I don't write songs about girls anymore
I have to write songs about women
No more boy meets girl boy loses girl
More like man tries to understand what the hell went wrong
Friday 13 April 2018
Monday 15 August 2016
End of An Era
The RED BANDIT has come to the end of the road.
After 133,347 kilometres the RED BANDIT is parked.
It's a bit hard to believe , I really didn't expect this time to ever come.
The good news is that the BLUE BANDIT has arrived.
45000 Km's Blue and a 1250S . Hello EFI! and liquid cooling!
First impressions are fantastic , But also quite familiar .
A fuller report on both bikes to come.
After 133,347 kilometres the RED BANDIT is parked.
It's a bit hard to believe , I really didn't expect this time to ever come.
The good news is that the BLUE BANDIT has arrived.
45000 Km's Blue and a 1250S . Hello EFI! and liquid cooling!
First impressions are fantastic , But also quite familiar .
A fuller report on both bikes to come.
Monday 21 March 2016
Wednesday 10 February 2016
Bullying
We hear a lot about bullying and how bad it is these days. I recall two occasions as kid when I was a bully. Both were relatively minor , were of less than a few hours duration , were both apologized for without prompting from outside and both make my face red with shame. I hope that those were the only time I was such an asshole.
This comes to mind after i happened to run across the name of someone on facebook who now that a ton of memories have come flooding back I realize bullied me.
Certainly never apologized for and went on for few months , long enough that I now realize had a devastating effect on not only my time in high school but my life ever since.
I'm sitting here now having an anxiety attack just thinking about that time. I was systematically separated from my friends ,beat up once and "accidentally hurt" 2 or 3 times in Gym class by this person.
Already having a problem fitting in thanks to the ADHD I now realize I was isolated and at the same used by this "Friend" and some others at this time. In the case of some of the others it was due no doubt to the bullies constant bullshit and my obvious weakness.
Like discovering I have ADHD this is going to take some time to process.
I FUCKING HATE how I'm feeling right now.
This comes to mind after i happened to run across the name of someone on facebook who now that a ton of memories have come flooding back I realize bullied me.
Certainly never apologized for and went on for few months , long enough that I now realize had a devastating effect on not only my time in high school but my life ever since.
I'm sitting here now having an anxiety attack just thinking about that time. I was systematically separated from my friends ,beat up once and "accidentally hurt" 2 or 3 times in Gym class by this person.
Already having a problem fitting in thanks to the ADHD I now realize I was isolated and at the same used by this "Friend" and some others at this time. In the case of some of the others it was due no doubt to the bullies constant bullshit and my obvious weakness.
Like discovering I have ADHD this is going to take some time to process.
I FUCKING HATE how I'm feeling right now.
Tuesday 8 December 2015
Things I Dig
This is an Idea I have shamelessly stolen from from Toronto Mike the only blogger i actually follow. (You should too! )
I stole it because:
a. it's a neat kind of list to share.
b. I like the word Dig in this context.
c. it got me thinking "what do I dig?"
d. making a list was a way to connect with what it is I Dig.
- family Time
- My Wife
- Model Trains.
- Motorcycles
- My Red Bandit 1200
- Jessica Jones.
- The IT Crowd.
- British TV in General.
- Motorcycle racing.
- Playing Guitar.
- Guitars
- Photography.
- Blacks Books
- Monty Python
- the smell of freshly cut wood
- hiking
- Dr.Who
- AC/DC
- Tool
- MotorHead
- The Ramones
- Punk Rock
- road trips.
- Music
- Rush
- Dogs
- Cats
- friends
- Mountains
- rock cuts on the highway
- star wars
- Angry Birds
- Leaning into a long sweeper
- canoeing
- My iPhone
Things that Toronto Mike digs that i Also Dig.
