NOTE: when gas was $112US/barrel in May this year, retail pump prices were $1.95/litre. Someone’s getting rich off climate disaster.
Petro-Canada is putting everyone over a barrel charging 6ยข a litre more for super than ESSO is.
I was out and about on two wheels both Saturday and Sunday last weekend. Because I live in one of the most geologically tedious places in the world, I often have to ride for 20 minutes just to find *any* corner. This has me juggling contradicting ideas when it comes to the latest round of record-breaking fuel prices. On the one hand, fuel is more expensive. Thirty bucks used to be as much as I ever put into a bike, now it’s over forty. On the other hand, after riding for twenty minutes to find a damned corner there are far few people driving around like gormless idiots on it so I get to actually enjoy the lean. I think I’m OK with the return on investment with strangely high gas prices: it’s expensive but the roads are nicer to ride.
This isn’t the first time fuel prices went this high. They did in 2012 as well due to Middle Eastern instability, but back then (with costs per barrel similar) fuel at the pump out this way reached $1.36/litre and had everyone apoplectic. A decade later the same crude oil prices have us paying almost $2.50 a litre, but hey, if you can’t get rich from declining resources and a climate disaster you were instrumental in causing, you shouldn’t be running a petrochemical company.
My son and I two up on the Kawasaki are averaging over 42 miles per gallon…
The Tiger is mainly doing one-up work now that the Concours takes care of pillions. With its new sprockets the RPMs have dropped a few hundred in any given gear and it’s now averaging over 60mpg on long, top gear rides. At this kind of mileage I can handle higher fuel costs.
LINKS
2012: “Retail pump prices rose early in the year, starting at $1.21 per litre, peaking at $1.36 per litre in April, declining to $1.23 per litre in July”
I finally got the carbs sorted on the Fireblade project (sense of achievement!) and when I fired it up they felt very responsive… but then a giant geyser of oily water spewed out of the valve cover exhaust pipe and hit the ceiling (!). Never seen that before. Rather than repeat the fountain, I put a pipe on it, ran it into a container and videoed the weirdness…
(it’s a 360 video, you can move the mouse to look around – like at the oily water dripping off the ceiling)
So the fountain happened both times I ran it, and the stuff that came out looked like watery oil rather than oil with some water in it. Next step: drain the oil…
… which looks like water. That’s not good, and it’s something I’ve never seen before. Why on earth would anyone ever put water or coolant in an engine like that?
I’ve done head gaskets on cars before and I’m pretty familiar with the consequences of oil mixing with coolant. It usually goes both ways (oil gets in the coolant, coolant gets in the oil, but the coolant looks brand new and the level is good. When running there is no bubbling in the coolant overflow (usually a running engine will force gas and oil back into the coolant reservoir if there is a blown head gasket). As amazing as this sounds, I think the idiot who owned this before me filled the engine with coolant instead of oil, but I really can’t understand why. It’s either gross incompetence or he sold me a bike with a known blown engine, which is a pretty shitty thing to do. Incompetent or nasty, not a great set of choices there.
Next up is actually putting oil in the engine and running it again. I’ve got some used stuff out of the Tiger which is the right weight. If it works, then the guy who owned this thing before me might be the dumbest human in history. Once I’ve run the old synthetic out of the Tiger and confirmed everything works, I’ll drain it and put some new stuff in.
My first sports bike has been a bit more baffling than the XS1100 (air cooled, nothing weird there other than the ownership) and the Concours sports tourer which had been through hell, but was owned by a guy who knew what he was doing.
The muppet who owned this bike before me will have me going top to bottom on it before I get it out on the road – I can’t trust anything that was done to it.
Notes for next round of work on the Honda. Doing it for myself so I can follow what I’m doing on the laptop in the garage, but might help out other ’90s Honda Fireblade CBR900 restorers too.
