Page 12 – Mechanical Sympathy

Edcamp Hamilton: Let It Flow

I attended edcamp Hamilton this past weekend. It was my first cross country trip on my newly minted motorbike license as well as a chance to meet and self direct my professional development with colleagues from beyond my own board. I got there heavily oxygenated and cold; the Starbucks on tap helped warm me up and then we were into sessions that the edcampers themselves suggested.

With over 140 people interested in education showing up on a Saturday morning just to talk shop, it was a busy, energizing affair. The first session I attended started off a bit stiff, but quickly loosened up as the bar was raised on the pedagogical reflection. Peter Skillen pitched some critical thinking on technology use in learning, and it wasn’t all the gee-wiz thinking from a few years ago. We are such chameleons in our ability to change ourselves to fit our technology. Peter asked some hard questions about how we’re making students connect to technology. Educational technology seems to have reached a stage of maturity where we can ask hard questions about it. Jane Mitchinson also brought up the idea of multi-tasking (or more accurately, rapid task switching) in terms of the information overflow students face when using digital tools. Getting information from the internet is like drinking from a fire hose you’ll get a face full, and it won’t be graceful or particularly useful. Learning how to use these tools is something we’re still not very good at. As an opening discussion it got everyone moving and for the newer edcampers it got them realizing how a single person isn’t running any of the sessions; this is a truly an open, democratic process. It can’t be directed.

An awful lot of people meeting on their own time to discuss their profession,
I wonder how many politicians do that.

I got restless in the seconds session because it seemed to belabor a point that wasn’t going anywhere. After listening to a bit of talk around how to keep your idealism in the current educational environment, I started getting quite negative, so I went for a wander to think about what was said and do one of the best things you can do at an edcamp – wander by rooms and stumble across awesome conversations.

In that session I left, Carlo Fusco said, “the education system was designed to sort people into jobs in order to fit them in to the new industrial model. Education is there to sort people.” I suspect he was being Socratic and pushing an idea so that others could question it, but my cynicism knows no bounds after the past year teaching in Ontario. Others took a stab at it before I commented that I find it impossible to remain an idealist in the current Ontario educational climate. With unions, governments and corporations playing games with education for their own benefit, I said I find it hard to believe in anyone’s best intentions.

The wandering broke up my negativity as I stumbled across wonderful, critical discussions about gamification, online learning tools and what a twenty first century student needs to know. One of the nicest things about an edcamp is that you want to be there (or you wouldn’t be). No one is holding you to one mode of learning or thinking.

Earlier edcamps I attended had very few people in upper administrative roles attending, it was a real grass roots movement of teachers, student teachers and onsite admin, the people who work with students directly every day. It was nice to see more senior administrative types at edcamp Hamilton, though their predilection for telling people how they should be thinking might get in the way of what edcamps are really about. If asking big questions settles my value theory and allows me to do my job better, then I’ll do it at an edcamp because that is where I get to direct my own professional development. Suggesting limitations on what people should be allowed to talk about in order to promote an administrative objective strikes me a missing the point. This has me thinking about educational leadership in a twenty first century context. If we’re moving toward more self directed, less hierarchical ways of directing PD, how does an education leader move people in the direction they want them to? We talk about student centered learning as an ideal to move towards. Edcamps do that for PD, but not if we’re going to start drawing lines around what people can and can’t talk about.

I ended the day with some very interrogative discussions with people I have fundamental disagreements with about recent events in the Ontario PLN community. This too was great PD because it allowed me to understand their point of view and be less reactionary to it.

The last session of the edcamp still had larger groups meeting, but many smaller groups spun off and talked about what they needed to. Ah, the freedom to not be told what to think; if only other PD had more of that.

I’ll call #EdCampHam another excellent EdCamp experience. Thanks to the EdcampHam organizers for a wonderfully immersive day of thinking about my profession.

Some other Ed-blogs on EdCampHamilton:
Karen
Michelle
Jane
Sue
Mark
Heidi
Stephen
Aviva

BYOD: yet another edtech failure

Four years ago I was advocating for BYOD.

I was a big fan of the bring your own device (BYOD) approach to educational technology. I’d hoped that it would diversify the technology we were using in class that looked like it was evolving toward a Google owned Chromebook driven internet and would allow the students who wanted to differentiate their digital access to do so. It should also have left more money free to ensure that all students have some kind of digital access, therefore addressing equity of access worries. It turns out that offering free data to students means there isn’t a lot of money left for anything and has been detrimental to teaching digital fluency.

Our school board went in early and built out wireless infrastructure and developed a BYOD network that was open to anyone entering one of our schools. In the years since this happened the number of students bringing in their own devices hasn’t changed (most do), but the type of device they bring and fill up the network with also hasn’t changed. Laptops and other more creation focused devices are a non-entity on our BYOD network – it is packed full of smartphones focused on personal use. You can make an argument for these devices as creation tools, but their function is built around consumerism and the data collection that monetizes the modern internet. The vast majority of smartphone users are consumers by design, not creators in anything other than a selfie sense.

