Timothy King – Page 36 – Mechanical Sympathy

Are you ready for your fitting? Tailored Motorbikes & Micro-manufacturing…

I just read a good article in Motorcycle Mojo called, “Building The Perfect Bike.” In the article the author supposed that since no ‘off the rack’ bike fits properly, he would give himself a new bike budget, buy a lightly used machine and create a custom-fit. His exercise made for an interesting process, and he got closer to a custom fit, but it’s still far from a tailored motorbike.

I’ve used Cycle Ergo to great effect when considering off-the-rack bikes for fit,but you have to wonder how long it will be before we migrate from mass-produced, generic machines to personalized/tailored ones. In that future Cycle Ergo two point oh will 3d scan you and get your performance needs and produce a custom machine specifically for you.

My day job is as head of technology at our local high school. My focus there is in information technology and electronics. I work closely with our technology design teacher who has a background in robotics. We’ve both watched the rise of specialized manufacturing with great interest. Our labs have taken on 3d printers, digital routers and five axis digital CnC machines in response to this evolution in manufacturing. The prices on these devices have dropped dramatically over the past few years. It won’t be far off when you’ll be able to custom build parts from scratch for a fraction of what it used to cost.

Computer controlled, small scale manufacturing will radically change our understanding of what have always been industrial scale production processes. I suspect that in the future most of the manufacturing process will decentralize from factories and into regional shops that can produce customization on a scale unimaginable to 20th Century industrialists.

Some of the very high end motorcycle manufacturers are already embracing the idea of tailoring a machine to the rider. Even a tiny volume manufacturer like Brough Superior can now consider machining all its own pieces in response to individual customer demand. As the costs of personalized machining come down, the idea of a tailored motorbike will become the standard rather than the exception.

When you can cut your own pieces,
you can build your imagination.

One of the unseen hands that is encouraging the latest surge in the customized motorcycle scene is access to machining and manufacturing processes that used to only make sense in thousand plus unit runs. You can build an astonishingly well built customized machine nowadays because you can build the bits you need for it to your own specifications. Custom builders are a step toward truly individualized production.

Rather than plugging my dimensions into a database of bikes, one day soon I’ll be plugging my dimensions and performance needs into a blank template and watching the perfect bike form around me. The seat would be designed for my backside, the handlebar grips built to fit my hands. The system would then CAD/CAM out all the parts and custom produce everything from the frame to engine components, all to my specific needs. The distinction between OEM and aftermarket will disappear, there will only be builders.

Now *that* would be a perfectly tailored bike!

Riding A Motorcycle

I’m up into third gear coming up on the cones fast. The wind is pressing into my chest and starting to roar around my helmet. On this introduction to motorcycling course this is as fast as we get going, I’m probably doing about 45km/hr. As my right hand rolls off the throttle and reaches for the front brake my left hand reaches out to the clutch lever and begins squeezing. As the engine disengages my left foot begins tapping down the gear shifter and my right foot is already on the rear brake and squeezing in time with the front brake, hauling the bike down from speed in surprising time. As the bike slows, the centrifugal force of the wheels spinning aren’t enough to keep the bike balanced any more, my backside and legs are also subtly beginning to balance the bike. I’m now only doing about 5 km/hr as I enter the turn but this is a tight box of cones leading to ninety degree left exit. I turn the handle bars into the corner, trying to keep my eyes up instead of looking in front of the wheel. At that moment I realize I don’t have enough momentum to get through the corner, I’ve scrubbed off too much speed. I let go of the clutch in the middle of a sharp, slow speed left hand turn, dumping the bike into first gear, it’s a jerky exit I make as I dump the clutch clumsily and begin to regain some lost momentum.

At the motorcycle course I just took many of us went from never having sat in the saddle to realizing just how complicated riding a bike is. Unlike a typical car with one hand on the wheel and one foot operating pedals, you’re using all four limbs and your body mass as a whole when riding a bike; it’s a surprisingly aerobic exercise. At the end of the first day, 2-3 hours in the class room, 7+ hours in the saddle, I was exhausted. The physicality of it is one thing, then there are the mental demands, especially when you’re new.

