I want to ride with these guys!

Shamelessly stolen from ADV Rider:

What a beautiful day for a ride!

It was chilly but not too bad and the Bandit was quick to warm up, so I headed out to grab a bite to eat. My neighborhood is small and to get out of my 'hood, you get on a six lane road. So when you go, you have to usually GO!




Crossing over to the median was easy, no traffic headed north, so headed into town, was a solid three lanes of traffic. So, I waited for a bit and it opened up on the inside lane...and if I got in and got up to speed, I could make it over to the far side, where I'd need to be.



I'm a new rider, only around 1000 miles on the Bandit but I don't do anything silly. I do sometimes go 0-speed limit really fast though, and this is one of those times. There is nothing that can describe that feeling. I can only imagine what it feels like on a Hayabusa or ZX-14 or anything like that. Can't really say I want to see what it feels like (yet), as I'm quite happy with the speed from my 'lowly' Bandit



Riding into town, I took the long way because I was on the bike, it was a beautiful day, and do we need any more reasons? Halfway there, I realized I didn't have my wallet.... It's almost like I planned that...so after a return trip home, I finally made it to lunch.



The ride home was just as nice, absolutely beautiful weather and shared a few lights near the end of the trip with a guy on a really nice shiny BMW 650/800. Those BMW's are very nice looking but then I think of what they do differently than my $300 bike and realize the price difference isn't worth it. (Plus, I'm cheap)



Speaking of cheap, I'm heading out now to finish up my $8 tail bag! Edit Post Reply Reply With Quote Blog this Post .

There's my Bandit and my buddy's Moto Guzzi at Lake Seminole. We rode up there a few Sundays ago, but there's no way I could trace our route except to say that it was full of curves, tight curves, long swooping curves, uphill and down hill curves and then a few more curves, just to make sure.

I also found out that that Moto Guzzi is a curve maniac. George would hit the curve and just....disappear.

Anyone needing a visual for why ATGATT is a good idea.....

That's not me, I know nothing of the rider, but I hope he is ok. Good thing is, he was wearing a full face helmet. Bad news is he didn't land on just his head.

I'll remember this whenever I think about not wearing my jacket and gloves.

I passed my MSF class!

So I'm off to ride. Well, tomorrow, after I register my bike and get my endorsement.

Expect more stuff here, soon, with pictures!

Can someone explain this to me?

I was coming home from work yesterday on Capital Circle, otherwise known as the Tallahassee Speedway, and saw a guy on a bike. He caught up to me, not really speeding, but going a little faster than me and I see he's on a cruiser....a big one. Not a harley, I think it was a Star.

What I can't understand is what he's wearing. No helmet, flip flops, baggy shoters, t-shirt. Nothing really too strange there for our location, it is HOT. 95 degrees, at least 95% humidity. No arguments about what he was wearing, I believe in ATGATT (most every time, I mean it!) so that is not anything unusual to see.

What still puzzles me is that in addition to his outfit, he was also wearing a black leather vest...... Now, I guess I could understand that if he had a patch or something, maybe, but that vest was spotless, no patch anywhere.

Strange.

Wow, I guess this is the second coolest thing ever. EVER.

Video - Descente de cote en BuggyRollin

This is the coolest thing ever. Ever. EVER.

24 Hours of Lemons!

About the spring cleaning...

My friend and I finally had some time so we did some maintenance on the Bandit. Well, he did it and I watched and learned. Anyway, the tank came off with no problems but we found that the back fairings have a small tab that is bolted onto the frame under the tank. Who ever took the tank off before us didn't think enough to take the bolts off, so he just snapped the fairings at the tabs....not a good sign for mechanical competance. is it? I started to get a little worried, I was hoping whoever did that hadn't gone too far into the engine.

We checked the plugs, NGK, and they were fine. We took a look at the air filter, and I was happy to see the K&N Sticker on the outside of the box. This means I get 10 extra horsepower, right?

We moved on and got the carbs off without any trouble. They had never been touched, apparently. We inspected them and the number one carb has a huge speck of sand in it. The second carb had a little gunk and we got that out, as well. Three and four carbs were clean.

So we got everything back together and I took it for a ride. It seemed to run a little better, a little smoother and maybe a little better acceleration. But honestly, it might have just been the psychological 'We worked on the bike so it must run better'.

Either way, it's nice to find out that the $200 bike is in good shape.

Loud pipes DO save lives....

Odds and Ends, spring cleaning, little bit of this and that...

We just got back from a trip to Atlanta, where we stayed at the Marriot Marquis in downtown Atlanta. This hotel was huge, 42 stories tall. We stayed on the 32nd level. Tallahassee has one tall building, the Capitol, and it's only 22 floors high. Riding up and down the glass walled elevator was cool, Ryan loved it.

Anyway, except for the height of the hotel, it was about the same as any other, except it seemed they lived a bit on their name. No free internet, the TV was not good, they overbooked enough that we didn't get part of our package and had to park off site instead of valet parking. But, they took care of it and did refund that so it was fine.

We were in Atlanta for Shelby's Volleyball tournament and that was cool but Ryan and I had lots of time to spend. We took a trip to the Aquarium and it was pretty nice. It was also part of the hotel package so that was even better.

What was strange was that even though we were over 300 feet in the air, many times at night, we could hear motorcycles racing by on the street. We didn't hear any other sounds, really, but sport bikes winding out a bit seemed to carry right up to our room.