The vast majority of those smartphones are not used for school work and are often directly opposed to it. Our administration is now trying to manage cyberbullying that is happening in class across the entire school on networks students shouldn’t even have access to. The problems caused aren’t just lack of student focus in class, these devices cause systemic problems as well.

If a smartphone is used for anything class related it is a minuscule percent of its daily use. Many of our teachers have issues with managing off task smartphone use in class. Earnest #edtech types (usually with corporate backing) tell us this is because we’re not doing it right and we should buy into their system. As someone who was doing it right before your Google/Apple/Whatever certification existed, I’m here to tell you that this is nonsense. Smartphones aren’t creative tools, they aren’t designed to be, they’re designed by data collection companies to collect data. Trying to build your classroom around a device like that is like trying to set up a roofless tent in a rainstorm to stay dry.

Our school board has made numerous attempts to focus network data use on learning, but students are willing to open themselves up to phishing and other hacks by installing policy banned VPN networks to bypass website filters. Even in our carefully moderated network environment we’ve got students sharing their data through unknown off shore servers just so they can Snapchat while in class. They do all this without a clue about what they’ve done to their data integrity.

I’m not sure at what point school boards in Ontario decided that they should be providing free internet to students, but it isn’t cheap. Our board has struggled to stay ahead of the data tsunami caused by all these vampire smartphones clamping on to our BYOD network each day. Apps that constantly update and stream data are the new normal and the current round of digital natives expect to be able to drink from the tap all the time in whatever manner they see fit. This is costing tens of thousands of dollars a month at a time when department budgets are tightening up and I’m not even given enough to cover the basic costs of consumables like wiring and electrical components in my technology classroom.

I would love to see BYOD being used for its intended purpose, but instead of valuing the network they’ve been given, students see it as an expectation, like running water or electricity. They make minimal efforts to moderate their use of it and become incensed if it’s adjusted to try and focus them on using it for school related work while in the classroom. If it was taken away at this point I think there would be much gnashing of teeth and agonized screaming by students who think that free internet access is some kind of constitutional right. In the meantime we’re all paying millions of dollars a month across the province to provide these students with bandwidth that feeds their habitual technology use and is more often a detriment to learning.

I’m as frustrated as anyone, but simply offering internet for everything doesn’t seem to be working. Once again, I come back to the lack of a digital fluency continuum of learning in Ontario. If students aren’t shown how to use technology effectively, offering them unbridled access to it isn’t going get us anywhere.

Our implicit enabling of habitual technology use makes for whole generations of digital narcissists.

It’s been five years now and Ontario still has no mandatory digital skills continuum even though digital technology is pretty much everywhere now. We expect students to learn foundational skills in other aspects that are curriculum wide (literacy, numeracy), but we magically expect them to understand and make effective use of digital technology. The BYOD failure is just another symptom of this disease.

All we have to do to do it, is do it:

I don’t care whose skills development process we use, but can we start teaching technology if we’re going to use it in everything? Digital technology is prompting systemic change in how we share information, create media and collaborate on learning. Can we start to treat it like the fundamental skill it is? Please?!?

I roughed out an idea a few years ago – in it I suggested limiting access to technology to fluency and slowly opening up that access as technical skills improved. BYOD is a great idea for digitally fluent students who know what it is and how to use it effectively.

In literacy terms this would be like slowly increasing reading difficulty as vocabulary and reading fluency improves. What we do with digital technology is nothing at all until a student brings in their own copy of War and Peace, which they then use to prop open doors and doodle in it.

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Motorcycle Social Media

Originally published on Tim’s Motorcycle Diaries in May of 2014: http://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2014/05/motorcycle-social-media.html

The online motorcycle community is a beautiful thing. I’ve been following a number of people on Tumblr and Pinterest as well as other social media platforms. I’m a visual thinker, and being able to find images of bikes on these platforms really feeds my motorcycle aesthetic. If you’re into motorcycle design and aesthetics, these are good places to find ideas:

Pinterest: a online graphic pin-up tool designed to share images. Nice because it focuses on the visual, also nice because it is predominantly female, so you get a different vibe out of it when it comes to motorbikes (less pin-up, more motorcycle as art).

Tumblr: a bit more rough and tumble but offers an immersive graphics format and a staggeringly wide range of images including some very specific sub cultures of biking. If you’re into cafe racers, Tumblr doesn’t disappoint.

Want something really specific, like motorcycle anime? Ok! Tumblr is also heavy on the animated GIF, so you get a lot of motion in your visual soup.

Facebook: Of course, you can find lots of motorcycle related material on Facebook too, I like it specifically for following motorcycle celebrities:

Think Nick Sanders is cool? You can follow him across Asia live on Facebook (he’s doing it right now).

