Showing 0 to 7 of 8 Results
Software Update: Feeling the Pressure
I am feeling the pressure to get all this code I'm writing done ... it's always a question of how much is enough and whether or not a given shortcut I take now, to get something done faster, will cause me great pain in the future. However,I'm still on target to have a first version of the social maps code built and integrated before the end of January. I've made a huge amount of progress on the foundation code that everything else will be built on top of.Once that's done, adding new feat ...Read More
A Social Network for Motorcycle Travelers -or- "Needs A Little Work"
Ian had moved away. Each year he would say, "I'll ship my bike out and we'll do our trip to the Gap again." Each year it wouldn't happen. So, eventually, I decided to guilt him into it by buying a guest bike which we affectionately called "Ian's bike'. I picked up a relatively inexpensive '99 R1100S with less than 10,000 miles on it, but I had made a serious error. I failed to notice that the bike had been badly wrecked and not put back together correctly. It was a stupid out of character m ...Read More
A Review of The Total Control Advanced Rider Clinic
Executive Summary As everyone knows, I'm a big believer in motorcycle training. The Total Control Advanced Riding Clinic is a motorcycle riding course, taught in locations around the country, that takes techniques developed by motorcycle racers and applies them to street riding for the purpose of increasing your control of the motorcycle, and thereby options, when Bad Things happen.Consider coming into a blind corner and there's a deer in the middle of the street. Do you go wide into oncomi ...Read More
Road Report : Deal's Gap Days 1 & 2 : Starbucks Stoppers
10 years ago last month, Ian and I took a fateful motorcycle trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway, one of the most beautiful compelling roads in the entire country. We visited Tom in Ashville. Ian had heard about some water falls in the area he wanted to see. Ian likes pretty waterfalls. Over drinks, Tom happened to mention that a place called "Deal's Gap" was not that far away. My mind instantly reached back into the dark distant past to an era before Starbucks. In this godless age, my only access ...Read More
Road Report: My First Track Day and the "Chain of Trust"
The road reports for the recent trip to Deal's Gap are coming, but in the meantime ... I've been told that in the good 'ol days the only way you could ride on a race track was to be in a race. Now a days, there's this thing called a "Track Day". The idea of a track day is you get to take your regular street bike and ride it around on a track at whatever speed you happen to feel comfortable. There are no speed limits. Literally. The thought of a track day had scared me for some time. I ...Read More
On Riding Well: Fear is the only thing to fear.
On a motorcycle, it is said you go where you look. The problem is that often times we simply don't have "faith" in the bike, the suspension, the tires or the road to go through the corner focusing on where we would like to go. Instead, we go too slowly so we can fixate of the things we're afraid of. That bump in the road, that pebble, that leaf. We tense up. Because of this tension we feel we're going about as fast as the bike can go around the corner. The larger danger is when Bad Things Happe ...Read More
On Riding Well: So You Want to Learn How to Ride a Motorcycle.
With kind feedback from Lee Parks who founded Total Control Motorcycling, I've updated this article to correct some mistakes and to reflect some changes that have occurred over the last 10 years. tl;dr; Don't buy a bike. Sign up for a beginner riders course in your state. If you can, take the Total Control Beginner Riding Clinic. In my humble opinion, even if you have to travel over a state or two it's worth it. Don't buy the bike. Get good gear including a DOT rated helmet, ar ...Read More
On Wrenching: Changing Tires Yourself using the No-Mar Cycle Hill Motorcycle Tire Changer
Like most people will tell you, I live in kind of an abstract world. I don't like, as a general rule, to be troubled with the details of the phyical world around me instead much preferring the space in my head where I am free to contemplate the intracies of my navel. There are, however, a few things that will bring me out of the abstract and back down to reality. Tires, for instance. Tires are important. To many, tires are religion and there are countless holy wars fought over the subject ...Read More