I'm glad to be home but my poor Bandit is now yellow. Pollen has covered our carport and my bike needs bath!

I'm cleaning up the site too, adding a few links, etc. So take a look, might be one or two you may not have seen before.

Did anyone lose a cat?

http://tallahassee.craigslist.org/zip/1640802897.html

18 and 20 year old Hondas uncrated!

You know how cagers always say 'I never saw him!'?

That's what you always hear on the motorcycle forums, riders almost always blaming an accident on car drivers. And while many many car drivers have no business driving while eating, talking on a cell phone or even worse, TEXTING, sometimes you truly can not see someone on a bike.

Before you form the lynch mob, bear with me. I have personal experience on this.

Several months ago, I was coming home from work in my Mazda van. As I turned onto the four lane street, a guy on a Honda Elite turned right on the street and settled in behind me. I always notice scooters and motorcycles, cause, well, I just do. So does my three year old, she wants a Ninja!

Anyway, we are going down a nice wide four lane street, in a straight line. This street is probably three miles long.

The entire time we were riding/driving down the street, I COULD NOT SEE THE HONDA. I was looking in my rear view mirror and when we were stopped at the red light, by turning around in my seat. It really shocked me when I could not see him while we were stopped. I thought he had turned off, but when the traffic moved, I caught a glimpse of him. He was in my blind spot the entire time, happily unaware that the guy in the huge van right in front of him could not see him.

So, take a second and imagine if I  had not seen him turning onto the street right behind me.

That happened several months ago and was a real eye opener to me, both as a car driver and a motorcycle rider.

I had already figured out that riding close behind a car was a dumb move, but sometimes you have to. That ride home really made me aware of how big car blind spots can be.

The absolute best (motorcycle/road trip) writing I have ever read....

I'm actually debating whether to remove the (motorcycle/road trip) part of the headline, this is good stuff. This (and three other ride reports) are posted on Adventure Rider . I'm sure everyone has been to that site but if you haven't, go. Now. Awesome ride reports of people going everywhere, with amazing photos to boot.

Anyway, a bit of an introduction to what I consider the best writing I have ever run across. This is the bike:

The bike on the left is Cack. The bike was originally a Honda Pacific Coast. Look closely...see the luggage rack on the back of Cack? Look closer. Can you tell what it was, originally? Yup, it is the handle and pull rope from a push lawn mower.

If that doesn't pique your interest, let me give you the background on the story this picture is from. First, the picture of Cack and the dual sport is from Alaska. The owner of Cack, Vermin, took a trip from California to Alaska and left the bike in the backyard of a fellow ADV reader. Then he flew home to return to work.

Vermins rationale was that when you have a vacation, and especially when you take a ride as your vacation, half the time of the vacation is spent riding back to work, which makes a heck of a long commute, doesn't it? So, he thought, if you ride for six days and on the seventh day fly back home, you have doubled your vacation.

So, Vermin returned home where he found he had been let go. So, with no job, it made the chances of getting his bike back (he lives in Detroit) somewhere between slim to none.

But, some ADV Rider's decided that was a crappy way to end the Cack Chronicles and started to fantasize about going and getting Cack and riding it back to Vermin, so he could take another trip and write about it.

Somewhere along the way, someone said 'I'll do it! But only to XXXXX'. Of course, that means someone else had to speak up and prove how awesome they were and volunteer for a spot and soon, what was probably just internet optimism actually came into form and ended up with a 61 page ride report, which is actually about 11 pages without all the filler posts by readers.

Anyway, if you have a few minutes to spare (really, that's all it will take, honestly) go read the first story in the Cack Chronicals.

At first, I enjoyed the report, then started to wonder if Vermin was slightly off his rocker but slowly found myself agreeing with his outlook on life...which is a little worrisome :)

Well, go read the first in the series Detroit to San Diego, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Negligence 

Trust me, it is good stuff.

Well, so long, two stroke scoot!

I cleaned it up, took care of a top end bogging annoyance and put it on Craigslist. Within 15 minutes of the ad going live, I had two calls. One of the callers ran by todayt, took it for a quick test ride, pulled up with 'that grin' on his face and handed me the money! Cool!

And here's my newest ride, a 49cc two stroke scooter!

It needs a good cleaning but it runs pretty darn well for $120!! And the two stroke smell instantly takes me back to when I was a little kid and my older brothers had dirt bikes. And that sound....

It's faster than I thought it would be and taking 90 degree turns at top speed, around 30 mph or so is nothing but ear to ear grinning fun.

Makes you wish you could find a 250 or 500 two stroke street legal.

Here's my Bandit...

Not too bad for $300 :)

Check out this GPS!

 Stolen from this thread on ADV Rider.

I love my Bandit!

I love it in .4 mile increments although sometimes they multiply into .8 mile or even 1.2 mile increments. Yeah, sad to say but my neighboorhood is a .4 mile circle.

But until I get licensed, that's it. It's not nearly enough but it is enough to improve my outlook for the day. Today I was sorely tempted to take a right out of my neighborhood and head out on Thomasville Road and see exactly what this bike will do.

What it would most likely do is get me in a whoile lot of legal trouble, with no tag, no license and no business being on the road.

First off: This is not me but....

my question is this: Am I slowly going over to the dark side? :)