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2018 Thoughts from The Road: I Just Don’t Get It

I’m in the middle of a cross Canada drive (alas, no bike).  It looks something like this:

Over the past couple of weeks on the road I’ve come across some strange choices that people make that I just don’t get.


On the Trans Canada towards Sault Ste Marie early in the trip we came across a CanAM Spyder towing a trailer.  This five wheeled conveyance (which was holding up traffic) manages to combine awkwardness, discomfort and a lack of efficiency all in one baffling package.


I’m a big fan of biking, but there comes a point where, if you’re unable to leave your shit behind and travel light, a bike isn’t what you should be taking.  Any convertible on the market probably gets equivalent or better mileage, carries more and takes you further in more comfort.  With two front wheels it’s not like you’re missing leaning into any corners anyway, which is why so many of us hang it out there in the first place.


It looks like Spyders get low thirty miles per gallon on average.  Towing a trailer probably knocks that well down into the twenties, similar to a Mustang Convertible!


If you wanted to be more efficient, a Miata gets far better mileage than the Sypder, and the roof goes up, and it carries more.  Amazingly they are pretty much priced the same (not counting the trailer which you wouldn’t need anyway).  You wouldn’t be holding up traffic in a convertible either, or having to wear all the gear…

There comes a time when riding a motorcycle doesn’t make sense.  It’s when you’re riding an awkward three wheeler with a trailer attached with half a mile of traffic behind you.



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Dream Apps

Over the last couple of days I’ve been wishing for a couple of Apps…

Idea #1:

Don’t you wish you were a fly on the wall?

FLY ON THE WALL:  an app that lets you share live video from webcams at a conference you couldn’t attend in person.  You get a flavour of a conference by following the twitter feed, and you can even interact with it, but you miss the moment to moment ideas, and you’re ultimately limited to what other people consider important.

Fly on the wall creates a live stream that people can watch, similar to the Edupunk spreecast we did the other day.  This doesn’t need to be a huge bandwidth deal, and multiple streams from the same location can be upvoted if they are better situated.  If people wanted to see the conference through the eyes of a friend, then their choice to stay with them would keep the feed active.  People could even offer voice overs or supporting commentary as part of their feeds.

The benefits to conferences would be obvious, they could even tier attendance and offer a discount rate through an official fly on the wall feed to conference presentations.  Virtual presence in conferences would become a regular part of the process.

Anyone want to have a go at this with me?

Idea #2:

I’m the sun!

Gravity: a web3.0 app that shows me as the centre of the system and social networking comments in orbits that are closer if they are more important to me.

Tweets that mention me are closer than general tweets, tweets that refer to demonstrated interests orbit in closer.  Over time this app would get a sense of what my interests are and float in ‘interest comets’, making suggestions on items that should suit me.  Facebook, twitter, Linkedin and Google+ (as well as other social networks) would be synced though Gravity to push objects of interest into your orbit.

A well trained Gravity system would feed you the must see and keep out the flotsam of your social networking feeds.

Idea #3:

Deep Reader: A web app that blocks distractions while you adopt a deep, meditative reading pose with online material.  The interwebs are a distraction engine.  Trying to read online is a difficult process with constant interruptions.  Deep Reader holds off the onslaught while giving you the time and mental space to really grok an author’s thoughts as you used to on paper.

The problem with deep reading isn’t reading a screen, as any Kindle or Nook will show you, it’s trying to read while being in a medium that encourages a shallow surfing of information.

Deep Reader gives you a space to read as you are meant to.

I’d love to see those three.  Got any more you’d love to see?

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Light Cycles & Super Models

I had a beautiful ride home last week in a late June evening.  With the sun backlighting

the western horizon and dusk upon me, I had to stop and take a few pictures of the Ninja at night…


There is something magical about riding at night, the way the light bends with you around corners,
the night smells, the cooling air and long shadows…



… an anime looking bike on a cool June evening.  Whoever did the racing scenes in Akira has ridden motorbikes at night:


Sunday at sunset I was cleaning the bugs off the Ninja…


What a pretty machine, I guess I’m still in love after a year…


… and then Google auto-awesomed this up for me:

That’s almost pornographic!

