Five Years: Diversifying Motorcycle Experience and Finding Balance

After the first year on two wheels I began thinking about more challenging motorcycle projects that would diversify my experience.  Starting in year two I did my first away motorcycle ride, renting scooters and then a BMW around the southern end of Vancouver Island - that led to my first article being published in Motorcycle Mojo and gave me a lot of insight into variations in motorcycling.

In addition to pushing my riding experience in daring new directions (like riding two-up with my son on an unfamiliar bike on one of the most challenging roads in Canada), I also began looking for a bike that needed more than just regular maintenance to operate... a bike that needed me.

I discovered just such a thing toward the end of that riding season, a long dormant Kawasaki Concours that we had to cut out of the grass it was sitting in.  Something that old (twenty plus years at the time) had a lot of perished rubber on it, and when I finally got it up to temperature it also had a sizable oil leak.  The winter was spent getting a new oil cooler and lines, replacing a lot of rubber bits and otherwise getting this old warrior back on its feet again.

The Concours not only got me moving mechanically, but it also offered a real blank slate, something I've since realized is only available on well used bikes (unless you're loaded and like to pull apart new things).  I'd enjoyed the aesthetic restoration of the Ninja and was looking forward to doing the same thing on the Concours.  Getting an old bike and making it not only usable but unique looking has been one of the highlights of my motorcycling career to date, and a trend I intend to continue.  It's something that my current too-nice Tiger doesn't offer me.

The Kintsugi Concours became my go-to ride and the Ninja became my first sold bike.  It was difficult to part with something I'd developed such an emotional bond with.  I can understand why the people with the space and means hang on to every bike they buy.  Having beaten the selling a bike emotional roller coaster, I immediately went looking for another, but it took a while to finally find the right thing, and in the meantime the old Concours suddenly became less than dependable.

A KLX250 that couldn't do 100km/hr with me on it made me feel like I was overly exposed and under-powered while riding on the road, though it was a deft hand off it and gave me my first real off road experiences.  I held on to it over the winter and when there was finally a break in the never ending Canadian snow I thought this is the moment the KLX will shine, on dirty, just thawed roads - except it wouldn't start.  It was a lot easier to sell because I'd never fallen in love with it.  Getting $400 more than I bought it for didn't hurt either.

Later that summer I made my next motorcycle buying error and stumbled into an old Yamaha XS1100 sitting on the side of the road.  I ignored the three strikes against it (non-runner with no ownership being sold by a gormless kid) and purchased it anyway; I won't do that again.  I got lucky on the ownership - it was within a whisker of being a write-off and had a long and difficult history (I was the thirteenth owner!), but I was able to sell it on after sorting the ownership and just broke even.  In the process I stumbled onto a balancing act I hadn't considered before.

I love riding older bikes I wrench myself, but they aren't always ready to ride.  When the otherwise dependable Concours wasn't and my only other choice was an ancient Yamaha I'd only just freed up the brakes and carbs on, I found myself with nothing to ride as the cruelly short Canadian motorcycling season began.  I'd gambled too much on being able to keep the old bikes rolling.  With riding days so valuable in the Great White North, that wasn't a viable approach.

I still had most of the money from the Ninja sitting aside and my wise wife said to just focus on getting something newer and more dependable.  Maintaining that balance means having a riding ready bike and a project bike, and not messing up that equation.  To further complicate things, I'm a big guy so I needed a bike that fit, and my son was getting bigger every year and loved coming along, so I needed a bike that would fit us both.  Being the onerous person I am, I didn't do the obvious thing and buy a late model Japanese touring bike that runs like clockwork.

My daily rider suddenly popped up on Kijiji but it ended up being the most emotionally driven purchase yet.  Instead of a sensible five year old, low mileage Kayamonduki, I got bitten by a thirteen year old Tiger.  It was European, over budget, too old and with too many miles, but the owner was a young professional (nuclear operator!) and from the UK and we had a good, straight up chat about the bike.  I was honest about my position (the Tiger was out of my league but I loved it and wanted it), and he was straight up with his position (he was about to take it in to trade for a new Triumph at the dealership and even my lower offer was much better than he would have gotten on trade in).  I ended up feeling like I stole the bike for over a grand less than he was asking and he got more for it than he otherwise would have.  It was an emotionally driven purchase with a lot of rational oversight.

