I got replacement rubber bits for the now fifteen year old Triumph Tiger 955i in before Christmas, but the weather has been so diabolically cold that even with a propane heater in the garage, the floor is still radiating negative thirty degrees and working in there is a misery. We finally had a break in temperature this weekend so I got a chance to fit new rubber on the Tiger…
It’s only -1°C out there, so it’s garage door open time!
My targeted bits were the rubber covers on the mirror stalks, which aren’t that important but you see a lot of them while you’re riding and they bothered me. The shift leaver rubber has been held together with Gorilla Tape for the better part of a year (that’s some tough tape) and one of the rubber bits that go between the seat and the frame had disappeared, so I was aiming to replace that too so the seat would sit evenly and there would be no metal on metal rubbing.
The shift leaver was a simple thing. I cut off the tape and the old rubber which was half torn. With the new rubber warmed up and some WD40, the new bit slid on fairly easily. The mirror arm rubbers were equally straight forward. The mirror is on a threaded end. Undoing that and the nut under it that holds it tight meant I could slide the mirror rubbers off. The old ones were cracked in multiple places and barely hanging on. I cleaned up the threads and metal under which was a bit rusty, put some rust paint on there to make sure none comes back and slid the new rubber covers on. Another quick fix.
The problems arose when I tried to fit the seat rubbers. I suspect the dealer sent me the wrong bits. The rubbers that sit between the adjustable seat height bracket under the seat and the frame are circular with a flexible back that holds them to the frame. What I got were some pieces of rubber with sticky backing that aren’t even the same thickness as the circular rubber grommets.
I’d shrug it off but at $3.30 plus tax and shipping for each of these sticky rubber bits, I’m out fifteen odd bucks in parts that seem to have nothing to do with what I was trying to fix. I did send photos of the parts required and I thought we were clear on what was needed. Rather than flush more money on parts I didn’t ask for, I found a rubber grommet that was a bit too big and cut it down to fit the hole. It’s a snug fit and compresses to about the same thickness as the other grommets. I might eventually get four matching rubber grommets just to make things even down there, but for now the seat isn’t uneven and the frame isn’t metal rubbing on metal.
The winter maintenance on the Triumph has been pretty straightforward this year. Last year I did the fork oil, spark plugs, air filter and coolant and upgraded the dodgy plastic fuel line connectors, so this year the only maintenance was my usual end of season oil change. I run the bike on the Triumph suggested Mobil1 10w40 motorcycle specific oil and I change it once at the end of the season.
The perished rubbers thing was as much an aesthetic choice as it was a performance fix. Little details like rubber pieces on an older bike bring it back into focus. Regularly watching Car SOS buying full sets of rubbers for older cars they are restoring probably intensified the urge.
Since I purchased the Tiger almost two years ago I’ve done all the fluids and changed the tires which produced a much more road capable bike (the old ones were well past due). I’ve also replaced the chain, but other than these rubber bits and the fuel fittings last winter I haven’t replaced anything that wasn’t a regular service item. The old Tiger has been a trustworthy steed.
I’m usually able to steal a ride toward the end of winter as the sunlight returns and we get the odd warm day with dry roads. With any luck I’m only a few weeks away from stealing another one. The Tiger’s ready for it.
The in-law’s cottage happens to be about 20 kms away from the bottom of the 507. I like the 507. It twists and turns through the Canadian Shield offering you bend after bend without the usual tedium of Southern Ontario roads. I lost myself riding down it the other day. Last week I was pondering how fear can creep in to your riding in extreme circumstances, like trying to ride through a GTA rush hour commute. This week I’m struggling with how the Canada Moto-Guide and Cycle Canada are portraying deaths on the 507, which is evidently a magnet for sportbike riders who have confused public roads with private race tracks. On the motorcyclists spectrum I tend toward the sportier end of things. I’ve owned Ninjas, sports-tourers, adventure and off-road bikes. The only thing that chased me away from sportbikes early in my riding career were the insane insurance rates and the fact that any modern motorcycle is already light years beyond most sports cars in terms of performance. My old Tiger goes 0-60 in under four seconds, or about as fast as many current top-end muscle and sports cars. To spend thousands more on insurance for a bike designed for a race-track just doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially when you factor in the condition of Ontario roads.
If you missed the British MotoGP race at Silverstone last
weekend, do yourself a favour and look it up. From start
to finish it was spectacular.
