Lessons in the Conservation of Momentum

So, here is the physics lesson of the week: objects in motion tend to stay in motion , unless acted upon by an outside force.

I was on my way to work early Thursday morning and the following story happened.

There is an intersection less than a mile from my front door that I take across a very busy main road which has a gas station on either side of the intersection. As I cross the main road, I observe a Honda Accord pulling up to the exit of the gas station on the far side of the road, far side but also on the right hand side from my direction of travel. So, as is proper when you see a vehicle coming up to a place where it could potentially jump out and bite you, I rolled off the throttle a little. Then I realized that the speed of the car was not slowing enough to allow it to come to a stop before exiting the parking lot.

I hit the brakes.

The car continued into the roadway, making a left turn directly across my lane.

I really hit the brakes.

Then I really hit the car.

The sequence of events directly following the impact is a little faster. I see the surprise on the face of the car's driver. Then feel the impact of my front tire on the car's rear door. This is followed by the sense of being flipped over the trunk of the car and falling to the road on my right shoulder and back.

Thankfully, I can report that my gear (full face helmet, mesh jacket, over-pants, gloves, and boots) all performed the job of keeping me intact admirably. I felt to be in remarkably good shape for having just hit a car. A feeling that an ambulance ride to the ER confirmed after several x-rays, just to be certain. That is the first lesson from this encounter: wear your gear. Even if you don't think you'll need it. Wear it.

The second lesson is one of visibility. Many of you may already know that, in addition to my other protective apparel, I wear Icon's military spec high-visibility orange, reflective vest. Even with that vest and the headlight on (not only a legal requirement, but also an automatic feature of most modern bikes) the second thing I heard the other driver say was, "Did you have your lights on? Because I didn't see you." This statement is precisely why I reduced speed when I saw the car. I didn't trust him to see me.

You may want to know what the first thing I heard him say was. To his credit, the first thing out of his mouth when he got out of the car was, "Are you ok?"

I hope this little lesson in physics is helpful to those who ride, and to those who share the road with us riders. Ride safe.

Ride to Work Day Approaches

The title says it all. Roadracingworld.com has an article about International Ride to Work Day, which is set for next Monday, the 15th of June. Follow the link above for the article; I can't give any snippets as a teaser due to copyright, but rest assured it is a good read.

For those of us who commute daily on our motorcycles, the day doesn't make a difference. However, when enough people who don't normally ride during the week are on the road, the increased presence of two-wheeled traffic benefits all of us by increasing awareness of just how many of us there are. So, for the purely selfish reason of hoping this one day will help encourage drivers to be on the lookout for riders like me, I encourage every rider out there to take next Monday as a day to ride to work.

Back to the Commute

We've been having some nasty weather, with rain and wind, over the past month. I haven't been riding as much as I would like because of all that. Well, that changed last Thursday. We live in a county where we have to have our cars' emissions checked every year. If a car fails its test, the owner must have it fixed before the registration can be renewed. On Thursday my Ford Tuarus failed its test. At 206,000 plus miles, I think the car has had a pretty productive life over the last 10 years. Also, the cost to have the exhaust system replaced is higher than the value of the vehicle (not to mention the other repairs that would need to be done soon.)

In all, the chapter of my life involving that car is closing and we need to find a new way for me to get to work. Motorcycles to the rescue! Fortunately, we don't have to spend the money to replace my cage; all we have to spend is the money for a high quality rainsuit to make inclement weather commutes more comfortable. As of today, I've joined the very small ranks of those whose primary transportation is on two wheels.

Just becuase it doesn't need to be registered...

Doesn't mean it shouldn't be ridden properly.

Yesterday, on my ride home from work, I saw a rider with a slightly different interpretation of traffic laws. A man on a tiny red scooter, I'm guessing under 50cc, wearing a bicycle helmet. I suppose I should be happy it was some kind of helmet, but that's not what bothered me about his grasp of proper conduct.

The story here: I was at a light waiting to turn left. When the light turned yellow, rather than rush through, I decided to wait for the next green arrow. As I decided all of this, I watched a little red scooter coming the opposite way down the street. Since he was a decent distance away from the light as it changed I assumed he would be stopping opposite me and I'd get a chance to see what the guy was riding. To my surprise, after the light turned red well before he got to the stop line, he continued on through the intersection, without even looking or slowing down. All of this as cars started turning from the other street.

