Don't try this at home.

11:48pm on a Friday night...
36 degress in my neck of the woods...
and I just got back from a 30 mile ride on the interstate.
That's why you shouldn't try this at home...unless you have sweet-ass heated riding gear like John and I have. See below:

I've probably told most of you how John made heated riding gear for himself using an old electric blanket. I doted on it quite a bit and probably dropped more hints than my momma would consider polite. So when I mentioned it to him a couple of weeks ago, he had me a "loom" already made up. Basically, he had everything from the battery all the way through the switch to the resistance wires in the blanket. All I had to do was the monotonous task of sewing the resistance wires into the removable liner of my MotoGP jacket. And so that's what I did this week whilst I was recuperating from surgery. Nothing better than sewing with one eye swollen shut. As for more of the details, there's an 8amp fuse in-line just off the positive wire that comes off the battery. And observe some of the other kick ass features in the pic below. For example, there's the male to female audio jack "quick disconnect" feature. Basically, if you forget you're plugged in and start to walk away from the bike, you just come unplugged instead of ripping the loom out of the jacket. And also notice the craftsmanship on the on / off switch. It's encased in JB Weld. Turns out John knew JB Weld personally. They were best buds growing up. I'm just saying that's a fine job done with the JB Weld.

And so is the proof in the pudding? Indeed. I went out for a 30-mile ride, mostly all interstate, at around 11:30pm tonight. Got back around midnight. It was in the low 40's today and was spitting rain off and on. Roads were dry when I went out tonight, but it was cold as snot. I was wearing thermal long john pants (under my brown pants of course), similar long sleeve shirt, a t-shirt and the MotoGP jacket with the liner in it. Heavy gloves and a neck gator. Honestly, at 36 degrees, it wasn't toasty, but it was warm enough to counteract the bitter ass cold. There was no heat from sunshine either, mind you. So I'll typically never ride in the dark and probably never ride in 36 degree temps, and if I do I would wear my rain gear as additional wind break. That helps, by the way. But in these conditions, sustaining 70 to 80mph indicated, I was able to maintain a decently comfortable core temperature. It kept me warm enough that when the ride was done, I was feeling good enough to clean my chain in my UNHEATED garage. There's a lot to be said for that. I think if the air temps were 10 degrees warmer, say in the mid 40's and if riding in daylight, I would be quite comfortable. This is a victory in my book, and a nice addition to my bag of tricks.

Bike Contest

Hey guys. As most of you know, I don't go on the OA too very much anymore, but I do frequent the SR500 board. It's quaint there. Six hundred members, but plenty in Europe and tons of Aussies. Not an overwhelming number of daily posters, so it seems like a very small forum. Anywho, someone had the idea to do a bike contest. I wanted to participate just for the sake if having a good turnout, so I entered the ZRX in the "Non SR section" of the contest. There's voting and everything.
Here's a link to the thread with all my pics:
http://www.sr500forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=1737
Here's a link to the sub-forum with all the non-SR bikes, so you can see the competition:
http://www.sr500forum.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=51

Ralph Wayne's Backyard Nationals

Today was the 17th Annual Ralph Wayne's Backyard Nationals. It's a Kansas City event held at a local guy's house each fall. It's literally a bike show in the guy's back yard. Miraculously his neighbors have put up with this for nearly two decades. The really nice bikes get waved on up into the back yard. And then all others line the adjacent streets. It's a really cool event. I spent a few hours there today.

This year was particularly interesting because my friend Dave, who I've told you guys about before, debuted his recently completed board tracker replica bike. Dave has spent the last few years building this bike from the ground up. He literally started with drawings of the frame and then welded it up from there. The power plant is a lawn mower engine. The craftsmanship is top notch. Very cool bike. He chronicled the entire build on his dedicated blog: Board Tracker Blog

Rough and Tumble Tour 2009

Most of you know that Chuck and I had originally planned this Arkansas romp for Labor Day weekend. We postponed three weekends in a row due to rain in the Mountain View area. But we caught our break last week and made it happen….finally. Our plan was to meet up in West Mineral, KS, the home of Big Brutus, the 16-story decommissioned shovel crane. We planned to make Mountain View by Saturday night, ride the Bixby Ball Buster on Sunday and return home Monday. What follows is how it all unfolded.

