Just a couple cool shots of my bike

Got bored on a nice 90 degree night and thought it was a good time to go take a few pictures of the bike in my work's parking garage.
They're not the best (too noisy) but I really needed a tripod.

If the Glove Doesn't Fit you Must Acquit...

I was riding around a few weeks ago with my Motogp RPM gloves, which oddly enough I don't think I've reviewed yet, and got caught in a massive downpour. Wasn't the worst thing in the world, and it's not the first scuba trip these gloves have seen, but after two days of hanging them in front of a space heater and wearing them they still hadn't gotten dry. I had recently taken notice of a strange pain in my right palm while riding for extended periods of time and thought that maybe this new pain and recent damp state of my current gloves warranted seeking a replacement. I went straight from work one day all of two miles over to my resident Cycle Gear to investigate what they had in the way of leather gauntlets. All the familiar brands were there: Tourmaster, Dainese, Alpinestars, Frank Thomas. I tried on a pair of Dainese gloves that felt pretty good, but not $190 good. A pair or two of Alpinestars and a set of touring gloves from Tourmaster just for giggles. For the money the Alpinestars felt like a decent replacement. Yes, I base comfort on cost. I'm not going to pay $200 for jeans unless it feels like I'm not wearing pants. Likewise, I'm not going to pay $200 for gloves if they feel baggy or constrictive.

The Alpinestars SP-2 gloves that I picked up were size medium, my usual choice, and were just a wee bit on the tight side when holding on to an actual grip. I thought this would be best and decided to give the gloves a few weeks to break in before thinking about a write up. Sure enough they loosened right up and well, fit like a glove. Interesting phrase, 'fit like a glove,' because personally I don't really find that many gloves that fit well enough to warrant their own expression. Usually gloves have fingers lengths that don't match that of my actual fingers. They also detract from tactile sensation which can be a little hindering at times.

This was not the case with the SP-2 gloves. I immediately noticed an increase in tactile sensation in comparison to my Motogp RPM gloves. They're both made of cowhide, but I can only assume that the Alpinestars must use a slightly thinner grade. Even so, the SP-2s have good additional leather in all impact areas and the now typical carbon fiber knuckle protector. One feature that I wasn't sure if I was going to like but ended up really enjoying is the lack of a wrist closure. There's a large Velcro strap for setting the cuff around the width of your jacket, but you only really need to do it once. After that it's just a simple pull on, pull off operation. The cuffs are long enough to make up for the short sleeves on my RS Taichi jacket and have finally filled the gap and prevented air from rushing in under my sleeve. The gloves provide good comfort, perhaps after a break-in period, and great ease of use. For right around $100 they're a very nice glove and come in black, black/white, red and blue if your'e so inclined.

The Good

Very decent price for great Alpinestars gear. Carbon fiber knuckle guard. Reinforced palm area. Decently long cuffs with good adjustable for most jackets. Easy on-off operation.

The Bad

A little stronger elastic around the wrist wouldn't be frowned upon by me. Tags are placed at very end of cuffs and tend to hang out in the wind, not a big deal. Broken-in feel at purchase would have lent to a more confident purchase.

Sorry Shoei, I have a new love....(Arai RX-7 Corsair)

Dear Shoei RF-1000

I'm not quite sure how to start this letter. We've spent so much time with each other and we fit so well together. I feel really safe with you and you've always been really great to me, but lately I've gotten this strange feeling down in my gut. This feeling that maybe there's something more out there and I'll never know if I don't try something new. I know I left you before for that Suomy Spec1R, but it was just so pretty and expensive and I thought we'd be happy together. But it was only after long periods of time that I found the Suomy just wasn't for me. If I spent too much time with Suomy I would get a headache and it was just so loud sometimes. Suomy's still around, and we hang out every once in a while, but she's nothing like you. You're so versatile and comfortable. Good in the heat, and in the cold. But, not great in either. I might as well just say it. I'm leaving you for an Arai RX-7 Corsair. She may not look like much, but she's gorgeous to me and I'm way more comfortable than I've ever been before. Not to mention how well the Arai keeps me cool, or not, depending on what I want. So that's it. I'm sorry it had to be like this, but, you're a helmet, you don't have ears. Now that I think of it, you probably can't read either, let alone English. I promise we'll still hang out from time to time. I still think you're pretty, I've just found something better for me.

