Thursday, April 15, 2010

Luggage

The first piece of luggage I ever bought was the Big Mak Jr. tank bag. In hindsight I wish I would have purchased a larger Big Mak bag, but the Jr. is decent. I like the Big Mak feature that the bag is securely on the tank, but you can easily flip it up to get to the gas cap. Tank bags are incredibly pricey for the RT so I am sticking with this one for now. I only use it to for quick access items like sunglasses, chapstick, ear plugs, glove liners, and occasionally my keys. I also stuff any stray accessory cables in there. The RT came with hard side cases and a hard shell top box (aka trunk). I quickly purchased some liners for the side cases. Again, an expensive item so I went on the cheap and purchased the Bestem side case bags. They have actually worked very well and I don’t think the expensive BMW bags are any better. The only thing that is questionable on the Bestem bags is the zipper. The zipper is a little flimsy, but it hasn’t broken yet and I’ve been using them for over three years now. Since Leslie will never get on the bike I figured I could get a nice piece of luggage to mount on the back seat. Over the winter I purchased the Nelson-Rigg CL-150 expandable sport tail pack. I haven’t used this bag yet, but it is a perfect size and is waterproof so that is really all I was looking for in a seat bag. I am planning to put items like food, water, and maps in the tail pack so I don’t have to pull the key out and open the trunk and fumble around for them at a gas station. In June, I am planning a trip to Italy and plan to rent a BMW R1200GS and ride around. I knew I would have a lot of room for luggage so I bought a nice backpack specifically designed for use on a motorcycle. It is the Kriega R25 backpack. I will use it on the upcoming trip in May, but I will likely just put it in the trunk versus wearing it on my back. In Italy, I won’t have a trunk so I will need to wear it. It is very comfortable and shouldn’t cause much discomfort. That’s it for luggage. Packing for two or three weeks on the road is a challenge, but since I do not need space for camping equipment, I should have enough room for an adequate supply of clean clothes.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Farkles Continued





I ride a lot at night on these long trips. I rather enjoy nighttime riding, but one thing you are exposed to is less visibility and more deer. I wanted some extra lights for the bike so I bought the PIAA 1100X Universal Driving Light kit. These lights are very small, but kick out a lot of light. They mount very nicely in the front of the faring and there is an on/off switch on the left handlebar. The lights don’t project out as much as I like, but you become very visible to other drivers on the road which increases your safety rating. I am always looking for deer at night and the extra lights do help.

I am paranoid about getting pulled over for speeding. I am not an excessive speeder, but I like to be aware of my surroundings so I have a Valentine One (V1) radar detector. You can get pulled over for just about any amount of speed over the limit and speeding tickets are expensive. More important than that, getting pulled over takes a lot of time away from moving forward along the road. The V1 is one of the top of the line radar detectors and displays much more information than a standard radar detector. If I avoid one ticket from the use of the V1, it is worth having. I am sure it has saved me a few times. There are a lot of people with philosophies on whether or not it is efficient to speed. I don’t have a philosophy, I don’t speed like crazy, but I do exceed the speed limit on occasion and I prefer the added sense of comfort the V1 gives me. My V1 is mounted on an accessory shelf I installed on the dash of the bike. The shelf is great and I have room for a couple other farkles if I decide to scale a bit. The V1 is covered with a molded plastic cover so rain is not a problem. I have the V1 connected wirelessly to a Vizalert attached to my helmet. The Vizalert is a little panel of lights that are on the inner right side of the helmet. The lights indicate the alert being displayed on the V1. This is very useful on the highway when you can’t hear any of the audible alerts. I should note that I do not have the V1 hardwired to the bike’s electrical system. I prefer to have it connected through the accessory outlet. This way, I can take the V1 with me and use it on other vehicles if needed. I have a Big Mak tank bag which I use to store all the cables. I purchased the small tank bag, but in hindsight, I should have purchased the mid-sized bags. The bag tends to get overstuffed in the winter with all the electrical clothing cables going through it. With a mid-sized bag I could take the gear off the bike and quickly put it in the tank bag and take it with me easily. I do that now at home or at hotels when I don’t want to leave the gear on the bike overnight, but the stuff does not fit neatly in the small Big Mak tank bag. This leads me to luggage which I will save for next time.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Tires, Tires, F'n Tires