Missing tank mounting hardware: BOLT, FLANGE (6X40) (missing bolts for front of gas tank) COLLAR C6.3, MOUNTING
Throttle cable running under the right side of the centre triple fork
Vacuum routing – but not particularly helpful – air vent tubes probably connect to bottom of air cleaner box…
Upper and lower throttle cables are clear in this – they are over the handlebars now (wrong) – and like a burk, I put them together backwards, so you have to throttle off to throttle on – remove carb, remove cables, reroute and confirm on this before reattaching.
I tried a replacement LED in the neutral light – no joy – try reversing it? Light receiving voltage when in neutral. Confirm that? Trace that neutral switch wire?
Double check choke cable – seems good the way I had it, but bike’s in a choke right now, so no movement of front wheel to check routing when the handlebars are turned.
The weather is fairly crap, but there are signs of spring as the sun returns more and more each day. All done with the Canon T6i. Macros are done with the 18-35mm kit lens, the birds are using the ‘kit’ 55-250mm long lens.
As a family we attended a blacksmithing day at Happy Knife Forge last weekend. Highly recommended, it’s money well spent. Jason will not only show you the basics, but is keen to get you up and running as a blacksmith. My granddad was a coal merchant back in the old country and the smell of coke burning on the forge prompted a sense memory from the crib; it smelled like home.
I’ve ruminated on fabrication and micro-manufacturing on TMD before from a digital perspective using the latest techniques. Given the space and tools I’d quite happily spend my time designing and creating using everything from medieval blacksmithing through 20th Century metal working and on into 21st Century digital manufacturing techniques. Connecting these processes separated by time but with the same intent would produce some genuinely interesting and bespoke combinations.
I’ve had the itch to get back into welding for some time, but a lack of space and gear means I’m not while I’m where I’m at. The blacksmithing experience has me wanting to expand my metal working beyond just welding, which means even more space and kit getting added to the wish list. You can do a lot in a tight space, and I am, but when it comes to storing the chemicals and managing the heat in some of these processes, there is no substitute for space.
A property with an old industrial building on it would make for a fantastic restoration leading to a multi-millenial foundry covering everything from blacksmithing to digital design!
Given the time and resources I’d hit an intensive welding program, then set up my multi-millenial forge/shop/maker space with everything from blacksmithing tools through metal working and mechanical to 21st Century 3d scanning, digital modelling and printing. The forge would be in the corner of a repurposed, old brick building that also includes space for metalwork, all very fireproof. Across the floor in the same open concept.would be space for a paint booth/shot blasting station and plenty of mechanical workspace. Upstairs (open concept, with just a railing) would be digital design and manufacturing in a cleaner workspace. If I could walk out to that every morning to create, restore and repair, I’d hardly care if there were pandemics or anything else. Put it near some good riding roads (ie: not in Southern Ontario), and it’d be just about perfect.
I’ve been thinking about a digital workshop for a while now, but the blacksmithing experience has me thinking old school as well.
The future-garage scene in Big Hero 6 gets the digital side of it right.
After a long day at work I found myself watching the sky change colours and jumped on the Tiger for a ride down the river. It felt like riding through a Van Gogh…
All photos taken with a Ricoh 360 camera mounted on the windshield, autofiring every 8 seconds.
Photos are in reverse chronological order. Sunset was at 8:30pm – I was on the road from about 8:10 to 8:50pm.
If you want a breakdown of how to get on-bike 360 photos like this, check THIS out! If you really want to digitally flex, you can create a 360 ‘tiny planet’ stop motion film out of this kind of photography:
In January the president of the Ontario Association for Mathematics Educators (OAME) sent me an email after seeing our online activity aroundย game developmentย andย codingย and asked if I might present atย their conference in May.ย ย If you’d have told high school me that I’d one day present at a maths conference I would have thought you’re having me on.ย For me, maths and science were the hammers that the education system used to teach me that I wasn’t good enough, but I’m rethinking that egotistical framing.