Sincerely,

Courtney's big dumb head

Wow, so that was awkward. Yes it's true; I bought an Arai. I had tried them on before when I was first looking at helmets, and they did feel nice, but their color patterns really didn't do anything for me. Recently though my buddy was helmet shopping, and it got me researching a little. I discovered that Arai's have different head shapes for their different model helmets. Intermediate oval, round oval, and long oval are the shapes I became aware of. I was under the impression that my head was very long front to back, like an Alien, and because of this the long oval sounded like the perfect shape. The Suomy that I own is a whole size larger than I normally wear and it still pinches my forehand noticeably after 45 minutes or so. After work one day I decided to go a couple places and try on some Arais and see what these head shapes were all about. I tried on a medium Quantum-II with the round oval shape, a large Profile with the long oval, and a medium RX-7 Corsair with the intermediate oval shape. Much to my surprise the Profile with its large oval shape felt tighter than the other two helmets and it was a whole size larger. I guess my head isn't as long as I thought it was. It was a toss up between the Quantum-II and the RX-7, but the dealership I tried to RX-7 on at already had it marked down plus an additional 40% off. Last one. Making way for the new Corsair that Arai has out which is somewhere to the tune of $900. A really nice guy at Soundbound Honda in Tacoma let me walk around the store for a good 15 minutes or so wearing the helmet to make sure it wasn't going to be uncomfortable. After debating inside my private helmet sanctuary I decided that it was now or never since last year's models would obviously be going fast, especially at these prices. It wasn't the color I really wanted, but it was too comfortable and affordable to let go. I scooped it up and a dark visor out the door for $430.

One of the first things you notice about this helmet, besides its subtle sex appeal, is that it is very light. This is a great feature when you have to wear it on your head, sometimes for hours at a time. Accomplishing this while still being DOT and Snell approved is an impressive feat in itself. Top that off with comfy ergonomics, 8 closable vents and a fog resistant visor and I'm in motorcycling heaven. If you remove the liner and all padding inside you can clearly see the 6 holes in the top of the helmet that allow air to move in and out. There are three forward facing vents on the top that have simple toggle rockers for opening and closing. There's two rear facing vents that require rotating a level for each to open or close. Then there's two vents built in to the top of the visor itself, and a three position mouth vent. The feature that really grabbed me was a small chin/wind guard that doesn't protrude very far under the chin. But, simply reach up with your hand, grab hold of the guard, and gently tug down, and it rotates down nearly an inch to block more wind from coming up in your helmet. At speed it's immediately noticeable whether this piece is up or down, and it's very effective.

Visor changes do not require any tools although they might require a little practice. Simply rotate the visor all the way up, exposing two levers under each side of the visor, and then remove the visor. Installation is basically just the opposite of this with some subtle nuances that get easier with practice. However, I've noticed that even though the outward appearance of Arai's dark visor is similar to that of my Shoei's dark smoke and Suomy's dark visor, the view from inside is actually much lighter. It used to be that if I started riding in to the hours of dusk visibility dropped almost exponentially and it was frequently easier for me to just open the visor and squint through the high winds. This is not the case with the Arai's dark visor, although your results may vary, this is just my observation.

The Arai interior padding is what I would call plush. Supportive, but very forgiving. Slightly more supportive feeling than my worn in Shoei while somehow still feeling like it has more 'give.' The shell size also seems to suit me as my mouth isn't dangerously close to the interior of the helmet, my ears have room to breathe, and my chin doesn't hang out the bottom. All the various holes for venting do add to the wind noise a bit, but I still don't find it to be as loud as my Shoei. I tried with and without ear plugs on several occasions and even without earplugs it's not awful.

The Good

Multiple vents that can be opened and closed with gloves. No-tools visor changes. Vast visor selection. Pull down chin/wind guard. Completely, and easily, removable liner that's machine washable. DOT and Snell approved. I got it for cheap!

The Bad

Normally quite an investment (but so is your brain). Not a huge selection of colors or patterns. Rear vents are pretty vague with gloves on. If I can find anything else I'll let you know.





And using MS paint I circled the chin/wind guard in the down position. When it's up it's flush with the bottom of the helmet.

Anticlimactic: Handlebars=Done

It was the beginning of last September when I was bitten by the nudist bug. Not the urge to live sans clothing but rather the idea of stripping some of the excess plastic off my bike and riding 'naked' as they say. Part of my original intention was to eventually convert the bike to using an actual handlebar rather than the very nice Cycle Cat clip ons I've been running. My idea was to buy a spare GSXR upper triple and drill it out to add mounts for a handlebar. I also figured I'd need longer throttle and clutch cables, and a nice long depressing Northwest winter would give me plenty of time to scavange for parts and take the bike apart. However, that's not the case. Instead I rode the bike all winter netting an impressive (to me) 3000 miles between October and April. Don't pat me on the back yet, I only rode when it was not raining out. Correction, I tried to only ride when it was not raining out. This was not always how it played out. Every time I rode I cursed myself for not having a balaclava, warmer gloves, or any kind of appropriate winter gear. I kept telling myself that the more I rode in the cold weather the more it would motivate me to purchase winter gear. Instead my funds went towards other winter hobbies and my body remained mostly exposed to the elements.