With all that good karma the Tiger has turned out to be a special thing.  I was only the third owner.  In thirteen years it had averaged less than 4000kms/year, and on two years the first owner had ridden it out to Calgary and back (seven thousand plus kilometres each time).  It had been power commandered (that had never come up in the purchasing discussions), indicating that the original owner had really fawned over this bike.  The guy I bought it off wasn't very mechanically minded and it hadn't had much in the way of regular maintenance, but then he hadn't used it much.  Within a couple of weeks I'd gotten it safetied, done all the maintenance and given it a good tuning - it has run like a top ever since.

It's an older, European bike, but fuel injection and a resurgent Triumph Motorcycles Co. using the latest manufacturing techniques means it's not a bonkers choice as a daily rider.  On the second year of ownership it fired right up after hibernating under a blanket in the garage, and it did again this year.  I've fixed some dodgy, plastic fuel connectors on the tank, changed the tires and done the fork oil and other fluids along with the chain, but other than the fuel fittings, it's all been regular maintenance.  The Tiger has been such a treat and it's such a rare thing (I've only ever seen one other) that I can't see myself letting it go.

Meanwhile the Concours became the project bike, but since I wasn't depending on it, the project took on new dimensions.  I stripped the old fairing off and ended up with a muscle bike like no other.  I've experienced some drift with this project and I think when I get it to a riding level I'll sell it with the aim to make my money back on it (shouldn't be too hard considering what I got it for).

I think the drift comes from biting off more than I can chew as far as tools I have on hand and time and a comfortable place to work.  If had welding gear handy and could do the fabrication I needed, I think I'd still be be pushing for an edgy completion to the project which has taken longer and has been more involved than I initially planned.  The heart is willing but I'm too tight money and time-wise to chase this big of a thing.  In the winter it hurts to go out in the garage and work on it and in the summer I'd rather be out riding.  Future projects might be more of a Shed and Buried/SPQR approach where I can get a bike sorted and back on its feet again, have some fun with it aesthetically and then move it on without losing any money on it.  Making enough on each one to keep me in tools and pay for the process would be the dream.

The sophomore years of motorcycling have been about pushing into more challenging riding opportunities.  From riding Arizona (another one that got published), to going to the last MotoGP race at Indianapolis to circumnavigating Great Lakes and Georgian Bay, I've gotten more and more daring and gone further afield with each season.

These years have also been about dusting off and expanding my technical skills and have seen me do everything from oil coolers to complete carburetor rebuilds.  The garage has gotten better and better in the process, though it's still bloody cold in the winter.  If I could find a solar powered heating system for the space I'd be a happy man.  If I had a heated, insulated work space about twice the size, I'd be even happier.  The other side of the coin is riding opportunities.  Living somewhere where you can't ride for 3+ months of the year isn't conducive to building saddle experience.  I'd be happier if I lived in an all year riding opportunity - or at least if I had access to such places over the winter here.

20 hours might have gotten me able to manage the basic
operations of a motorcycle - the Conestoga course was a
weekend with about 4 hours on bikes each day, then some
very tentative rides in the neighborhood got me to 20 hours.

At five years I feel like I've put a lot of time into improving my rider's craft.  I've also spent a lot of energy getting the rust off my mechanical skills.  What I most wish for the next five years is to maintain my hunger for more motorcycle experiences.  I'd like to try  a wider range of different bikes and types of riding and find a way to dig even deeper into mechanics.  This year I'm hoping to take an off-road training course.  In the future I'd love to find the money and time to take track riding, if not to pursue racing then at least to explore riding dynamics at the extreme end in a controlled environment.

If you put ten thousand hours into something you've developed a degree of expertise in it.  In each season I've tried to beat ten thousand kilometres of riding (and succeeded) before the snows fall.  Those fifty plus thousand kilometres have probably had me in the saddle for over a thousand hours and I've easily spent that again in the garage doing repairs and maintenance.  If feel like my motorcycle apprenticeship is well underway, I just need to keep finding ways to feed that expertise.

The light cover in the garage - a reminder...

Triumph Tiger 955i Swingarm Installation

It's my first time doing a motorcycle swingarm so I knew it would be a learn-as-I-go experience.  Today I reinstalled the swingarm and that was definitely a case of learning as I go.  I hope this post saves you a lot of swearing because I've already done it for you.