An instructor told us of a new rider who had just finished the course and decided to drive his new bike out to Alberta for a job. It was all very romantic. He never made it out of Ontario. The truck driver saw him coming from miles away, he even managed to slow down and stop completely when the kid on the bike, in the oncoming lane, plowed into the front of the truck at high speed… asleep on the bike. Riding a bike is a good bit of exercise when you’re experienced. It verges on a mind and body marathon when you’re new and having to think about everything you’re doing.

In addition to the technique of operating a vehicle that asks you to steer with your whole body, change gears manually using both hand and foot, and operate two sets of brakes independently, again, using both hand and foot, the bike rider is also developing a constant 360° awareness of what is happening around them. Your head is a on a swivel, you’re constantly assessing threats and dangers. It matters much less who is at fault if you’re in an accident on a bike, it isn’t likely to be a fender bender you drive away from. Defensive driving on a bike takes on dimensions that car drivers would find extreme locked away in their metal boxes.

After a weekend of getting familiar with the basic operation of a motorbike, my back is sore, my arms ache and I’m still getting over the wind/sun burn, but it was a purging exercise. If you ever wanted a challenge that puts you into a very intimate relationship with a machine, motorbiking is that. It isn’t easy. It’s demanding mentally and physically and requires your undivided attention. You can’t walk into it after drinking, drugs or even emotionality and hope to do it well enough to not be at risk, and the risk is about as high as it can get. In a world of safety at all costs, insurance company run nanny states, I’m kind of surprised that motorcycling is still allowed, but I’m glad it is.

Riding is a Zen thing that demands you surrender distractions and live in that moment, your whole body and mind deeply involved in the task before it. It’s a task that rewards you with a sense of freedom and the thrill of open speed that I’ve never experienced in any automobile; it’s the most honest form of motorized transportation, which is exactly why I answered the call. Taking the course made me realize that motorbiking was everything I’d hoped it would be.

360° Video on a Motorcycle

I borrowed a 360° video camera from work to see what it could do. This one is Ricoh’s Theta, and it produces some astonishing results (you can move the point of view around with your mouse as you watch it):

On occasion I teach media arts and one of the key aspects of that course is considering point of view in the media you create. These 360° cameras ask some challenging questions around how camera operators will present point of view in the future. At some point we’ll be telling our grand kids that we once all watched the same movie at the same time and they’ll look at us like we’re old and backwards.

Immersive video like this means the viewer tells the story by controlling their own point of view. You can watch the bike going down the road, watch me on it, watch what the other traffic is doing – it’s a different video for each person who views it.

When you upload this to youtube it’s a big file. Youtube throws up a low resolution version very quickly, but if you give it some processing time you’ll eventually get access to a full 1080p version, which offers impressive detail in all directions.

For three hundred bucks Canadian the Theta does things the more expensive GoPro can’t. It isn’t as tough as the GoPro, but forty bucks will get you a waterproof case that resolves that. If you’ve never tried 360° video, the Ricoh Theta makes for an easy introduction. I wish I had it for more than a short term loan!

It also does a good job of 360° photography:

trying the photo app on the phone with the 360° Ricog Theta.. – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

For the video above I clipped the camera to the windshield with a rubber clamp. It’s so low profile that the wind had no effect on it.

Below are some screen grabs from the video that show the native resolution of the video in the Ricoh app. In that Ricoh software you can zoom in and out of the 360° image as well as pan around it. This is as close as I’ve seen to the Bladerunner photography tool Harrison Ford uses – you can use the video or photo to actually explore the scene you’re looking at.

If you zoom right out you can see the native/fisheye view of the camera. It does an impressive job of managing the
geometry of filming in all directions simultaneously.

Stills from the garage showing off the resolution of still images on the Ricoh

You can get some pretty interesting perspectives and abstract images out of this kind of camera:

Taken at pretty much the same time as the one above. This gives you some idea of what the 360° can catch at once.

Revised Seat Geometry=Happiness

After installing a new seat cover (with some modifications), I took the Connie out for a ride. The change in geometry is a compromise, but I think it’s one I prefer. In raising the seat height I’m causing more forward lean, but I’m also easing knee flex.

The gel cushion and extra padding on the new seat cover raises the seat a couple of inches. I notice the forward lean a bit more, but the bike already has bar risers, so I’m not laying on the tank or anything. The 6° knee angle relaxing is dynamite though. I’d gladly take a bit more lean to ease the knee cramping.