- french press coffee
- biking
- Neil Young
- The Wire
- fatherhood
- pizza
- playing catch
- The Tragically Hip
- playoff hockey
- camping
- Tarantino movies
- skating outdoors
- apples
- rooting for the home team
- Dave Chappelle
- kayaking
- The World Junior Hockey Championship
- The Simpsons
- tee shirts
- chocolate
- The legend of Bill Barilko
- live music
Thursday 7 May 2015
Da' Trains! Da' Trains!
I love Model trains . Love them .
I'm building a 1'x8' diorama , a 60x27 inch "Real" layout and a 12x24 inch diorama.
This is the diorama. Actually a little further along but this is the only pic I have handy.
I have a LOT more to say about this and will be soon.
Possibly.
I suck at updates .
I'm building a 1'x8' diorama , a 60x27 inch "Real" layout and a 12x24 inch diorama.
I have a LOT more to say about this and will be soon.
Possibly.
I suck at updates .
New Season New Issues?
FINALLY the weather is Ok for riding!
It was a LONG Dreary winter and getting on the bike has been such a relief.
BUT... First I had two oil leaks.
One from the left side of the crankcase from the Starter Clutch Cover. Why? Who the fuck knows!
It started over the winter and wasn't too bad but any leak is a problem so I had to fix it. lucky for me i accidentally bought a starter clutch cover gasket when what I wanted was a Clutch cover gasket . i could have sent it back but at the time i figured hey why not? It was only a few dollars.
GOOD CALL :) .
Number two leak was the drain Plug. I didn't document it but I had striped the oil pan threads last year during an oil change . I know, I know rookie move. Being a little rushed (by me ,part of my personality issues?) I went with a self taping replacement drain plug. I would have prefered a helicoil but that wasn't possible at the time.It worked great but the provided washer was a soft washer and not so hot and it was leaking too. BTW this is after an oil change that i had to do to replace that starter Clutch cover gasket. Why didn't I change it during the oil change you say? I forgot to get a new gasket. And as I don't have my own place to work on it I was in a friend's driveway ,inconveniently distant from a place to get one.
I decided to replace it with a copper washer thinking that would be a much better solution.
NOPE
So after Draining the oil replacing the soft washer with copper and refilling the bike with the drained oil. It was if anything WORSE. I revisited Canadian Tire got a fresh lot of Oil ,filter and a soft washer. Did yet ANOTHER oil change( using Castrol 4 stroke Motorcycle oil rather than my prefered Mobil1 Full Synthetic. Due to cost mostly. 1/2 price and i wasn't sure it wasn't going to leak all over after all this) .
Success ! No leaks for a almost a week and about 500 Km's.
All Good!
Or Not so much?
On Sunday I took San out for Brunch on the Bandit. We then did few errands ,on the way to our last stop suddenly the throttle got sloppy I was pretty sure that my Pull throttle cable had broken as it has been frayed since last year. I have a replacement but it's a bit of a job getting it on so I haven't tackled it yet. So after we got home I took the bike over to a close by culdesac and pulled the tank to have a look. lucky me the pull cable had just come loose on the carb mount and is was just a few minutes to sort out. at least a couple of hours to change the cable ,I have to remove the carbs to do it.
After a little adjustment it was better than ever :)
But I noticed something interesting while I was doing this work. Could it be that my poor old Bandit had a Cold? Or was it spring allergies? Or...
Well not literally of course , if you think motorcycles have allergies or get colds maybe your grip on reality is a little loose?
It DID sneeze though!
For Reals!!
Only it's not allergies or a cold of course. The Bandit had what is known a a "Lean Sneeze" over a Maximum Suzuki . A well known condition bandits are prone to ,especially when stock and running very lean. What happens is that due to the lean condition a cylinder will fire prematurely while the intake valve is actually open sending a little explosion back through the carb. This is NOT a good thing. Now I am not stock ,I have a Holshot Stage 1 jet kit so I was not expecting to see the rubber intake pipe bulge while i was looking at the left side of the engine close up and listening. However it definitely "Lean Sneezed"
The good thing is as I said it's a known condition. The first thing to check is the idle mixture screww so i checked and it was pretty much the 3.5 turns out recommended by Dale Walker. I'm not 100% certain I've fixed it but I've sent the idle mixture screw on Cylinder #1 to 4 turns out instead of the 3.5 turns and preliminary results look good. The Bike actually felt a little stronger on last nights ride and one of the most annoying noises it makes appears to be gone. I've been looking at the other 3 cylinders to see if it was happening on them too but so far so good:)
That's enough for now. More to follow
It was a LONG Dreary winter and getting on the bike has been such a relief.
