Otherwise Occupied - Motorcycling

"No citation or arrest was made."

gregh — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 23:10:40 -0600

Collision with minivan kills motorcyclist:

A 45-year-old Boulder City man was killed just after 9 p.m. Tuesday when the motorcycle he was driving collided with a minivan on American Pacific Drive, just west of Gibson Road, Henderson police said.

The man was identified as Glen Earl McIntosh by the Clark County coroner's office.

As long as it's motorcyclists being killed when their rights of way are violated, it's apparently okay as far as the law is concerned. The story's the same, time and time again. This time, it was a friend of mine. And it makes me mad.

Glen McIntosh, "Gleno" to those of us on BMWSportTouring.com, will be missed. His gruff exterior tended to hide his heart of gold, in large part because he did so many of his good deeds behind the scenes. An auto mechanic by trade, it was always my impression he loved letting people underestimate him. He was sharp as a tack, and challenging him in a game of wisecracking or playful insults was a task that could only lead to failure.

"Hey, Haverkamp! When are you gonna get a haircut?"

Those are the words of Gleno's that are stuck in my head. I'd just arrived in Torrey, Utah, and this was my first greeting. Sure, my hair was fast approaching my shoulders and I hadn't shaved in months. Gleno's voice was the welcoming voice. A booming, dominating voice, that could just as easily carry humor or disgust or words of great concern.

When I had mechanical problems at Death Valley in January 2006, many people rallied to help, but Gleno was one of the first. He offered to ride home, grab his truck and trailer, return to Vegas to drop my bike at a dealer, and then come back. That would have put an end to his weekend gathering, but he was ready to help. And he meant it.

Lots of people are going to miss Glen McIntosh. I'm one of them.

Various shots of Gleno in his elements.

"Leaning, as you would on a two-wheel motorcycle..."

gregh — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 16:15:33 -0500

While procrastinating on the whole Advocate of the Year brief today, I came across this story in the New York Times. I found the following quote both humorous and troubling:

Turning the Ural requires actually pulling and pushing on the handlebars; leaning, as you would on a two-wheel motorcycle, produces nothing but a hernia with a full sidecar.

Why troubling? Because even on a "two-wheel motorcycle," you typically turn by pulling and/or pulling on the bars. It's part of the process of counter-steering, and it's what initiates a lean. Yes, as part of a turn on a standard motorcycle you lean during a turn, but you won't turn well expecting to initiate a turn in that way. And sure, you might be able to get a motorcycle to start a turn by leaning, but it only works effectively at lower speeds, and it becomes nearly impossible at higher speeds. See, for instance, Keith Code's No B.S. Machine.

What's more, when he mentions that Urals have a reverse gear, he includes that Honda Gold Wings and "BMW K1200" models do, too. Well, sort of. The BMW K1200LT does. The old K1200RS and K1200GT didn't. And the new K1200S, K1200R, and K1200GT don't. There is no "K1200" in BMW's motorcycle lineup.

I don't know who this Jerry Garrett of the New York Times is, or what his background with motorcycles is. He's written a number of articles about motorcycles, but he mostly writes about cars. That, perhaps, is a topic he's better off sticking to.

Tahoe

gregh — Sun, 21 May 2006 02:27:19 -0500

Coming up on the last minute, I decided to scrap my Torrey, UT, plans. I still needed a front tire (or felt I did) and didn't quite have everything in order at home and work to take off on such a long trip, which would also require some decompression at the end.

And so, I decided to see what Harrahs would give me in Tahoe, and the answer was a free room, which was fine. I got there, proceeded to lose what I would have paid for the room in short order, and then got checked in. An upgrade to a suite. Cool. For one night? Maybe a little silly.

However, I'll have to say, if they want to bump me to a suite in the future for my more extended stays, that would be just fine. It had a nice-sized refrigerator in the bar area just inside the room. That's right, one corner taken up by a bar, surrounded by stools. The typical for Tahoe dual bathrooms, which has always seemed a little crazy when I'm there by myself. The bathroom I didn't use this trip could be closed off an isolated by the separate bedroom. Finally, there was a big, comfy couch and a full-sized table with four chairs. TV's, of course, were in both the living room and the bedroom (not the mention the TV's in each bathroom... but those are there in the standard rooms.)