I can understand the mistake of treating a scooter like a bicycle if you don't have to register it. So I get the bike helmet, but I can't advise it. I definitely can't advise completely disregarding traffic laws, which are there to keep all of us safe and that do apply to all forms of vehicular transit.

The Importance of Paying Attention

For a long time, ever since I first became interested in motorcycling, I've been told that motorcycles are invisible. Having grown up around bikes, friends and family's, I never really understood that. The fact is bikes are small and fit very well into blind spots. Why do I point out the obvious? No matter how often it gets repeated, it can always be said again: drivers need to look for bikers.

You know I wouldn't have this on my mind for no good reason, so here comes one more commute write up.

Friday's ride in to work was the usual, mostly harmless with one tailgater as I stayed pretty close to the speed of traffic. But it was the ride home that got interesting for a moment. Part of my evening commute is a stretch of interstate with a long, convoluted entrance ramp with multiple entrances/exits in the same access road. As I rode down the roadway, I watched a man in a sedan in the lane to my right, which was both an entrance and an exit only a few blocks down. He wasn't signaling and stayed in the lane so I began to pull past him. When I was even with his door, he started into my lane, still not signaling. Fortunately, I was watching for such an action and had my finger on the horn. When I pressed the noise making button, he jumped in his seat and pulled back into his lane.

That was an instance of driver inattention, not due to any major error, merely because he didn't expect a motorcycle right next to him. Even checking your mirrors is no substitute for looking. Also, as a motorcyclist it was my task to SEE everything that was going on around me. Had I really been being careful, I would never had pulled into his blind spot, no matter that it seemed like he was going to exit.

Final tally

So, the month long challenge is finally over - I completed my last "make-up day" today. For those who have just started following the blog, I assigned myself three extra days of commuting to make up for one day I had to bring a truck home from work to cart off a broken water heater and two days the bike was not running. I also stayed home one day of April and attempted to work from home while waiting for the replacement water heater to show up. I didn't assign myself a make-up day for that one, since working from home is even better from a gas conservation standpoint and still a bit of a challenge.

This post, I'm just going to put up what I accomplished by the numbers. I'm going to spend some more posts over the next few days drawing conclusions.


Final odometer reading: 10,165.5
Number of miles ridden: 1,919.2
Gallons of gas bought for the bike: 35.6
Total fuel costs: $123.17
Average miles per gallon: 54

The actual miles per gallon may be a little higher as I had a fairly empty tank at the start and right now the tank is nearly full, and I used so few gallons that an extra 1 or 2 gallons in the tank could mean another 1-2 mpg.

Now for some extrapolating - how much gas did I save by doing this? Here's a little more math from the above numbers.

Number of gallons a 20 mpg car would have used commuting: 96.0
Average cost of a gallon of gas for April: $3.459 (normally, I'd round to the nearest cent, but the price of gas must have a 9 at the end)
Cost to buy gas for a month of commuting: $331.93
Amount of gallons saved: 60.4
Difference in gas spending: $208.76

End of April

So, with the end of the "official" ride for a month time frame, I have been wondering where we will go with this site. I don't feel like ending the blog with the end of the month. However, I think I will tend away from the daily ride report and go more into the realm of general motorcycling advice and reviews. After this last commute write up, that is.

Yesterday was a fairly standard commute. I left before the traffic began to build into the city. My only mistake was to not put the liner in my new mesh jacket. I did not quite anticipate just how effective it would be at letting air flow through. It was good for the warmer afternoon ride, though.

Ok, so it wasn't my only mistake, I was also following some one a little too closely on the way home and had a chance to practice hard breaking when a car further up the line realized it was time to turn, stopping traffic momentarily. If I had been slightly further back I would have had a little more time to react and may have been able to avoid stopping altogether. Oh well, at least I was still far enough away to avoid hitting anyone.

"Could you pick me up a..."

My wife was at home yesterday, but she's getting better. Before I left work yesterday, she called and asked if I could pick up a couple things at a local soul food restaurant. This isn't necessarily easy on a bike, although I was able to pull this off without much advance planning this time. Normally I carry a soft-sided lunch box in a magnetic tank bag. I was able to stuff the lunch box in my saddlebags, and walked into the restaurant carrying the tank bag so I could check if everything fit inside. Got the take-out dinner home without any trouble.

Not nearly as hard as the challenges some people in other countries face... check out Lords of the Logistic for some astounding photos of motorcycles, bicycles, and people carrying things that sometimes would be tough to carry in a small car.