The extra height above the windshield is negligible as I’m already looking over it by quite a bit. With the extra height the bike feels like it fits me better. A shorter rider would find a taller, wider seat difficult to manage, but I still have no trouble getting feet flat on the ground and riding is a much more comfortable proposition.

The seat itself is also much firmer. Instead of squishy foam I’m sitting on thicker vinyl backed by higher density form over the gel pad. The Corbin seat I was thinking about looks very low profile, so it would probably have bent my knees even more. I think I’ve made a cheaper option actually work better for me.

A ride to the Forks of the Credit on a sunny, cool Sunday tested the new setup.

Your typical weekend in the parking lot at Higher Ground in Belfountain – everything from a
1947 sidecar outfit to Ducati Monsters to the latest Yamaha R1, and everything in between

Panniers make handy coffee holders
(I used them for a bakery pick-up in Erin)

Back home, the new seat’s looking the business

What Is Learning?

What is Learning?

Thrown out casually during a teacher conference and then immediately forgotten, but it lingered with me.

I heard the initial “transmission of information” definitions around me and shook my head. Saying that learning is simply information transmission is like saying killing is a physical effort that ends a life; a very simplistic definition designed to make a complex idea manageable.

I caught a National Geographic special a few years ago in which a team studying the differences between great apes and humans made the sweeping statement that teaching and learning are the key difference between humans and apes. There is little else to distinguish us from our close cousins.

If it is so pivotal to the definition of our species, it deserves a better definition than “the transmission of knowledge.”

Learning (def’n): the enrichment of our mental facilities that ultimately gives us power over the physical world. We are able to know truth in a broader and deeper way because we can experience the world indirectly and abstract the world in order to understand it beyond our own senses. Learning allows us to preserve and enhance this discipline independent of our individual existences. We are the only species that does not have to relearn how to master our physical environment in every generation; more than that, we are able to amplify previous learning and build on it at an astonishingly proliferate rate. We are dangerous animals indeed.

This definition has a couple of challenges:

Firstly, the idea that knowledge and learning it is very powerful makes people uncomfortable. If you’re teaching and you just want to transmit information, you can simplify your practice to that simple goal. Accepting that learning and knowledge are powerful and potentially dangerous (giving the learner power over the physical world), a teacher would have to also accept some moral responsibility for imparting information, and many teachers don’t want to take that on.

Secondly, since our brains (hardware) became sophisticated enough to develop this viral learning (software), we have developed well beyond the constraints of our immediate physical environment. We have mostly deferred the costs of overcoming our immediate physical space to a macro/planetary level that we haven’t had to deal with directly yet. When I look at all the teachers who drive into my school alone in large SUVs in the morning, I get the sense that most teachers aren’t any more aware of these challenges than the general public; they are either unwilling or unable to consider a larger picture. The viral nature of our learning means the people teaching and the people learning are not learning hard truths with any real discipline. Learning how to overcome nature taught the first learners some hard truths, truths we forget when we are the billionth person to learn a hard won truth as a fact in a text book.

Calling learning the dissemination of information is a very dangerous thing indeed. This is the viral core of learning; when learning becomes knowledge transmission with no real context. The dangers appear thick and fast. Teaching becomes indoctrination and learning devolves into belief generation rather than a coherent, candid body of knowledge. Standardized learning does this in spades. Standardized tests force it, curriculum defines it, cutting knowledge into independent disciplines clouds it and grading validates it. Instead of developing a student’s body of knowledge in a coherent, interconnected, meaningful manner, the industrialized education system creates information overloaded human beings with limited (or no) understanding of what their knowledge is capable of.

This is disastrous for us as a society and a species, especially if you want human beings to live in democratic circumstances with relative economic and civic freedom. The fact that we don’t want to appreciate complexity will result in simple solutions, like simplified education, dictatorial government and poor economic choices. In those circumstances the urge to control the herds of the ignorant would become overwhelming for those in power.

Making learning easy is a disaster, it should be challenging, not pointlessly so, but contextually it has to be, ignorance is preferable to a passing on knowledge that empowers a human being beyond the confines of their natural world.