Are you a fan of Austin Vince? He’s well connected on Facebook where you can keep up with his latest work.

Think Guy Martin is the man? His racing management team keeps you up with what he’s doing on big blue.

You can find all sorts of local companies on there too. If I’m going to get advertised to on Facebook I’d rather it be by local companies that I’m actually likely to shop at.

Facebook is also a good place to find motorcycle media updates. Why We Ride is a lovely film, but they didn’t stop there. The Facebook site is a great place to find the latest in riding inspiration.

It might sound odd, but traditional media still plays a big role in connecting me to online media. Bike Magazine connected me to Greasy Hands Preachers and Rider connected me to my favorite motorcycle author. Between traditional and new media, we’re living in a motorcycle media renaissance, I hope you’re partaking. It feeds all interests from the most general to the most mind-bogglingly specific.

KDF: Kingfisher Digital Foundry

In my day job I’m a high school computer engineering teacher. The subject is still relatively new and covers a ridiculous range of differing technologies, all lumped under ‘computer technology’ because they all have some vague connection to it. While teaching it in class can be demanding, the upside is that in the decade I’ve been working away at it I’ve become familiar with technology well beyond my background in IT. From electronics engineering to 3d modelling and 3d printing, I’ve had a front row seat to the evolution of digital technology as it rapidly expands and evolves in the 21st Century.

The other benefit of this front row seat is that I’ve gotten to work with some skilled teachers with diverse technical backgrounds. From Jeff who was working in CAD and 3d industrial design when most people didn’t have a computer to Katy the engineer who was one of the only people in our school board who could get the first generation of 3d printers dependable enough to actually use in class, I know some very technically adept adults.

Then there are my graduates, who have gone off to work in fields ranging from robotics and industrial engineering to electronics, IT and computer science; I know years of very technically advanced young adults who bring a staggering array of expertise and intelligence to the table.

On this cold and rainy March Break Tuesday in the middle of the COVID-19 epidemic, I’m wondering how we could leverage all that expertise and create a niche product that could serve a number of different markets.

I recently found myself frustrated by a lack of parts for the late ’90s Honda Fireblade I was restoring. Knowing that Katy has been using 3d printing to create prototypes in her class, including printing in flexible materials, I was wondering why no one has filled this gap as business proposition. To replace one perished airbox rubber tube I would have had to pay to get four them shipped from a place in the UK at over €100; no one in North America had one. I suspect Jeff could have made an accurate model in an hour and then Katy could have printed it in about 30 minutes. We’d then have that model on hand if it was ever ordered again and could be filling individual orders for them in thirty minutes. At $20 plus shipping for the part we’d be offering rare parts that meet specific needs for way less than the market is willing or able to at the moment. For ten bucks more we could put initials or a symbol on a printed piece to satisfy the customizers. Beyond the capital costs of getting the 3d printer needed, printing a part we had a model for is a quick and easy process and would only require maybe $5 in parts and power.

There are other angles to this besides micro-manufacturing old, out of production parts. We could also create small batch bespoke parts for companies building prototypes. By rapidly producing accurate, high tolerance parts, we’d also be creating a library of digital 3d model files that could also be part of the service. Those models could then go on be used in production.

Beyond the out-of-production parts market and assisting companies in with their prototyping needs, there is also the opportunity to pursue bespoke custom parts. Within five minutes of the first time I saw 3d printed additive manufacturing technology, I started thinking about custom motorcycle fairings. The default at the moment is to stamp out cheap copies of fairings, but it wouldn’t cost much more to digitally redesign unique 3d variants of fairings and sell those, it would just need a large format printer. Variations in ducting for people wanting to fit a turbocharger? No problem. Want to get really crazy? A dragon scale fairing for a Game of Thrones fan? This is a 3d printed fairing with scales that have depth and texture. It would take custom motorcycle design to the next level, especially with a sympathetic paint job on top.

As far as the technology needed to create our digital foundry, I’m partial to the Formlabs 3d printers because they look like something out of Terminator. They also produce very high resolution models. Their new 3L large format printer comes close to being able to make detailed, high resolution models almost up to a cubic foot in size.

The process of additive manufacturing (3d printing) is surging forward. It isn’t quite ready for the range of parts I have in mind, which would include being able to print 3d flexible parts that are fuel resistant, but this is more a chemical engineering bottleneck than anything else, and chemistry these days is rocketing ahead.

I’m hoping that just as I’m ready to retire from teaching, micro-manufacturing will have caught up and I can retire right into another profession making locally developed and manufactured bespoke components in a micro-manufacturing facility of my own, Big Hero 6 style.

Front right is a holographic desktop and keyboard – not quite there yet, but I’ve got physical hardware that does the same job now. The blue thing in the back right corner is a large format 3d printer – in the film he prints everything from carbon fibre armour to metal mechanical parts. This kind of localized production will be the norm rather than the exception in the next couple of decades. You can watch Big Hero 6 on Disney – I highly recommend it.

