249 cc's of pure fury

A Funeral

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 09:04:00 +0000

Went to my very first funeral this past Friday. My department manager's husband died in a motorcycle accident. I didn't know him personally, but he has been riding for a long time and uses his motorcycle for his work. So he must have been very experienced. Very sad, and refreshes the caution that I usually use when riding. You really have to watch everything that's going on around you at all times while riding, and try to predict what's going to happen. Even then, there might still going to be things that you cannot avoid or will not see.

RIP

10k miles

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 22:12:00 +0000

I have passed the 10,000 mile mark on my bike's odometer. Although, I still don't quite have 10k miles of riding under my belt since I bought my bike with 1500 on it.

In that time, I have crashed only once, which was back when I only had about 500 miles of experience. I would say not too bad of a start.

Random Tip of the Day #1

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:35:00 +0000

The regularity with which this blog is updated is appalling. To help improve the situation, I have decided to add this "Random Tip of the Day". I guess it's just an easy way for me to be lazy and still update the blog.

RTD #1:
Riding in 60 degree temperature with a mesh jacket and a t-shirt underneath is COLD.

To celebrate the first RTD, I'll even add a related bonus RTD:
Riding on freeway in 50 degree temperature in full leather (perforated, but with a long sleeve and a short sleeve shirt underneath) for any prolonged period is not advised. You will have trouble even holding coins in your hands when you stop at a gas station for some hot beverage.

Bike is Back

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:15:00 +0000

Finally got a chance to go get my bike from my friend's garage. It has been sitting there since the beginning of November, almost half a year. Because of the lack of time when I left, all I did was drain the carbs, fill the tank, and added some fuel stabilizer.

Luckily for me, the bike started fairly smoothly. It took some cranking to fill the carbs again, but after that, with some choke, the bike started, and warmed up in less than 30 seconds.

I rode around just a little bit and felt that the tires were a little deflated. A quick check showed 25 in the front and 27 in the rear. Not too bad (I had placed the bike on the center stand during storage).

After pumping up the tires, I geared up and rode around the neighborhood for about 5 minutes. I was surprised that I was able to get the feel back fairly quickly. After that, a relatively calm and traffic-free (relative in LA sense) 40 minute freeway ride took my bike and me back to my own apartment.

Now I just need to clean and lube the chains and change the oil when I get some more free time.

Back in the States

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 21:37:00 +0000

Well, I am finally back in SoCal and homeless. My possessions are scattered across three cities, and I have a deadline coming up in two weeks. Great.

Once I find a place to live, I will be seeing how my bike faired in its 4 months storage. Since I was too hurried, I didn't get a chance to do most of the preparation work for storing a bike. At least I drained the carbs. I really really really hope that I wouldn't need to clean the carbs. You can find out why from one of my earlier posts.

The Importance of the Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:11:00 +0000

I already knew that I can't live without the internet. But that fact was emphasized again recently. On December 28th of 2006, there was 2 major earthquakes at 7.2 and 6 point something on the Richter scale centered in the ocean about 15 km south of Taiwan.

Unfortunately, a lot of trans-oceanic fiber optics cables runs along the ocean floor through that area. As a result, 6 major fiber optics lines that connects China to other parts of the world were severely damaged. For the first few days after the earthquake, I could not access any foreign sites. Even now, the news is that it's probably going to be till the end of Janurary before all the lines can be repaired. Even now, checking my school's email account in the US is an exercise in patience and downloading any attachements largers than 50kB or so is basically impossible.

This has been extremely frustrating, and I really hope this can be fixed soon.

Happy New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 02:58:00 +0000

Happy New Year everyone! It's hard to believe that it is 2007 already. Well, hope everyone work hard at their new year's resolutions if they have any.

From Shanghai

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 01:49:00 +0000

Well, even though I'm in Shanghai now and have no bike, I thought I can still blog a bit about what it's like here.

