan Am Games disappear when the games go, so Torontonians can go back to their selfish, unecological ways .
Why take the bike? Well, the Pan Am Games are on so they've finally gotten some sense and instituted HOV lanes (it took the Pan Am Games to make Toronto accessible to the rest of the province - go figure). Fortunately for the selfish, environmentally oblivious Toronto commuters, the HOV lanes go away again when the games are over and Toronto is once again an hour further away for the rest of us. Motorcycles are always high occupancy. They are a highly efficient way of moving people compared to cars which is why they are so popular in places with less money than sense. When things started to inevitably slow down (at eleven o'clock in the morning), the HOV lanes never did. I've never gotten into Toronto so easily. In under 90 minutes I was parked on Front Street. Why else take the bike? Parking a car in Toronto will punch you in the nose and take your lunch money. Around the Royal York it's particularly expensive, often about $40-50 for a day, unless you're on a bike! About 500 feet down the road from the Royal York there is free (!) parking for motorcycles.
Free parking for two wheelers right on Front Street - you can see the Royal York off to the left. I purchased a $23 club sandwich (!) with the money I saved not having to pay for parking.
What was the ride down like? Well, the country bit was lovely. It was about 20°C, sunny and not at all humid, a perfect day for a ride. The 401 through Milton is alright, but when you get to Mississauga is starts to get silly and then goes bonkers around the airport. In training they give you helpful advice like always ride on the inside or outside lane so you can take a blocking position, but that quickly becomes academic on the 401. With lanes constantly appearing and disappearing and suddenly expanding out to 12 lanes you're playing a fool's game looking for a specific lane. Spending your attention on what lane to ride in probably means you're not paying as much attention as much as you should to the vehicles whipping around you at 120+km/hr. You can't keep a space bubble because the traffic is too thick and follows too closely, and you can't lane split in Ontario to get out of tight spots. If you ride defensively (and you shouldn't if you don't), you'll find your ability to manage threats stressed on the four hundred series highways leading into Toronto. The only incident was a guy in a Mazda who decided to lane change (no indicator, you see them less than 50% of the time) into me. He had been twitch lane changing repeatedly so he was marked as a jackass on my radar. When he turned into me I was easily able to avoid him, and then give him some stink eye and a head shake. He hadn't seen me (he hadn't shoulder checked or indicated either, and he had his phone on his lap). You always get a sheepish response from people when they make a mistake that might have cost you your life. That much traffic is a real test of your rider-radar. It's a constantly evolving, high speed situation, so you're always fluidly responding to variations, trying to make space, identifying idiots and giving yourself every chance of getting where you're going. If you're prone to tunnel vision or lazy traffic responses when you ride, don't ride past the airport in Toronto.
The Concours hanging out with two cute Italians on Front Street
From up in the saddle you have an clear view of occupants in cars. I'd say about one in five has a smartphone on their laps and half of them are dividing at least some of their attention with it. Ontario's distracted driving laws have driven phone use in cars underground. There should be more OPP officers on bikes out on the highway, they'd make a mint, as well as raising the awareness of motorcycles in the minds of drivers. Why are there no undercover police bikes?
Bike parking on Front, right there!
The ride in and out was pretty much flawless thanks to the government prioritizing access to Toronto for the Games. I guess the rest of Ontario's citizens don't rate better access to our capital. Once the games are over and things go back to the usual I'll be avoiding Toronto once again. Permanent HOV lanes, the ability to safely filter in traffic and any other law that emphasizes the efficiency and agility of the motorcycle would make the Greater Toronto Area much more palatable to riders, but as it stands the mentality of Toronto commuters and the laws the government creates to support them make it a no-fly zone for me.
The Concours flirting with some Vespas. Parking for free in Toronto? Priceless!
Union Station in Toronto decked out for the Pan Am Games.
The Royal York - the grand dame of Toronto hotels, very nice indeed.
$23 club sandwich, it was good, but twenty three bucks!
The wall-o-carbs that blast the Concours to warp speeds.
I'm looking to expand my riding experience so a second bike had to be as different from the Concours ZG1000 that I have as possible. The Connie is a 999cc, sport touring heavy weight with shaft drive, full fairings and an inline four cylinder with a row of carburetors that create astonishing power. It's a blast to ride on the road. The KLX I rode home today is a rev-happy 250cc single cylinder bike that weighs an astonishing 370lbs less than the Concours. Everything the Concours does well the KLX doesn't and vice-versa, which was kinda the point. Having never ridden a fairingless bike before I was surprised at the wind blast from the very naked KLX. It could get to 100km/hr with some judicious gearing and a willing throttle hand. If I squeezed the Concours that hard I'd be travelling well over 100mph while vaulting over the horizon.
A very different riding experience, and I haven't even taken it off road yet!