I arrived at Big Brutus at 11am….right on time….only to find no Hickl. A phone check revealed the following text message from Chuck:
“Check your voicemail. ZRX is hosed.” Sent at 10:15am.
A follow up text sent 45 minutes later read: “Hang tight at Brutus. I’m continuing on.”
Chuck arrived on the smoke-billowing Rex at around 11:30am. The decision was quickly made that we would “Shit and git” – to quote Chuck. Without spending any time at Brutus, other than in the museum’s toilet, we took off for Tulsa to retrieve Optimus Prime, aka “the Fizzy.”

We arrived in Tulsa close to 2pm. We parked the ailing Rex, ate lunch at Subway, and headed off for Mountain View at 2:45pm. At this point, we both had about 300 miles of super slab underneath our belts. We were both dragging a little bit of ass, especially considering we knew we had almost another 300 miles to Mountain View ahead of us and would probably be arriving in the dark. We slabbed it over to Huntsville, where we picked up the Pig Trail. We stopped at the same Shell station there in Huntsville where we always gas up. Chuck scored some “EXTREME CHICKEN SHOOTERS” for a snack. We took hwy74 through Kingston and Ponca where we saw literally dozens of cars parked along the side of the road watching the Elk that roam that bottom land down there near the Boxley Corner. It was like the circus was in town. Through Jasper and by the time we hit Marshall – fifty miles away from Mountain View – it was already completely dark and a little bit chilly to boot. Jacket liners, neck gators and clear shields came out for that last push to our final destination. As we left Marshall, we passed a kid on a bicycle who greeted us with the middle finger. This got Chuck’s dander up so much that he later lamented that he didn’t stop to to punch the kid in the face for being so rude. And I quote: “While I punched him in the face, I would have said to his friend, ‘Tell his parents why I did this’.” (Just for Deekster, there’s a great line from “The Big Lebowski” here: “Do you see what happens Larry?! This is what happens, Larry, when you fuck a stranger in the ass!”) We arrived in Mountain View just before 9pm. We stopped at the Mexican joint in town before we even checked in at the motel. More than 12 hours on the bikes and 543 miles total for the day, but we made it in one piece and in good spirits.
BELOW: Saturday morning and Chuck is overjoyed by the breakfast menu at the Angler.

Saturday was the much-anticipated Bixby Ball Buster. I know of nothing to speak of in Bixby. It’s a dot on the map. I’ve just enjoyed the alliteration (Bixby Ball Buster) and the challenge of making it all the way up there and back in one day. It was fun heading up into “uncharted territory”, a sort of modern day Lewis and Clark on sport bikes. But in reality, we didn’t encounter any Lost City of Gold, no El Dorado of the twisties up north of the border. (I am getting lost in my own expeditionary metaphors here.) We did come across one unique, recently-paved, no painted lines, stretch of HIGH speed sweepers up in the Mark Twain National Forest. Route KK it was. We set it at about 100mph and maintained that for about 10 minutes. It was ridiculous. Another really nice road is HWY19, but it’s the stretch up near Eminence, MO. Jody, and Joe B and I have been on the lower leg of HWY19 in the past and only noted the continuous blind hills and complete LACK of corners. But there is some really nice stuff up near Eminence. We logged 412 miles on Saturday, a day that started with HYW9 and ended with HWY58. We scored pizza and a calzone for dinner at a little place there in Mountain View.

Monday morning we left for home via Yellville. Chuck’s rear tire was showing steel cords by the time we parted ways there. I was quite worried he might not make it back. But stupidity prevailed once again and he made it home safe and sound….I’m sure with sparks flying all along the way.
BELOW: I got the wonderful aroma of cedar whilst on the ferry ride.

I made it back at around 6:30pm Monday evening. All told, I racked up 1,360 miles for the three-day weekend. One hell of a bender.