Having said that, I’ve been a diehard MotoGP fan for the past six years. Watching riders develop and express their genius at the pinnacle of motorcycle racing is not only glorious to watch, but it has taught me a lot about riding dynamics, and I think it has improved my bike-craft. I totally get speed. Riding a bike always feels like a bit of a tight-rope walk, and being able to do it quickly and smoothly is a skill-set I highly value. Like so many things in motorcycling, balance seems to be key. Last week, among the idiotic commuters of the GTA, a frustrating number of whom were texting in their laps and half paying attention, I was unable to manage that danger and it led to a great deal of anxiety. Rather than give in to that fear or throw a blanket of bravado over it, I looked right at it and found a way to overcome it. Honesty with yourself is vital if you’re actually interested in mastering your bikecraft. I came to the conclusion that you need to approach two wheels with a touch of swagger and arrogance when that fear rises up. This is done to moderate fear and give you back some rational control, especially when circumstances conspire against you. The problem with swagger and arrogance… and fear for that matter, is that it’s easy to go too far, and so many people seem to. Emotionality seems to dictate so many aspects of motorcycling culture. From the arrogance of the ding-dongs in shorts and flip flops who tend to the extremes of the motorcycling spectrum (cruisers and sportbikes), to the ex-motorcyclists and haters who can only speak from fear, it’s these extremes who seem to speak for the sport. I struggle with those emotionally driven extremes, but recently CMG seems intent on writing odes to them.
The CMG editorial news-letter this week makes much of not knowing why this rider died: “He knew the dangers, and he admitted to going fast,” says his partner, Lisa Downer. “He knew when, where, how – it was just one of those things. A lot of people think the way the curve was, there was a car (approaching him) that was just a little too far over the line and David had to compensate. By the time that car went around the bend, they wouldn’t even have known that David went off, because the sightline’s gone. Or it could have been an animal, or a bit of gravel. You just don’t know.”
There were no skid marks on the road. Like so many of our lost, no one will ever know why. Our lost? Here’s a video by that same rider from the year before:
“…the helmet cam shows his speedometer. “A decent pace on the 507 in central Ontario, Canada,” he wrote in the description. “Typical Ontario roads, bumpy, keeping me in check.” His average speed on the near-deserted road was above 160 km/h, more than double the speed limit, and at one point it shows an indicated 199, where the digital display tops out. At such speeds on a public road, there’s little room for error.” – little room for error?
With that on the internet, one wonders how he had his license the following year. You can come at this from ‘it might have been an animal, or a car, or gravel’, but I think I’m going to come at it from here:
“David was an experienced rider who’d got back into motorcycling just three years ago; he was 52, but had put bikes on hold since his 30s when he went out west…”
That’ll be over 170 kms/hr on rough pavement around blind corners next to a massive provincial park full of large mammals…
An ‘experienced rider’ who had been riding for three years, after a twenty year gap? And his first bike in twenty years was a World Super-bike winning Honda super sport? Whatever he was riding in the mid-eighties and early nineties certainly wasn’t anything like that RC51. What his actual riding experience was is in question here, but rather than assign any responsibility to an inexperienced rider, we are speculating about animals, cars and gravel?
I generally disagree with the speed kills angle that law enforcement likes to push. If that were the case all our astronauts would be dead. So would everyone who has ever ridden the Isle of Man TT. Speed doesn’t kill, but how you manage it is vital. There is a time and a place. If you’re intent on riding so beyond the realm of common sense on a public road, then I think you should take the next step and sort yourself out for track days, and then find an opportunity to race. In Ontario you have all sorts of options from Racer5’s track day training to the Vintage Road Racing Association, where you can ride it hard and put it away wet in a place where you’re not putting people’s children playing in their front yard in mortal peril. If you’ve actually got some talent, you could find yourself considering CSBK. Surely there is a moral imperative involved in how and where you choose to ride? Surely we are ultimately responsible for our riding?
Strangely, Mark’s article, The Quick and the Dead, from 2017 has a much clearer idea of time and place when it comes to riding at these kinds of speeds. In this most recent news-letter we’re at “it would be easy to dismiss David Rusk as just another speed freak, killed by his own excess“. In 2017 he was quite reasonably stating: “If you’re going to speed, don’t ride faster than you can see and dress properly. And if you’re going to speed, do it on a track“. I guess the new blameless recklessness sells better?
