For future farkle: A Fuse Block for Gretl

So after talking to this guy at work, decided to invest on a good fuse block to use for hooking up electronic accessories on the motorcycle. It's from Painless Electronics and I gotta tell ya, it's truly painless. While not incompetent in such matters, I am no wiz at hooking up electronic gear and this farkle was very easy to install and get running.

Took me longer to figure out where I would mount the unit than it did to figure out how to hook it up and connected. Every wire is labeled to prevent error and now the only thing hooked directly to the battery now is the fuse block. Each circuit (3 always hot, 4 ignition hot) are protected by 20 amp fuses and the whole thing is protected by a 30amp relay. Its all weather-resistant, where the wires go into the fuse block its sealed, there's a cover over the fuses...I am sure my riding in rain will not affect this puppy.

I recommend this unit to anyone needing extra power circuits in their motorcycle or car for accessories!

I bought it from summitracing.com, click here for a link to the item. I am in no way connected to these guys except as a very satisfied customer. Here's their description of the item:



The safe way to add electrical accessories is with Painless Performance Cirkit Boss kits, the first circuit isolators that provide both constant and ignition hot circuits. Instead of tapping into an existing wire or spare circuit at the fuse block, Cirkit Boss kits are add-on, relay-activated fuse blocks, activated by a small wire from any ignition source. Cirkit Boss kits protect bulbs, accessories, and computers from the harmful spikes that may occur in a poorly connected power supply. All Cirkit Boss units are made using TXL cross link polyurethane wire rated to 275 degrees F at 600V, and they include a 30 amp inline circuit breaker, a relay, mounting hardware, and an assortment of terminals. Circuits are individually fused for up to 20 amp applications and use a heavy duty 30 amp relay. All wires are machine-terminated for reliability.

Rainy start, sunny ending....colorado riding

They've a saying here in Colorado, if you don't like the weather, wait a few and it'll change. That's sometimes quite true specially in any season but summer. Summer, it's just hot and sunny most of the time. Today though, I got rained on quite heavily about 5 mins into ride to rendezvous with Sanoke. Luckily I had started of with all my rain gear on and my "herman the german" army boots. Stayed quite dry and comfortable.

I had my summer gloves on at the start and my hands started getting cold fast. There's no such thing as warm rain here in CO so that was no surprise. Got to the rendezvous point, put on some latex gloves and my Olympia leather gloves and my hands were nice and warm again as the rain tapered off.

Once I met up with Sanoke, the rain had pretty much ended and we started riding the county roads towards Kiowa, ended up taking a coffee break in the small city of Elizabeth and then Sanoke showed me a back way into the Denver Tech Center which was quite nice. Not to mention also the backway to Parker Rd and Lincoln Avenue which dumped me in the middle of Parker. Nice.

It was a short ride today as we both had commitments this afternoon. I tested the Vista Cruise control on Gretl and it worked perfectly, the highway pegs once again allowed me to stretch out my legs on the long straightaways, and my riding gear kept me dry and warm. Good tests all around. Sanoke gave me some tips on installing the heated grips I intend to buy soon, made it sound pretty simple overall.

Another farkle for Gretl - Vista Cruise Control

Got it in the mail today and installed it when I got home. It's an inexpensive (ok, cheap) mechanical clamping device you attach to the throttle grip on the motorcycle, when engaged it's supposed to hold the present position of the throttle allowing one to take your right hand of the throttle grip and relax it a bit on the longer rides.

I must say my right hand has cramped quite a bit a times on the longer rides and I've looked for ways to get a few seconds off the throttle to shake out my right hand and restore some blood flow. This farkle should allow me to do that and still allow me to maintain speed and not have to hope for a stoplight or make a stop.

I get to try it out tomorrow as I get to go our riding with Sanoke to try out my engine guard mounted highway pegs on some long highway stretches in the general direction of Limon. Having the Vista Cruise Control is a bonus. Took me a bit to figure out how it installed, most of that time was spent trimming the rubber filling piece so that it'd fit with my grip.

Note for those of you thinking of buying one and installing it using the pic above as a guide: It's wrong! The black ring with the small allen-headed screws goes to the right of the silver band with the locking lever attached! I think they just put it on some motorcycle for the pic on the merchant's website.

And yes, I did have to move my brake fluid reservoir over a bit for the clamp to fit. No big deal, just something to keep in mind.

Rush hour on the Dam Road = no fun.

Today I had to work later than usual and hit the Cherry Creek Dam Road after 5PM and during full rush hour. It's a long dam with a road on top that one must use to get past the water reservoir that stands between where I work and where I live. Traffic was crawling along and I did not get out of walking speed until 3/4 of the way atop the dam. What a pain it was.

I got to practice my slow speed riding during this time but even going as slowly as possible, still kept catching up to the car in front of me and having to put the feet down momentarily.

All the while, the skies above kept getting darker and angry clouds continued to build and move closer to me.

The weather also played havoc with FM radio reception so I didn't even have quality sound/tunes as I crawled along with everyone else!

Whatever caused the slow logjam on Dam road cleared finally and I scooted off it and onto the rest of my commute with no further issues. I even managed to make it to the house about 10 minutes before a huge rain hit the house!