Maintain your chain: Please learn from my mistake!

Yesterday's ride did not go well. I had noticed the chain looked slack, and last time I'd adjusted it, the wheel was almost at the end of the adjuster. So I had intended to get it replaced Saturday.

Saturday wasn't soon enough. The chain had worn to the point it jumped off the rear sprocket while I was climbing a hill in bumper to bumper traffic. I tried to get it back on, but it jumped off 50 feet down the road. I looked in my pocket for my cell phone - and realized the cell phone was missing. This was officially going to be a bad day.

I was able to borrow a phone from a passing driver and give Philip a call, and we got the bike back to the shop I work at. I've got a new chain on order. Things could have been a lot worse.

If your bike has a chain, you need to keep it in good working order. It needs to be oiled every 300 to 600 miles, depending on who you ask (and no doubt on what oil you use). Even O-ring or X-ring chains need lube. You also need to adjust the tension any time they go slack. And if you run out of adjustment... get a new chain and sprocket, right away. I'd been doing the first two, but failed to realize just how dangerous my chain situation had become when it ran out of adjustment. For the record, the chain lasted 16,000 miles.

Another lesson: It is possible to get a motorcycle into the back of a Chevy Suburban without too much effort. Getting the motorcycle out of the Suburban is considerably harder. Next time I'm using a trailer even if I have to rent it.

Spring Awakening

So, with spring in the air, I realized that it has been far too long since I've posted anything. You'd think that five months out of work would mean more time to blog, but it just so happened that winter really cuts in to motorcycle time. With the weather turning nice again, I knew it was time to get the Ninja back on the road. So that means it's time to change the oil, put new gas in, and clean the chain of the corrosion of a few months of disuse. Naturally, that also means that I just had to warm up the engine. So after a short ride to get the kinks out of the system and drop in at Quick Trip, I got around to readying the bike for commuting usage once more.

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that you should check all your bikes systems out as we take them out of storage finally and get them running again. This also means we need to remember to make sure we get back into practice and take it to a parking lot and work the kinks out of our systems before we do any real riding. Happy Spring, and ride safe.

Amusing British public service announcement about motorcycle safety

The British sense of humour sometimes leads them to create the sort of PSAs you never see in the US - like this one done in the style of a classic silent film. As renting a tank is not all that practical, better to keep a lookout for the kind of motorist shown in this film and your hand on the brake when in their natural environment. Which is anywhere there's an intersection of any sort...

Winter Woes

With the chill hand of winter on our backs, not many people are riding too many miles right now. The coldest I have ridden in is the mid-30's and that made me realize two things, the gear I have isn't warm enough for those temperatures and cold can be very dangerous.

The rule of thumb I grew up with about windchill on motorcycles is the 30/30/30 rule. At 30 degrees and 30 miles per hour, exposed skin will freeze in 30 seconds. Now, that isn't saying that the rider will get frostbite at that time (see the NOAA Winchill chart I've copied at the end of the post for that particular information), but it does mean that the nerves will go numb. I don't think I need to go into why that is an unpleasant sensation for a rider to get. Another reason I find cold to be dangerous to a rider is that it makes the rider less mentally sharp. When I get very cold, the way one can on a bike in the winter, I find I concentrate more on getting warm or how cold I feel than on what I am doing. That is a distinctly dangerous mental state to be in on a motorcycle, especially when added to the slowed muscle reactions and clumsy nerves.

So, what can a rider do to combat all this? Layer. It allows you to adjust the amount of warmth you have on to fit the changing temperatures over the course of a day and the air in between the layers helps to insulate you further. When it comes down to the outer layer, I of course recommend a padded motorcycle jacket and in this instance highly recommend one that is both insulated and water-proofed. The water-proofing on the zippers will help to keep the wind out. Finally, don't forget the feet. Cold feet are just as bad as cold hands on a ride, unless you have linked brakes and an automatic transmission, of course.

Ride safe, and ride warm.

More Helmet, Please.

I have a bit of a continuation about helmets... Also known as "Why I wear a full face helmet."

I fully understand that many riders prefer not to wear the same style of lid that I recommend, and that is their choice. However, when I get asked why I wear what I wear I have a simple answer, "Ever seen what happens to a face that meets the pavement?" It may be a slightly brusque reply, but the fact remains that in the majority of impacts the initial point of impact is in the face, or there abouts. This diagram shows the general, statistical break down of impact points:

As you can see, fully a third of the primary impacts are along the chin bar, the next 18% along the forehead, and another 10% in the area of the face shield. In my wreck a year ago, I levered over directly onto my face and got to watch the grass slide by inches from my eyes. My experiences, along with those of people I know and the above diagram, are the main reasons I wear what I wear and why I recommend full face helmets to anyone who asks.