Shanghai is probably the richest city in China right now, and most of the development took place in the last 20 years. While there are still plenty of bicycles on the streets, there are by far more cars here now. Traffic is probably worse than LA, although my experience only comes from a few trips in taxis. With the new riches, people are caught up in "living the luxury life", and getting the same mentality of a bigger SUV being better. While there are definately no where near the number of SUVs on the streets here as compared to SoCal, it's one thing I really don't like seeing. It's bad for traffic, and more importantly, it's horrible for the environment, and most of the time, a waste of natural resources.

Last time I was in the city, I kind of remeber hearing that motorcycles (really the little scooters) were banned in Shanghai. Well, I guess that has changed now. There are plenty of electric scooters on the roads, also some electric assisted bicycles. But there are very few bigger motorcycles. I have only seen a few cruiser style bikes on the streets, and I would guess those are probably very low powered. I have not seen any sport bike yet. But then again, with the craziness of the traffic and drivers here (no one seem to care much about traffic laws, and there is absolutely no courtesy to anyone) I would never ride a motorcycle on the streets with all those cars.

When and if I get some batteries for the camera, I will add some photos of the city.

No bike :(

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 03:51:00 +0000

Well, haven't posted in a while cause I was busy preparing for move (mostly getting work done, I didn't even have enough time to pack everything and move all my funitures). I am in Shanghai now and my poor bike is sitting in a garage with carb bowls drained. I didn't get a chance to change the oil or put some oil into the pistons.... I hope it won't get hurt too much from sitting for a few months.

Carb nightmare

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 00:14:00 +0000

Well, at least the problem isn't with my bike. I was helping a friend with his ninja 250 this Saturday. His carb had seperated from the airbox boots (I'm guessing the previous owner had something to do with this). As a result, the carbs were completely clogged from dirt. We managed to get the carbs out a few weeks ago for cleaning.

For those of you who have worked with the Ninja 250, you probably know or have heard stories about how much of a pain it is to take the stock air box out. Let me tell you, the stories are all true. It was a big pain taking the air box out. Putting it back went smoother as we had better tools now and knowing what to expect. However, after putting the air box in, we spent about 4 hours trying to get the carbs onto the air box boots. The rubber boots were somewhat deformed already, and the bottom part had really deteriorated (the rubber was very hard near the bottom). And after 4 hours of failed attempts, we finally gave up and decided to go with some 3rd party pods instead.

Five hours total wasted for nothing. And now we get to take the airbox off again when the pods arrive.

Motorcyclist didn't see SUV

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 01:13:00 +0000

No, it's not an article from The Onion.

Usually it's the other way around. But I guess I proved yesterday that it could happen this way also. Luckily, there was no accident involved. Here is what happened:

I was going down a 2-lane road (2 lanes in each direction). I was in the left lane. In my rear view mirror, I see a light colored SUV in the right lane behind me, and a dark colored SUV behind the light one. After driving for a bit (a block or so), I look in the mirror, and I see only the dark SUV a bit far behind me in the right lane. I watch the mirror for a bit (maybe 5 seconds or so), and didn't see any other cars, so I thought the light colored SUV must have turned off. Since I need to make a right turn a few blocks up ahead, I decide to start merging into the right lane. Because I thought I knew where the cars are behind me, I didn't do as big of a head check as I normally do. However, as I started merging over, I kept looking, and just before I was about to cross over into the other lane, I saw the light colored SUV in the corner of my eye, and I was able to abort the lane change and move back into my lane.

I guess the SUV has been driving in my blind spot the whole time I was watching my mirror. I suppose with the short length of the motorcycle, it is possible to adjust your mirrors so that you don't have a blind spot (I'm not certain about that). But I definately did have a blind spot with my setup that was able to hide a SUV. Time to be more careful with all my head checks.

stupid mistakes

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:00:00 +0000

A couple days ago, I got on the bike to go to a friend's place close by. After about 2 minutes, I feel the strap hitting me in the neck. I thought maybe i forgot to snap the last part into place. As I feel for the strap, I realized that I had forgotten to strap on my helmet! So I pulled over at the first safe place, and strapped my helmet.

