While waiting for the Roadcrafter suit to arrive; I decided to get my old leather coat out of storage. Purchased at the flea market in Orange County, CA sometime in the mid-nineties, I’d somehow managed never to wear it. While some may lament the 90’s shoulder-pad styling, it is hard not to like the southwestern influenced design.
Thus far it has been pretty comfortable, the leather seems sturdy, and you know… I don’t mind the smitten looks that I receive while wearing it one bit ;).
My Concours has a little rust-spot on the gas tank. The bike was recently serviced and they didn’t see any rust inside of the gas tank, so you know, I’ve got warm-fuzzies about that but I still need to do something about the rust. Here are some progressively more detailed photos of the bike and the rust-spot (click to zoom):
Talking to four different friends and co-workers, their advice is split two ways:
What would you do and why would you do that?
The MSF beginner’s riders class that I took a month or so ago required shoes that covered the ankles and I ended up buying a pair of the Brahma Hutch II lace-less steel-toe boots from Walmart. Wearing now for a about a month I’ve been really impressed; they are comfortable, broke in really easily, and slip on and off pretty quickly. Perhaps the only downside for motorcycle-riding is that the steel-toe makes for awkward shifting and breaking. For that reason I’m looking at buying some real motorcycle boots pretty soon; in particular the TCX X-Five.
All in all for only $30USD this is a really nice boot.
After a good bit of research I decided to go with a Shoei RF1100. After a few hundred miles I’ve found it to be really nice; comfortable, a lot of air goes through it, and it doesn’t squeal when you are sitting behind a windshield like a couple of reviews that I had read suggested.
Perhaps the most bothersome discovery is the ridge on the top of my head that is going to force me to purchase some extra padding or something to level out the top of the helmet so it quits giving me a headache!
One “funny” thing I found in the owner’s manual was a warning that if you purchase the Matte Black helmet then you need to be extra, extra-careful about protecting its finish. Great!
Chris Aldrich reads a lot of good books. I enjoy hearing about what he has read lately and thought that it would be nice to share his thoughts so I offered that he could post here if he was interested (or until he blogged elsewhere or whatever). He said yes. His user-name is caldrich.
See here.
Last Friday I took my first real ride on the bike. It was a lot of fun. Riding a bike with a 10k redline was also a new experience for me which made it fun. Honestly, it was sort of shocking to me, the engine seemed to have 3 moods:
I wondered where the engine should live for normal cruising, and Dale explained that where it seems happy, it is happy. Great. I can’t wait to get back out again to spend some time with my M.U.T.T. Who is M.U.T.T?
As Dan explained… the “Monster Under The Tank”!
Here is a great article on how to safely have fun in the sun by minimizing your UV exposure. Perfect for summer and a fun little project.
(via lifehacker)
My Aerostich Roadcrafter suit has been ordered!
We had the pleasure to drive up there, hang out with a nice fellow named Jeff, and then I was fitted for a custom suit while Vicky took in the hi-visibilty-green with black-patch high-contrast goodness.
By the way… GO = “Glorified Overalls” :).
Here is a photo of the 2005 Kawasaki Concours that I bought last week:
I can’t wait to get her cleaned up, my riding gear sorted out, and out on the road again.