Good News/Bad News

Although I'll leave the ride report to Douglas, I will fill you guys in on something that happened at the outset of the ride. As you know from a previous blog, I had purchased a set of trackday take-offs from Ocelot on the ZRXOA and had them mounted up on the ZRX with the intent of surprising Douglas by showing up riding "mean-green". Bike has been running superb since I got the coil issue addressed and was excited to be back on the Rex with a chance to get it back in the twisties! Leaving Tulsa Saturday morning it was a little cool so the bike was running even better. I got about 100 miles north of Tulsa when I pulled over to the side of the road to check my map and to my great dismay, I was soon enveloped in a choking cloud of blue (oil) smoke emanating from my tailpipe! What to do now? First instinct was to turn around and head home so as not to get caught out on the road with a disabled bike. I called the wife to let her know I was returning and also called Dick who reinforced my decision not to push the bike any further than I needed to. Called/texted Douglas to let him know my plan and headed back to Tulsa. Once back on the road, I noticed the bike wasn't really burning oil at speed and was still running great. Since I was so close to Douglas, less than 30 miles, I stopped, texted him I was on my way, turned around and continued on to Big Brutus. Met up with Douglas at Big Brutus and was pretty bummed about what was happening. Douglas was very positive about the whole situation and suggested we ride back to Tulsa, get my Fizzy and continue on our trip which is what we ended up doing. Trip turned out wonderful but I knew rear tire on my Fizzy wasn't up to the task but had little choice other than to take it given the pickle we were in.

As for the ZRX, she starts/runs fine with no obvious noises. Bike puffs blue smoke at idle and partial throttle and throttle blips. If I idle it up to 5K, the smoke eventually clears up almost completely and there is very little noticeable smoke at speed. I initially thought it might be a valve guide/seal but when decelerating using engine braking, the smoke doesn't seem to get worse as one would expect given the vacuum this maneuver is creating. I had a valve guide/seal go on my manual transmission Z-28 and whenever I would engine brake, it would pull all the oil down the valve stem and smoke like a sum-bitch. In any case, I don't plan on messing with the ZRX before the rally and will look at it over the winter. At Dick's direction I'll start by pulling plugs to see if it's isolated to one cylinder or affecting them all. Hopefully, it's just a valve job and not a ring issue although I suppose a scored cylinder might mean it's 1224 time! Maybe this is a great thing in disguise! Any thoughts appreciated and ask any questions you might have.

Yikes!

This is what my rear tire looked like after getting home! Once again, I pushed my rear tire to the limit and almost didn't make it home. Turns out the Diablo is a steel-belted tire which is probably what allowed it to last as long as it did. After getting to the motel Sunday night, it was obvious the tire was done but there were no chords showing. By the time we got to Yellville, Monday morning, things were looking grim and I was dreading every mile home from that point on. More on the trip later.

I Wanna Park Under That!

So, you take a quick look at these pics and you might crap your pants thinking that perhaps the Corobra has met its untimely demise. Never fear, she runs strong as ever.
I took these pics this morning. I was heading in to see the doctor and low and behold, right up front in an otherwise crowded parking lot, two open spaces right there next to this behemoth truck. Big surprise! My guess is people got one look at this thing and decided they wouldn't be so lucky as to get a door ding on this day, but rather would get a side window busted out instead!
My FIRST thought was: "I wanna park UNDER that." Am I the only one who thinks this way? And I got it under there a pretty good ways. If I'd had a Come-Along in the car, I might have tried to winch it up on the Corobra's back and carried the thing away...just like I carried Chuck up that hill in the back parking lot of the Swiss Holiday. Just like that big barge that sinks and then picks stuff up from underneath.

New Mexico Trip

God I love New Mexico !! Wonder why I ever left....

John McEnroe vs. Novak Djokovic U.S Open 2009

Ran across this accidentally and thought it was pretty funny. I grew up playing racket sports and followed tennis enthusiastically in my youth. The battles between Jimmy Connors and young McEnroe still stand out in my mind as some of the best tennis ever played. Although I don't follow much now, I do try and keep up with who the current players are, Djokovic being one of them. I guess he is quite the jokester and pulled this little stunt after running through an opponent in the quarterfinals at the U.S. Open. Priceless stuff!

The Butterly Effect

Just enjoying the yard and getting pics of the dogs when this little guy showed up! He looked pretty beat up but seemd to be operating normally. Took 75 pics in about 5 minutes and these are some of the better ones. Enjoy and I'll be happy to send full-res images if you e-mail me with a request.