A break from farkles to discuss tires. I am so pissed right now and it is all due to my tires. The last set of tires I had on the bike were Michelin Pilot Road 2 model tires. I didn’t know anything about tires at the time and they were on sale so I purchased them. They are a sport-touring model tire and since the RT is a sport-touring bike I figured they would work well enough. I was only expecting to get about 8,000 miles out of them. They performed flawlessly and I put almost 12,000 miles on them. I rode them in just about every road condition possible. They never lost air, no punctures, perfect. I know I needed new tires for this long 9,000+ mile trip I was going on so I wanted a tire specific for touring. I did some research and Metzeler has one of the best reputations for tires. The general consensus is that they are pricey, but worth it. In December 2009, I decided to get the Metzeler ME880 Marathon model tires installed. I was expecting to easily get 12,000 miles from these tires. I have had nothing but problems with the rear tire and it is driving me nuts. I never had to “plug” a tire before and after only about 1,000 miles on these, I got a flat. Then a few weeks later I got another flat and now I have a weird super slow leak or maybe no leak at all and it is driving me nuts. It went flat and I filled it up with air and 12 hours later it went flat then I filled it up again and I couldn’t find the leak because it was so slow and weak. Yesterday, I filled it up with air again and this morning I checked it and it is fine. I have no idea what is going on and I am not comfortable at all with this tire. I ordered another tire from Second Wind BMW in Merrimack NH. It should be in this week. I really hope it is the tire and not something more serious like the rim or something. A word on Second Wind BMW… I had been using Greater Boston Motorsports for a couple years. They are Boston’s BMW dealer in Arlington MA. I was using them because they were close, but their customer service has always been really bad. They deal with too many bike models so their parts personnel don’t have a clue. They have ordered the wrong parts for me on a number of occasions. I decided to try Second Wind back in December. They picked-up the bike and I had them do a major service for me. Very responsive customer service and they only deal with BMW and Triumph bikes so they have a specialized focus. The location is not too far away and it is a good launching point for some great roads in NH.

Farkles

“Farkling” is a term used in the motorcycling community to describe gadgets. I can’t get enough of these. I want them all, but don’t have the space. I am always seeing products that could improve my ride, but I need to be selective because you can’t hook-up everything. Sometimes I wish I would have purchased the RTP version of my bike which is the Police bike version. It does not have a pillion seat; it has an extra battery in place of the seat in order to run all of the extra lights and what not for police bikes. These bikes are available commercially and I have seen many of them on the road. I am a member of the Yankee Beemers Motorcycle Club and one of the riders has one completely fitted with all sorts of fun stuff including a full computer with internet access on the fly. He’s got a Toughbook computer in the trunk and it is connected to a flip-up touchpad on the tank bag. Very cool stuff. I am in the process of buying a Verizon Netbook with 3G in order to be connected on long trips. I am not attaching it to anything, but it will be in the trunk so I can use it at stops and overnights. Also, I plan to use Microsoft Streets and Trips to modify my route along the way and need to connect the GPS to the Netbook in order to upload changes to the route. This shit is crazy; I am obsessed. Anyway, I do have an adequate amount of Farkles on the bike to play with. We’ll start with the BMW Navigator III GPS which is a Garmin (very similar to the StreetPilot 2820 model) specifically designed for motorcycles. It is waterproof so I can roll in the rain with no problems and it has some great features. Besides the Bluetooth capabilities it has some great data and tracking features plus some large buttons on the mount so you are not fumbling through screen menus to get to some of the more frequently used features. I like the “speak” button; it gets lonely on the road and I like to hear a chick’s voice now and then. Typically, I use the Mapsource software on my Dell Inspiron laptop to map my route and then load the route into the GPS via USB or Bluetooth from the laptop before mounting it on the bike. Soon, I will start using the Netbook and Streets and Trips. Routing takes a lot of time, but it is part of the ride and I enjoy doing it. Mapsource is a little clumsy so I’m hoping Streets and Trips will lessen the time I have to spend on routing. The 2010 version of Streets and Trips will take your route and load it directly to your GPS which is very cool. I have a BlackBerry Tour cell phone with Verizon service which connects via Bluetooth to the GPS. This is nice because the phonebook from the BlackBerry syncs to the GPS as well. I can easily make calls and answer calls on the move. I’ve done this and the sound/reception is very clear using the features of the helmet to hear and talk into the installed mic. The caller can not tell I am on a motorcycle rock’n down the highway. More farkles later….