There is a romantic fatalism implicit in how both CMG and Cycle Canada have framed these deaths that willfully ignores much of what caused this misery in the first place. Motorcycling is a dangerous activity. Doing it recklessly is neither brave, nor noble. Trying to dress it up in sainthood, or imaging blame when the cause if repeatedly slapping you in the face is neither productive nor beneficial to our sport. Up both ends of the motorcycling spectrum are riders who are all about the swagger. For those dick swingers this kind of it’s-never-your-fault writing is like going to church. I get it. Writing for your audience is the key to enlarging it.
Last Sunday I did a few hundred kilometres picking up bodies of water for the Water is Life GT rally, with the 507 being the final run south to the cottage. The roads weren’t exceptionally busy and I was able to fall into a rhythm on the 507 that reminded me of what a great road it is. As it unfolds in front of you, you can’t guess where it’s going to go next. Surrounded by the trees, rocks and lakes of the Shield, it’s a gloriously Canadian landscape.
I’m not dawdling when I ride. I prefer to not have traffic creeping up on me, I’m usually the one doing the passing (easy on a bike). The big Tiger fits me and the long suspension can handle the rough pavement, but I’m never over riding the limits of the bike where gravel on the road, an animal or other drivers dictate how my ride is going to end. The agility and size of a bike offer me opportunities that driving a car doesn’t, but it doesn’t mean I open the taps just because I can. Balance is key.
There are times when a rider (or any road user) can be in the wrong place at the wrong time and no amount of skill will save you. For the riders (and anyone) who perishes like that, I have nothing but sympathy. They are the ones we should be reserving sainthood for. Not doing the things that you love, like being out in the wind on a bike, because of that possibility will neuter your quality of life. That doesn’t mean you have a free pass to be reckless though. Do dangerous things as well as you’re able.
I’m well aware of the dangers of riding, but I’m not going to throw a blanket of arrogance over them, and I’m certainly not going to describe recklessness as a virtue while hiding in delusions of blame. Doing a dangerous thing well has been a repeated theme on TMD, as has media’s portrayal of riding. Having our own media trying to dress up poor decision making as victimization isn’t flattering to motorcycling. If you can’t be honest about your responsibilities when riding perhaps it’s time to hang up your boots. If you don’t, reality might do it for you.
Toronto is sinking man and I don’t want to swim. While the GTA slowly sank into Lake Ontario under record breaking rains, I was discovering the visceral thrill of storm surfing on two wheels…
Riding home tonight into a wall of black. Yesterday I dodged the storms, today I’m not so lucky. If it starts to spit I’ll pull over and put my rain jacket on and cover the tail bag. It starts to spit. I pull over. I get the rain jacket out and throw it on the ground and cover the tail bag with the rain cover. As I’m getting the jacket on I look up and a wall of water is moving toward me. I get the jacket on quick and get back on the bike. I’m back up to speed when I hit the wall. The rain is so heavy the guy in front of me in a pickup is hydroplaning everywhere. It’s so black I can only see cars by headlights. The bike is a bit skittish but surprisingly sure footed, then the gusts begin. I get to highway 24 and there is a lightning strike so bright it’s blinding, followed by an almost immediate thunder roll. The gusts are so hard I’m leaning into them to stay on the bike, visibility is almost zero. If there is a tornado I’ve decided to hang on to the bike – together we weigh almost 650 pounds, that’s got to be better than going solo. Being out in a violent thunder storm is an entirely different thing from watching one hit your windscreen. I hang on for a couple of kilometers and everyone starts to pick up speed as the sky starts to clear. The road begins to show patches of tarmac through the water. I ride the last 15 kms home soaked to the skin but elated! That scared the shit out of me! It was great!
The other day I did a ride that isn’t typical of my time on two wheels – I aimed for the middle of a city, during rush hour. The siren call for this insanity was strong. The Toronto Motorcycle Film Festival was having a best-of showing at the beautifully restored Playhouse Theatre in Hamilton.
From TMD you’ll know I’m a big fan of motorcycle media and the TMFF’s push to encourage Canadian films is something I’d like to both support and participate in. Riding down to Hamilton on a beautiful summer’s day was the perfect entry point and has me thinking of ways to get to their main show in Toronto in early October. I’m secretly hoping I can find a project that needs a drone pilot aerial camera operator and likes weird camera angles.