Temperature swings

Today started near 40 degrees and had climbed to the 70s by the time I rode home. Dealing with this requires a couple layers. I wore my winter suit today, and removed my sweatshirt and liner for the ride home. I also opened up a lot of vents on the jacket. My torso was fairly comfortable, but the pants aren't vented and my legs were not nearly so comfortable. I need to find a better solution for my legs for these sorts of temperature swings. I've discovered that the comfort level of the bike's seat goes down a lot when I can't cool down my legs on a hot day. Perhaps the wrong seat is the problem.

Rain suit leak

Another rainy day ride this morning. My Frogg Toggs have developed a leak at one of the seams. Tonight I've put some clear silicone sealant on the spot where it was leaking - hopefully that will fix it.

Delayed post

I would have posted yesterday, but I needed to rewire part of the wall and that left our internet out until I finished it today. So you get two commutes for the price of one. Yes, you read that correctly, two: I worked today, too. What a deal!

After reading Matt's post about tuner cars, I realized that I deal with a different type of drivers than he does. His commute takes him through a more suburban area while mine is dominated by professionals going to and from work. While he will encounter more young drivers out for a spin or running errands, I get stuck with the people annoyed by a long day at the office and annoyed that it will take them that much longer to get home.

While neither commute was what I would call eventful, I did notice that today's ride was much more relaxed and the drivers around me were more forgiving. The comparison of the days made me realize it is not that I don't normally see odd driver antics on my way home from work, it's that I see enough of them that they become expected.

Today's story: Tuner cars and driver stereotypes

I've been riding all week, just been busy too. I've got a few little stories from previous days, but today was an interesting lesson in automotive people-watching.

Stereotypes certainly have a lot of bad applications, but on the road there are times when stereotypes about car owners can help you predict something ugly will happen, or at least help you focus on the cars that are more likely to cause trouble. They're usually only helpful if there's a very large set of people with a certain mentality who are drawn to a particular sort of car or have good reasons for owning one. For example, one warning that gets passed around on motorcycle forums is to beware of tuner cars, because they typically belong to young, aggressive drivers.

Well, today I come upon a white Honda Civic Si, one of the "breadvan" 2002-2005 models. It's got a loud exhaust, custom wheels, and it's being driven a bit on the aggressive side. One thing that I really chuckled at was that the owner had replaced the Civic badges with Odyssey emblems. I keep an eye on it, but figure that anyone who'd joke about his car that way may not feel too much like he has something to prove. That wasn't a particularly well loved Civic, and he wouldn't be the first to think it looks like a minivan with the center two doors removed.

He does drive a bit aggressively, but the real trouble starts when someone in a shiny new Nissan 350Z with sparkly blue paint pulls up behind him. As it turns out, this Civic / Odyssey has attracted a tuner car driver who evidently sees it as a challenge, passes the Civic and cuts it off. I stay back a little ways in the other lane, a couple car lengths behind the Civic. I don't see a real need to drop back too far, but I want to give myself a little distance in case the Nissan driver does anything crazy (and I definitely don't want to do anything that puts me alongside him).

Suddenly a different sort of stereotypical bad driver appears, and I didn't see him coming: A red Hyundai, its front fenders clearly painted with a rattle can, whips past me, does a "thread the needle" swerve between me and the Civic, and takes off at maybe 70 in a 45 zone.

The lessons you can draw from this about car stereotypes are a bit ambiguous. After all, the Hyundai is a perfect example of another sort of stereotypical bad driver's car, a cheap car with visible body damage. The perfect sort of car to own if you were prone to wrecking cars and were trying to keep the habbit from putting you in the poorhouse.

But the real lesson is to stay aware of all the cars in your area. The one you think may be the biggest threat often isn't.

Smith System

I apparently forgot to hit the Publish Post button on Thursday.

I had my Smith System driving class today. It's very similar to the segment of the MSF class dealing with traffic avoidance and strategies. The Smith class is geared toward commercial trucks that are much heavier than a motorcycle and so the time/distance allowances are larger than in the MSF. The major difference is the driving test is not a controlled course. We had to drive the truck with our instructor sitting in the passenger seat and give a running commentary of approach times, following times, potential threats, and traffic patterns. It was all quite fun, actually.