In any case, what they gave me in living space this weekend they took from me in gambling losses.

It was nice to get away, even if only for a bit. The scooter worked flawlessly, though there's something up with the front end I've to work out. I got around 50 MPG on the highway, versus my 40 MPG commuting. Had some jerk in a Passat who apparently only knew where her accelerator was in the passing lanes. Suffering from a bit of road rage, I did take advantage of her lacking driving skills at the end of one of the passing zones. It was pointless, because we were about to hit the 4-lane portion anyway, but it made me feel better. She also, curiously, dropped back. I'm sure it's because I look like such a tough guy on the scooter.

I picked up a new jacket in anticipation of the Torrey trip. My first everyday leather (I bought some track leathers when I did the Code school a while back), I've been quite pleased with it. It handled the variations in weather conditions on this trip nicely. I was concerned I was going to get rained on on the return, but, fortunately that didn't happen. I had failed to pack any of my rain gear.

The Burgman's back on the road.

gregh — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 22:04:11 -0500

It's been just over three months since The Incident, but yesterday I fixed the remaining problem and rode the scooter in to school. This morning, I rode down to Woodside for the bmwsporttouring.com Tech Daze.

It feels good to be back riding again.

Abulsme.com: Mail Problems

gregh — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 12:24:53 -0600

Abulsme.com:

Just so yall know, I (and Brandy and Amy) are having the same mail problems as Rebecca.

For what it's worth, I'm not having any email problems.

Not that I get many. But between Rebecca's post and this one, I guess at least one possible reason why I didn't hear back from Rebecca about where I might find her had I driven to Tahoe this weekend. The weather there and back would have been beautiful (can't help but wonder if Chris's Tahoe skiing experience was once again befallen by good -- bad for skiing -- weather.) I was going to take the Triumph (Sprint ST) up, to exercise it a bit before I sell it. When I heard nothing, I just decided I'd not go roam the casinos of Stateline, NV.

How many licks does it take...

gregh — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 01:05:42 -0600

To get to the center of a Burgman 650 final drive?

Let's say you're running way behind getting on the road, knowing you have 600 miles to your destination. You know a chunk of the ride is in the middle of the Nevada desert. Once you check the state of the Sierras, you don't worry beyond that about weather...

But, you also know you're overdue for fluid changes, and you're getting ready to run at high speeds across Nevada. So, you decide to change your fluids. On the Burgman 650, just like my Beemers, that means engine, transmission, and final drive.

The engine oil change is straightforward. Dump the engine oil, fill engine oil to the "Full" like on the sight glass.

The transmission oil change is weird. Dump the oil from the drain plug under the transmission. Replace the drain plug. Remove the level plug. Pour oil into the fill hole until is starts coming out the level hole. Seal up the level hole and the fill hole.

The final drive has a drain hole and a fill hole, both flush on the side. Drain from the drain hole, replace drain hole and fill until oil starts coming out of the fill hole. Seal fill hole.

Fluids changed, I took off. Things were great. On the highway, the Burgman gets around 50 MPG. I was making really good time without going too fast. I filled up Fallon, heading south down US 95 and was around 50 miles short of Hawthorne when the bike started jerking, the speedometer went to 0, the FI (fuel injection computer) light went on, and the display started reporting an error. When that happens, the transmission goes into fail-safe mode.

I was 311 miles from home. 250 miles or so from my destination, Amargosa Valley, NV. I stopped on the side of the road and went into the back for my cell phone, figuring I would call down to the destination, because I knew there were trailers there. No cell phone. But at least I brought my charger.

When the transmission goes into fail-safe mode, the Continuously Variable Transmission stops varying. Instead, it picks two ratios, low and high. The high gear seems to cap at 65 to 70 MPH at redline. That's how I limped in the next 250 miles. The Burgman drinks lots of gas at redline.

The next morning, I pulled out the service manual, and started looking over the speedometer sensor troubleshooting, as I figured that was the most likely error. Among other things, the speedometer went to 0, and the cover for the final drive, which I had off for the oil change, goes right on top of the sensor cable.