Second mistake was today. Earlier in the day, I had kinda jammed my middle and ring finger trying to catch a ball. It was hurting but wasn't too bad. So I rode my bike to my friend's place in the afternoon. Then when I was leaving and heading back to my place, I realized the fingers have gotten much worse. My middle finger was really swollen and I could barely move it. And after I got on the bike, I realized that I could barely pull in the clutch because I couldn't use much force at all. I did manage to make it home safely but it was no fun struggling with just my index finger, trying to work the clutch. As I was parking my bike, the bike kept moving forward. I was thinking, what's going on? Then I realized it was because I couldn't pull the clutch far enough and the engine was still moving the bike forward. So I hit the kill switch and parked the bike rest of the way by pushing it.

Moral of the story is: don't make stupid mistakes like me. Make sure your gear and anything you are carrying is secured before you take off. And don't ride if you have some kind of injury in an important part. Even if it isn't too bad at the time.

Moving

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Tue, 04 Jul 2006 08:23:00 +0000

Well, I have been in the process of moving to a new apartment for the past week. It's been so hot here in SoCal these past few days, which is making me really lazy and not want to move. Hopefully, I will be done by the end of this week.

Unfortunately, in my last week of parking my bike on the street (new place has a garage, although a neighbor just had their motorcycle stolen from it last week), I forgot to move my bike for the street cleaning, and I got a $45 ticket as a result. I hate parking tickets....

Done!

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:49:00 +0000

Well, I am finally done with my first year of grad school. So far, I think I survived. Still waiting for one class' grade to come out. Well, now is just rest up a bit, watch World Cup, and then time to work on my paper for my comprehensive exam. Sorry, really no bike content this time. It's been so hot these couple days. So I took the bus today, didn't even feel like wearing my mesh gear.

final craziness

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 05:30:00 +0000

Well, finished with my 45 minute presentation for a class last week. New record for lateness of returning home. The night before the presentation (really the morning of), I got home around 5am. The sky was starting to lighten up. Riding the bike when you are that tired is no fun. At least there was basically no cars on the street.

One more final tomorrow (I'm procrastinating from studying right now, can't you tell?) and I will be mostly done with the quarter. I still have to grade some homeworks and such, but it's really just the final I'm worried about.

After all that, I will be moving to a place about 50 meters from where I currently live. I need to reduce my rent cause I am so damn poor. Well, after moving, I am thinking of doing some maintenance on the bike. I think I need to re-gap the spark plugs. And the chains probably require cleaning and adjusting again. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to have belt drive.

watch your rear

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Wed, 17 May 2006 06:16:00 +0000

When I'm stopped at lights, I usually flash my brake lights when I see a car approaching. Other times, I am at the front in between 2 cars. Today, while stopped at a light, I wasn't paying as much attention. I see a car coming, next thing I realize it's getting pretty close to me and is now braking very hard (hearing some brake squeal too). Lucky for me, the car stopped about a foot behind my rear wheel. I look around, the woman's yapping away on her cell phone. Figures.

I guess I need to be more attentive when I'm not between cars and flash my brake light when cars approach. Maybe I should also consider splitting more even when there are just one or 2 cars in front of me at the light. Hmm....

Gear

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:53:00 +0000

When I was first contemplating buying a bike, I was reading a lot of online information and forums. One of the suggestions from the experienced rider about gear selection was that if you are planning on riding a lot, spend a lot of money and get some good gear that's easy to get in and out of (i.e. Aerostich Roadcrafter), you will just save yourself money later on when you want to get more gear (lots of cheaper gear can easily add up to more than a good set of gear).

Recently, especially when it was raining for a while, I have been thinking that perhaps I should have listened to them. I commute a lot on my bike (and maybe much more so in the near future, more on that later), and it's getting to a point where getting in and out of my leathers is quite annoying. Even though it only takes a minute and I can change in my office and store my gear there. (I have a leather jacket and leather pants)

So I've been considering buying an Aerostich Roadcrafter suit. But this is big money ~$750, and I simply can't afford it at the moment. Well, maybe if my plan in the next few months turn out a certain way, I might just end up with one of these suits.

rear wheel shake

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Tue, 09 May 2006 00:35:00 +0000

Today while commuting to school, I had to do some heavy braking, and the back of the bike stepped out for a bit. I didn't crash or anything, but it was a bit scary. I have had this happen once before, but I think I locked my rear tire up that time. This time however, I didn't hear any tire screeching, so I don't think I locked the rear.