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A Long Ride Home

Last week I was in Edmonton at the Skills Canada National Competition.  We were there for IT & Networking, but they have everything from metal work and carpentry to 3d modelling and fashion on hand.  One of the competitions I was drawn back to again and again was motive power where competitors were working on everything from outboard motors to a variety of motorbikes.

 They had Kawasaki KX450s up on a block as well as some lovely Yamaha MT09s.  Both Yamaha and Kawasaki were sponsors at Skills Canada – which kinda makes you wonder where that Canadian manufacturer CanAm went, but then judging by the long faces of Team Quebec throughout the competition, perhaps they too find the idea of participating in a Canadian event to be bothersome.  How every other province and territory, many of them strongly represented by Canadians from all over the world as well as a strong contingent of aboriginal tradespeople, could be so positive about Skills Canada while Team Quebec looked like they were at the dentist the whole time was both baffling and frustrating.

 Competitors in the motive power competition were diagnosing faults and doing maintenance under the watchful eyes of multiple judges.  This (of course) got me daydreaming of alternate ways of getting back to Ontario after the competition that didn’t involve air travel.  Though I can’t complain as I got bumped up to bulkhead behind first class and spent the entire flight back with Sherry Holmes.

 We wrapped up Skills Canada on Wednesday, June 6th just after lunch in Edmonton.  From there it’s just over thirty-three hundred kilometres home.

The MT09 isn’t exactly designed for long distance trips, but if I could manage doing three tanks of gas (the MT does about 190kms/to a tank) a day I’d be averaging close to 600kms daily.  That means a six day blitz across most of North America and around the Great Lakes to get home on eighteen tanks of fuel.


The only thing I’d need for the bike is a tail bag for essentials and then I’d be off.  It’s Canada in June, so the clothing options would have to be pretty dynamic as I’d be likely to see everything from 40°C heat to possible snow.  As it happens, Aerostich is just over half way back in Deluth, Minnesota, and they have a Roadcrafter suit that happens to match the MT09’s funky paint scheme pretty well.  It would only take a slight modification to the trip to pass through there.  If I’m looking for something that’ll get me through the madness that is Canadian weather, the Roadcrafter’s the thing.  The trick would be to get across The Prairies without freezing or overheating before enjoying the final fifteen hundred kilometres in and around The Great Lakes in a made to fit super-suit.  It’d make for a formidable before and after comparison.

Edmonton was packed with motorcycle shops.  We saw everything from Indian/KTM to Ducati and the usual Hawg shops.  There is a lot of disposable income in Edmonton.  The MT09’s grey with high-vis paintwork is right on trend with a lot of Japanese helmets at the moment.  I’d have a fine choice of matching Shoei or Arai lids to choose from.

Funny how just seeing a bike after days spent on planes and buses gets me dreaming about riding again, even if it’s a six day slog over a quick three hour flight.  I suspect that most motorcyclists have this perverse nature about them.

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Dirt or Adventure?

I was out in the woods this past Canadian Thanksgiving and couldn’t help but look at the mad logging roads we’d travelled down and wonder what they’d be like on two wheels.  I’m also considering a starter off-road bike for my son, so having something I could ride along with him would be awesome.

I’ve actually ridden into the cottage on the Ninja.  It was surprisingly surefooted on the winding gravel lanes, but with a capable dual purpose bike I could head off the roads and onto the trails and not be terrified about dropping it.

I’d initially focused on the KLR650 as a dual sport, off road capable two wheeler, but if off-roading is going to be a major part of what this bike is purchased for then weight is a key factor.  The Suzuki DRZ-400S is over 100lbs lighter while offering a better power to weight ratio.  It’s a smaller machine and $500 more expensive, though I don’t find smaller necessarily worse since I’m an Austin Vince fan.  With no fairing whatsoever it’ll be all wind while riding whereas the larger KLR would cover road speeds better, though no fairings means less broken plastic when it’s dropped.  Both machines have off-road sized tall seats and feel well sized for me.  After seeing a DRZ last summer I was surprised at how much presence it had, it’s a mighty fine looking machine.

Both are single cylinder, simple machines, but you get the sense that the Suzuki has been updated more often whereas the KLR proudly wears its 20 year old tech on its sleeve.  The DRZ also dresses as a supermoto street bike and has a plethora of go-faster kit.  KLR extras seem to revolve around repairing basic engineering issues with this old design.