After a great deal of work, I got the speedometer sensor out of the final drive, only to find a horrible, molten mess. I retired to my room, figuring I needed to find a way home. If one was ever unsure how great the folks from bmwsporttouring.com are (though I've known for a long time) you just need to have something go wrong. Within an hour, the scooter had a ride home, an offer to get it to Vegas, an offer to work on it in Vegas, and various options to get me out of Amargosa Valley. The picture in this post is with it tied down in the back of Killer's pickup. Bob hadn't really intended to come to the Bay Area right now, but decided to come anyway.

Next, I got together with Bob, Jamie, and Leslie, and we were going to go over and visit a wildlife refuge nearby. As I started going over the process I described above, I gave Jamie the variant as I did it. Rather than replacing the drain plug in the final drive, I fill it, similar to the process for the transmission, until oil just started coming out of the final drive drain hole. Jamie mentioned that this didn't make sense to him. I stopped, pondered it, and started to think, "I've made a huge mistake."

Basically, I rode nearly 600 miles on the scooter with virtually no oil in the final drive. I'm afraid to see what the result is.

Sniff.

gregh — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 15:04:34 -0600

More later.

My K1200RS

gregh — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 12:10:30 -0600

I don't know why, but lately I've been missing my 2003 BMW K1200RS:

It was an excellent bike, took me lots of great places, and was a lot of fun, even if it was overly heavy and guzzled gas. Loved the electronic cruise control, got used to the riding position (could have used more leg room, generally), and learned to appreciate the seat.

The Triumph Sprint ST in the garage is for sale. The K75 is for sale. The scooter's still a blast most of the time (gotta do something about the hideous stock screen.) But I do occasionally miss the big Beemer.

Site converted to Drupal

gregh — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 05:47:14 -0500

I just flipped the switch on the site, so that it now runs Drupal. I had been running WordPress.

Why the change? Well, the principal reasons revolve around the features of Drupal and how I believe they can be used for my Law School Collective system, as well as for a little project I'm working on for BMWSportTouring.com. In addition, I tend to believe that it may well fill the roll at work we're currently looking at a wiki for... And I think it can do it in a more user-friendly, integrated way. In fact, there's even a person we've not entirely helped yet who I think could make use of the integrated service.

A replacement for a wiki? Well, principally, I'm looking at the collaborative book feature. We're primarily looking at a wiki to handle FAQ's at work. The collaborative book feature seems to take care of that, and it's in a much more natural form for users than a wiki is. We still get to track the changes, who made the changes, etc.

But we've also been talking about blog services. So, Drupal can subsume both most of the wiki functionality and handle the blogs, already configured to do so in a multi-user environment. Plus, it will happily hand us RSS feeds of every posting.

Then, there have been some who want message boards and notifications. Yup, it's in there.

I'll go into the BMWSportTouring.com stuff a bit later. This has run later than I anticipated.

I think it's finally over.

gregh — Mon, 04 Jul 2005 23:50:59 -0500

There's a price to having an amazing view of San Francisco nearly everyday. There are holidays and other events that draw people out to this little island I live on. July 4th is just about the worst.

People started filing in by around noon, some setting up tents, several groups taking over the picnic area. I ran off the island to the grocery store at 3:30, and there were already a number of people with their lawn chairs set up to watch the show. A little bit later, the police would close the main road.

I was out working on the scooter, mounting the Givi E52 topcase I recently purchased. People were roaming my cul de sac, looking for a place to park. Some folks looped through several times, apparently thinking a new spot would magically appear. Next, people started lining Avenue B, one of the main drags through the housing areas, which runs right along my unit. I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it does.

Then there were the hours of fireworks going off. I believe the official show was only an hour, but as the official hour approached, I had more and more fireworks going off. Why people find it at all stimulating to go out and watch a bunch of bright lights accompanied by loud booms I don't understand.

Finally, people come back to their cars, invariably being noisy, seemingly unable to recognize that they're in someone's neighborhood. The start their cars, the bass of their stereos far out of balance, and they stream off the island, at long last.

I don't hate Independence Day. But I do hate the 4th of July.