Tuesday, March 30, 2010

upcoming project for April, checking the valve clearance before my bike trip:

http://www.r6messagenet.com/forums/r6-how-guides/14272-how-valve-clearance-check-adjustment.html

and no it's not a joke, but I'm not going to pay 1200-1500$ for the adjustment. I also need new brake pads.

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Mein april projekt wird das messen und justieren des Ventil Spielraums an der R6 sein. Ja ich koennte zum Mechaniker meines Vertrauens gehen, aber der will dann gleich wieder 1200-1500$ fuer das justieren.

Ich glaube das koennte ich noch hinkriegen. Ich muss sowiso einen Oelwechsel machen. Und die meisten Werkzeuge habe ich eh herumzuliegen.

Achso ich brauche auch mal wieder neue bremsbelaege.

Monday, March 29, 2010

yay my second attempt at cutting a movie is done...



the picture is also much more stable and clearer now. I have to say I'm really impressed by this little camera.

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endlich ist mein Computer fertig mit dem berechnen des zweiten Videos vom Sontag. Und ich bin ziemlich beindruckt von der Bildqulitatet dieser Streichholzschachtel grossen Kamera.

after spending the morning riding the bike all over auburn and forest hill (a touch over 200 mils) I just don't want to sit on the motorcycle anymore, so I spend the evening having a quick photo shoot with 2 young woman for there massage and therapy salon. Pictures coming as soon as the client made there pic. So most likely by the end of the tomorrow or Wednesday.

Now I just need to sort 800 pictures and cut 5 hours movies together to like 3-5 minutes. Not that much fun...

Saturday, March 27, 2010

today I finally managed to find the courage to join a local group of riders for my first group ride with 25 other motorcycles. A random mix of Harley's, vulcans, gold-wings and the odd BMW or SuperSport (Like me).

5 hours later or 120 miles I was finally home again. Yes it was a pretty uncomfortable ride, since we were going backroads (which were fun!) at a pace which was frustrating(about 15-20mph mostly), since the cruiser were not able to take the corners faster...

Well tomorrow is another ride and I'm looking forward to it. Video uploads come later, but here is a picture!



surprise surprise a bug promptly killed itself on my camera lenses and smugdes 800 of the 900 pictures...

Friday, March 26, 2010

oh my, my definatly favorite webpage is right now

http://www.ram-mount.com/


I think the right term would be that I could go gaga about all these different mounting solutions. I wish I had known about this when I still had the pickup truck.

Now were can I find a store to play with all these things. I have no idea what I actually could use of this, but the self leveling cupholder is an act of genius.

cupholder

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eine meiner beliebtesten Webseiten ist momentan

http://www.ram-mount.com/


da ich das Konzept einfach nur toll finde und wuenschte nur ich haette die Webseite gefunden als ich noch den Pickup hatte. Nun muss ich nur noch einen Laden finden, welcher die ganzen Module verfuegbar hat, so das ich damit herumspielen kann.

Besonderst den Selbstausrichtenen Becherhalter finde ich einfach nur toll.

Becherhalter

my pathetic shaky first attempt with a way to high compression ratio...


and what is possible with this little camera, once you figure out where to mount it, how to mount it and have quite a good idea how you have to edit movies

the picture quality is pretty impressive for such a small camera, mounted on the tank at 40 miles and hour and also 80 mph looks good. Sure it's a bit grainy and there is quite a lot of purple fringing. But it's a 300$ camera with a plastic lens which can be replaced when dropped (5$) and not a 1k+ dslr.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

well tonight I finally managed to find the small camera I wanted somewhere in stock and got it.


Now I really need to figure out how to use it, but here are some first results....


the camera is basically a little 5MP camera, which is mainly a 1080p HD video camera. Now If I could figure out how to upload videos to this blog...
YouTube to the rescue...



Related to the amount of laughing and fun we had, well it was well worth it and one of the best buys.

I finally ordered my birthday gift which consist of

  • touring windscreen in light gray for the bike
  • power outlet for the bike
  • iphone holder as GPS
  • new helmet cheek pads to improve fit
  • tail bag for the bike for my utah tour
  • little video camera
I'm still not sure about ordering the hammock, I really have to see it in person first and sleep a round or two in it. And I do have a tent. We shall see.

About the wallet, ashley still has to take me to the store, so I can pick one up.

Guess there is going to be some wrenching going on next week :)

it all makes sense...

After riding the R6 for a bit over 4k miles, which translates into another 6k miles before i need to get the valves adjusted and most likely some parts replaced. Anyway I finally understand the tips I read in the book 'Sportriding techniques' and the bike becomes more stable in the curves and stops wobbling.

So time to reread the book and figure out what else I miss understood.

langsam verstehe ich die Zusammenhänge,


nachdem ich knappe 7000km mit der R6 durch die Gegend 'geeiert' bin verstehe ich langsam die Hinweise, welche ich in dem Buch 'Sportriding Techniques' gelesen habe und kann sie anwenden. Oder anders ausgedrückt das Motorrad wird langsam stabiler in den kurven und wackelt nicht mehr so stark. Leider bedeutet es auch das ich in 9000 km meine Ventile justieren oder austauschen muss, was relativ teuer oder eine Menge Arbeit wird. Vermutlich werde ich es selber machen und sehen was dabei rauskommt.

