October 26 was the six month marker
from when my motorcycle arrived in California and I commenced my
solo-moto experience. I don’t know why the first half a year
of anything is an event to be marked, when I had ticked off
significantly less minutes on my clock there was a point where six
months seemed like an eternity, but after having been with my wife
for more than seven years, owning the same motorcycle for more than
ten years and working at the same place for 12 years, six months
seems pretty insignificant now. Still, when that day ticked
past and I realized that I had reached six month mark since the start
of life without a car I knew that inevitably I would have to sit down
and take stock of how how things have gone thus far. Am I where
I thought I would be in six months? Is it all that I hoped it
would be and more? Am I regretting the decision? Am I
having second thoughts?
Maybe that is why the first six months
of anything can be such a significant event, especially in important
undertakings. In reality you are still in the middle of great
upheaval but you desperately need to seek self assurance that you
made the right call, that you are on track to great things. Even
through the self-professed insignificance of the moment for some
reason there is still a desire to make it known that I have hit
the six month milestone. Part of that is because I am sure that
there are some that feel that this is some sort of lark and that once
I get it out of my system I'll be back in the "cage." The
six month mark is definitely my first real opportunity to wave the
fact that I am still solo-moto and doing fine in their face. It
also provides the opportunity to solicit acknowledgement from people
that do get the what living without a car which is more valuable to
me than the opportunity to throw it in the face any detractors.
So what has it really been like thus
far? Frankly, I thought I would have been going on more long
rides and and having more adventures than I have been. A glance
back on what I have written thus far shows that I have spent a
healthy bit of my free time wrenching and not riding. Part of
that I am sure has to do with facing the reality of being stranded
out in the middle of nowhere quite early on. I think that gave
me a laser focus on maintenance and impressed a real desire for
everything to be right with the bike before going off and riding just
for kicks. Consequently most of the miles I have put on thus
far have been commuting to and from work with the exceptions of a
ride to Sterling Winery, my Clear Lake Ride, a couple of rides to SanFrancisco and my adventure to the Laguna Seca MotoGP Race. I do
feel that the FZ1 is now at a place where I have all the major
mechanical issues addressed and hopefully that will mean more trips.
The truth is that there are still a
number of things that I I would like to address when time permits
that aren't keeping me for going on a long ride. There are
tell-tale cracks on exterior of the carb boots, I know that they are
not leaking because I know what a bike with actual leaky carb boots
runs like. I'd like to have a project where I replace those and
install some remote vacuum lines for easier carb syncing. I
need to get some brake pads to have on hand for the inevitable moment
where the current ones wear out and truthfully the rear disc could
stand to be replaced too. I have ordered a new seat cover when
I discovered that even more seams are starting to pull apart.
Eventually the rear tire will need to be replaced. After
servicing the front forks the thought that the rear shock probably
needs a service or replacement with an acceptable spec low mileage
rear shock off of a different model bike (which would probably the
cheaper option) is in the back of my head all the time as well as the
thought of replacing the swing arm bearings. And then there is
the never-ending cycle of drive chain maintenance (more on that
later).
So there's a lot on the maintenance
to-do list and I guess that brings me to the major overall conclusion
that if I had it to do all over again I would have though long and
hard about getting a brand new motorcycle or one just a few years old
with very few miles on it. I think about how much better it
would be to be know the bikes entire history and have a clean slate
to start with maintenance wise. It would have been a much more
fun first six months had I been able to just walk out to a brand new
bike and just thumb the starter and be ready to go with the
confidence that I know everything about this bike and not wonder what
unknown issue might pop up. Lets be honest; most motorcycles
are garage queens that get taken out for weekend rides and trips to
the local bike night. When that is a bikes main use it's easier
to ignore the little maintenance issues that pop up over time and
start to pile up. Now my bike was a 2001 with 30,000 miles on
it. Imagine if I had bought that same year bike with even less
miles it probably would have been in much worse shape! Now as
far as the 2001-05 FZ1 as an all-around do-it-all bike I couldn't ask
for more. Obviously there are more refined versions available
now; the 2014 Kawasaki Ninja 1000 ABS comes to mind but the design
thesis is pretty much the same between the two bikes.