But first, the peril. Driving in rush hour isn’t like driving at other times. The people doing it are miserable, embroiled in the last part of their forced servitude for the day, the part where they get to spend a sizable portion of their time and income in a vehicle that has become an expensive appliance whose only function is to move them to and from the job it demands. The aimless frustration and misery oozes out of them at every turn, sometimes expressing itself in sudden bursts of anger and aggression before settling back into a miasmic death stare of indifference.
So that was making me anxious. Looking at Google Maps red roads of the GTA at rush hour on a warm, sunny day wasn’t thrilling either. Sitting in traffic on a motorcycle in moribund no-filtering Ontario sucks. It sucks on the fumes of the massive SUVs all around you, their contents breathing filtered, air conditioned air while you choke on their output. Edging toward a green light inches at a time on hot tarmac surrounded by this excess and misery is about as much fun as a deep periodontal cleaning, without the benefits, and with the destruction of nature as the result of this pointlessness.
I haven’t had much time on the bike this summer. My wife’s surprise cancer diagnosis and surgery has meant other priorities take hold. Finally back from weeks in a car, I was facing my first long ride in over two months, and it wasn’t for the ride, it was for the destination. Alanna wanted to ride pillion down, though she’s still recovering. I was worried about her, feeling very over protective and also dealing with my son’s anxiety in us going after being away at camp for the first time this summer (don’t worry, we’re coming back!).
That’s a lot of emotional luggage to take on a ride. Even leaving our subdivision I was second guessing traffic and riding awkwardly, and getting frustrated with myself for it. I’m usually loose and light on the controls. I’m usually not stuck in a conscious state while riding and I’m usually smooth and fluid as a result. We worked our way down to the dreaded Hanlon bypass in Guelph (which isn’t because it’s covered in traffic lights) and sat in row after row of the damned things every few hundred metres. I was constantly placing us on the road where I could squirt out of the way of someone not paying attention. We passed two collisions, rear enders caused by the epidemic around us. Sitting up high on the bike has its disadvantages, like seeing down into the vehicles around us and watching over half of the drivers working their phones on their laps. I guess that’s the new normal in a 2019 commute.
Down by Stone Road the guy behind us didn’t stop (he has a nice iPhoneX on his lap), but I squirted out onto the shoulder and took the next exit where we worked down country side roads instead, but not before being choked to death by a diesel black smoke belching dump truck that jumped out right in front of us causing me to brake so hard we bumped into each other. I finally got past him after riding in his bleching, black haze for several kilometres, but by this point I was fried, and we’d only ridden through Guelph, the small city before the big one.
I was going to pull off at the lovely old church in Kirkwall and have a stretch and get my head on straight, but the F150 dualie behind me was about six inches off my rear tire even though I was going 20 over the limit and I was afraid to hit the brake, so pressed on. He blew past us coming out of Kirkwall only to pull up behind the car 150 metres ahead of us and stay there until he eventually pulled off some time later. You gotta make time on your commute I guess.
Doubt isn’t something that creeps into my riding, but it was starting to here. The lack of control and extremely defensive mindset was exhausting me. Alanna was suffering hot flashes on the back mainly due to Guelph’s atrocious traffic and lights and was feeling wobbly, and I was starting to question everything I was doing. We are coming home Max. This isn’t going to end badly!
We were both on the lookout for a place to stop when the Rockton Berry Farm appeared as if an oasis in the desert. I pulled in and we both pulled our sweaty, tense bodies off the Tiger. Alanna went in and found some sustenance and I did some yoga. After stretching and some Gatorade and trail mix I felt human again. Talking to Alanna I mentioned how I was battling some demons on this ride and reminded myself that the best kind of rider is the Zen rider. Matt Crawford describes motorcycling as a beautiful war, but this one was more like a pitched battle. It’s amazing what a stop can do for your mental state though.
After a fifteen minute break we saddled up again ready to face the horror of Hamilton’s rush hour, but something had changed. Instead of holding on too tight, I was letting go. My riding was more fluid, we flowed with the chaos and when we got down to the mean streets of downtown Hamilton, they were a delight. Unlike Guelph, who seem determined to stop you at every intersection, Hamilton actually times its lights so you can cut through the heart of the city with barely a stop. Past the beautiful old houses and industrial buildings we flew, down to the up and coming area where that beautifully restored Playhouse Theatre sat.
As we pulled into the parking lot that was already filling with all manner of motorcycles, I thought over that ride down. I’d actually suggested that maybe we should take the car, but that would have sucked just as much and had no sense of adventure and accomplishment in it, though it would have been easier and safer – the motto of modern day life.