What else is different about the KLX? Knobby tires offer some weird feed back. The KLX comes with some fairly serious off-road tires which make a kind of slapping sensation on pavement. They almost feel like whiskers, picking up seams and other details in the pavement with surprising detail. It makes me wonder how nuanced the feel is on dirt. Once I got used to the change in feel it wasn't a problem to make full use of the 250ccs. The KLX pulls away from traffic lights in town with aplomb. The tallness of the KLX makes cornering nothing like the Concours. Where the Concours (and the Ninja before it), tuck in and conquer corners in a buttoned down way the KLX feels like you're on a ladder. Tall rims and seat, long suspension and a clear view ahead conspire to give you an unobstructed view of the road. Again, once I developed some confidence in the bike's strange geometry managing corners, I had no trouble rolling on throttle through turns and getting things more settled on the floaty suspension.
A two Kawi garage
The skinniness of the KLX is also a shock after straddling the wide and heavy Concours. You feel like there is nothing around you and virtually nothing under you. Looking down, the wasp waisted KLX is barely there. Strangely, it has a less cramped riding position in spite of it being a skinny, 370lb (!) lighter bike. With more relaxed knees and taller bars it feels like a good fit; it's funny how such a small bike can feel so big. I'm hoping to have the paperwork in order by the weekend then it'll be time to see how the KLX handles what it was build for. Taking it out on some trails is imminent!
We pulled in to the garage yesterday and I wished for this: The Ready Launch™. Backing the Concours out of a single car garage and around parked vehicles can be onerous, and as we rode right in and the door closed behind us it reminded me of the Bat Cave. When Batman does it he drives the Batmobile in and it rotates for a quick getaway; I want that. When you pull in to your garage and brake on The Ready Launch™, it transfers the forward braking momentum of the bike into a mechanical system that produces a slow, rotating motion spinning through 180° before locking again. With some calibration and gearing it should be no trouble to capture all the momentum of a stopping motorcycle and pour it into the rotating platform. It would be a zero energy system, reliant on the bike pulling on to it and stopping to produce the energy needed to spin, and it doesn't need to spin quickly or far. After a few test stops a rider would know how hard to pull the brakes to produce the energy needed for the 180° turn.
The braking mass of the bike is applied to the piston, which then turns the gears to make the platform rotate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_moments_of_inertia http://interactagram.com/physics/dynamics/MechanicalAdvantage/gear/ The rack being pulled is where the bike parks, spinning up a flywheel that rather than lifting a weight transfers to a rotational plane under the platform. With proper gearing the heavy platform slowly rotates using the short but heavy stopping momentum of the bike.
Last week a pair of Alpinestar boots popped up on Kijiji that happened to be just my size. The Alpinestars I have are totally next level, so the chance to own a second pair for the price of tax on a new pair was impossible to ignore. A ride over to Kitchener on an idyllic Sunday morning and I'm the proud owner of my second pair of Alpinestars, this time for twenty five bucks. Only used for a season, and in fantastic shape, they're waterproof and much better for wet/cold weather than the summer boots I currently have.
*** Kijiji Part 2
I love riding with a purpose. Today I went to Guelph and then Orangeville to check out two dual sport bikes. I'm looking for something as different as possible from the Concours, so a light-weight off-road focused enduro machine fits the bill. The first bike is a 2007 Kawasaki KLX-250. 250ccs is on the small side, but this is a very light bike. At 298lbs, it's 374(!)lbs lighter than the Concours. It barely makes any noise, felt spritely and has a radically different riding position. No windscreens, very open and a tall riding stance. It's been immaculately cared for by the original owner and comes with all the right farkles. You couldn't ask for a nicer machine and it's much newer than I thought I could afford. If I'm worried about the power, there are always options to buff up the bike. It's a bonus when you hit it off with the owner and end up having a good chat. He is an experienced trails rider who offered up all sorts of good advice about where and how to do it. As he said, this is the ideal bike to learn on. I may eventually want a more powerful bike, but as a starter this one is as good as it gets. After a ride over to the Forks of the Credit, and a quality coffee at Higher Ground, I rode the Forks for the first time on the Concours (which always feels lighter than it is in a Millennium Falcon kind of way), and then headed up to Orangeville. The XT350 looked like the ideal bike. Air cooled, super light weight, with a medium displacement, but this one was a poor example. It looked like it had led a life that alternated between abuse and neglect. Not only was it filthy, but it looked like it was going to rust through in some expensive places. It didn't start and after a dozen or so kicks, when it finally did fire up it sounded like a tractor. It couldn't have been more different to the only marginally more expensive, lower kilometer, six year newer, much loved, whisper quiet KLX. I'll trade a few cc's for a bike that won't strand me deep in the woods any day. I emailed the owner of the KLX standing on the street as the XT owner tried to get it started again and told him I'm all in. It's nice when the right thing falls into your lap just when you need it, and in my case that always seems to be a Kawasaki. The KLX will be my third Kawi (though my first green one). I can't wait to get to know it.