***

This isn’t the first time I’ve kicked around the idea of applying emerging digital technologies to mechanics and manufacturing:

https://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2016/04/on-verge-of-future.html

https://tkmotorcyclediaries.blogspot.com/2015/11/iihtm-digital-workshop.html

Yesterday I was out in the garage using a Structure Sensor to 3d model my motorcycles, there are so many things we could do digitally with mechanical engineering and manufacturing:

1997 Honda Fireblade CBR900RR

by timking17

on Sketchfab

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1971 Triumph Bonneville T120 Sensible Bodywork Bolt Replacements

I’m in the process or stripping the last bits of hardware from the frame and bodywork in order to clean up and paint the frame and bodywork on the 51 year old Bonneville project bike. The bolts holding the licence plate holder onto the rear fender were 4 different sizes with the longest ones protruding so far toward the wheel that they’d be a safety hazzard on a big bump (the tire would make contact with them on full suspension compression, especially with me on it).

I was talking to a friend online who made a career out of flying helicopters for the military and he said he’s found wrong sized hardware in controls that have actually jeopardized flight safety. One of the rhings I enjoy about motorcycle mechanics is that it feels closer to aviation than four wheel appliance repair where an error like this might cause you inconvenience as you roll to a stop on the side of the road. If you’re up in the air or out on a bike and you have a catasrophic mechanical failure, it’s a very different consequence.

Another pilot friend (the perils of being an air cadet), when we were going up for a flight in a Cessna, brought it back around and landed when the engine didn’t feel right. Everyone was impatient at the delay, but he said something that is simply true that many people don’t consider when their flight is delayed: “it’s better to be down here wishing you were up there, than being up there wishing you were down here.” It’s a shame more people who work on bikes don’t think the same way. I’ve seen even professional work that was half assed to save time/money. Incompetence like that puts a rider’s life at risk needlessly. It can end up costing you far more than you saved.

Pretty sure that last one isn’t a stock Triumph bolt. These’ll all get replaced with metric bolts because they’re easier to find, but they’ll be the right length, matching and be staineless steel.

The 14-0101 bolts used to fasten the fenders on the ’71 Bonneville are 1/4″ X 1/2″ X 28 UNF, which are a bugger to try and find a match for. The longest bolt on the bike was an inch and a half – way too long for where it was. Working with SAE/imperial sizes on this bike makes it a real pain to match hardware out of what I have on hand, but stuffing a bolt that long onto a bike where it can interfere with the wheel isn’t sensible.

SAE Wrench Size	Bolt Size (SI)	Metric Wrench Size
5/16″	1/8″	8 mm
3/8″	3/16″	10 mm
7/16″	1/4″	11 mm
1/2″	5/16″	13 mm
9/16″	3/8″	14 mm
5/8″	7/16″	16 mm
3/4″	1/2″	19 mm
13/16″	9/16″	21 mm
7/8″	9/16″	22 mm
15/16″	5/8″	24 mm

1/4″ bolts can be replaced with an 11mm metric option and finding stainless steel versions of these are easy. I can also get four matching that are the correct length for the job at hand rather than bunging whatever I have in the toolbox onto the bike. Compared to other costs in this restoration, hardware costs are trivial (for under $40CAD I can get a 900+ piece kit). When I’m dropping $600+ on a new head, spending a bit on properly sized bolts seems like a no-brainer.

Of course, body panel fasteners are a different proposition to what you put into a motor or transimssion – in those cases I’d always use stock pieces to manage the heat and pressures involved as decided by the engineers to designed the thing, but for bodywork there is a bit more latitude, you just don’t want to be a pratt about it.

While sorting the
frame I’ve cleaned
up the oil in frame
drain system.

The Amazon bolt set arrived in less than 24 hours. It is (of course) snowing today in mid-April in Canada, so moving the other bikes out of the garage to paint things isn’t likely, and I can’t paint outside if it’s snowing. You need 10°-30°C temperatures, no direcf sunlight and good ventilation. If I can get the other bikes out of the garage, open the door a foot and run the fan, I might be able to retain enough heat to do it, but Canada’s ‘spring time’ isn’t helping things along.

If had a wee outdoor shed I’d use it as a paint booth, heating it to the required temperature and then having a fan to move the overspray out. This DIY paintbooth would be a thing if I had a larger workshop, but a shed outside is a real possibility. It could provide storage, freeing up space in the garage, but with some crafty ventilation it’d also be a paintbooth. If I don’t get to painting today, I can at least finish prepping the frame and body panels and hope for warmer temperatures later in the week.

New tires and innertubes are on hand. The frame is being prepped.
I’ve still got some other body panels to clean and prep for painting.

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Voracious Reader: Canadian Motorcycle Magazines

With riding coming to an end in the Great White North I’m looking more closely at motorcycle media to sustain me through the long, dark cold. Some magazines have already made the cut and are a sure thing when it comes to subscribing.