I will have to look into this to see if it could be sign of something else, like mis-aligned rear wheel or something. I don't really know right now.

2-up on the Ninja 250

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Sun, 07 May 2006 22:46:00 +0000

About a month ago, my friend came to visit me for a few weeks. It was definately the happiest time I have had for a quite a while. When she was here, I took her to my school a couple of times on my bike. Here are just a few observations I had. Keep in mind that I am not, in anyway, considered knowledgable about 2-up riding.

- The bike handled fine, just felt heavier and a bit more sluggish.

- With a combined rider+passenger weight of about 250 lbs, the stock suspensions were ok. Although the rear suspension was getting close to fully compressed. (the stock suspensions are definately one of the weak points of this bike, but for a rider under 150 lbs, it's perfectly fine).

- Try to accelerate and brake at a more gentle pace is a good idea when there's a passenger, especially if you are not experienced in carrying a passenger. I can notice my passenger moving back a bit due to the acceleration. And this was gentle acceleration on a 250! (you don't want your passenger to be caught off-guard and fall off, do you?)

- Anticipate your braking. I didn't really have much trouble of helmets hitting each other. Maybe just a couple of times. But gentle braking can easily solve this problem (I have heard it a lot from others).

- Having a passenger makes you drive more responsibly. And the ride is much more enjoyable too.

road rage

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 23:38:00 +0000

We probably all have experienced road rage at some time, in the car or on the bike. I'm usually not too bad with that, especially when I'm on the bike. However, today, one incident just really got me riled up today. I don't know why I got so pissed today, it was just someone cutting me off. However, like Ray mentioned in another article, it really affects your thinking for a while. For the next 2 minutes or so, I was definately riding like an asshole. And not just that, I was definately not paying close attention to the surroundings as I should have been doing, and that lasts even longer.

Although it can be hard at times, we need to try to remain calm at all times. It will make us better drivers, and keep us safer.

Tires for the Kawasaki Ninja 250

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 06:38:00 +0000

The Kawasaki Ninja 250 is a very popular bike for it's beginner friendliness and it's value. Two of the popular tires for the bike are Pirelli mt75 and the Pirelli Sport Demon. The mt75 is a 100/80 front and 120/80 rear. The Sport Demon is a 110/90 front and a 130/90 rear. The bike comes stock with Dunlop K630 at 100/80 front, 130/80 rear. The mt75 tires actually match the wheel size exactly. The k630's are slightly bigger for the rear. Supposedly, the old stock Dunlop tires were discontinued, so Kawasaki decided to use the next closest cheap option.

I cannot offer any performance comparison between the mt75 and the Sport Demon as I have not ridden the bike with Sport Demon, but I do know both are much better than the stock k630's. When we were doing maintenance on the bikes last week, I took a couple pictures of my ninja 250 with the MT75 and my friend's with the Sport Demons for a visual comparison of the 2 different tire sizes. Personally, I think the front with the Sport Demon looks a bit too large and doesn't look as good. Also, you should beware if you are considering getting Sport Demons for the ninja250 that for this tire size, you have to raise your front fender as the tire is too large.

take caution when riding in the rain

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:41:00 +0000

It's been raining quite a bit the past few weeks here in southern California. As a result, I haven't been riding much. I don't like to get wet, and I don't like the added danger when it rains.

On Tuesday morning, I get a call from a friend saying he will be late for class because a motorcyclist had an accident right in front of him and he is helping the biker out. From the description, it sounds like the bike's rear wheel lost traction under braking (slippery surface, it was raining kinda hard) and crashed as a result. The motorcyclist then slid into a car, and I think the car ran over or hit his wrist. He got out easy, I think a chipped bone in the arm or shoulder, and some other minor cuts and bruises. I helped the motorcyclist ride his bike back to his apartment later that night.