Thursday, April 8, 2010

The Nolan N103 Outlaw

The Italians really know how to build a helmet. I was shopping for a helmet for quite some time before deciding on the Nolan. I saw a special on the Discovery channel which featured Alpinestars protective riding gear (also Italian) and Nolan helmets. They went to the factory and had engineers explain their process for developing and building Nolan helmets. It was very interesting and convinced me to look into Nolan further. I talked to a few people who own them and the only criticism they’ve had is that they feel the Nolan helmets are noisy and heavy. I agree with both assessments, but you can easily mitigate the first with some ear plugs and the heavy thing just makes me think that I’m getting more protection so I’m ok with it. The main reason I purchased the Nolan was for the communications. I bought the “Outlaw” flat black model. I wanted as few wires and cords as possible in terms of the communications system for the bike so I purchased the Bluetooth comm unit for the helmet. The helmet comes with a boom mic, but you need to purchase the comm unit separately. My BMW Navigator III GPS (special Garmin GPS for BMW, but it is almost identical to the Garmin StreetPilot 2820 model) unit is the central nervous system of the bike and the helmet connects to it via Bluetooth which is wonderful when it works. I’ve been on rides and the connection will drop off for no reason. At times I regret not getting the hard-wire system, but I’m stuck with this now and have learned to deal with it. I think I’ll save the GPS discussion for another post. Back to the helmet… It is a flip face helmet so when I stop for gas, I don’t really need to remove the helmet. I can just flip up the front and I have full visibility. This saves time. The flip face is also useful for quick water and PowerBar stops. Another useful feature is the retractable shaded visor. Nice when you are wearing regular glasses and the sun decides to come out. Instead of stopping and putting on sunglasses you just need to drop down the shaded visor on the fly. There is an outlet to plug an iPod into the helmet. I don’t do this very often, but the sound quality is quite good with the built-in speakers. The Bluetooth has eight hours of “dormant” battery life which is a challenge on long trips. I recently purchased a charger so I should be able to charge the helmet Bluetooth on the fly through the bike’s battery accessory socket. I have also connected a Vizalert heads-up display to the helmet, but I will save that discussion for a later post. All in all, a nice helmet with several features and some scalability.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Riding Gear


To call my interest in motorcycles and the sport of motorcycle riding an obsession is an understatement. This is no joke; I am constantly thinking about ways to improve my riding, what can I get to make things easier, how can I increase my range, how can I reduce the amount of time needed for stops, how can I be more comfortable, how can I lessen fatigue, how can I improve my route, how can I mitigate my exposure to risk, how can I deal with the time/distance constraints within my trip, what foods can I consume to better my abilities, and on and on and on. I have a fairly rigid physical fitness plan and diet and the only reason I have such a thing is to be in top physical health in order to maximize my riding capabilities. I enjoy being healthy, but really I just want to be in shape in order to ride hard for days and days and days at a time. Whenever I meet other like-minded people, I usually walk away from the conversation with a list of books to read or products to research in order to determine whether or not to incorporate them into my world. I get a lot of ideas from bulletin boards and of course all the magazines I subscribe to. As I re-read the beginning of this post it really looks ridiculous and this interest may wane in the future, but for now I am just being honest and trying to explain this obsession. Ok, so…back to riding gear. The basic piece of gear starts with my fully armored grey on grey one-piece Aerostich Roadcrafter riding suit. Aerostich is a company headquartered in Duluth MN and since I am from that area, I try to use them for any gear and accessories. Also, they have a very strong reputation in the riding gear commercial space, particularly within the BMW owners’ community. I have been there a couple times and once I set my sights on the Roadcrafter, I decided to ride there to get a custom fit and besides, you get a 10% discount if you purchase from them directly in Duluth. I did a Bun-Burner Gold (BBG) ride there last summer. The BBG is an Iron Butt Association (IBA) certified ride of 1500 miles in 24 hours. I actually went 1500 miles in 23 hours. I think the IBA will be the topic of a later post. Anyway, I got fitted for my Roadcrafter and they sent it to me a couple weeks later. I love the suit. It really is worth every penny (~$900). What do I wear under the suit? There is so much protection on this suit that you could wear nothing underneath if you wanted and you would still be very well protected from any road rash if you find yourself skidding down the highway. I have been experimenting with several different “base layers” and undergarments. On short day trips I usually just wear normal street clothes underneath, but on long distance (LD) trips I need to wear the most comfortable stuff possible. I have tried several Under Armour, Nike, Addidas, Rukka, and Alpinestars products for shirts. All of them have been decent. Under Armour has worked best for winter riding and the others have been adequate for summer riding. You really just need something that is close to the skin and “wicks” the sweat from your body. For underwear, you can not go wrong with LD Comfort underwear. An excellent product and will give any LD rider the ability to go an extra couple hundred miles on any given day without crotch rash. I recently purchased a few pair of the long LD Comfort underwear in preparation for next month’s trip. My plan is to wear the long underwear and a wicking shirt under the Roadcrafter and that’s it. I have a nice Aerostich Kanetsu electric vest for the winter, but it won’t be necessary on this trip. I am not bringing it, but I am aware that the temps will drop so I am bringing a couple sweatshirts and they should be adequate. Boots and gloves. Last year, I read a blog from a woman who rode across Europe and she had some recommendations which I adopted. Two of which are boots and gloves. For boots, I have the TCX Airtech Gore-Tex boots. This boot is marketed as a summer boot with “breathable” waterproofing features. However, I wear the boot year round and have had no problems with varying temperatures. They are very comfortable, but you need to tuck your pants into the boot because if you don’t, the top of the boot will rub your shin and irritate your skin. For summer gloves, I use the REV’IT! Zenith H2O Gloves. REV’IT! makes a bunch of summer gloves, but I needed the waterproofing because I actually love to ride in the rain, but I like to stay dry as I do it. These gloves are comfortable and perform in the rain as advertised; they also have some knuckle armor. However, when it is extremely hot and you get sweaty, they are very difficult to take off and put back on which increases your stopping time and (to me) that’s unacceptable. I have some cheap cloth liner gloves that I wear underneath and they have helped tremendously. I wear them for a day and throw them out. They are perfect for this purpose and you can find them at any Home Depot and they are cheap. In the winter and cold months I have a couple options for gloves. I have the Tourmaster Winter Elite glove which is very comfortable and they have a nice rain cover attached to them. These gloves are great for the cold spring and fall rides. When you get deep into the winter though, you need to break out the electrics. In November 2009, I purchased the Gerbing’s 12V Hybrid Heated Glove. The gloves have a battery so you can wear them without being tethered to your bike’s electrical system. However, the battery will only last about an hour at the full level. If you are on a long trip, you need to connect them to the electrical system for constant use. I bought the Hybrid model because my commuter bike is a 2002 Piaggio Vespa PX150 and I didn’t want to get it all wired for accessories. My commute is only about 15 minutes so I can use the gloves for about a week on a single charge. They are very warm and I have been quite happy with them. They have no armor protection and they say they are waterproof, but I’m not sure I would trust them in really heavy rain. Who’s riding in the rain in the winter though? I will ride in any weather except freezing rain unless I’m stuck and I have to. Wow…this is a long post and I still have my complicated helmet to write about… I am going to save that for another post.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Creature Comforts