I had to lever the swingarm out with a tire iron, it's a tight fit in the frame.  Removing it was tricky but reasonably straightforward with the some leverage between the engine and the swingarm.

Undoing the top bolt on the shock was a bugger (it's in an awkward spot inside the frame) but small motions over and over again eventually got it loose.  The Chilton manual says to remove the exhaust system entirely (which also means the oil cooler and radiator), but that seemed like a big faff.  Adrian Molloy .com had some good advice: instead of taking half the bike apart just take the swingarm out with the rear shock attached then dismantle it off the bike.  Not sure what Chilton's thinking was in removing half the motor to get the swingarm out, but removing the rear shock with it is a much more efficient approach.

I cleaned up surface rust on the top of the rear shock and rust painted it.  After cleaning the unit it was still in good shape otherwise so I let the paint dry overnight and then aimed to service the swingarm and reinstall it today, which turned out to be a bugger of a job.  The right side sleeve in the swingarm pivot wasn't turning but the left side came out easily and still had grease on it.  I lightly heated the swingarm and tapped it through with a 15mm socket bit that fit the sleeves perfectly.  I then cleaned them up and got the bearings turning before looking them over.  Once freed up they got a thorough cleaning and re-greasing using the Mobil XHP222 grease Triumph recommends.  The stuff that came off wasn't the same colour (dark red instead of grey), so I suspect whoever was in there last just threw on whatever they had on hand.

Installing the swingarm was another bugger of a job. It's a tight fit and has thin washers that sit between the swingarm and the frame.  They move around when you're trying to squeeze the swingarm into the frame and drive you around the bend.  You can see them in that picture in the middle.  Every time you squeeze the swingarm in it pushes the washers out of place.  I put a 14mm socket in which holds them in place, but it's a finicky process that I just couldn't get right.

What finally did work was loosening the engine mount nut below the swingarm that holds the frame so tight to the swingarm.  Loosen that off and you can install the big through bolt into the the left side of the frame with that side's washer in place and then thread it through the swingarm.  Once the engine mount bolt is loosened off you can the slide the wash in on the other side and then finish pushing the big swingarm retaining bolt though before tightening everything up again.  Needless to say, I greased the hell out of all that too.

There might be a way to install the swingarm with those fussy washers another way, but it was beyond me and I was running out of expletives.  Loosening off the engine bolt is a top tip for swingarm installation.

I'd also recommend you do the swingarm service if you haven't as mine was essentially seized on one side even though it was in good shape otherwise.  I think the bike's going to feel much more responsive as a result thanks to all the chassis lubrication and maintenance I've been doing this winter.  Below is what that engine mount nut looks like (above the exhaust and under the swingarm).  Loosen that off and the swingarm installation is straightforward.

The lower bolt that holds the shock in place on the swingarm is always awkward as it lines up with the exhaust pipe (which is probably why Chilton wants you to remove the whole exhaust system along with the radiator and oil cooler necessitated by that).  Since the rear shock just drops out with the swingarm that seems like a wrong headed way to do it, but what do I know?  Once it's out the lower bolt for the shock is easy to access.

Everything is moving freely and easily back on the bike.  My weekend's up but I'm hoping I can get the back wheel on this week and finalize all the bits and pieces on both the front and back ends.  That'll end the chassis maintenance portion of our program which included:

• front fork removal, cleanup and new fork oil
• reconditioned the fork gaiters (was going to replace them but reconditioning did the trick)
• triple tree removal, cleanup and regreasing
• swingarm removal
• rear shock cleanup and reconditioning
• cleanup and regreasing of swingarm pivot 

Unmentioned but something I also did while things were in pieces were the brake lines that now have new, custom Hel performance brake lines on them.  They look fantastic, installed well (the kit had all the hardware including new hollow bolts as well as washers) and make a nice, not-so-subtle (they're SUPER ORANGE and disco blue) upgrade to the brakes.  They should offer better response than the stretched, old rubber hoses that were original to the seventeen year old Tiger.

When you've got the front end out installing the brake lines is easy.  Same with the back end, so why not do it while access is easy?  The brake fluid was due a change anyway as I last did it in 2017, so the lines weren't that expensive because the bike would have been getting new DOT4 fluid anyway.