I guess a choice between the two would come down to what the bike would be used for.  If covering distances in more of an adventure bike way is the goal, the KLR is a first step into that world.  If I’m looking for an off-road machine that’ll carry you to those places, then the DRZ seems a better choice.

Two very different approaches to riding off the pavement.


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Do bikers ignore reality?

I recently saw this on the Science Channel’s Through The Wormhole with Morgan Freeman.  I really enjoy the show, but I’ve gotta call you on this one Morgan.


Let’s look at some of the statistics given:

For the UK:  motorcycles make up less than 1% of motor vehicles on the road but they are 14% of total deaths/serious injuries. 

Considering that bikers have no cage around them to mitigate their own poor driving habits I’m surprised that they are only 14% of serious accidents.  There is no doubt that if in an accident bikers are more likely to be injured; bikes don’t have fender benders.  

Riding well demands a level of defensive awareness foreign to most drivers.  A good rider is attentive to the threats around them and deeply engaged in the operation of their vehicle beyond what most people are capable of.  The only time I came close to that level of intensity driving was in a shifter cart in Japan and during track training at Shannonville.  Day to day driving is a simple, safer operation by comparison, but does that mean it’s better?

A motorbike rider doesn’t get on a bike to test fate or ignore statistics, bikers know how dangerous what they are doing is.  There is a difference between doing something that is bad for you (smoking, etc) and developing a complex skill in a challenging environment.  Like other athletes or sportsmen, the motorcyclist is developing their craft in an unforgiving environment.  To say that they are ignoring the reality of statistics is reduction to the point of absurdity.  Not to mention that statistics themselves aren’t reality, but a vague mathematical representation of it.  If there is a reality it isn’t to be found in a human abstraction.

Is biking more dangerous?  No doubt, but this reality episode is choosing to selectively chose their realities.  Chasing all motorcyclists onto four wheels because it’s safer isn’t really safer.  Why don’t they take into account how dangerous it is to drive a massive SUV that is actively destroying the ecosystem we live in with its atrocious waste of resources?  Or mention the political and financial instability caused by big oil and OPEC?  If there were less people driving around in three ton tanks there would be fewer severe accidents.  You can do a lot more damage in a 5000 lb vehicle doing eighty miles per hour than you could ever do on a bike.  The reductive reality given in the show seems designed to cater to mediocrity.

If we want to be really Malthusian about it, making sure everyone survives every accident no matter how many they cause might appeal to SUV drivers, but for the rest of us keeping them alive to do it again (and again) is a disaster.  

Biking demands competence and punishes you harshly for not having it.  If you want mediocrity go drive a car, if you want incompetence go drive as big a vehicle as you can find.  You can hit as many things as you want and if you have enough money, you can burn a hole in the world while doing it in a massive SUV that pretty much guarantees your safety.

US stats: motorcyclists are 37x more likely to die in a crash

This is an exceptionally worthless statistic, of course you’re more likely to die in an accident if you’re on a bike.  If you were in a motor vehicle collision would you rather be on a motorcycle or in a Smartcar, a Hummer or a Sherman tank?  That tank would offer you the greatest level of protection if you were in an accident, but would be cripplingly wasteful.

Once again, there are other degrees of damage being done in the complex activity of human beings burning fossil fuels to transport themselves.  This past summer I did about four thousand kilometers on the bike.  I didn’t die, I didn’t come close to having an accident and I did it all at about 60mpg.  That’s a reality I’m not ignoring.

Why do people continue to take this risk?

If reality is what we think it is I want mine to reward competence and punish incompetence.  

I don’t believe that longevity is the point of human existence, I believe that we should all seek to improve ourselves by any means available, even and especially if that means putting ourselves at risk in order to do so.

I think we should strive to improve ourselves through the activities that we pursue and that should involve putting some aspect of yourself on the line in order to make the feedback meaningful.  Learning that matters can only be gained through sacrifice and risk.

I’m not ignoring reality when I get on a bike, I’m facing it in a way that most cage drivers never will.
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Is Always On Exhausting or Exhilarating?

In a recent conversation with a techno-phobic (or at least reticent) colleague she was bemoaning the constant state of connectedness that modern technology forces upon people.  I’ve heard this complaint from a lot of people who struggle to remain unplugged.