The first one I found was Cycle Canada: a local, opinionated and well written magazine that has no interest in editorial-beige. They tend toward the no-holds barred British writing approach. I subscribe to both BIKE and Performance Bike for that approach (though PB has enough grammar problems that I sometimes find it difficult to take seriously).

Cycle Canada is a joy to read, it’s just hard to get a hold of. I tried to renew my subscription in the summer and the publishing company couldn’t get their website to work, which happens. I tried again weeks later and it still wasn’t working. Being told to phone it in doesn’t cut it in 2014 (I don’t like giving credit card info over the phone). You have to wonder what’s going to happen to a media company that can’t make basic internet functionality work in the 21st Century.

I ended up going through Roger’s Magazine subscription service in July in an attempt to get my mits on CC, it’s the end of October and I haven’t seen a magazine yet. Cycle Canada? Great magazine, but pretty hard to get your hands on.

The other Canadian magazine I’ve got a lock on is Motorcyle Mojo. I think of it as the Canadian version of Rider Magazine (the only US magazine I’m subscribed to). Excellent layouts and photography (which feel like an afterthought in CC), original travel pieces and knowledgeable editorials. The writing isn’t as edgy as CC, but Motorcycle Mojo knows what it’s talking about and presents it well. They also know how to run a website and communicate really well with their subscribers.

Two on the cusp are Inside Motorcycles and Canadian Biker Magazine. I got both as a present, but I’m not sure if I’ll keep them going. IM did an article this month on the Polaris Slingshot. Apart from sounding like an advertisement, it also kept calling the three wheeler “unique”. One of the first cars I ever rode in in England in the early 1970s was my grandmother’s three wheeler. I suspect Morgan would dispute the gee-wiz uniqueness of the Slingshot as well. You can’t be expected to know everything, but if you’re going to write on a vehicle, doing a little research would prevent you from calling the rehash of an idea that’s been around since the birth of motor vehicles, “a whole new class of vehicle.” Lazy writing like that is what’ll stop me renewing that subscription.

At the same time Canadian Biker Magazine had an editorial by Robert Smith that not only demonstrated a deep and nuanced understanding of the history of three wheelers, but also accurately and incisively deconstructed why this type of vehicle can never let you experience flying in two dimensions like a motorcycle does. This kind of knowledgeable and opinionated writing is what would keep me re-upping that subscription.

Riding an Iron Horse in The High Desert

Since missing the opportunity to ride in the desert last time I was in Arizona, I’m aiming for a day out on two wheels over this Christmas holiday. Since the adventure bike I want isn’t available, I’m looking at a pavement orientated trip. That doesn’t mean I’m suffering for choice in Arizona though.

Route 60 from Globe to Show Low has fantastic reviews and offers a winding way through the mountains. The views are so spectacular that I won’t tire of seeing them twice. You see different things riding the other way anyway. The section of sweeping switchbacks on the way down to the bridge over Salt River look fantastic…

…though I hope I can keep the bike in my lane unlike Sparky in the streetview above.

Route 60 over Salt River looks special.

Phoenix to Superior on the edge of the mountains is about an hour, then it gets even better!

From Superior, AZ into the mountains it’s beautiful riding… easily a hundred miles of sweeping curves and glorious high desert scenery. It’s only about an hour from AZRide on lightly trafficked, arrow straight roads to get to the good bits, and even there you’re in the desert surrounded by massive saguaro cactuses soaking up the heat.

Once into the mountains, the roads are interesting and the views astounding.

A nice thing about not doing a loop means that we’ll know when enough is enough and turn around. I was knocking myself out in BC to make sure the bike was back on time. It won’t be an issue on this out and back excursion.

I’m hoping to get the new Concours from AZride.com sometime between Dec 24th and the 30th for a foray into the high desert, hopefully on a weekday when the roads are quiet. It’ll handle my son and I with ease while making mince meat of those twisty mountain roads.

The latest generation of my twenty year old Concours. It looks like a rocket ship and is nuclear powered. Hope it’s available!

Motorcycle Gear as a Pre-Game Ritual

Long before I got into riding motorcycles I discovered ice hockey as a new immigrant to Canada. I played whenever I could from backyard rinks to 5am practices to driving miles for games on evenings and weekends. The smell of a hockey rink is a happy one for me, as is the process of getting ready for a game. For many years I played net, which involved putting on over 70lbs of gear each time (this was back in the day when it was made with leather and bricks rather than the fancy space-aged stuff they have now).

I enjoyed getting to a game early and made putting on the gear a pre-game ritual. It gave me meditative time to get into the zone before I had to peak-perform. Perhaps this is why, when I saw this question on Facebook, it took me by surprise:

My ride starts when I go out into the garage and start putting the kit on. This isn’t tedious, it’s a chance to echo all those hours spent in cold arenas getting ready to lay it all out there on the ice; it’s an opportunity to put on my game face. I never end up on the bike out on the road half paying attention or thinking about something else because putting on the kit is a integral part of getting ready to ride for me.