Some advice on brake fluid:  don't buy a big bottle as once you've opened it time is ticking because the stuff absorbs moisture.  Just get what you need and no more.  Keep it sealed when you're not using it and use it as quickly as you can.  I'm about half way through a normal sized bottle of DOT4 having bled the front brakes.  I should be able to bleed the rears on that one bottle and then not have the rest going off.

To dos this week include:

• install the newly rear tired rim on the swingarm
• finish the rear brake line install and bleed it (can't do that until the caliper's back on the disk)
• go over all the fasteners front and rear and make sure they're all torqued up right

Once the chassis is sorted out I'll turn to the engine and go over the fuel injectors.  I think I can ultrasonically clean them in my new cleaner.  This isn't my first rodeo with the fuel system (it had issues last summer), so I'm hoping a deep service in the cold of a Canadian winter means my too-short riding season will be spent riding instead of swearing at faulty fuel injection in 2021.  No intermittent stalling this year!

The Third Way

I was at Skills Canada's National Competition in New Brunswick last weekend and had a rainy Sunday morning in Moncton to listen to Michael Enright on the Sunday Edition on CBC radio.  His piece on bicycles versus cars stressed the enormous gap between coddled, cocky cagers and the noble, spiritually empowered bicyclist.

As someone who doesn't live only a bicycle ride away from everything I need (because I live in the country), I felt somewhat excluded from this urban (urbane?) discussion.  As someone who stays out of cars whenever possible and doesn't ride a bicycle, how can I possible survive?  I've found a third way ignored by both cagers and the messianic bicyclist.

What is this magical third way?  It's the motorcycle of course.  You enjoy that feeling of flying that the bicyclist on the radio refers to, but you do it without forcing a third lane of traffic everywhere you're going.  Motorcycles actually reduce congestion and improve traffic flow and do so without demanding bike lanes in already overcrowded urban centres.  You don't see motorcyclists riding into opening car doors like you see bicyclists.  Though they thrive in that environment, motorbikes aren't only suitable for urban use.  People in suburbs and rural areas can still use them to cover useful distances quickly.  You don't produce the spontaneous righteous indignation that bicyclists seem to be able to generate at will, but you also don't show up to work smelling like sweat and spandex.

For less than the price of an economy car
you can buy a Yamaha R1 that accelerates
faster than anything you're ever likely to
meet and still gets better than 40 mpg.
Cutting edge Italian style can be yours in a
Vespa that costs about what a fancy road
bicycle does but can run at highway speeds
while getting 100 miles to the gallon. 

You aren't suffering for choice when it comes to two-wheeled motorized transportation.  Want to buy a Canadian built, Canadian owned company's bike?  The Can-Am Spyder offers older riders a stable, efficient platform to enjoy being out in the world.  Love Italian exotica?  Italy has more than a dozen current manufacturers of motorcycles producing everything from race ready Ducatis to stylish Vespas.  The Japanese produce an astounding range of bikes from the ground-breaking super-charged Kawasaki H2r to the futuristic Honda NV4 which manages to look like the off-spring of the batmobile and a stealth fighter while still getting better than 60mpg.

If you like the traditional look you can find modernized classic Triumphs and evolutionary Harley Davidsons that all use fuel injection, have anti-lock brakes and are both dependable and efficient ways of getting there in style.  There is a motorbike for every taste from subtle to gross.

The third way means you are paying road taxes to help build and maintain the roads you're using (bicyclists don't), and you're not asking for your own lanes because you have no trouble flowing with normal traffic.  You never see a motorcyclist take to the sidewalk and abuse pedestrian space like you will with bicyclists because motorcyclists consider themselves road going vehicles all the time and not just when it suits them.  That kind of responsibility happens when you're paying for the infrastructure you're using.

The police officer redirecting traffic just told me to pull into
the full parking lot - you can fit bikes in without needing new
infrastructure to fit them.  All those unused triangles suddenly
have a function.

The third way means that, like bicyclists, you have to share the road with distracted, idiotic cagers who barely pay attention to what happens beyond the air conditioned box they find themselves in, all while they burn copious amounts of gasoline moving themselves, four empty seats and a couple of tonnes of vehicle around with them.  It's a dangerous business sharing space with these vain-glorious, self obsessed tools.