Remember, when it rains, the road has reduced traction, especially over painted lines and man-hole covers. So take it much easier than under normal driving/riding conditions!

On a side note, I got to ride a Honda Rebel 250 for about 5 - 10 minutes as a result. It looked much better than the old rebel 250 I rode during MSF. The bike looked decent, and had enough power for regular street riding (I just rode it about 5 - 10 minutes on surface streets to get it to the destination). Compared to my ninja 250, at those speeds, probably similar power, maybe a bit less. But it gets that power at a much lower RPM. However, the bike seemed much louder than the ninja 250. I don't know if the exaust is stock or not.

Bike Maintenance

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 05:16:00 +0000

Haven't posted in a long time cause I was really busy with school at the end of the quarter. Then had a week of spring break, and now the new quarter has begun. I went to a bike maintenance day hosted by a friend last weekend. I managed to chain the engine oil and filter; glued the crack on the upper fairing from my crash 2 years ago; cleaned and lubed the chain; and adjusted the throttle free play.

With the new engine oil, shifting is a bit smoother again. Rough shifting or missing gears when shifting is one of the indicators that the oil could use a change (for those bikes with wet clutch, which is most of them). The much better throttle free play was also helpful. It's giving a better response, cause it had too much free play before.

And we even had a great BBQ for lunch. It was a nice day.

more rain

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 08:21:00 +0000

It's been raining quite a bit here in socal this past week or so. As a result, I've been taking the bus to school most of the time. Although I guess we do have it much better than most others as we can ride all year around. Only need to deal with some rain during the winter seasons. Brings up some thoughts I have had about gear. Although, I will have to talk about that later as I am so behind with my school work these days. Ok, time to catch some sleep. Hopefully, I'll be more studious tomorrow and get a good chunk of work done.

One friday evening

noreply@blogger.com (Yifan) — Tue, 21 Feb 2006 04:57:00 +0000

Friday afternoon, I am in my classmate's office in the basement, frantically trying to finish the homework set that was due the same day so I can turn it in before the professor leaves. Someone comes into the office and said "it's raining outside". All I could respond was "what??!!"

It rarely rains here in southern California, and it surely didn't look like it was going to rain in the morning when I rode to school. "crap", I think to myself, "I'm gonna have to ride back in the rain". But for now, I must try to finish the homework. (Well, I didn't actually manage to finish the whole problem set, but I turned it in anyways cause the prof was about to leave. )

I bit later, I am in my office, and my friend looks up the radar map of the area, and notices that there's a gap in the rain currently over the area. I look outside, and yep, it's not raining right now. "How long of a gap do I have?", I ask my friend. "About 20 minutes".

It takes me about 15 minutes to get from my apartment to school, so I quickly change into my gear, and head out to my bike. I even remembered to bring some paper towel to wipe down the seat. As I get to my bike, there is another person warming up his bike, which is parked next to mine. "How long is your commute that you have to wear all that?", the person asks me. I blank out for a bit as I do not comprehend what he just said, and his helmet muffled his voice. "How long is your commute?" Oh... my commute. "It's not very far, just 5 miles". "oh.." The person now is on his bike. "Have a nice weekend." "You too", and he rides off. Now I warm up my bike, and I suddenly realize that the person was referring to my full leather gear. Well, I almost always dress with full protection even for a short commute. Although it can be a bit of a hassle at times.

Well, my trip back home was mostly uneventful. I managed to avoid the rain. There was only a bit of drizzle. I knew the metal man-hole covers and painted strips would be extra slippery when they are wet (they are slippery enough dry), so I was careful to avoid those. The only part that surprised me was when I was cresting a hill. There was a fine mist of water drops on my visor, which didn't affect me when I'm riding on flat roads. However, as I crested the hill, there was a car coming the other way, and the angle was just ride so his head-lights shined on my visor and hte light was scattered by the fine mist of water droplets on my visor, making me not able to see much except some blurred light. Luckily, this only lasted for less than a second. Other than that, it was just like a normal trip.