The last couple weeks of May I decided to get motivated on this whole 'naked' thing and get these handlebars on there. I ordered myself up a longer clutch cable, and with a little help from Peter Lombardi found myself a set of naked sv650 throttle cables. I ended up picking the Rizoma conical handlebar. 1). Because Rizoma is bling for your bike, and 2). because Flavor flaaavveeeee!!!!. But in reality, the rise and sweep of the bar fit my requirements. I wanted to convert to handlebars, but I didn't want to end up with ape hangers. Something with minimal rise and sweep was all I needed, and the Rizoma conical bars boast a thick-wall aluminum construction that would likely dampen vibrations. I picked up some ProTaper over sized bar mounts that, according to the specs, would work with the Rizoma conical bars. Back in the middle of winter I ended up finding a really cheap set of decent looking mirrors from Koso in China that I wanted to use, and I bookmarked them (smart thinking). Ordered those, and with all parts inbound I just needed a garage to work in, and access to more tools than my own. One of my co-workers who doesn't live that far away from me offered to let me use his garage and tools when the time came. Doing quite a bit of his own fabrication for various off-road vehicles, this seemed like a good choice for tool variety.

I won't give you the play by play of the whole process, but I will break down the numbers for you:
3- last minute parts
4- trips to Lowes
1- trip to Home Depot (closed)
4- bolts destroyed
3- Red Hook beers
1- cutting wheel disc worn out
2- holes drilled in the wrong spot
14- swears words used in a single sentence
12- hours spent

That just about covers it. I've been riding it with the new bars now for two weeks solid and I definitely love it. The seating position is more upright. The grip angle and width is very comfortable. Almost all vibrations that I used to feel in my hands are gone. The leverage over such a little bike around town is very fun. The only problem is, now I wish I had a bigger motor.

I was very tired when I took these pictures, but you get the idea:



And yes, I know I need to fix my brake resevoir.

Impulse Gear Buy: Overpants

*gasp* a new purchase?!

I don't know what came over me the other day, but something inside me said I needed to buy some decent overpants for riding. Maybe it was the fact that I put over 3000 miles on the bike this past winter with nothing but jeans and boots to protect my ability to walk/wear shorts. Or maybe it was just that empty feeling deep in my chest from not having reviewed anything lately. We'll never know for sure.

A quick jaunt over to my local Cycle Gear and I was in business. I really only had two choices: The Firstgear HT Overpant II, or something from Frank Thomas. I asked the nice guy behind the counter which pair floated his boat and he said that he ultimately preferred the Firstgear's. The Frank Thomas ones looked nice, but I think I was just attracted to how form fitting they looked, whereas the Firstgear Overpants were closer to snow pants than anything.

Looks are definitely important, because I'm vain like that, but functionality and practicality are what really counts. The Firstgear's won hands down because they were easy to take on and off and that's something that's very important in an overpant. If they were difficult to put on and take off I'd be less inclined to actually wear them when heading out.

$180 later and I was riding away from Cycle Gear with more protection on my legs than just stylish denim. Immediately a couple things became noticeable. The first was that they only used heavy Kevlar on the knees and the shins, but not on the but or hips which are another high contact area. What this meant for regular riding (not sliding across pavement) was that my lower half felt very slippery. My knees no longer gripped the tank, and my butt slid across the seat like an ice cube on linoleum. Under hard braking I had to squeeze the tank pretty tight to keep from dashing all future hopes of procreation. Also, different from my leather pants, there are no pads in the butt area to help cushion the ride. Granted the 'given' padding of wearing overpants was quite sufficient, I did miss the extra padding.

It was probably around 50 degrees out when I was riding and I had the full length removable down liner out of the pants and I was very comfortable. I imagine that in the winter having that liner back in will be very nice, although I've seldom complained about the temperature of my legs. It looks like Firstgear also makes an "air" version of these pants that utilizes alot more mesh and has a full length removable waterproof liner. The full length zippers down the side of each leg have an extra flap, and then a Velcro closure to really keep wind, and potentially rain out. As an overpant these zippers are what sold the pants for me. I can simply unzip the sides of the legs all the way to the hip, and step through the pants with my boots on and then just zip them back up. The pants also have two front pockets and a back right pocket. Regular zipper up fly with Velcro flap and button snap waist closure with adjustable sides for snugness (or not). The only thing I really have a problem with is that there's a nylon panel running behind the fly that prevents you from actually unzipping the fly and getting 'access' to your pants. This just means that if you have to stop and use the bathroom you're going to be doing it like a 6 year old in a public restroom.