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One of my co-presenters also didn’t have a positive maths experience in high school and we were both worried that it would be like being back in class again.ย That’s where the teacher would single you out and make sure everyone in the room knew that you didn’t know what you were doing, then they’d fail you, usually with a caustic remark about how ‘this isn’t for you’.ย I’d internalized the idea that maths (and science) went out of their way to make me feel stupid, but after doing our presentation (everyone was lovely, of course), I’m reconsidering my failures in maths and science from another angle.
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We immigrated to Canada when I was eight years old.ย A lack of research had us moving to Montreal right afterย Bill 101ย came in, which wasn’t great for a little kid from rural England.ย By 1980 we’d moved to Streetsville on the edge of Mississauga and that’s where I grew up.ย Various calamities happened both financially and emotionally while I was in high school.ย I didn’t play school sports because I worked every day after school from the age of 12 on.ย School sports, like maths and science, are for those privileged children of leisure who have the time and money to participate – that’s why we shape entire school cultures around them.
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In senior high school my dad was in a near fatal car accident that had him hospitalized for months.ย During that time I was working as well as doing all the home things that he usually did.ย This meant that the hours of homework meted out by maths and science teachers didn’t get the attention it demanded.ย The tedious and repetitive/rote nature of S&M homework didn’t help either.ย Before grade 11 science I was daydreaming of becoming an astronomer.ย After I failed it, not so much.ย High school accommodated my lack of socio-economic clout by guidancing me to go find a job that Canadians don’t like doing – like a good immigrant should.
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I dropped out of grade 13, worked as a night security guard (full time) while trying to attend Sheridan College for visual arts.ย I dropped out of Sheridan when I couldn’t get to class after not sleeping every night before class.ย Eventually Iย found my way into a millwright apprenticeship which offered me the economic stability I needed to finish high school, which I did at the age of 22.ย I eventually left millwrighting and went to university, finally settling on English and philosophy degrees, but even there my maths trauma haunted me.
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A requirement for my philosophy degree was to take the symbolic logic course.ย My first time through it was run by a computer science prof who didn’t like how big the class was so he used every rotten maths trick in the book (surprise tests, undifferentiated instruction, sudden changes in direction, etc) to shake out the ‘arts’ students who needed it for their degree.ย That course could also be used as an ‘arts’ credit for the STEM types who took it as a bird course.ย That prof succeeded in chasing out all the philosophy students from that philosophy course.ย The next semester I tried again, this time with a philosophy prof.ย I told her of my fear of maths and she went out of her way to differentiate both instruction and assessment.ย I ended up getting an ‘A’ on the mandatory course I thought I’d never finish.ย I can do maths and complex logic, just not when it’s weaponized against me.
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As a millwright I never had a problem tackling applied maths when I needed it.ย When I transitioned into information technology, again no issues using applied maths as I needed it to do my job.ย It appeared that I wasn’t as bad as maths as the education system had repeatedly told me I was, though I still carried that luggage with me.
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My anxiety was high as I got ready for this presentation.ย Alanna made a comment that resonated though.ย If you work in a secondary classroom you’ve probably heard teens talking about how this or that teacher ‘hates’ them.ย Alanna reminded me that this is a great example of everything-is-about-me teenage egotism.ย My maths and science teachers didn’t hate me and weren’t vindictively attacking me for my failures; no student matters that much.ย Having done this teaching thing for over two decades now, I can assure you that ‘hate’ isn’t something most teachers feel.ย To be honest, when we’re not at work even the most difficult students aren’t on our minds.ย For the teachers who do feel hate for students, you need to find another career.
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Looking past the teen-egoism of my own mathematical inferiority complex, I got along with my STEM teachers pretty well.ย I certainly wasn’t a classroom management headache.ย In retrospect, what happened to me in class wasn’t vindictive on their part, it was a result of my lowly socio-economic status.ย Had I been a stable, well off, multi-generational settler whose ancestors were given whole swarths of Canada for free, I’m sure we’d have gotten along just fine.ย Were I not in the middle of family trauma, perhaps I would have stuck it out.ย Had I been a student of a less creative nature who thrived in structure and repetition, I imagine I’d have found a place in STEM even without the financial means – I did eventually embrace my technical skills despite the system’s best efforts to alienate me from myself.