As far as the commute goes, the traffic this afternoon tried to make up for the light traffic of the past few days. I did get a chance to watch a lot of people merge into a solid line of traffic, of which I was a part. Fortunately for me, all of the drivers saw me and none tried to share the spot I was occupying. It goes to show that two of the most important aspects to tackling commuting on a bike are as follows: see and be seen. I need to not only do all I can to insure that other drivers notice me, I need to proactively avoid the drivers around me and assume that they don't see me.

Happy Earth Day!

Well, I didn't chose April because it happened to contain Earth Day, but it is kind of a nice side effect since this blog is, in its own way, about conservation. Today's and yesterday's commute were fairly uneventful, although yesterday I did have to deal with a temperature swing of around 30 degrees. Had to bundle up in the morning, wear mesh in the afternoon.

So I thought I'd post a few thoughts about Earth Day and environmentalism. A lot of Earth Day stuff seems to be about boosting awareness of environmental causes. But do we really need more awareness? At this point, it's safe to say that nobody is for pollution or extinction (except when it comes to germs), and everybody is either against global warming or doesn't believe it exists. So it's easy to say, "Yeah, we get the message. Wildlife good. Pollution bad. Conservation good." And does it really take an official day to boost awareness that we ought to conserve gasoline? I get my awareness boosted every time I drive past a gas station and see their prices.

There are a few more environmental causes where I would say we need more awareness, cases where people genuinely don't realize they're doing environmental harm. How many people who keep their cats outdoors, for example, realize that their kitty is out eating native songbirds?

There are a few sorts of awareness I would like to encourage, though. One is an awareness that claims that something's environmentally friendly aren't always to be taken at face value. Sometimes they're more motivated by corporate greed (the corn-based E85 ethanol industry comes to mind) or sometimes brought about by putting the wrong principle too high (there's some cases of organic farming causing more environmental damage than using chenical fertilizers and pesticides; just because a treatment for a farm is natural doesn't mean that artificial treatments may get the job done with less environmental damage). So study issues a bit more deeply. Am I benefiting the environment by using less gas, or making things worse for the environment by driving a vehicle that is built to less stringent emissions standards? That's something you'll have to research for yourself. My main aim was to conserve gas. And it's working - I'll have to crunch the numbers later, but compared to using a car for everything, I estimate I've cut my gas consumption in half.

The other kind of awareness is an awareness of proportion. If you make a change to benefit the environment, it may be a drop in the bucket compared to what society is doing, but a good test is how big that drop looks in your own bucket. For example, if riding a bike cuts your fuel consumption by one half to one third, if everybody adopted that strategy, society could cut its gas consumption by the same level. Or another example criticized in The Skeptical Environmentalist: the recycleable toothbrush. If you throw out four toothbrushes a year, just how much is that compared to a week's worth of garbage? If it's a tiny drop in your own bucket, it's not going to make much of a difference in the world if it catches on in society as a whole.

If you're planning to take an action to conserve natural resources or help the environment, see if you can measure its influence by how much it changes your own life. Because, when you get down to it, your own life is the one you're best able to change.

5'10" and Invisible?

At the outset of today's ride, I filled the tank with 3.3 gallons at 218 miles. 66 miles per gallon, not bad for wringing out the engine on Sunday.


Anyway, I found out today that some people are willing to do pretty much anything to save a few seconds in their commute, even with very light traffic this morning. I was the first in line in a left turn lane to get onto I-85, with a few vehicles behind me. Directly behind me was a large SUV with a Xterra behind it. I watched the Xterra pull out of the turn lane and try to whip around the SUV behind me. She realized I was there as her front tire entered the turn lane right next to me and then she rolled down the window and motioned that she wanted in front of me. In my childish act of the day, I looked at her and then deliberately ignored her. The final act of, umm, interesting driving was for her to pull all the way into the middle of the intersection (on a red light) just to be sure she would get ahead of all two people in front of her.


After that bit of fun, the rest of the day was downright tame. Also, with the temperature on the return ride reaching a mere 76, I noticed my gear gets a little warm. It becomes rather uncomfortably warm when I'm not moving. The vents help a lot, but I think I will need a mesh jacket by the time the ambient temp reach the mid-80's.

A couple of "Oops" moments

So I had a great commute. Lovely weather and polite drivers made it nice and easy. Despite the "easy" part of it, I managed to make a couple of mistakes that make me kick myself. Not literally.

First, I got a little distracted at a light and forgot to roll on the throttle before easing off the clutch lever. Pop. Stall. Restart engine hopefully before the people behind me realize what's going on.