Happy Birthday Little Buddy!

Enjoyed it my little man!

New Shoes for the ZRX

In order to attend the Fall Rally on the ZRX, I would need new tires for the ZRX. Cash is tight so I decided to give ocelot's Track Day take-offs a shot. Tires shipped 09/02/09 and arrived yesterday at 09/09/09. I didn't actually know they had been dropped on the porch until this morning when I tracked them through UPS. In any case, the tires have beat my expectations on all levels. It honestly looks like my tires have about 20 laps on the track and I got the guy who didn't even take them to the edge. I know where I will be buying my tires in the near future and would recommend them to all of you as well! Time to get the Harbor Freight tire changer figured out!

MotoCam Mount Trois

Here are a couple of quick pics of my latest camera amount on the ZRX. Tried a helmet cam and it worked really well from an anti-vibration standpoint but the constant head movement was nauseating. One can never say I don't look both ways... at least 4 times before crossing traffic! In any case, this was a quick mock-up using 16g tin, final version would be in aluminum plating on the order of 3/32" or 1/8". Let me know what you think, maybe some drawbacks I haven't thought of. Also, the helmet cam video I reference above is still on my FTP if you care to watch. Use a puke-bag and don't say I didn't warn you!

Front 3/4 shot. Using mounting points on the radiator.



Rear 3/4 shot...



Detail shot of mount...



View from cockpit. Quick glance will now show if camera is in record mode so there are no more "I'm sorry, I thought it was on" moments...




Front view. Mounting points are confirmed vertical but camera plate is missing lower velcro mount making camera appear off-axis. I have confidence final install will be vertical...



Front view detail showing missing velcro...



Detail from above. I'll make final version slightly longer to capture more of the mounting plate...

"The Fix"

There is nothing like one of my "super scrambles" to clear the cobwebs in the morning!

The ingredients. A little pit ham, fresh tomtoes, avacado, mushrooms, cilantro and cheese...



The eggs. A little MSG, salt, pepper, paprika and red pepper flakes.



Looking good!



Eureka! A little salt and pepper and fresh cilantro to top it off.

From the Hillbilly Garage....

I attached this to a thread I started years ago on the ZRXOA board. It's the pipe trick I use when installing the back wheel.

Happy Birthday!!!

To the guy who can ride circles around us all, who can fix whatever it is with what's in the toolkit under the seat, and who will ride it no matter how bad it's been crashed.
It's always fun riding with you, Joe B.
Here's to many more years to come!!!

Happy birthday, compadre!!!

Passion For Your Hobby

Was trolling the FZ1OA this evening, just looking for something fun and ran across the below video. This guy(CopperDawg) is well-known on the Fizzy board and makes custom parts for the Fizzy. Very expensive custom parts that is! Sure would have been nice to have something like this as a reference when I was first getting into modding the ZRX. The guy obviously has a passion for his bike and it really comes through in his video. Douglas, maybe you could produce something like this. Of course you might have to spruce up that hillbilly garage of yours to give your video any credibility! LOL...

She's 40!

Well, the ZRX flipped 40K on the way to work today, woohoo! I miscalculated and got caught on the freeway as it happened so close will have to do. Ironic that I achieve this milestone just as I am having a rekindling of my passion for the ZRX and it is nice to see her come this far and still be something to look at. There are a lot of things I like about the Fizzy, it's razor sharp handling being at the very top of the list but I just feel more "right" on the ZRX. We'll see what happens with the Fizzy but I'm fairly confident now that I could never get rid of the ZRX. Thanks to all of you for your support as I went through this time of crisis and thanks to those of you who whispered words of wisdom to me as I was contemplating the unthinkable!

Radiator Fan Woes. RTFM

Thanks for everyone’s input on my radiator fan woes. Jody saved the day and sent me his stocker. I got it in the mail on Friday. I got off work at 8pm that night and got started in the garage at around 10:30pm. I hooked up both fans and listened to each within minutes of each other and it was clear that mine had a high pitched whine to it that Jody’s fan lacked. Hard to pick up on in the video, but easier to hear in person.