If learning devolves into knowledge transmission, we populate the world with dangerous fools.

Victory!

After a long wait the o-rings finally came in to the dealer. I then ended up getting the wrong o-rings (it turns out Kawasaki has like half a dozen different o-rings in this carburetor). Don’t expect to show detailed pictures and get any help from the parts experts either.

With the o-rings and t-fittings in I was able to put the carb back together again (again). But before doing that I checked the floats one more time (they were all good), and reset the pilot screws to factory specs. As I was doing that I noticed that the needles were moving when I flipped the carbs. A quick check of the diagram showed that the spring seat goes above the pin, not below it, which I’d done (quite embarrassing really – I was tempted not to mention it, but my mistake might prevent someone else’s in the future, so humility – and humiliation – first).

With the pins and seats the right way around I put the carbs back together yet again. Installing it is as big a pain in the ass as it ever was, with the fitting of airbox boots being a dark art.

With everything reconnected and double checked, the carburetors were ready to go. I set the petcock to prime to put a lot of fuel in the empty bowls, hit the choke and turned it over…. and it started and idled properly!

As I used to do, I eased off the idle as the bike ran higher and higher as it warmed up. After a minute I turned the choke off and it was idling at about 1800rpm. I dialed back the idle speed to 1000rpm and it was running steady.

So far so good, but the issue was applying throttle – the carbs kept flooding, backfiring rich and then killing the motor, would that happen this time? No! It’s alive, ALIVE!!!

This video below may be the most satisfying thing I’ve ever filmed.

I now have two working bikes in the garage. This has been a long and frustrating process, but I’ve gotten the rust off some long unused skills. I’m taking better organization, attention to detail and theoretical understanding with me as I move onto other mechanical projects.

http://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.ca/search?q=concours+carburetor

If it hasn’t been replaced, it’s been thoroughly gone over. One carb is complicated,
four carbs is a universe of complications!

Dream Racer

Triumph included a link to this on their email newsletter, so I gave it a whirl on Vimeo. At nearly $9 it’s an expensive (48 hour) video rental compounded by some stuttering even with fibre at home internet. Looking at the code it looks like Vimeo segments the video to prevent copying. Those segments kept stalling on transition, which is pretty frustrating, especially when you just paid a premium price to see it.

I like Charley but he wasn’t the guy to see this through

Technicalities aside, the film itself is very engaging. It isn’t just about a run at Dakar (like Charlie’s was). The man making the film, Simon Lee, is in his thirties and feels like his dreams of making a film are ebbing away under the pressures of middle aged life. The man trying to go to the Dakar, Christophe, is a former North African motor-cross champion who failed to complete the Dakar the year before. He is a skilled rider, but spends all his time in a suit and tie doing business and trying to drum up the money to get himself to the race. The expectations of middle-aged life are barriers in both men’s struggles.

When desire conquerors circumstance you get a better story

You’d expect a fully financed, technically supported, off-road experienced forty year old rider coupled with a Dakar veteran mentor and a spare rider to hand you his bike when your’s breaks to finish the race (he didn’t). You’d not expect a single thirty-something experienced racer who has to turn his own wrenches and barely managed to find a bike and get enough money to attend the race to finish (he does). What matters more, financial support or the will to succeed? This film sheds light on that question.

Along the way you get to see the Dakar without the money lenses of sponsorship. This purer Dakar hearkens back to the beginnings of the race (a good documentary to watch about this is BBC‘s Madness in the Desert). But you don’t have to suffer through poor footage from amateurs to see this raw Dakar. What you get is video shot by a guy who knows how to shoot video and edited by an expert. The whole thing is then wrapped in an original soundtrack that supports and nurtures the narrative. If you’re used to watching half-assed video of motorcycle based adventure, this isn’t that.

A teary conclusion is well earned, and stirs up deeper philosophical questions around media dilettantes & the committed racer…

When you get to the end and everyone is in tears you’d have to be a robot not to share that feeling with them, and it’s not all just about Christophe’s race either, it’s also about Simon’s journey as a documentary film maker. Both men defy expectations and pursue a dream at great personal expense (emotional, physical and financial). It’s the kind of story most of us who live in a world that doesn’t give a damn about what we dream of doing can relate to.

