Phil on July 2nd, 2009

I was reminded again yesterday that my right motorcycle boot has thrown in the towel on its waterproofness.  I’ve had them for a couple-three years now, so it’s probably time to look anyway.
Sadly, good boots aren’t cheap, so it’s going to be a battle of wills to see how long I can hold out before [...]

Continue reading about How long can I hold out…

Phil on June 2nd, 2009

Things I can rejoice about today:

Even though it’s raining today, I have a waterproof jacket and a nice, new set of raingear.
Even though my boots aren’t made for walking, at least they’ve got nice cushy insoles in them now.
Even though my back tire went flat on the way to work today, at least it did [...]

Continue reading about Rejoice in all circumstances

Phil on May 19th, 2009

Adam’s got the routes pretty well figured out, so it looks like I’m in for about 2500 miles of riding next week.
If you have a donor butt that could be lent out for a few days afterwards, drop me a line.
The per-day mileage isn’t going to be too bad – the worst [...]

Continue reading about Plans coming together…

Phil on May 10th, 2009

I did a batch of service on the motorcycle yesterday morning, including bleeding the brakes and clutch cylinder.
To help with this, I picked up a vacuum-assist bleeder tool. Boy, but that thing’s nice to have. It tuns a bleed job from a two-man gig to an easy one-man task. Also, I think [...]

Continue reading about Useful. Very useful.

Phil on April 21st, 2009

In my quest to survive riding across Kansas without falling asleep, I’ve been looking for a set of earbuds that would provide both some lovely music on the motorcycle as well as noise reduction roughly comparable to a pair of yellow foam earplugs.
I ordered a set of of “S-Plugs” from PlugUp.com last week, seeing as [...]

Continue reading about Gear Review: PlugUp.com’s “S-Plugs”

Phil on February 20th, 2009

My motorcycle just got done in the shop. The service writer I talked to on the phone said I could come and pick it up, but the service tech who just got back from the checkout ride said “[I'd] have to be pretty brave – the temperature display on the bike said it was [...]

Continue reading about Pansies.

Phil on January 10th, 2009

My old BMW F650 didn’t really present a lot of problems for me, tool-wise.  Everything required to work on it was easily obtainable from any old auto parts or hardware store.  Worst it ever did to me was the 30mm socket for the front drive sprocket.  Big, but not exactly rare.
In comes the FJR.  The [...]

Continue reading about That’s just… evil.

Phil on January 7th, 2009

I lent my car out this past weekend, so I got to enjoy the cold on the motorcycle.  I discovered that my front tire is now an interesting shape, kind of like this: \_/  .  They’re supposed to be less trapezoidal than that, ideally.
Fortunately, I have a new set of tires waiting in my garage [...]

Continue reading about Bike work

Phil on November 21st, 2008

I was reading WebBikeWorld.com this morning and saw a review of an LED conspicuity vest.  ”Gee,” I thought, “that’s pretty neat, but it’d probably be neater if you could swipe the LED pipes out of it and make better stuff than that cheesey-a$$ vest…”.  Seriously, that thing doesn’t look as sturdy as the crossing guard [...]

Continue reading about I’m gonna be like that “Tron” guy!

Phil on November 17th, 2008

I got some road time on the GPS this weekend – I think it’s a winner.  It got me to my friend’s house in Aurora, through the re-vamped I-25/I-225 interchange (stuff like that is THE reason to buy new map upgrades, IMO.  If I was a tourist trying to get through the Mousetrap with a [...]

Continue reading about Baby, I’m lost without you.