The wrenching part of it was pretty much just changing out parts. As Joe likes to say, this part could have been done with the ZRX tool kit on the side of the road. The tricky part was the coolant. I called John and Chuck ahead of time and asked them about the specifics of refilling the bike with coolant after having the radiator off. I wanted it to be simple. I didn’t want to have to mess with bleeder valves and pressure testers.

So we’re off to the races. I started off by adding the coolant mixture. When it filled up to the filler neck, I started the bike and ran it and waited for the level to go down. Instead of going down, it gradually rose and then went down……..down onto the floor of my garage. I repeated this process about three times and knew I wasn’t doing something right. So into the house I went and re-read the repair manual about how to use the bleeder bolts and valves. Back out to the garage…now confident with Kawasaki knowledge. I started the bike and cracked the bleeder bolt on the water pump. A very audible hissing ensues and within seconds coolant mixture emerges. Tighten the bolt and done. I did the same with the bleeder valve on the thermostat housing. By this point, the water level had gone way down and I was able to add at least one more cup of coolant….maybe two. Also very noticeable now was that the water was swirling in the filler neck and not just sitting still with the occasional bubble. Clearly the water was now actually circulating. How cool….pardon the pun. Buttoning it up was text book.

Lesson? RTFM. Read the Fuggin’ Manual.

Man Day at the Dynos - ZRX Edition

I won't bother repeating the Dyno Day setup as it is all in the previous Fizzy dyno post. Needless to say, I had no preconceived notions as to what I expected out of the Fizzy for horsepower and the 150hp pull was a nice surprise. As for the ZRX, well that is a whole different story. You guys have listened to me complain about my ZRX over the last year and given that I pulled the numbers I did on the ZRX, I feel the majority of my issues probably revolved around the coil wire that was working during the same time frame. Although I had fixed the coil wire issue on the ZRX and confirmed it ran, I only took it around the block and never ran it hard before getting the Fizzy and putting the ZRX into hibernation. I can't help but think my ZRX was not running as it should have been for months prior to me finding/fixing the coil wire issue and that reinforced some of the negative feelings I had for the bike based on the pitted Muzzy cams and my "imaginary" pinging issues. In any case, you can see from my post documenting my return to the ZRX World, the bike is running stronger than ever and I am extremely pleased with it!

Back on topic, the first pull on the ZRX showed 142hp with an A/F above 15. Bike was so lean it was shooting flames out the exhaust which you can see in the video and really popping on decel. Driveability on the street was good but I was definitely running too lean. As dyno runs were only $20, Dick and Brett suggested we rejet the bike to see what kind of difference we could make going from 135 to 138 mains. Brett ran me to the house in his truck, we picked up all the tools needed and rejetted in the parking lot. I paid for another run and the dyno operator was confused as to why I wanted to run it again. I explained we had rejetted the bike and wanted to see where A/F was at. He seemed duly impressed! Second pull netted a solid 147hp with A/F still being well above 14. At Dick's suggestion, I will come out on the air screw 1/4 turn next time I have the carbs off but I think going up any more on the mains will kill my driveability and mileage. Also, a little lean in Tulsa would only fatten up as I gained altitude in Arkansas so all in all, I think I'd prefer to be a little on the lean side. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on the subject.

Maybe it was just my imagination but the bike seemed peppier on the way home and I am looking forward to getting it out where I can really "wick it up"! Looking at the power curve of the second dyno run, I think it explains pretty clearly why we all love the ZRX so much. Overlay that power curve over the Fizzy power curve and there isn't even a question as to which bike would be more "fun" to ride. All in all we had a great time and I feel I got my money's worth for the $60 I spent. It was nice to spend the day with my friends and a bunch of motorcycle guys standing around watching dyno runs like they were a burlesque show. There were some pretty sick bikes out there with one guy trailering his drag bikes from Fayetteville to take advantage of the dyno. Enjoy the videos and pics!














Fizzy on the dyno...


ZRX on the dyno...


How to rejet a ZRX in 7 mins...


Always willing to help...


Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of doing
some things on my own...


Lots of friendly folks around...


Sonny Crockett stopped by...