BUT... First I had two oil leaks.
One from the left side of the crankcase from the Starter Clutch Cover. Why? Who the fuck knows!
It started over the winter and wasn't too bad but any leak is a problem so I had to fix it. lucky for me i accidentally bought a starter clutch cover gasket when what I wanted was a Clutch cover gasket . i could have sent it back but at the time i figured hey why not? It was only a few dollars.
GOOD CALL :) .
Number two leak was the drain Plug. I didn't document it but I had striped the oil pan threads last year during an oil change . I know, I know rookie move. Being a little rushed (by me ,part of my personality issues?) I went with a self taping replacement drain plug. I would have prefered a helicoil but that wasn't possible at the time.It worked great but the provided washer was a soft washer and not so hot and it was leaking too. BTW this is after an oil change that i had to do to replace that starter Clutch cover gasket. Why didn't I change it during the oil change you say? I forgot to get a new gasket. And as I don't have my own place to work on it I was in a friend's driveway ,inconveniently distant from a place to get one.
I decided to replace it with a copper washer thinking that would be a much better solution.
NOPE
So after Draining the oil replacing the soft washer with copper and refilling the bike with the drained oil. It was if anything WORSE. I revisited Canadian Tire got a fresh lot of Oil ,filter and a soft washer. Did yet ANOTHER oil change( using Castrol 4 stroke Motorcycle oil rather than my prefered Mobil1 Full Synthetic. Due to cost mostly. 1/2 price and i wasn't sure it wasn't going to leak all over after all this) .
Success ! No leaks for a almost a week and about 500 Km's.
All Good!
Or Not so much?
On Sunday I took San out for Brunch on the Bandit. We then did few errands ,on the way to our last stop suddenly the throttle got sloppy I was pretty sure that my Pull throttle cable had broken as it has been frayed since last year. I have a replacement but it's a bit of a job getting it on so I haven't tackled it yet. So after we got home I took the bike over to a close by culdesac and pulled the tank to have a look. lucky me the pull cable had just come loose on the carb mount and is was just a few minutes to sort out. at least a couple of hours to change the cable ,I have to remove the carbs to do it.
After a little adjustment it was better than ever :)
But I noticed something interesting while I was doing this work. Could it be that my poor old Bandit had a Cold? Or was it spring allergies? Or...
Well not literally of course , if you think motorcycles have allergies or get colds maybe your grip on reality is a little loose?
It DID sneeze though!
For Reals!!
Only it's not allergies or a cold of course. The Bandit had what is known a a "Lean Sneeze" over a Maximum Suzuki . A well known condition bandits are prone to ,especially when stock and running very lean. What happens is that due to the lean condition a cylinder will fire prematurely while the intake valve is actually open sending a little explosion back through the carb. This is NOT a good thing. Now I am not stock ,I have a Holshot Stage 1 jet kit so I was not expecting to see the rubber intake pipe bulge while i was looking at the left side of the engine close up and listening. However it definitely "Lean Sneezed"
The good thing is as I said it's a known condition. The first thing to check is the idle mixture screww so i checked and it was pretty much the 3.5 turns out recommended by Dale Walker. I'm not 100% certain I've fixed it but I've sent the idle mixture screw on Cylinder #1 to 4 turns out instead of the 3.5 turns and preliminary results look good. The Bike actually felt a little stronger on last nights ride and one of the most annoying noises it makes appears to be gone. I've been looking at the other 3 cylinders to see if it was happening on them too but so far so good:)
That's enough for now. More to follow
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