As far as the actual act of riding goes
I have now ridden in 112 degree temperatures and am currently riding
in low 50s - high 40s at night time now. Riding in high heat
sucks there's no way around it and my riding motivation pretty much
shrank to heading out only for the essentials on those days. Cold
weather is another set of challenges I have the proper gear to be
comfortable riding in cool weather but with it still getting up into
the 70's mid-day you end up trying to find the right spot of the
fence to sit on. Right now I am working swing shifts so I only
wear jeans and the heavier riding jacket (vents open) with the non
gauntlet gloves. I still get a little warm in traffic and if I
have to stop off in a store it can get pretty hot in the jacket and
then when I am heading home at 10pm (jacket vents closed) it's quite
nippy but that is the best balance. When I was working nights
last week I actually busted out the insulated over-pants, full
gauntlet gloves and riding boots because the sun is gone and the
temps are pretty consistent. But then you get into the deal
where it's taking me almost as long to get ready to ride to work as
it does riding there. The one thing that I haven't had to
contend with yet is rain, so far I think we are still at 4 days with
noticeable rainfall since moving to California with the rainiest (of
course) being the day I decided to rebuild the forks for the FZ1 on
the porch. If I can make it through the winter which I am told
will be much wetter I will be able to safely say that I can stand to
live the solo-moto lifestyle, yes the biggest challenge is yet to
come.
There are other little idiosyncrasies
that I have picked up on since I started riding in here in California
maybe they exist everywhere and the awareness comes from commuting
full time on a motorcycle. Probably the most frequent annoyance
is at intersections with stop signs; I can roll up on one and the car
will already be sitting there stopped and they will wait until they
see me stop and actually put my foot down before they go. When
I was learning to ride back in Wisconsin one of the skills they
taught us was called (literally) the "California Stop."
Where you basically stop and balance without putting your foot down
on the ground. Well I've gotten pretty good at it now that I am
in California but it would seem that no matter how good I am at
balancing the person at the intersection is not going to go until
they see that foot on the ground. If they would just go after
their car had stopped and they saw me stopping they would be through
the intersection and I would be on my way without needing to put my
foot down, it's petty but it's really annoying.
Another thing that is definitely a
California thing, possibly a product of the higher volume of cars and
the 4-5 lane highways (the HOV lane doesn't make it any easier
either) is that basically any lane can be the "fast" lane
at any given time or at all times. In the Midwest there was a
general rule that the faster traffic stays to the left and then the
speeds get progressively slower as you move further right. I
can't figure out if I like this or not; at times it's maddening and I
feel like I am inhabiting the same space with a bunch of
self-entitled pricks who think their time is more important than
others, other times I revel in the mêlée
that is the California Highway System. There haven't been too
many times that I haven't felt 100% safe while riding on the Highways
mainly because at any given them there is a good chance that I am the
quickest, most agile thing that is in the general vicinity.
When I have gotten out onto the b-roads
it is quite a different story there. There are so many great
roads that it's hard to pick which ones you want to try. I have
from time to time run into the problem of finding myself at the start
of a road that looked really great on Google maps but then it turns
out that it's unpaved. But that has happened to me in Wisconsin
to and that is all part of the adventure as far as I'm concerned.
But for as many times as that happens there are at least 10X
more time you find yourself gnawing away at the last remains of your
chicken strips tempted to put a knee down if only you hadn't traded
in your leathers for more serviceable textile kit. You see a
lot more motorcycles and if there are cars a lot of them are out for
a thrash too. For some reason I haven't been too keen on
checking hitting up the motorcycling must-sees maybe it's because of
their proximity now but bing that it's cooler now it might be a good
time to hit some up, there will probably be less Ricky road-racer
types out there and more die-hard riders to meet. The next
weekend a moto-mecca may need to be checked off.
Have I mentioned how much Lucas Oil
Products Inc. Chain Lube sucks?
Well it does, its sloppy and messy, I
knew it was a bad purchase after the first 20 miles but I had it and
I thought I would just grit my teeth and bear it until I ran through
the can but enough was enough. The product itself is messy and
runs all over the place and then once it gets onto your swing-arm
sprocket and wheels it acts like a magnet for dust dirt and grime. The product that I am used to and have been using for years
before this is Maxima Racing Oils Chain Wax and that was what I went
back to but there was the issue of the shitty mess that they Lucas
Oil Chain Lube had left behind. I also picked up some MaximaRacing Oils Clean Up: Chain Cleaner.
Getting the whole mess
cleaned up meant taking off the counter-shaft sprocket cover and the
rear wheel to clean both it and the swing arm. You can see the gummy sticky globules of build up in there.
It took a lot of elbow grease and my hands and fingernails were dirty for about a week but the end result was worth it. And a week later the swing-arm chain and sprocket all look pretty much the same as in this picture.That's about it for now I did receive my seat cover and put it on the seat but this is already a long-winded update so that will have to wait till later.
Thank you to all who stop and read.