The conversation:

she: I choose to remain present and not in a state of constant inattention!

me:  It’s more of a oneness with the datasphere, you’re never alone, a living cell in a massive organism… a heightened state of awareness, the world is all around you, information conducted by you…

she:  Wow…sounds almost like Zen Buddhism. Ohm.

One of the reasons this onlineness isn’t work for me is because it’s cathartic.  I never feel like I’m doing work, it feels more like self expression.  I’m the one who directs it, it’s empowering.

What I find exhausting is sitting in traffic, fascism , traffic lights, current Canadian politics, indoctrination and standing in lines.  If I had to do that 24/7, I’d go mental, yet millions of people accommodate  these things as the necessities of daily life.  When I’m online I’m orchestrating my interests, communicating with people I enjoy and feeding my mind.  How would I ever get tired of that?

And as for information overload…. well… 

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Zazzle Madness

Beware the Zazzle, it’s addictive!  After I started monkeying around with t-shirt designs I couldn’t stop.

I wanted to make a ‘cars suck’ shirt similar to the one I saw at the IndyGP.  After a few attempts I had a nice design that said what the shirt at Indy said, but in a different way:

After doing one I had another go, this time using one of the photos I took at the Moto3 practice at Indy:


Then, of course, the Mechanical Sympathy tshirt was inevitable:


Now I’ve got a Zazzle store!

I may not be able to stop.
http://www.zazzle.ca/mechanicalsympathy*




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Weights and Measures

I’m always mindful of how heavy a motorcycle is, but there is a lot of static in the way. Between the splits Canadians do between the metric and imperial systems and the games played by motorcycle manufacturers, I’m often left second guessing what I think I know.

I’ve owned everything from feather weight KLX250s (278lbs/126kgs) to light weight Ninja 650s (393lbs/178kgs), heavy weights like the Concours (‎671lbs/305kgs) and middle weights like my current Tiger (474lbs/215kgs), but even those statistics are suspect because manufacturer’s will share a dry weight (no fluids) if it’s a bike that is bragging on its lightness and a wet weight (ready to ride with fuel) if it doesn’t matter so much or the bike has a tiny tank and lousy range.  There is no consistency at all in this other than the marketing angles being played.  I have no idea if those numbers published on the bikes I’ve owned above are even equivalent.  Are they wet weight?  Dry weight?  Something else?
 
To try and get my head on straight I’ve gone looking for some stats, and found montesa_vr‘s work on ADVrider.com (great site!  Check out their epic ride reports if you like to get lost in a long distance adventure).  
 
I took that exhaustive list of street legal dual sports and dumped them into a spreadsheet, sorting them by comma separated values.  Then I added in some handy metric/imperial connections and stats on weight of a tank of fuel, so you can see them all in one place.one gallon of gasoline weighs 6.2 lbs.
One litre is equal to 0.264172 gallons (US liquid).
So, 1 litre = 1.6378664 lbs.
1lb = 0.453592 kgs
1 litre of gasoline = 0.7429237021194 kgs
Here’s the spreadsheet:


 
It ain’t heavy, it’s my Tiger. It’s obviously lighter than
the Concours I rode before it, but much heavier than
the Ninja before that. I just wish the stats were
consistent and comparable. 

The Tiger 955i is listed as a 215kg dry weight.  With a full tank of gasoline it’s loaded up with almost 18kgs of fuel, putting it at about 233kg, yet it’s listed as a 257kg wet weight.  So, that must be 18kgs of fuel and 24kgs of oil and coolant?  That seems like an awful lot of oil and coolant (and brake fluid? and what, fork oil?  How asinine does dry weight get?).  At 566lbs, my old Tiger would be 7th in the current crop of heavy weight adventure bikes.  I don’t think it’s exceptionally heavy for what it is, but it’s hard to tell with the smoke and mirrors.

Dry weight is virtually meaningless, I’m astonished that it’s even given as a statistic.  When would you ever need to know what a bike weighs without any fluids in it?  I couldn’t run, so it’s an academic statistic verging on pointless.  I also get montesa_vr’s point that bikes shouldn’t be punished on weight comparisons for being able to carry a reasonable amount of fuel.  Putting a peanut sized tank on a bike so you can brag about the weight seems disingenuous.

At least a wet weight comparison offers up a bike that is actually operational.  A wet weight with an empty tank seems like the obvious standard if you don’t want to punish long distance capable machines, but no one seems to do it.

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