I don’t know about a different person, but I am a focused person. Here’s the MotoGP video.

Getting my gear on builds a sense of anticipation, so the idea that this might be tedious feels very foreign. How can you be bored when you’re preparing to do something awesome? Robert Heinlein gives a good description of the feeling in Starship Troopers:

I always get the shakes before a drop. I’ve had the injections, of course, and hypnotic preparation, and it stands to reason that I can’t really be afraid. The ship’s psychiatrist has checked my brain waves and asked me silly questions while I was asleep and he tells me that it isn’t fear, it isn’t anything important—it’s just like the trembling of an eager race horse in the starting gate.

Perhaps riding a bike for you is a flipflops, t-shirt and loud radio half-paying-attention kinda thing, but I take my riding a bit more seriously. Every time I’m able to get out onto a bike it’s worthy of my full attention, every time. Making sure I’ve got the right gear is an integral part of that, but so is the opportunity it provides to cultivate a strong mental riding game.

Back in 2015 we rode down to the Indy MotoGP round. Helmets are optional down that way and we went out once to pick up dinner just up the road without helmets, and it just felt wrong. The right kit means you can ride longer without getting wind or sunburned and can even make you more comfortable than free bagging it. Once you’ve got that approach, trying it the other way just feels wrong.

The gear makes the rider angle also means you don’t buy the cheapest junk you can find to check a box. I’ve spent years honing my gear so that when I put it on it fits, feels right and does what I want it to do. I started off cheap but soon found that if you spend a bit more you get the kind of quality that makes the extra outlay worth it. You can sometimes save money getting quality things second hand or on sale, but it’s false economy to get cheap gear and then expect it to work. If you get quality ventilated kit for the summer, it can keep you cool while keeping the sun and wind off you. If you get properly insulated gear for cold weather riding, you can sail for hours in temperatures approaching freezing. Good gear makes you superhuman.

Helmets are especially important. I’m partial to Roof Helmets because they’re of high quality and are an advanced, modular design that lets you change from a fully safetied full face helmet (lots of flip ups are only safetied as open-face helmets) to an open face ‘jet’ style helmet with a quick flip. They’re aerodynamic, quiet and ventilate well. I’ve tried many different lids, including a dalliance with that beaked adventure nonsense, but (for me) a helmet that lets me feel wind on my face quickly and easily (I can flip it up when passing through a town then be back to full face comfort again in seconds without stopping) was what worked. Getting into kit that feels this right and is well made is all part of the pre-ride ritual and is no hardship.

I frequently see people out on bikes that are wildly unequipped. They’re usually the cruiser-Captain Jack Sparrow types who are into riding for style rather than, um, riding. The bikes they tend to ride aren’t really into going around corners (or much else) and their riding gear follows suit. If that’s your kind of motorcycling then you’re probably not reading this anyway.

If you’re curious about sports psychology and how it might serve your bikecraft (assuming you see riding as a sport that demands practice and focus to improve your performance), there are a lot of links below on getting in the zone, peak performance and pre-game rituals. Pre-ride rituals work the same way, giving you a chance to clear away the clutter and get your head on straight.

If you watch any motor racing you’ll be aware of pre-race rituals that many riders adopt. Valentino Rossi was famous for his pre-race contortions, and those are only the visible ones! Doing this sort of thing looks eccentric, but you do what works for you in order to get yourself into a peak performance mindset. The amazing things you see athletes do don’t happen without mental preparation. Riding your bike well won’t happen without it either. Don’t get frustrated at putting your gear on, use that time to get yourself into the zone for your ride.

LINKS

Take advantage of pre-game routines:

Athletes stand a much better chance for getting in the zone when they make it a point to engage in a pre-game routine that allows them to think about the upcoming game, elevate their mood state, and lower their negative anxiety.

https://www.peaksports.com/sports-psychology-blog/how-a-pregame-routine-helps-athletes-succeed/

https://thevarsity.ca/2019/01/15/the-power-of-pregame-rituals/

Moto Specific:

https://www.motorcyclistonline.com/valentino-rossi-motogp-rituals-from-circuit-of-the-americas-austin/

https://www.motogp.com/en/news/2018/01/18/racing-together-superstition/248214

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/racing-pre-race-rituals-traditions-and-rules-2015.html

https://www.worldsbk.com/en/news/2022/Rider+rituals+how+do+WorldSBK+competitors+get+ready+for+a+race

https://www.asphaltandrubber.com/racing/motorcycle-ritual-motogp/

https://www.motosport.com/blog/motocross-superstitions-rituals-10-best

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Emissions & Where We Hide Them

Ah, the wisdom of the internet…

This article on how motorcycles might be less green than you think was shared by Zero motorcycles online. A number of people underneath the article posted responses that had little to do with the article and more to do with a general hatred of motorcycles. The loud pipe crowd seems to raised the ire of the general public quiet effectively. Thanks for that.