What do you get in return for that vulnerability?  You are present in the places you pass through, alive in the world.  You smell every smell, feel the sun on your back and arrive feeling like to you travelled through the world to get there instead of feeling isolated, superior and more than a little clueless.  The first time you lean into a series of corners and feel like you and your bike are one is a magical experience.  You can't take on the spandex righteousness of bicyclists, but you can take comfort in knowing that you're using way less of everything to get where the cars are going, and you're doing it with a much bigger smile on your face.

The kind of defensive riding you learn on a motorbike (who is at fault doesn't matter, you need to be responsible for the ineptitude of those around you) can't help but make you a better car driver.  I've been unable to squeeze the statistics out of the Ontario MoT, but I'll bet you a coffee and donut that if you compare any age group with G class car licenses and G and M (car+motorcycle) licenses, you'll see a significant drop in collisions when they drive four wheelers.  You can't help but internalize that kind of defensive mindset if you're going to ride motorbikes for any length of time.  Bicycling isn't a parallel to driving a car because you aren't held firm by the same traffic flow and right of way issues, so bicyclist paranoia doesn't translate to driving like motorcycle paranoia does.

For most who can't afford the excess
that is the automobile, the motorcycle
offers real mobility.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more democratic vehicle than the motorcycle.  As a means of economic, efficient transportation, there is nothing better.  If you don't believe me, look at any developing country.  The motorcycle is what allows many people who can't luxuriate in the first world isolationism of the automobile a chance at mobility in the modern sense.

While urban cyclists find god and battle the soulless commuting automobilists on The Sunday Edition, I'll enjoy my third way.  I only wish it was a consideration in the misery that is most urban commutes.  Rather than chasing utopian dreams of bicycle lanes in a car free city, why not consider a compromise that lets us immediately reduce gridlock?  Ontario could start by following the examples of more motorcycle friendly jurisdictions by allowing filtering, reducing insurance, offering more parking (easily done in unused areas of parking lots designed for three ton SUVs) and easing access into motorized two wheeling by supporting and encouraging training.  We'd see an immediate uptick in the efficiency of the roads we have now.

LINKS
Commuting by Motorbike is Better for Everyone
Mega-Mileage Scooters

Kawasaki Concours C14 1400GTR Valve Check Finished! (finally)

 It took the better part of four months over the winter thanks to lots of work travel stretching things out, but the C14 is back together again and runs like a top. The engine doesn't feel as tight, which makes sense as all the valve shims needed were to resolve the overly tight valves.

The Bay of Fundy near Saint John (latest work trip)

It still does the clatter when you first start it (it's to do with the cam chain tensioner needing oil
pressure to fully engage - it's part of the engine design). The bike has always done that but now that I've laid hands on the thing itself it's helpful in understanding how it all works. Knowing how complicated just the top of that motor is gives me a new sense of satisfaction hearing it run well.

I'm back from yet another work trip but managed to take the big Kwak for a spin last weekend and it pulls like it always has (which is to say like a nuclear missile). Today I'm going to finally do the oil change it was owed last fall and we should be on track for regular use this summer.

The question now becomes do I sell it on during the riding season or keep it having done this soul crushing maintenance job. Based on what I saw in there I'm betting I was the first to do it (at 45k kms). Considering the complexity of this job, I can understand why.

Part of that decision will come down to whether or not I've solved the Tiger's fueling issues. If I have, I might sell the big (and expsnsive to insure) Kawasaki and do the summer on a dependable Tiger, though the C14 is a much more comfortable two up appliance if anyone wants to come for a ride with me.

A confirmed fix on the Tiger's aging fuel injection system would make me consider going to one bike this summer.

West Coast Siren Call

I came up with the idea of setting up motorcycles down south in rental storage units to access over the winter a while back.  This is just the sort of thing I'd do if I had that kind of disposable money laying around.

To set up San Francisco bike storage I'd need to get an Ontario bike down there and parked up in the storage facility.  The idea is to have a ready to go bike that I can fly to with minimal luggage.  I'd eventually be able to fly in to San Francisco with only a carry on bag, take a cab to the storage unit and be on two wheels in one of the best motorcycling locations in the world within a few hours of flying out of the snowbelt.  For the setup I'd take known, works-for-me gear for the ride and then hang it up in the storage unit along with the bike.  Flights back at the moment are one stop, seven hours and about $700 Canadian.