If you’re in a situation where you’re riding and finding it overwhelming, take a break and give yourself a chance to get your head back on straight. You’d be amazed what a ten minute stretch and reset can do for your mindset, and that mindset is your greatest tool when riding. In spite of her cancer recovery, Alanna had pushed to ride because she wanted us to ‘immerse ourselves in that biking culture’ in going to this event. Standing in the parking lot chatting with other riders, we were doing just that.
I’ll cover the film night in another post, but the ride down was a reflective opportunity I couldn’t pass up. In Bull Durham, Crash Davis talks about how you go about the difficult job of being a professional athlete. You’ve gotta have swagger, even when things are going against you, and that’s equally true in motorbiking. After this ride, I can see why many people who otherwise enjoyed it gave it up. That fear, once it worms its way inside you, will talk you out of risk no matter what the reward.
Of course, the point isn’t to not feel fear, but to feel it and work through it anyway. That’s bravery. Not feeling fear at all is psychosis. Baz Luhrman has a good take on this with his motto: a life lived in fear is a life lived. Letting fear dictate your life is no way to live. We are already dead when we always play safe and stop taking risks.
What made it especially challenging this time was that I couldn’t moderate many of those risks by riding away from the faceless hordes of commuters. Spending a day with them in their pointless battle to destroy the planet was exhausting and terrifying, no wonder they box themselves up in the largest container they can.
The motorcycle films shown by the TMFF were great and completely new to me (and I’m a guy with Austin Vince’s entire DVD collection – I know moto-films). One of my favourite parts of this kind of documentary film making is showing what is possible, and I was briming over with it when we left. I couldn’t have been in a better mood to ride.
We exited into the dark for the long ride home. It was cool and the streets were flowing and half empty as we worked our way back to the highway and shot up into the dark of the Niagara Escarpment. Even the guy driving 10 under the limit who suddenly stood on the brakes for no reason (he had evidently received an exciting text message – he was two handing a response as we passed him on the inside lane of Highway 6) didn’t phase me. I was back on my game, staring into the dark out of my third eye. When that eye gazes into the abyss, the abyss is the one that gets nervous.
We got all the way up to Guelph, sane now that traffic had died down and all the sad people were in their row houses waiting for tomorrow to do it again. If we’re so smart, you’d have to think we could find a better way.
Shakespeare Arms by the university we met at over twenty years ago provided us with a late night dinner before we pressed on home, passing a skunk (the Canadian night is filled with them) galloping across the road into the graveyard ahead of us. The last light (of course) caught us, then we were away into the night, the Milky Way glittering above us and the night smells all around. We were home seemingly seconds later, our creaking, cold joints groaning as we finally seperated ourselves from our trusty Tiger.
***
We rode right into south central Hamilton at rush hour and out after 9pm, about 12 kilometres of dense, urban riding with more traffic lights than I could count, but we got stopped at three of them both coming and going. I commented to Alanna about how Hamilton has its shit together in a way that Guelph seems oblivious to.
Passing back through Guelph past 10pm at night and covering about a kilometre less in a city with less than a quarter the population, we got stopped at nine traffic lights. On our way south earlier in the day during rush hour, Guelph was a traffic light bonanza (even on the ‘bypass’) getting stopped at no less than six lights before we could escape the madness. Guelph should rename itself the city of lights, just not in a Parisian sense.
Perhaps the moral of this story is really just don’t go anywhere near Guelph if you can help it. It’s time they started urban planning like the city they have quickly grown into. It’d make the chaos that much less overwhelming (not to mention, ya know, stopping the iminent demise of the human race). There’s this thing called IoT and smart cities? Guelph should look into it – I’d be happy to help.
I’m enjoying my current Kawi garage a great deal. Fixing up the Concours and riding the Ninja is a good time, but I suppose we’re all rooted in the aesthetics of our youth. As a child growing up in rural England watching the height of the British motorcycle industry roll by in the early nineteen seventies, I tend to return to that look and the associated nostalgia.
A cool, foggy morning greets me as I put on my helmet and stare into a fog shrouded rising sun. The Tiger starts with a willing snarl, burbling in its strange triple way, eager for the off.
Condensation immediately coats my visor as we leap down the road into the morning’s ground clouds. The roads are dry but beads of condensation constantly reappear to be wiped away by a quick hand.
A cold, morning ride is a glorious thing.