The other one was another clutch issue. Note to new riders (yes, this includes me) roll off the throttle when you up shift. When you don't (like me) you can give it a little too much gas and make the front tire a little light when you re-engage the clutch. I haven't done as badly as I did the first day I had the bike, when I lifted the wheel momentarily, but it's still unnerving when you do it.

Lastly, I will mention a bit of advice that served me well today: always do a head-check before changing lanes, the mirror can only tell you "no." When I wanted to change lanes on the way home, I checked my mirror: clear. I turned my head: Ford Explorer. I stayed where I was.

As weather continues to get nicer, I am willing to bet I'll see more and more biker out. To the riders: ride safe. To the motorists: look for the motorcycles, please.

Co-worker reactions

My Friday commute report has been delayed a bit because of the 2008 Megasquirt Meet. Friday I didn't get home until 11, and yes, I was back on the bike that day. Philip recently blogged about his co-workers' reactions to his riding. For some reason, my co-workers haven't been quite as worried, although I did get some good-natured teasing when I rode in on a rather stormy day. It may be that I don't have to deal with downtown Atlanta traffic, or it may be the difference in working at a shop that builds race car parts instead of selling construction supplies. Maybe different industries attract people with different feelings about risks.

An Interrupted Commute

Another day of temperature change, just not quite as drastic as yesterday.
The commute itself was a little disjointed. I had to go get my car on the way home. Which meant I dropped my bike off at my parents' house and got a ride to the mechanic. From there, my father followed me home and drove me back to my bike. We got to see a decent number of people on two wheels. The ones who looked like they had been commuting were on scooters. Fun machines, those. I just don't feel as stable on them.
I also found out one more thing today about being in a full tuck on the highway: the wind deflection is so effective that I didn't even get air through my jacket vents. Making a warm day a hot ride in my current gear.

Finally Back in the Saddle.

Its almost like withdrawal having to drive the past few days. With a change of almost 40 degrees today I got a chance to practice layering. Unfortunately, I also got a chance to practice stashing my extra clothes in my desk at work, as I didn't remember to bring any luggage to pack it home in. I only saw one other bike out this morning, but there were enough out this afternoon to not bother counting.

The new thing for the day was I had to put my foot down on I-85 because traffic was stopped at the point I get on. I think the minor traffic jam was due to a motorcyclist running out of gas and having to move over. He was getting back on his bike and started it moving right before I was about to pull over and see if he needed any help. I think he ran dry because there was a guy walking back onto the interstate with a can of gas.

I also found out management's opinion of my riding to work. My boss has called me a "dead man walking" since I started riding to work. But, lately he's backed off on that one a bit. I ran into his boss this afternoon and he told me that he used to ride a lot, but would never come downtown. Then, a little later, I ran into one of the company's owners and when he commented on the nice weather I responded by telling him that's one of the best reasons to ride. After a little pause he said, "Yeah, I kind of worry when I think about you on that thing. Stay safe." It reminded me why I ride with all the gear on, even in rising temperatures: my safety is important to a lot of people (especially my family and, gasp, myself) and taking care of that is just the responsible thing to do.

I haven't been so good about riding this week

For a variety of reasons, I have not ridden to work so far this week.
Monday, I overslept a little and I'd rather not be trying to ride when I'm in a hurry.
Tuesday, I had a meeting and needed to drive.
Today, I just needed to drop the car off at the shop.
A good list of excuses if I do say so myself.

So, I've been thinking a little more about how to select a bike. Selecting a bike seems to follow a two basic rules each time, only the criteria used as guidelines change as you as a biker develop.

First, and most importantly, the motorcycle's capabilities need to be a match to your own. That's why I have a bike that performs predictably and smoothly. If I had a R1 or CBR1000RR or anything of the like, it would respond to inputs I don't have the skills yet to control or even know that I'm giving it.

Second, you should also ask yourself what function you want out of your motorcycle. Do you want to cruise the highway? The city streets and commute? The twisting hills and canyons? Do you want the ride to go on when the pavement ends? Ask yourself these questions and the answers will guide what style of bike you will look for.

I thought of this because I've been thinking about why I like my bike, and what I don't like about it. I think after a few more miles and a few more uses of my Ninja, I will have a better idea of what I want out a primary bike and will have developed the skills necessary to open a wider range of motorcycles to choose from.