I just reviewed the older posts on this blog. That first trip I took was a lot of fun, but if I took the same trip this year it would drive me nuts. I'm a different kind of rider now and doing less than 500 miles in a day is a waste to me. In fact, most of my rides on this trip next month will be close to 1,000 miles/day. I like to get where I need to go. There is no sense in stopping if you are physically able to keep going. The other big difference is the bike. I own the same 2004 BMW R1150RT, but I have added so much to it. In 2007, my plan was to do the trip and then sell the bike when I returned, but the bike performed so well and it is such a capable multi-use machine that I decided to keep it. I decided to add to it and modify it considerably. I have tried to make the bike as comfortable as possible. A few of the "comfort" modifications include a Cee Bailey windshield to increase the wind protection which reduces fatigue. I have a Russell Day-Long saddle and it is probably the single best addition to the bike. It makes a huge difference and gives me the ability to put up the big miles. I do not have cruise control. I've tried it and don't feel comfortable with it so I opted for a Throttle Rocket wrist rest which also reduces fatigue in my opinion. I am able to maintain speed with very little effort and do not need to keep my hand wrapped around the throttle. I recently added some Hawks Talons highway pegs. I have not had much opportunity to use these, but on last summer's cross country trip I found my legs began to cramp a bit being in the same position. The pegs should give me the ability to stretch on occasion. I do prefer the default RT riding position, but figured I could use a little stretch now and then. I have noticed my knees occasionally need the break. I consider riding gear a comfort modification as well, but more of my philosophy on riding gear and farkling during a later post.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Restart

It's time to get this sucker started again. I really blew it the last time I tried to keep this blog going, but decided to give it another go. I am at the final stages of planning and preparing for my big trip next month. You can see the route at: http://tiny.cc/btreq You'll need to zoom out a bit to see the whole picture.

I have planned the ride and I am planning to ride the plan. So far, the plan is to leave Boston on May 1st and ride to Orlando in a day, where I have to spend the week working the big GSA Expo (expo.gsa.gov). If you are a federal employee, you really need to see this Expo at least once in your career. It is quite an event. From there, I will head west on Friday, May 7th. I will spend a day in Little Rock. For some reason, I really want to see the Clinton Library so that is why I am stopping there. Then on to Albuquerque to visit friends. I will ride Route 66 through Oklahoma along the way to NM. Then on to Phoenix to spend a day or so with a friend. Then San Diego to see some family and friends. Then L.A. to visit another friend and see the J. Paul Getty museum and villa. Then the Pacific Coast Highway to San Francisco where I will spend a couple days visiting friends and riding the area a bit more. Then heading east through Nevada along "The Loneliest Road in America" aka U.S. Route 50. The next major stop is to see the Devils Tower National Monument in Hulett WY. Then to Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse in South Dakota. Then down to Kansas City to see friends. Then St. Louis to see friends. Then dip south to the Tail of the Dragon in NC. Then haul ass back to Boston from there to be back by May 22nd. All in all it should be about 9,000 miles.