Full of oxygen and surrounded by the smells of the world waking up to the first touch of the sun, I’m just another empty thing being filled. Cold wind presses around and my heat bleeds away making me even more a part of the scenery.
It’s all especially sharp because I know that this can’t last for long. Soon enough the roads will be covered in ice and salt and I’ll be trapped in a shiny metal box, trundling to work, removed from the world, wrapped in metal and glass.
I pass through empty countryside soaking up the rising sun and wiping away the never ending dew.
The camera struggles to capture this moment hidden as it is in the clouds. Moisture streams from the lens as the camera tries to blink away its tears, but even blurry images of this ride resonate.
Don’t fight the lack of clarity, embrace it, let it be.
I’m dripping with morning mist when I slowly dismount with icy joints at work, but my eyes have filled me with delights. I leave the Tiger steaming in the glorious, golden haze and walk inside.
Frosts in the morning. It was -3°C when the Kawasaki first coughed to life. There is no bad weather, only bad clothes. With big gloves and a lined leather jacket, the five mile ride to work is still quite doable. I might get off the bike with cold fingers, but there is still no better way to commute in the morning. Soon enough the snows will come and salt will make the roads a caged misery. In the meantime…
THE GOAL: a taste of motogp on a road trip with minimal freeway miles and a five day timeline. TARGET: Friday, August 07: practice day
Practice day runs from 9am to 3:50pm
PRACTICE August 7, 2015 PRICE: $20.00
FRIDAY PADDOCK PASS Not good for gate admission. Good for August 7, 2015. Limited to one (1) per Reserved Seat. PRICE: $125.00 MOTORCYCLE TRACK LAP
Motorcycles Only. One Lap. Controlled Speed. Limited to one (1) per Reserved Seat.
PRICE: $40.00
But the Paddock Pass or track lap don’t seem to be available if you only buy Friday tickets. I’ll have to dig in further.
In any case, twenty bucks US to get into Friday’s practice is pretty accessible, and we might be able to find our way into paddock passes once we’re there.
Other events (bike shows and many other satellite events going on in Indianapolis that weekend):
This isn’t that hard to arrange – practice and qualifying are super cheap if cost is an issue, and the whole thing happens over the weekend, minimizing time off work. If you’re in Southern Ontario it’s a straight shot down to Indy to see a legend like Valentino Rossi fight for a championship in his 36th year (!) You should go.
I’m stealing a lot of extra scenes in a November that doesn’t usually encourage riding up here in the frozen north…
Last year the bike was hibernating by the end of October. This year we’re getting a run of warm weather that has me still out on two wheels more than halfway through November. We’re supposed to get snow accumulation this weekend, which means sand and salt on the roads. When that happens I’ll hang up my helmet. I’d end up spending as much time cleaning the bike as I did riding it once the salt goes down.
This season started in mid-March once the roads were dry and the salt and sand cleaned off by a couple of rains. The snow as still thick on the shoulders though. This late finish to the year means only about four months of down time before I can get out there again. Today I’m down to Guelph for periodontal work. I figured I’d be stuck in a car, but it’s a dozen degrees and partially sunny out there! One last ride then! In the meantime, we’ve been commuting on two wheels every change we get…
My targeted bits were the rubber covers on the mirror stalks, which aren’t that important but you see a lot of them while you’re riding and they bothered me. The shift leaver rubber has been held together with Gorilla Tape for the better part of a year (that’s some tough tape) and one of the rubber bits that go between the seat and the frame had disappeared, so I was aiming to replace that too so the seat would sit evenly and there would be no metal on metal rubbing.
The problems arose when I tried to fit the seat rubbers. I suspect the dealer sent me the wrong bits. The rubbers that sit between the adjustable seat height bracket under the seat and the frame are circular with a flexible back that holds them to the frame. What I got were some pieces of rubber with sticky backing that aren’t even the same thickness as the circular rubber grommets.
I’d shrug it off but at $3.30 plus tax and shipping for each of these sticky rubber bits, I’m out fifteen odd bucks in parts that seem to have nothing to do with what I was trying to fix. I did send photos of the parts required and I thought we were clear on what was needed. Rather than flush more money on parts I didn’t ask for, I found a rubber grommet that was a bit too big and cut it down to fit the hole. It’s a snug fit and compresses to about the same thickness as the other grommets. I might eventually get four matching rubber grommets just to make things even down there, but for now the seat isn’t uneven and the frame isn’t metal rubbing on metal.