If you enjoy a quality, motorcycle themed film, this will do it for you. It’s well shot and brilliantly edited and musically scored. The filming is such that you get to know Simon and Christophe who are both painfully honest in front of the camera. The narrative (aided by that brilliant editing) takes you from introductions, to desperate attempts to source the money and prepare for the race and then tosses you into the Dakar without the antiseptic third person corporate perspective you usually see it from. By this point you’re emotionally invested in both men’s journey.

I recommend this film. I only wish I could have ordered the DVD for a few dollars more and been able to watch it without the interruptions and technical headaches.

When a film leverages the Dakar to raise questions around commitment to challenge through skill and determination, and does it well, you’ve got a winner.

Christophe riding injured. As long as he is conscious, he isn’t going to stop – remarkably sympathetic to his machine as well.

A naked Dakar bike, personally paid for, no corporate spin; not what the modern Dakar is about. It would be nice to see the money around the Dakar put a bit aside to ease the entry of privateers into the race – they make for better stories than the stone faced, well paid professionals.

The Desperate American Cruiser

I’ve been reading Inside Motorcycles, Canada’s Source for Motorcycle News. Their February/March 2015 issue has an article that underlines the desperation of the American cruiser.

In it they describe the Victory Gunner as over-priced, unable to corner and smooth. They then go on to say, “…the Gunner is a bruiser, built to lurk about town striking fear into all those fancy Euro and Japanese machines.“

If ‘fancy’ is code for motorcycles that can go around corners and out handle this ‘bruiser’ in every way, then I’ll go with fancy. My tiny Ninja 650r with only 37% of the Gunner’s displacement, and not even a full on sport bike will trash this ‘bruiser’ in any straight line competition, and it corners nicely too. It costs less on gas, less on insurance and looks fantastic. I’ll bet it’ll have less maintenance headaches too. So far, ‘fancy’ is looking pretty sensible.

I’m not sure what the Victory Gunner is bruising (other than its rider’s tailbone), but Inside Motorcycles has managed to clearly highlight the desperate, reaching nature of the American Cruiser in one short piece. This ‘bruiser’ is a pretty boy who is designed to make its rider feel like a dude, but not ride like one.

I welcome this ‘brusier’ appearing out of the shadows and attempting to strike fear into my ‘fancy’ (and significantly cheaper) Japanese bike. I will be sure to reserve a little pity for the mediocre guy on the ‘cool’ bike who desperately hopes it’s working for him.

Concours d’Elegance

After a couple of weeks of cleanup and repair, the Concours is back together. I’m going to take it in for a safety this week and then see about getting it on the road. I’m waiting on some replacement master cylinder covers and some clutch lever bits. They should be in mid-week. I hope to have the safety done by the end of the week.

A tough question

How do you think a student would reply to these?

You are legally required to stay in school until you’re 18 (this is law in Ontario). At the age of 18 you can choose any number of work or learning opportunities and self-direct your education/life. Prior to that, you MUST be in this building at set times following a schedule that rings bells at you. Think that age limit is a coincidence?

You are held in large groups, in passive environments where you are expected to cooperate at all times. You are identified by numbers and held in rooms that are arranged so that you must all sit facing your immediate supervisor (a franchised citizen). If you attempt to electronically communicate out of this room you are summarily punished.

At the age of 18 you are legally able to vote and become a franchised citizen, and you aren’t required to attend this state run at the lowest possible cost facility any more.

Still think there is no connection between being able to vote and being legally required to stay in school?

Think there is no connection between the class sizes and accessibility to technology because the people being served have no say in their government?

As disenfranchised people, you have no say over a system that mandates your daily activities closely. Are you citizens of a democracy, or are you underpaid, disenfranchised workers, held under tight limitations until you’re arbitrarily given the right to vote at eighteen?

If they changed the voting age to 16, or to any age where you could demonstrate a basic understanding of the voting process and basic public affairs (something many adult voters fail to do), what do you think would happen to schools?

It’s a pejorative question designed to raise some difficult questions. But ask yourself, how would education be different if the students in it were voting citizens? Having come back from the post secondary wonderland recently, I was prompted to ask myself this very question after seeing their fantastic student-teacher ratios and access to technology.