The weather is already closing in here.  We've had dustings of snow multiple times.  This would be one of my last chances to make the ride out west before the white wall of winter descends on us.  In trying to make good time to SanFran, I'd also aim to get a motorcycling bucket list item done:  an Iron Butt thousand miles in twenty-four hours:

Day 1:  Elora to Hampton Inn Portage IL.  Just under 500 miles over the border and to the edge of Chicago.  Make sure everything is ready for the big push on Day 2 (the Iron Butt 1000 miles in 24 hours).  Make sure everything is good to go on the bike, get in early, eat and rest up for an early departure.

Day 2:  Portage IL to Denver, CO.  Be on the road by 5am for the big push west.  Cross Chicago before rush hour picks up and then thump across the plains.  1027 miles in 24 hours.  Get in to Denver overnight and then 2 days at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Denver Stapleton.

Day 3:  Rest day in Denver.

Day 4:  Denver to Grand Junction.  Into the Rockies, 333 miles to the Hampton Inn Grand Junction.  A lower mileage day means this should be as much about enjoying the mountains as it is about making time.

Day 5:  Grand Junction to Ely.  429 mountain miles to Ely and the Ramada by Wyndam Ely passing through 3 national parks, so it should be a pretty ride.

Day 6:  Ely NV to San Francisco.  554 mile day to wrap up the trip.  Get into San Francisco late, park up the bike and put everything into hibernation mode.  Load up a carry-on bag with the essentials and take a cab to the airport.  Retrace the four thousand plus miles back in five hours.

I should be able to take the bike out, park it up and be back home within a week, then I'll have a bike on-call on the West Coast.

For this trip I need something that can cover big miles effectively but is still a useful tool on twisty roads.  The big Triumph Tiger 1200XRx is a long distance capable bike that fits a big guy like me.  It's also easy to maintain (shaft drive, fuel injection) and comes with many long distance handy abilities like long suspension to soak up bad roads and luggage for the long trip.

A big Tiger in this format costs just over $24k Canadian.  It's a pretty thing, I saw the new ones in the flesh at the Triumph Tiger ATLAK meet up last summer.  Many magazines describe the bike as very large, but I didn't find it overwhelmingly so.  In fact, I was surprised at how svelte it was for a 1200cc adventure bike.

But there are some things about the big Tiger that I'm not a fan of.  I've never gotten excited about the big aluminum panniers thing on adventure bikes, or any bike for that matter.  I like the colour matched lucifer orange ones on my old Tiger.  I think the aluminum ones look half assed and unfinished, and I get to pay hundreds more for the privilege of having them because others think they're a fashion item.

The other issue is a recent BIKE Magazine review in which their Tiger developed a number of electrical issues.  Whatever is waiting for me on the West Coast would need to work when I opened that storage unit roller door.  The Tiger is also a reasonably sensible choice, but it'd be nice to have something a bit more come-hither waiting for me in San-Fran.

For surprisingly similar money there is something that I'd describe as more of a dream bike:  the Kawasaki H2 supercharged demon bike in sport touring form.  The H2 SX is an efficient, powerful, supercharger-chirping-as-it-breaks-the-sound-barrier thing of beauty.  It weighs about as much as the big Tiger but produces prodigiously more power and looks like a Japanese super model.

On top of that it has beautifully designed and colour matched panniers that practically disappear into the stunning looks of the bike, rather than looking like tacked on, low-rent metal boxes.

Having the SX sitting in a storage unit in San Francisco would be a constant West Coast siren call.  If I wanted to go far, it could handle it, if I wanted to canyon carve in and around San-Fran, it'd do that to.

As much as I love adventure bikes for how well they fit me, I think I'd have the Kawasaki super model waiting for me on the west coast.  It'd be a blast to ride on the trip out there and would fit in with Californian bike culture much better.

Unscripted Moments

Steve Hoffarth has a good editorial piece in the August/September 2014 edition of Inside Motorcycles that got me thinking about scripted experience.  Steve was lamenting his inability to go racing this year.  He compared going on rides at a theme park and found them lacking.  A scripted experience like being a passive rider on a roller coaster has nothing on the complex, non-linear and entirely participatory experience of racing.

I was sitting in the garage last night working on the Concours when my wife stuck her head in the door and asked how I was doing.  "I'm in my happy place," I replied.