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Last week one of our maths teachers emailed the entire building asking how she could punish students who are skipping tests in order to give themselves more time to prepare for them.ย Our principal emailed all reminding everyone ofย Growing Success, but this didn’t stop a science teacher from jumping in with our written-in-the-1950s student handbook which still contains escalating penalties (including handing out zeroes) for late or missing work, even if that is directly contrary toย Ministry direction.
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In my last round of IT testing for my grade 10s I left each chapter test available for three tries, and students could take it open book if they wished.ย When you finished the test it would even review it for you and tell you what the correct answers were and why, if you could be bothered to do that.ย Ample class time was provided to review the material both on screen and hands-on.ย You could not design a more equitable and differentiated approach to learning computer technology.ย Our class average on these three tries/open book tests/wildly-differentiated and in-class supported tests?ย 11.07/20 – that’s a 55% class average.ย Even when you differentiate and build in equity to support assessment in COVID-world classes, many students won’t bother doing any of it anyway, and this is in an optional subject they chose to take!ย I turned down the weight of those results, not because I think my subject doesn’t matter, but because theย COVID malaise on students is realย (it’s real on staff too, not that anyone cares) and holding them to pre-pandemic standards is neither compassionate nor pedagogically correct.
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If someone wants to skip a period to get more study time in, let ’em.ย What would be even better is having open and honest communications with your students to the point where they can simply ask for extra time rather than feeling like they have to skip because they know you won’t give give it to themย ย They probably won’t use their extra time anyway and the result will be what it is.ย Clinging to schedules and testing that only examines rote memorization (another issue in STEMย that produces A+ students whoย don’t know how to apply what they know), is the kind of undifferentiated and tedious ‘learning’ that made me despise maths and science in high school.
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After COVID swept through our family recently, my son returned to class only to get no lunches for days on end (while still recovering from the virus) as he took test after missed maths test.ย When he didn’t do well on them we had to intervene and ask for some compassion.ย Why do S&M subject teachers believe that curriculum comes before differentiation based on circumstances (especially IEPs!), or evenย basic wellness?ย We’re all in exceptional circumstances.ย I suspect these teachers believe that this ‘rigour’ makes them a credible and serious discipline of study.ย I’m not sure how you change that rigid culture founded on privilege, conformity and exclusion.
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My maths trauma in high school sent me on aย crooked pathย before I was finally able to come to terms with my intelligence and abilities; it made me doubt myself and misaim my expectations.ย I’d hope public education would do the opposite of that, but it still doesn’t.ย We’ve got too many classes still predicating success onย hours of homeworkย using undifferentiated and repetitive rote learning under the assumption that everyone has the time and inclination to find success in that.ย It’s even worse now two years into a pandemic.ย During quadmesters it was particularly acute with students in S&M heavy quads telling me they were expected to do 4+ hours of homework EVERY DAY – even as the working ones were forced to take on extra hours as ‘heroic’ front line workers.
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In my classroom I aim to find every students’ talents and help them find digital pathways that will support them in our technology driven economy.ย My senior classes are supposed to be ‘M’ level post-secondary bound students (which is why they cap me at 31 like an academic calculus class), but in actuality the majority of my students do not attend university and good percentage go straight into the workplace.ย We also frequently have essential level and special needs students finding their way inย our programย because we differentiate even when the system holds us all back with an inequitable distribution of resources.ย My stuffed classes serving all pathways help make grade 12 academic physics classes with a dozen students in them happen because those very special kids need that credit for university.