That said, how do you choose the one right for you?

That's just a small sample of what is waiting for you when you go in to buy a helmet. With over 13 different helmet standards in the world, it's hard to know what is right to pick. The answer is short, but hardly simple. The only right helmet is the one that fits you best and that you will wear every time you ride. If a cheaper DOT certified helmet is what feels right, with no hot spots or pressure point, than go ahead and get that one. If a top of the line DOT/Snell/BSI certified helmet is what fits best (and fits your budget), by all means get that one.

The best advice I can give about helmet shopping is have fun with it. Take your time and go to several places. Talk to the sales people while wearing a helmet or two and looking at whatever else they have and don't rush your decision.

Halloween costume helmets

"Cape does not allow wearer to fly."

This label, off a kid's Batman costume, has been circulating on lists of stupid warning labels for at least a decade before Batman Begins, which was the first time I can remember anyone actually showing Batman using his cape to actually fly. With Halloween costumes showing up in every Wal-Mart now, it's time to address a similar type of costume that's sold in bike shops year round, the novelty helmet.

Novelty helmets do have their place - as costumes on the set of a movie, or in a play, or yes, as a Halloween costume. They don't really make much sense on your head on a public road. Your average bicycle helmet provides more protection than a novelty helmet.

Unless you've wandered into a very unscrupulous motorcycle shop, they're easy to spot in the shop by the lack of a DOT approved sticker on the back, and often by a warning label inside it that it's not a real helmet. If you look closely, you can spot them on the road much of the time - they're very thin compared to a real helmet. It's a dead giveaway. There are a couple of somewhat thin, legal helmets, such as the Davida Ninety-One, but engineering a thin helmet that actually protects the head inside it is a major challenge. And many of the novelty helmets you see out there are about a quarter of the thickness of the Ninety-One.

To understand the problem with making a helmet thin, imagine that you've got a choice of diving off the roof of your house onto (1) a stack of four matresses, or (2) a concrete driveway. Assume it's just as far to either one. Obviously, the stack of matresses is going to hurt a lot less than the concrete. The reason a soft object is going to hurt less is that it compresses more. As a first approximation, if that stack of matresses compress 100 times more than the concrete, it'll only have to push you 1/100th as hard to stop your fall. The amount of crash (kinetic energy, if you want to get techincal) the helmet can absorb is equal to the force it pushes back on you times the amount of distance your head can push it. A real, DOT approved helmet is often ten times as thick as a novelty helmet... meaning if you smack your head into concrete wearing it, that novelty helmet is likely to give you ten times the hurting.

I'm a bit puzzled about why people wear novelty helmets on the street. Is it cost? That doesn't make that much sense, as you can get real helmets for only a couple more dollars. Comfort? Not if you've chosen the helmet correctly; the companies that make the good helmets put a lot of R&D into making their products fit comfortably. Style? That may be it. The thing is, what you put on to ride your bike isn't just what everyone sees; it's the only thing between you and that 10,000 pounds of steel hurtling towards you at over a hundred miles an hour in the other lane. It's not a fashion statement. It's not your costume. It's your armor.

Quick tips

Just a couple of quick tips to tide people over as I work on a full post (next topic: helmets)

First, when you get new tires put on the bike, the handling changes. I put some Pirelli MT75s on the Ninja yesterday to replace the stock Dunlop K630s, which you may recall were getting pretty worn. Not only are the new tires rounded, the new rear tire is slightly smaller than the original. The combination of these factors lead to a faster turn-in than I was used. Add to that the fact that the Pirellis have better grip than the Dunlops and you get me grinning in my helmet all the way home from the shop.

Second, a little something I discovered on my way to get the tires replaced. I had not warmed up my engine enough to turn off the choke, but I did it anyway. Meaning that I stalled coasting to a red light. No problem, I thought, I'll just put the bike in first and pop the clutch to pop-start it. Bad idea. I should have remembered to put the bike in second gear to pop-start. Instead I locked the rear wheel and slid the back end out momentarily before I engaged the clutch and allowed it to turn freely again. Slightly embarrassed, I just turned the choke back on and hit the starter button.