What made it happy was that I was fixing a problem that had no instruction manual.  Success wasn't guaranteed and I had to approach it from several different angles before I could finally come up with a solution.  Real satisfaction followed a resolution to a situation that could easily have ended in failure.  It was an entirely unscripted situation, the kind I long for after your typically scripted day in the life of a 21st Century human.

So much of our lives are scripted nowadays, from phones telling us when to be where to GPS units telling us how to get there.  Brakes script themselves for us because we can't be bothered to learn how to use them effectively, traction control leaps in at a moment's notice to script your acceleration, vehicles will park themselves, warn you when something is behind you because you couldn't be bothered to turn your head, and even avoid obstacles you couldn't be bothered to pay attention to.  I used to enjoy driving, now, at its best, it feels more like sitting on a roller coaster.

All this scripting is a result of software.  It may sound funny coming from a computer technology teacher, but that software kills it for me.  If I wanted to watch machines race I wouldn't put people in the cars at all, it's safer that way.  It's been a long time since a driver could take a car by the scruff of its neck and drag it around a circuit.  We do all this in the name of safety, but ultimately I think it's lowest common denominator thinking; software engineers design life for the least capable people, they can sell more of it that way.

There are places in mechanics where it just makes sense to incorporate computer control, especially when it amplifies an operator's nuanced control of a vehicle rather than overwriting it.  Thank goodness for fuel injection.  It allows us to create responsive, linear fuelling and use less of a diminishing resource, it's all good, as are disc brakes and other technological advances that improve rider feel.  I'm certainly not anti-technology, I make my living teaching it, but I am anti-technology when it takes over human inputs instead of improving them.  That kind of thinking breeds sheeple.

Traction control (many settings!), antilock brakes (many
settings!), hill start control and more electronics than a
moon shot - perhaps bikes aren't the last bastion after all.

Unscripted moments are increasingly hard to come by.  Perhaps that freedom we feel on a motorcycle is one of the last bastions of unscripted moments when a software engineer isn't deciding how you'll spend your time, or worse, spending it for you.

Except they increasingly are.  After I started riding last year I was astonished that this is legal.  In a granny state-world where safety is all that matters, where SUVs are considered better because they're bigger and collision avoidance systems are desirable because you shouldn't have to pay attention while operating a vehicle, motorcycles too are succumbing to our vapid, software scripted lives.

Whimsical Tigers

On our recent cross-Ontario ride we were stopped a number of times by people who were curious about the Tiger.  This is an eye catching, obviously modern looking bike with a Triumph logo, it prompted questions.  If they see a new 'classic' Triumph, most of the general public think it's actually a classic.  They wouldn't recognize the difference between fuel injection and carburetors even if it's advertised on the bike, they just see an old machine.

Colourful Triumphs of yore.
The Naughties were neon!

The confusion of a new-looking Triumph (even though it's 13 years old), and what they thought a Triumph should be isn't too surprising, and I'm happy to fill them in on the triumphant return of the brand (it's a good story), but it makes me question the modern bike colours and styles.

When we went to get the Tiger, 11 year old Max's eyes bulged out of his head and I knew we had a winner.  Who makes a Lucifer orange tiger with stripes?  Triumph in 2003, that's who.  When they weren't churning out violently orange Tigers, they were putting out a wild assortment of colours.  Of course, this was before Ewan & Charlie jumped on their austere Bayerische Motoren Werkes R1200s and reset the aesthetic paradigm for adventure motorcycles.

Why so serious?
That muted blue is as close as you get
to colour on a new Tiger.  Other choices
include military green or grey.  A purposeful
look is what sells  adventure bikes  nowadays...
and don't forget to dress like a starship trooper!

Nowadays everything has to appear relentlessly purposeful and ridden by people who look like they've just landed on an alien planet.  Whimsy and fun are replaced by bikes that look like they come from Army surplus, and riders who just got decommissioned from the special forces.  No wonder people were eager to walk up and start a conversation with the guy and his son on their brilliantly orange Tiger that looks like it just popped out of Winnie the Pooh.  The public wants to be curious about motorcycles, but a lot of motorcyclists seem determined to make themselves as unapproachable as possible, and manufacturers have to cater to that attitude in order to sell.