I also tried to buy a tail-bag last night at cycle gear and a video camera, but sadly there had nothing in stock. Well it makes the wallet happy. Or wait it turned out they had a v-star and v-strom standing around and my god they are so beautiful (v-star) and ugly (v-strom), I want one to play with.


Des weiteren wollte ich letzte Nacht eine kleine Videokamera kaufen und eine Tasche, aber wie immer war nichts im Laden verfügbar und ich mache keine Vorbestellungen. Dann kann ich gleich zu amazon gehen. Ich probiere nur langsam alles fuer den utah trip zusammen zukriegen, was eine menge Zeugs ist. Es stellte sich auch heraus das der Laden eine V-Star und eine V-Strom ausgestellt hatte und ich finde die beiden Maschinen ja einfach nur schick und hätte ja gerne eine um damit etwas herumzuspielen.

v-star 2010 - cruiser



2010 Suzuki V-Strom - Enduro/Tourer bike, which ashley really likes and is one of the most
practical bikes around


They even offered me to trade my R6 for a V-Star 650 1:1 and I was tempted, except I want the 950 or 1100 V-Star and I'm really happy with the R6 (ok a bit much power and not enough space)

Der Laden bot mir sogar an meine R6 gegen eine neue V-Star 650 umzutauschen und es war verlockend, aber ich bin eigentlich glücklich mit der R6 (ausser das sie viel zuviel PS hat und etwas klein ist)




Completely unrelated (mostly) last weekend we went wine tasting in Eldorado country and the foothills and I promptly ended up buying a wine club membership for port-wines. Which gives me 4 bottles of port wine all 3 month for 90$ each time. Which averages out to the amount I spend on port wine anyway.

Dann sind wir am Wochenende erstmal Wein verkosten gewesen, was bedeutet das ich erstmal eine Weinklub Mitgliedschafft abgeschlossen habe. Naja mal sehen ob das eine gute Idee war...

I even managed to see my all time favorite car again, which I am going to own one day.

Und wie immer habe ich mein Lieblings (unpraktisch) Auto gesehen, eines Tages...


I just love the look of the classic mustangs, but I need a much higher income before I can ever consider buying on. I mean it's a 50 year old car...

This weekend I'm most likely todo some trips down to napa valley or so and next weekend we are going back to twain harte and start with some little projects on the cabin

Wednesday, March 24, 2010


recently I spend a lot of time traveling the country side of davis and the Eldorado hills, trying to practice and build some muscles for the trip to utah and death valley.


and I'm not sure. but I start to get the feeling the R6 was not designed for more than 200-300 miles and other than perfect roads. Which I don't really seem to find in california.

Maybe I should had done more research before I bought the bike? There are actually a lot of motorcylces out there which all fit me...

For example I still like the idea of the V-Stars, but the more I read about them the more annoying I consider that you have to adjust the valves all 4k miles, which is just to much maintenance. I do like more and more what I read about the V-Stroms, which are basically designed to go around the world a couple of time and compete directly with the BMW-GS800/1250 models.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

I think I should had made an education as a mechanic after all.

After noticing some oil on the oilfilter I thought, yay another project. Finally an oil leak.


but after removing some parts

ok some more parts and even more I ended up here and think this was the issue

so I used up my WD-40 and cleaned it all to make it look pretty again.

sorry no pictures of this. But let's see how the bike behaves for the next couple of thousand miles till we get it a companion for the cold winter months and to have the girl more comfortable.


This weekend was slightly surprising.

It started all with a sunny saturday afternoon and I'm riding home, taking my favorite freeway excit, leaving a curve and guess what? A gigantic puddle of oil is in front of me, cars to the left, cars to the right and so throw I went and nothing happened, except a skid. (Glad to was already out of the lean, otherwise...)

Oh wait a second there is this other car behind me skidding up to me and not being able to brake, so I accelerate into the intersection, which is empty bad red. See a white flash and a sign: Red Light violation 370$.

So home I got and spend the next day on a nice ride with ashley. She is starting to enjoy riding on the bike and afterward I was cleaning the chain and the oil off the bike from the day prior. And while doing this I happend to drop the bike onto the concrete and into some stuff in the garage.

The second it fell I knew this sounded expensive...
  • banged up and scratched exhaust
  • scratch front top fairing, arg
  • broken peg, annoying but not the big deal
  • dent in the tank
  • scratched frame saver, protecting the upper and lower fairing from breaking, yay :)
After all the only frustrating thing is the upper top fairing and the tank, cause these are pricey to replace. Which I'm not gonna do...

Pictures you want? Here they are!


Monday, March 01, 2010

oh the perfect toy for me, I'm resisting since 2 month...

ut I'm also resisting this, thisthis and this