The other week I posted a discussion on the Concours Owners Group asking how to pass a large group of bikers on the road. That discussion sparked an angry rebuttal condemning me for mocking the happy pirate look that a large portion of the (especially) North American motorcycle community identifies with. Personally, I'd say people can dress however they want and ride whatever they want, but I get the sense that the pirate types don't feel that way. On COG I was trying to be funny, but with an edge. On the Georgian Bay circumnavigation I ran into some corporately attired Harley riders who wanted to point out how much unlike them I looked. It felt like hazing with the intent of getting me to look like a proper biker. Nothing will get my back up faster than someone telling me I have conform to their standard. The irony wasn't lost on me that these rebels without a clue whose look is predicated on nonconformity were uncomfortable with a motorcyclist not in proper uniform.
One of the reasons I make a point of reading British biking magazines is because they are free of (and willing to make fun of) this dominant North American biking culture. They don't worship Harley Davidson as the one and only motor company, and they try to look at the breadth of motorbiking rather than forcing a single version of it down everyone's throats. Had I the boat load of money that they cost I would happily buy an HD V-Rod (not considered a 'real' Harley by purists because it's liquid cooled). It's a fine machine and I'd get one for that reason, but I don't think I'd ever buy a motorcycle because of the manufacturer alone, I'm not that politically driven. When I first started riding I was shiny and new about it and told one of my colleagues who rode that I was just starting out. He asked me what I got and when I told him a Ninja he put his nose in the air and said, "hmm, isn't that like riding tupperware?" Just recently I told him I was thinking about getting a dual sport. He said, "why would you want that? It'd be like riding a toolbox!" In the biker ethos there is only one kind of bike with a single aesthetic. If you don't conform, expect criticism. In talking to other motorcyclists the non-mainstream/biker crowd sometimes find biker types to be holier-than-thou, not returning a wave or giving you the gears at a stop for not conforming to the dress code. Motorcyclists tend to be iconoclasts, they have to be or they'd be doing what everyone else does riding around in the biggest cage they could afford. Yet the act of riding isn't enough for some, there are also social expectations that these rebellious non-conformists expect all riders to conform to. At the end of the day I'm a fan of two wheeling. I'd call myself a motorcyclist. I get as excited about looking at historical Harleys as I do at racing tupperware or riding toolboxes. I only wish more bikers would be less critical of anything other than their singular view of the sport. I refuse to conform to their nonconformity.
I came upon a group of riders after exiting the ferry and getting most of the way across Manitoulin; first off the ferry gives you wide open roads! I'd been moving along at a nice clip alone but had to slow down to follow them. Had they been a car or truck I'd have used my power to weight ratio to good advantage and made a quick, safe pass. This clump of bikers were much longer than your typical truck, so passing them would be tricky. In addition to the physics there was suddenly a lot of motorcycle psychology to consider. Would these riders take offence at being passed? I'm not safely ensconced in a box if they got aggressive. In wondering about this I sparked a rather heated debate on COG. The sensible (and rather Zen) solution seems to be to find a nice place to have a stop, a stretch and a drink, then get back on the road when they're well down it. Strangely enough, the only thing that seems to be able to clip the wings of a motorcycle are a bunch of motorcycles in front of it. I had a moment when I first started riding where I suddenly realized I'm on a machine that has Lamborghini like power to weight ratio. Since then I've made a point of exploring what this means. When you ride you're missing the steel cage, but what you lack in mass you make up for in agility and power, and learning to harness that power is vital to your well being. Following that logic I prefer to have things coming at me and don't like being passed or boxed in, but for twenty frustrating minutes that's exactly where I was as a line of campers and SUVs formed up behind me. The general feeling on COG was to either pull over or take your chances passing a bunch of leather clad bikers not knowing if these are wannabes or one percenters. The later are much more likely to do something about it if they perceive disrespect. In any case, it's not like you're in a big box so antagonizing them seems like a potentially dangerous course of action from both a physics and a psychology point of view. I was out on a ride with a group the other week for the first time, but these guys didn't hang about and were making a point of using side roads rather than main through fairs so we weren't holding anyone up, and there were only half a dozen of us. We were also riding a wide variety of machines designed to exploit the natural agility of the motorbike from GSX-Rs to forty year old Kawasakis in genres from adventure to standard to sport and sport touring. I'd also say we were pretty approachable based on the number of people who approached us. Eclectic would be a good way to describe us, we certainly weren't wearing anything approaching a uniform. On COG someone suggested that when they ride in a group they intentionally get out of the way if they feel they are holding up traffic because everyone has the right to enjoy the road how they want to, but not everyone feels that way:
I'd say physics and some rather negative stereotypes (along with a lot of bikers adopting those stereotypes) held up that traffic. I don't think respect had anything to do with it. So there you have it: the best advice when you come upon a large group of floorboard grinders is to pull over and take a break, it's not worth the hassle of trying to make a pass, even though you're on the machine best able to do it.
Google motorcycle films and this is what you get, the odd intelligent attempt amidst the bikespoitation flicks. And we wonder why the general public still has doubts about motorcycling...