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In order to find student strengths I focus on foundational skills like practicing an effectiveย engineering design process, which is more about organization and self-direction than it is about technical details.ย I could drill them on tests about technical specifics and fail the ones who skip rote memorizing reams of facts for a variety of reasons (they can’t afford the time, their IEP doesn’t allow them learn like that, etc), but then I’d be doing exactly what was done to me in high school.ย That’d be a jerk move.
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“You! Yes, you! Stand still laddy!”
When we grew up and went to school
There were certain teachers who would
Hurt the children any way they could
By pouring their derision
Upon anything we did
And exposing every weakness
However carefully hidden by the kids”
We don’t need no education, but we all need direction to help find our strengths… especially in STEM.
The other day I tried a variation on the on-bike 360ยฐ photography I’ve previously done. Rather than mount the camera on a flexible tripod on the front of the bike, I attached a carbon monopod to the rear top-box rack, extended it and put the camera on top.
The bottom part of the monopod had a screw in point. With that removed I could bolt this very light weight, carbon fibre monopod to the rear luggage rack (which itself is attached to the frame) very securely. In almost an hour of riding on typically lousy rural Ontario roads both the camera and monopod were very secure and the photos showed no evidence of wobble or blur.
With the camera over a metre above and behind my head, the three-sixty degree pinched perspective makes the bike and I look quite far away:
After doing a round at full extension (the monopod extends to just over five feet or 160cms), I reduced the bottom leg. I couldn’t see the results of the shots until I got back and I was worried that the full extended monopod would produce wobble and blur or be structurally stressed (it didn’t and it wasn’t). The monopod only weighs a couple of hundred grams and can hold 10 kilos or 22 pounds of gear – the Theta weighs less than a hundred grams.
With the camera reset closer to four feet above the back deck of the bike I did some more miles, including riding over some very rough roads. Even in those circumstances the rig was solid, unmoving and took sharp photos, even in the relatively poor light (it had been heavily overcast, foggy and raining on and off all day).
The pavement leading up to the West Montrose Covered Bridge is particularly rough, but even then the photos were clear and sharp.
Good horizons on such a tall camera mount, and this is at the lower setting.
With the camera set so much higher, corners don’t seem as dramatic. When the camera is mounted on the rear view mirror it turns with the handlebars, amplifying the lean effect.
Perhaps the best example of the camera’s lack of wobble was the shot from inside the covered bridge. On an overcast, dim day in a poorly lit environment with the bike bouncing over rough pavement, the sharpness is still surprisingly good. This was so dim that I had to raise the sun visor in the helmet:
I’d call this a successful test. Setting up this kind of monopod on a Givi tail mount for a top box works really well. The monopod base fits snuggly in the tail mount, which is a very solid, over engineering piece of kit designed to carry potentially heavy luggage. The monopod takes a big quarter inch bolt. I used a big washer on the bottom and a smaller one that fit perfectly inside the lattice on the top of the rack. With the monopod tightened down with a ratchet it was extremely secure.
The camera didn’t wobble on full extension, but with the monopod retracted one level (the shortest, narrowest one at the bottom) the monopod rubber met the top of the luggage lattice and it was even stronger. With the camera on the shortened tripod, the photos still offered a surprisingly distant perspective:
With the monopod shortened one level it’s still well above six feet off the deck (I’m 6’3″).
It’s another unique perspective to pursue with 360ยฐ on-motorcycle photography, but I have to say, I think it feels a bit alienating because everything is so distant and you can’t see the rider’s face. Short of flying a drone perilously close to a rider, there is no other way you could get this perspective though…
One of the few sunny moments on the ride – you can see the monopod’s shadow on the road.
Something like this might look really cool on a bike doing a wheelie, or someone knee down in a canyon. It also does a nice job of capturing the surroundings, but unless I’m looking for shots that are more about the scenery than the ride, I doubt I’ll be doing it again. I prefer the more intimate and exciting angles you get from mounting the camera closer and in front of the rider:
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