I’d heard about the Mythbuster motorcycle pollution test mentioned in the article previously, and had seen annoyed responses pointing out how unfair it was. I felt obliged to put something up that wasn’t just angry motorcycle ranting.

“The Mythbusters they refer to compared a 1990s family sedan to a 1990s Honda super bike. A fairer comparison would have been an 90’s Corvette vs. the Honda super bike (vehicles with similar performance and intent), but then it wouldn’t have been close. The other comparisons were equally unfair. It seemed to be the result of what they had handy, and one of the mythbusters was a sports bike guy, so that’s what they used.

If you think hybrids are the magic bullet you should look into how current battery technology is created and retired, it isn’t pretty. An accurate accounting of the e-waste from hybrid production and operation overshadows their minimal pollution output – you’re basically showing a green face to what is a very polluting industrial process. That hybrid vehicles are utterly tedious and heavy because they carry redundant power trains is yet another problem; heavy things are never efficient.

The idea that some bike owners remove pollution gear for performance is no less true for four wheelers – except when the idiot on my street straight pipes his massive Dodge pickup you can actually see the hole he’s making in the sky. Meanwhile I’ll keep getting 50+mpg out of my Triumph Tiger.”

After that I started poking around to try and get a feel for just how magically ecological electric vehicles are. It turns out lithium based batteries are nasty, both to create and to recycle:

http://www.technobuffalo.com/2012/03/30/why-hybrids-and-evs-dont-help-solve-the-energy-conundrum/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/hold-smugness-tesla-might-just-worse-environment-know/
http://transweb.sjsu.edu/project/1137.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lithium-ion-batteries-hybrid-electric-vehicle-recycling/
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/10/what-happens-to-electric-car-batteries-when-the-car-is-retired/index.htm
https://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/graphics/2015-04-28-carbon-emissions-from-electricity-generation-for-the-top-ten-producer.html
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214993714000037
http://www.mai.org.my/ver1/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1934:recycling-the-hybrid-battery-packs&catid=42:global-auto-news&Itemid=165

“A Prius battery begins life in a dirty nickel mine in Sudbury, Ontario. This mine has caused enough damage to the surrounding area to be called a “dead zone.” There is no natural life of any sort for miles around. NASA used that area to test its Moon rovers because the area resembles its craggy surface. Acid rain from the toxins of the mine killed all the plant life in the area and washed away the hillsides. All of this sounds positively wonderful, but don’t worry, it gets better. These battery components are then shipped to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. After that, they make their way to China to be turned into nickel foam of sorts. Finally, the batteries make their way to Japan to be put into the cars, which are then shipped all around the world to happy Prius buyers who are anxious to drive their new hybrid.”

“EVs that depend on coal for their electricity are actually 17 percent to 27 percent worse than diesel or gas engines. That is especially bad for the United States, because we derive close to 45 percent of our electricity from coal. In states like Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, that number is much closer to 100 percent.”

“The initial production of the vehicle and the batteries together make up something like 40 percent of the total carbon footprint of an EV – nearly double that of an equivalent gasoline-powered vehicle.”

We live in a time of compromise, but thinking that you’ve somehow solved the entire vehicular pollution thing by leaping into a hybrid or EV sourced from parts delivered by oil driven transport from all over the world and powered by whichever lowest hydro bidder your miserly government is supporting this week is a bit much. The harder choice in the short term is to live with less, which no one is willing to do (that’s probably what’s driving hybrid/battery e-vehicle evangelism – a chance to bypass that choice).

I suspect that hydrogen fuel cells driving electrical motors are where we’ll go next in personal transportation (though why that’s only happening as a college project in motorcycling is a bit vexing). Fortunately, Honda is doing something on the four wheeled front. A super light weight hydrogen celled electrical vehicle bypasses the battery production nightmare, but then we aren’t moving toward light weight, minimalist vehicles. Would you want to drive a thousand pound hydrogen vehicle next to a massive SUV? That would be as dangerous as riding a motorcycle!

While that’s happening, advancements in nuclear engineering will hopefully drive us out into the solar system. The outer planets are a virtually unlimited store of non carbon based fusion energy, we just have to get there and collect the fuel (which is rare on Earth). If we took half of what we spend on military budgets world wide each year, we’d have an unlimited source of clean energy on tap within my lifetime. Instead we just keep doing what we’ve always done, stumbling forward in ignorance driven by greed instead of driving for real global advances in sustainable energy production.