Besides paint options there is also the issue of styling.  I find the compound curves and organic look of our 955i Tiger very engaging.  Whomever was designing Triumphs in the early Naughties did it pretty much exactly the same way I would have.  Since then Triumph, along with most other brands, have been chasing a more chiselled, hard edged look.  Lamborghini did a stealth fighter aesthetic after the Diablo with crisp, folded edges and it seems to have spread.  Between the muted colours, sharp edged styling and attitude driven rider styles, it's little wonder that our whimsical Tiger had people approaching us.

I realize manufacturers have got to build to the tastes of the day, but I'm hoping there are a group of motorcyclists out there who aren't so serious and miss those fantastic styles and colours.  If there are, there is hope that my whimsical Tiger won't be so exceptional in the future.

LINKS

Even when they're blue, they're
mostly  black.

https://rideapart.com/articles/what-the-color-of-your-motorcycle-says-about-you
Black motorcycles are dead sexy. No, really. Researchers at the University of Kentucky (March, 2011) found that in 36% of crashes involving a driver’s failure to observe a motorcycle and then turning into its path involved black motorcycles.

Army green, ready to attack
those adventures!

Looks like whimsical colours can keep you alive!  It might be time to bring back peppermint green and neon puce!

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/new-bikes/2013/june/jun0413-triumph-releases-new-colours-and-a-sprint-gt-special-edition/
As the years go by, the colours get more and more muted.

I like my Tigers Tigger-like...

Triumph has a great sense of humour, just not with adventure bikes (those are very serious).

IIHTM: The Digital Workshop

If I had the money, what would the dream workshop look like?

I'm a computer tech teacher by day, and the 3d printer revolution is astonishing to behold.  The dream workshop would have the usual suspects (awesome tools etc), but it would also have some truly alien looking tech.

Ever seen a resin based 3d printer?  It's like something out of Terminator:



3d printing is about to get even wilder, with larger scale prints becoming an option.  Imagine a 3d printer that could handle motorcycle fairings... except you could do anything you want.  Want a fairing made out of dragon scales?  No problem!  Want customized etching across the entire fairing?  No problem!  Want to design a radical fairing using the stock mounting points?

Some time in Blender and you'll be ready to print radically customized fairings and other parts.

The BigRep1 goes for almost $40,000, but imagine what you could print in over a cubic meter of build space - motorcycle fairings would be not problem.  I think I'd rent one first to see what I could get away with before buying.

Using resin based printing instead of additive 3d printing means you can produce parts that have the same structural nature as cast pieces (they aren't made of bonded parts).  These pieces would be incredibly strong - they could also be made much more quickly.  Instead of hours long build times, we'd be looking at minutes...

If you're looking for futuristic workshop inspiration the Big Hero 6 garage would be a good place to start - in there he's 3d printing carbon fibre!  The holographic display is pretty dope too...

Iron Man is another film that gives you a good idea of what a 21st Century garage might look like.  Tony Stark's workshop is a holographic wonderland with built-in fabrication capabilities.

It was once thought that with fuel injection, onboard computers and digitization we would be losing the ability to modify and customize our motorbikes.  It turns out that digitization is actually handing the ability to manufacture back to individuals from the factories that took it from them.  Industrialization meant standardization and centralization in the 19th and 20th Centuries.  In the 21st Century manufacturing will return to the craftsmen it started with; localized micro-manufacturing is going to be the way of things to come.

If you're making shop space for yourself, having a computer in it gives you access to a world of information (I frequently use my to watch how-to videos and view schematics), but that workshop based computer is soon going to be providing a lot more than just information.  Do yourself a favour, get a handle on 3d modelling, it'll come in handy in the near future.

Ways to get started:

• Get handy with Blender - it's free, and it's powerful!  There are also a lot of tutorials available for it online
• Structure Sensor: a 3d scanner that snaps onto your ipad.  It makes making 3d copies a breeze!
• Basic 3d printers start at about $1000.
• If you want to give printing a try, many people in the maker movement offer 3d print services. It's a nice way to see what a 3d printer can do for you without the overhead... 3D Hubs is one such option, and they'll introduce you to makerspaces in your area.
• Sketchfab is handy for sharing and doing light editing on 3d models.

XS1100 Yamaha 3d model by timking17 on Sketchfab

Update:  Just saw this.  It'll print 18 x 18 x 24 inch pieces and is made by a Canadian company!  That'd do the business...