Dragon Eclipses

Do you know where you're going to be on August 21st, 2017?  As it happens, at about 2:30 in the afternoon on that day, a total solar eclipse will be passing over The Tail of the Dragon in Tennessee and North Carolina.  

Total eclipses don't happen very often.  This is complete totality, the moon perfectly covers the sun's disk, the sky goes dark, birds go to sleep, and a couple of minutes later everything comes back and it's another normal sunset in the mountains.  It'll be spectacular.

I got some nice shots of a partial solar eclipse during sunset a couple of years ago, but a chance to see totality is a bucket list item.  If I can time it with another bucket list item (riding the Tail), what a day that'll be!

I've seen a spectacular partial eclipse at sunset, but totality is something else entirely.  If you're able, try and get into the path of the total eclipse and the moon's shadow slides across America at over 1000 miles per hour.

Get between the blue lines (and as close to the red one as you can get) and you'll see a total solar eclipse. On the Portland side you're looking at a 5:15pm start,  As the shadow slips into the Atlantic around Charleston, it'll be a 6:46pm event.

Cabin Fever

I might be getting a bit jumpy waiting for spring...

I tried starting up the KLX on Wednesday when it was 15°C.  I thought I might ride across town to pick up my son from daycare, but I couldn't get it going.

Today I got it going by giving it a blast of quick start with the air cleaner box open.

Pretty Calipers

The brake caliper rebuild moved into the 'nerd-lab' downstairs where my son does his lego and I usually focus more on digital tech.  With Why We Ride playing on the projector I got to enjoy HEAT while I rebuilt the rear caliper.

The only time I had to go out to the garage was to blow out the caliper pistons with compressed air, otherwise it was some light bench work while watching a very pretty film.

I'm still monkeying around with 3d modelling tools.  I'm trying different resolution settings on the Structure Sensor.  I also tried using itseez3d instead of the factory software.  It made for an interesting variation (itseez3d uses the ipad camera to take a lot of texture photos which it mixes into the model).


It only took me a couple of hours to sort out the fronts and have everything looking sharp.  Blowing out the pistons was a bit trickier as there are two on the front and the smaller one (less surface area) didn't come right out with the air.  I'm worried that I scored them too much removing them.  I guess I'll see when I put them all back on the bike.

The front calipers are cleaned up and blown apart, waiting for their rebuilds, probably later this week.

3d model of the rear caliper reassembled.

Compared to the rusty lump it was before, it's night and day.  I can't wait to feel the change.

The rusty, pockmarked disk bolts got dremelled clean and repainted too.

Winter Stable Dreams

It's snowing so thick you can't see the road.  I'm at the end of a semester and in full day-dreaming mode.  If I were out bike shopping this week, this is what I'd be aiming to bring back:

The naked:  I'm still smitten with the Kawasaki Z1000.  An orange one, with a tail tidy to get rid of the only ugly part of this stunning machine (the ugly plastic plate hanger off the back).  Some aero crash protectors and I'd be ready to track day with it as well.

The sporty road bike: the jewel-like Honda VFR800 still plucks a heart string.  It's the descendant of one of my first motorbike crushes and would make for a mighty entertaining, sport focused road bike that could still swallow miles if needed.  It looks spectacular in white, but it also needs a tail tidy!





The all terrain bike is a tricky piece of work.  The temptation is just to go all in on a big adventure bike, but the main purpose for one of those is as a road riding mile-muncher.  My off road able bike needs to work on the road and keep up with traffic (something my current 250cc Kawasaki isn't great at), but its focus should be off tarmac (unlike a big, heavy adventure bike).



A light-weight scrambler would be a the preferred choice aesthetically.  Building out my own custom from an existing, off-road focused bike would offer both the scrambler vibe while using light-weight, off-road ready tech.

The Suzuki DR-Z400S makes for a great base.  At 144 kilos (317lbs) it's almost half the weight of BMW's big queen of adventure bikes, and made by a manufacturer that makes bikes with one quarter the number of manufacturing mistakes.  I don't feel reckless in the decision.

Is a Scrambler DR-Z400S possible?  I wouldn't be the first to try.  The DR-Z400SM is a street version of the off-roader, so Suzuki has already done a less off-road focused version.  It's an adaptable bike.

Too bad no one makes a sub 500cc off road focused, light weight Scrambler (instead they market stylish new ones or sell recycled history).  Anything north of 200kgs (441lbs) might be surprisingly capable off road, but it'll still be a misery to pickup and all that weight means you're going to be breaking suspension all the time.

Suzuki already has the platform on which to build a perfect modern scrambler.  C'mon, you're almost there!

Some people want a $30k bike that can do one thing, I'd happily spend that money on a Kawasaki, Honda and Suzuki that can do just about everything.

Motorcycle 3d Modelling

I'm teaching a class on 3d modelling in Blender next semester, so what better way to practice than on my partially taken apart for maintenance ZG1000?

Naked ZG1000 by timking17 on Sketchfab

The model was made with the Occipital Structure Sensor 3d Scanner.  I'm trying different editing programs.  I used the 3d Builder integrated into Windows 10 to edit out the extra bits captured by the scanner.  It's quite easy to use and has some pretty good editing tools.  If you're trying 3d modelling for the first time it's not a bad place to start (and it's included in Windows 10!).

The file is shared on Sketchfab, which I find to be an easy way to do presentation editing and sharing of a 3d model.  We're using Blender in class, so I'll be cranking out some Blender motorcycle models in the next couple of weeks.  The trick is going to be to get them looking life like rather than digitally modelled.  I wonder how you model patina...