Of course, none of that matters to personal transportation if we can’t find a better way to store electricity locally. Chemical batteries are an eighteenth Century solution to a twenty-first century problem. We really need to start advancing hydrogen fuel cells, kinetic storage and other non-chemical battery technologies. A near perfect scenario would be using d-He3 fusion to produce hydrogen with no carbon footprint. The hydrogen then works as an electrical generator in a fuel cell as it fuses with oxygen producing pure water.

A truly zero emissions vehicle with an abundant and
powerful fuel supply? I’m dreaming of that future.

I have no doubt that the internal combustion engine’s days are numbered and that the future is electrical. Companies like Zero Motorcycles and even EVs like the Nissan Leaf are doing their part to improve electrical engine efficiency, but depending on globally sourced, polluting chemical battery technologies isn’t the future. One day I’ll hop on my hydrogen fuel celled Zero Tsunami (because it produces only water, get it?) and zip off down the road knowing that I’m riding a vehicle that is truly sustainable.

Arguing between gasoline power and hybrid/EVs that depend on extremely polluting chemical battery technologies and fossil fuel driven electricity generation is like arguing whether your coal fed steam powered train is less polluting than my wood burning steam powered train – neither solve the problem, and one seems more about hiding it than fixing it.

***
Originally shared by Zero Motorcycles
Are motorcycles greener than cars? They are if you ride a Zero! Interesting discussion. Your thoughts?

Arguing on the internet, I should know better…
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1105626_why-motorcycles-may-not-be-greener-than-cars-missing-emission-gear#comment-2845856393

I’m beginning to think that a few years ago a very smart MBA type walked into auto manufacturers and said the whole environmental thing can be resolved by moving the burning of fossil fuels out of sight of the general public.

The issue with climate change is that it’s obvious to consumers that they are responsible! Every time they put gas in the car they’re burning it. Simply move the carbon production out of sight and everything is good again, and you get a brave new legion of e-vehicle evangelists who will fight tooth and nail to ignore any evidence of this shift.

That your intermediate step is itself very environmentally damaging is easy to ignore. State that the batteries used in electric vehicles are very recyclable and everyone (especially your believers) will happily state that this is what is happening. Don’t demand laws that require recycling, don’t have any oversight over what happens to batteries when they’re done.

With carbon emissions and the pollution from the new systems that hide it happily out of sight, the general public can get their pride on riding around in hybrid and electric vehicles and never once see the damage they are doing first hand. Problem solved!

1971 Triumph Bonneville: More Bike Archeology from Tires, Wheel Restoration & Rear Brakes

I got the rear tire off the rim today in the ongoing ’71 Bonneville project during a late March snowstorm. It had a Lien Shin tire on it. I’m unfamiliar with that brand and I can’t find a heat pressed time stamp on it. Tires produced before the year 2000 use a 3 digit code that makes it difficult to determine which decade they were made in (first two digits are month of manufacture, last digit is the year). Tires after 2000 use a four digit code (week # of manufacture followed by a the last two digits of the year, ie: 0501 would be the fifth week of 2001). A 511 would be the 51st week (December) of a year ending in 1, ie: 1981, 1991.

While I couldn’t find a stamped date on the Lien Shin tire, there is a three digit date stamp on the Inoue front tire: 511. Based on the bike’s last sticker on the SATAN license plate (’84), this probably dates the front tire to the 51st week (December) of 1981. I was 12 when this tire was manufactured. I’m still amazed that it works at all and the inner tube holds pressure.

Taking a tire this old and stiff off was tricky, but as with the TIger tire change last year, a judicious application of heat really helps soften the rubber and makes removal easier, especially in the winter. It was -17°C outside so I put the shop heater next to the tire and let it warm up, then removing it with the irons was pretty easy.

Once I had the old rubber out of the way, I went at the rim with a wire brush and it cleaned off the surface rust well. Some SOS soap pads and then a bout with the pressure washer out in the snow storm and the rim came up nicely.

Next time I have some time and space I’ll get the front tire removed and prep that too, then it’ll be time to order some wheel hardware (bearings and brake pads). With the wheels rebuild, I’ll clean up the frame and repaint it and then it’s time to start putting the rolling chassis back together.

While I had the wheels off I took the rear brake apart. I keep being surprised by how simple this bike is. The rear brake is a mechanical mechanism, no hydraulics in sight. You press on that big brake lever (it’s big because you need the mechanical advantage for it to work) and that pulls the rod connected to a spinner on the top of the rear brake drum. The drum spins and applies the brake. When you let go, a spring on the drum spinner disengages the brake. You must get pretty good feel out of a direct mechanical system like this, and you’re not carrying any extra weight from a hydraulic system (fluid container, piston, pipes, caliper cylinders, etc), but I bet you’ve gotta have big calves to lock it up.

I’m back at work this week so it might be a few days before I take another swing at it, but it’s exciting to get to the point where the bike is enough pieces that I can see how it’ll go back together again.

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LINKS

Sports Psychology:

Getting in the Zone:

Peak Performance:

Take advantage of pre-game routines:

Moto Specific: