Brakelights Farkle for Maria

I had realized a few days ago how weak the "scanning" LED lights I had placed on Maria back in February 2007 were when viewed in broad daylight. Nighttime, they were fine but in daylight...not good.

Shopped around, and decided on the offering from Hyperlites. Highly recommend their product by the way, rapid shipping, good customer service and pricing is pretty good.



The unit was easy to hook up, they come pre-wired with special connectors. All you have to do is remove the connectors from your brake light, hook the ones from the hyperlites in their place, then hook up the original connectors to the hyperlite connectors. Very nice and easy. Hardest part was getting the oem connectors to come loose! : )

It comes in continuous flashing mode by default, but if you want it to just flash for 5 seconds then stay on, you just snip the green wire. That's it!

Here's a short movie of the lights with the garage door open, which fools the light sensor on the camera it seems. The lights are much brighter than they appear.




Here's another short movie of the lights with the garage door closed, low light levels, much brighter as you can see, kind of seemed to overwhelm the light sensor on the camera.



I rode it a short bit yesterday evening and today during the commute to and from work and it does seem to catch the cager's attention as they close in on you from behind. Some of them even seemed to stop further back than usual. I feel better now about being stopped at a light. Once I see the cager has come to a stop, I usually let off the brake lever to not annoy the cager. If they decide to stop really close to me, I'll just keep the brake lever engaged and let them enjoy the quite brilliant light show!

Rabid Cager in a Rush during morning commute.

Temps in high 40s for the morning commute. Sunny and no breeze to speak of.

I was riding along behind a pack of cagers, the lead vehicles in this four lane road were doing the strict speed limit of 40mph so naturally other cagers started bunching up.

I settled in to just dealing with this in front of me and just follow along. However, this female cager who had followed me out of my own neighborhood decided this was not good enough for her. She starts tailgating the cage in front of her, repeatedly having to use the brakes to keep from slamming into him.

So, having gotten nowhere with that brilliant tactic, she cuts me off and slides into my lane, luckily I saw that coming so was prepared. I think she thought it was ok because she blipped her turn signal once before pulling in front of me with perhaps ten feet to spare. I backed way off while she then proceeds to tailgate the cage that had been in front of me! This goes on for a bit, I decided to whip around her and proceed to make my way past the pack which was finally breaking apart.

In the process, I slid back in front of her, plenty of space mind you, but apparently she was not pleased as I found later on.

Still, the way she was positioned in her reckless driving, she was stuck behind several cars as I moved on ahead of the slower traffic.

As I approached the intersection of Orchard Rd and Parker Rd which is the exit out of suburbia for me. I saw that she took the right hand lane to go northbound on Parker as I stayed in the lane to go Southbound on Parker. I look over to her in her maroon mini-suv, license plate CO 509-JFE, and she flips me off! Blonde haired cager should know better than to flip off someone who lives in the same neighborhood don't you think? Stupid cager!

She's now something else to watch out for on my daily commutes. She was an irritant in an otherwise uneventful and rather nice commute. Oh well. Perhaps I'll find her again, I'll have to make sure I flip up my helmet so she can see my face as I blow her a kiss. That should piss her off. : )

Picking up a fallen motorcycle

Found this posting on a blog called Five Hundred Miles, points to to youtube.com video on the proper technique for picking up a downed motorcycle. Saw same technique on a DVD put out by the "motorman" called "Ride like a Pro".

The clip is well worth watching if you are a rider, though he uses a mid-sized motorcycle, same technique works on a goldwing-sized motorcycle in motorman's DVD. (A DVD which I highly recommend you watch with close attention, you can probably get it from your local public library, that's what I did).

Blog Posting on Five Hundred Miles

Direct link to the youtube video.

I've used the same technique both times when Maria was down. Did not remember to put the kickstand down first when she was on her right side though, luckily there was a guy to help me hold her up while I moved around to her left side to put the sidestand down. Don't forget!

New Tires are mounted @ 29,016 Miles

Low:43 High:68 Sunny with afternoon rains.

I found out the tires for Maria had just arrived a little before lunch today. I ate quickly and headed out to Bavarian Motorcycles West to have them mounted on Maria, my 2004 R1150RT.

The weather was sunny as I rode to the mechanic but you could see the storm clouds gathering to the west of the Denver Metro area. The weather held good though till well after I returned to work at 1500. It took Pete, the owner/operator/mechanic at Bavarian Motorcycles to take the old tires off, replace them and put them back on.

Pete working on removing Maria's old rear tire

The Shop, thats a 1976 R90 being dropped off by truck

Maria sans her rear tire

Bikes awaiting repairs or parts

Here's Pete's 1100RT and more bikes waiting for repairs

I watched Pete work and he made it all look very easy, he also did not seem to mind me asking questions as he went. Now that I've seen the removal of the tires done, it does not look that bad assuming one has all the tools to do the job right. I'll probably continue letting Pete handle the tire changing business though. He got it all done, done right, for just $60.

I got Maria home by 1630, no issues with the new tires and she rides as fine as ever. I probably had a couple of hundred more miles on the old tires but now I'll feel confident of the tires ability to grip if I get caught out in rain. Must take it easy with the tires for a couple of hundred miles till I wear off the protective coating they have from the factory.

The new front tire

The New Rear Tire

So, final mileage figures on the old Metzeler 880 Marathons: Rear: 12,091 miles. Front: 9579 miles. Pete tells me the average on tires is about 6000 miles, mainly on the sportier bikes so the mileage I got out of these is pretty good. He also asked me what air pressure setting I was using on the old ones, told him 42psi on both tires per what the Sturgis dealer had said. He agreed with the 42 on the rear tire but recommended I do 40 on the front, so that's what I will try on this set.

If I can continue doing the riding I've been doing the last six months, I'll probably be needing a new front tire come this fall if not before then!