The Good
Lots of zipper coverage and full length removable down liner make these pants a very formidable piece of cold weather gear. There's enough room inside to easily wear them over your jeans, khakis, or even shorts. The full length side zippers make taking these pants on or off a breeze and don't even require that you take your boots off to do so.

The Bad
Absolutely zero airflow means your legs will likely feel like steamed asparagus in the hot summer days. The somewhat 'accommodating' size of the pants makes you feel like you just hopped off the chair lift for the bunny hill. The lack of CE approved armor and only soft pads on the hips and knees leaves something to be desired. No abrasion resistant material on the hips of butt = hamburger-butt?

Just a general picture of the pants themselves:


A picture showing one of the legs half unzipped, revealing the removable soft knee pads:


Until that day folks. Thanks for reading.

Is it summer yet?

I think everyone in the world has probably noticed that the weather is a little odd this year. Snow the first week of April in Washington? What?!
Regardless I have been riding all winter. As long as it was dry out, and devoid of snow, I tried to ride as much as I could.

Oddly enough this didn't lead to any nice winter gear with which to review, no matter how cold my hands got. Honestly I think motorcycles were kind of on the back burner this off season. But never fear, I still plan to convert my bike to handlebars instead of clipons and I've got a good portion of the parts to do that. Once the nice weather really gets roaring I'll spend a weekend doing that. But other than the bar conversion I don't have my eye on a lot of new gear. What will become of my humble blog? I may end up buying a new pair of boots. My Sidi B2s are nice, however something with a little more protection seems like a good idea.
Since there won't be any gear to update with (possibly) I'll just have to do some rides and take some photos. Thanks to a generous donation from Peter Lombardi I actually have a decent camera now, so I'm out of excuses. I'll just have to learn how to shoot.

Until next time readers.

Happy Holidays Everyone!

I apologize for the late post here since it's now the day after Christmas, but at least got in before the new year. It's been a little crazy in Washington as of late and with the temperatures dipping in to the 20s during the day and the snow cover rivaling Canada's (ok not really) riding has become near impossible, or at least suicidal. I still haven't collected all the parts I need to convert to handlebars so I've continued riding the bike with the Cyclecat 954 clipons. Oddly enough it actually seems more comfortable now that the bike is naked. I think the extra wind pushing against my chest helps hold me upright.

In recent news I went to the motorcycle show at the Seattle expo center a couple weeks ago and got to see all the new hotness. I actually found that it wasn't nearly as exciting as it was last year. Part of it may have been that my buddy Peter wasn't there to enjoy it with us, but more than that I think I just had a lack of excitement for this year's bikes. Last year there were a lot of exciting new models to look forward to. This year however, I felt like the biggest changes at most booths were paint schemes. This is far from the truth, but it marks how I felt about the show.

The bike I looked most forward to seeing was the new Ducati Monster 696. It was, of course, awesome. The bars were a little flat and far forward, but the seat height was incredibly low even for a bike sitting up on a rear stand. Everything else on the bike felt very smooth and well put together. Something about trellis frames just gets my juices going. If I ever get bored of my SV and want to just buy a bike that I don't have to do anything to, it will probably be the Monster 696.

The show stealers were the Ducati street fighter, which is basically a de-faired 1098 and oh so hot, and the Yamaha V-max. The v-max was designed by Chuck Norris when he was cranked up on the juice. He drew the plans with a sharp stick on the back of one of his fallen opponents after defeating 72 men in a no-holds bar street fight. He called for engineers to build the entire bike out of masculinium, a nearly indestructible alloy that actually endows whoever touches it with Chuck Norris like manliness and a featon level higher than Tom Cruise. The point is, the bike is all that is man. Unfortunately the price is all that is unobtainable so don't expect to just stroll out of dealership with one on a whim. If I sell an organ to UW medical I may be able to afford one. I guess the bonus would be if I sell a testicle to UW to buy a V-max at least the bike will give me two back because that's just how bad ass it is.

I digress.

What I really came here to say is that I hope everyone has a happy holidays and a great new year. Be safe out there, and if you've got the stones to be riding in this weather, my hat is off to you.