Geek who loves 2 bike

Yesterday was a beautiful day for a motorcycle ride. The weather was a very unseasonable (but great) 70 degrees out. I took the opportunity to ride to Lawrence in the afternoon to visit my daughter at school. It was not one of my days to have her or I would have taken her to do some outdoor activity.

Well, I visited in the late afternoon, had dinner, and then rode home. A minority of my highway riding is at night. It is clear that night motorcycling is less safe than daylight riding. When traveling I try to be off the road before it gets dark. I do ride a fair amount of in-city at night as I generally bike first before taking a car.

But, I have found that night riding is one of easiest ways to get into the motorcycling zone. There is nothing quite like cruising down the highway on a warm night. Yesterday was one of those days. Perfect.

I recently purchased a Suomy Vandal motorcycle helmet to replace my Arai RX7-Corsair. While I will post up details of my Arai experience after the situation plays out (helmet has been returned for warranty). Until then, let me warn you that Arai's (lack of) customer service is inexcusable. I have no problem warning off others from purchasing any Arai product.

During a stray conversation with my daughter today I mentioned that I had been eating too much (some due to Thanksgiving) and needed to watch out for gaining weight. Her immediate response; You just need to exercise more and every day. Now, I already exercise almost every day and generally only take off days when I have my daughter. But she is right, "Just Do It".

A chance conversation today reminded me of one of my strong beliefs: You have to be able to envision a thing to achieve it.

Many people self-limit themselves with a shortness of vision.

I have raved in the past about my Etymotic ER6i earphones. These are awesome in-ear earphones. They really work great on my motorcycle. In addition (or maybe most importantly) they have very good sound. Far better than stock iPod earbuds or the many other earphones I have tried.


Etymotic ER6i

Well, from previous postings you may know that I am a big fan of Bose Corporation. I have had very good experience with several of their products and have had my some of the very best retail customer service experience at the Bose store. So you may imagine, I was excited to learn that they have finally come out with an in-ear earphone. For background, note that I am a raving fan of my Bose QuietComfort 3 regular headphones. The QC3 just don't work for the motorcycle. In addition I acknowledge that some people would prefer in-ear earphones and the earphones are generally much less expensive than the QC 3s.


Bose in-ear headphones

After trying the new Bose "in-ear headphones" ($99.00) I have to state, in my opinion, the Bose have nowhere near the fidelity of the Etymotic ER6i earphones ($79.00 online). Both sets of earphones must be placed in the ear comfortably to get good sound. The Bose have a edge in bass (subjective), but are muddy in the mid and upper frequencies. The Etymotic have good bass and very good sound in all frequencies. Really these give great sound from an iPod. You will notice a world of difference from the cheaper (and some not cheaper brands).

By the way, the ER6i used to cost more than $100, including when I purchased them.

I rode my motorcycle on a 60+ mile (one way) commute this morning when the temperature started at 38 degrees. It was foggy and parts of the ride had a light mist. Fortunately, due to my good gear, I stayed dry and warm. If you ride in the cold you owe it to yourself to purchase good gear.

For the record, I wore:

Dianese D-Dry Boots
        Awesome. Keep my feet dry and warm enough with just regular socks. A reall plus is that they are simply black and do not have that over-the-top motorcycle look.

Jeans
        Only because this was what I wore during the day.

Gerbing Heated Pants.
        Work really well over the jeans. I regularly wear these alone when riding. Great all year round.

Long sleeve cotton shirt
        First layer.

Gerbing heated jacket/liner
        Works well as a jacket alone or as a liner under a regular motorcycle jacket. Really plain looking and I never wear it alone.

Belstaff Mercury Jacket (added 11/17)
        This is my regular textile riding jacket. I really like it. It is waterproof, has excellent reflective stripes, pretty ajustable, and comfortable. The Jacket has a zip out, quilted, liner. I don't use the liner and just use the Gerbing jacket as a liner. The two jacket (Gerbing/Belstaff) is generally warm enough without the electrics on in cool weather.

Gerbing heated gloves
        Despite the fact I have heated grips, these are a must in cold weather. These keep your hands plenty warm.

Gerbing heated clothing controller
        While others use separate "heatrollers" (controller installed on the motorcycle) or one Gerbings dual controllers (allowing separate control of different clothing items), I find the single controller works fine for me. This controller connects to the jacket. The jacket has wires for the pants and each glove.

Pearl Izumi balaclava
        This head covering eliminated air gaps under the helmet and on the neck. I originally purchased this item for bicycling but find it works great for motorcycling as well. This works better than motorcycling specific head covers (balaclavas) that I have purchase (including a Gore-tex one).

Arai RX-7 Corsair helmet
        This is my main cycling helmet. Unfortunately every helmet I have tried flow lots of air. This is good in the summer but not so great in the winter. The balaclava under the helmet eliminates any issues here.

Hope you enjoy your winter rides as I am!
        

One of the great features of the the original (and many iterations) of Palm handhelds was the easy handwriting gestures called "Graffiti". This feature was one that made the Palm very useable. Due to some very poorly thought design decisions (apparently based on a pending lawsuit) Palm a couple of years ago changed to a new version of handwriting gestures called "Graffiti". Put plainly, the new Graffiti 2 is horrible. Where I could easily write notes on my older handheld, on my Palm T3 even simple address entries were painful.

Steps:
1. Backup Palm T3 with normal sync.
2. Copy user files from PC to backup directory (just for safety).
3. Download old Graffiti files from internet.
4. Install old Graffiti files on Palm T3 with sync.

Full instruction here: http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=5830&curpage=4

Thanks Justin for the tip

Ducati is coming out with a new superbike called the 1098. This is the talk of internet motorcycle forums. Interesting to me is that the marketing, information, and release of this bike was very Apple-like. By that I mean, very little information, lots of rumors, heightened excitement and rumors on the internet, leaked spy shots, and final release. Ducati did a great job (very Apple-like) in keeping the wraps on prior to release.

Now, there are lots of great pictures available. For example, see Ducati.com.

One of the very talked about items is color. Ducatis are traditionally associated with red. For many, this is the only color to have. For the most part with some special exceptions, Ducatis have been limited to red, yellow, silver, and black. (To the Ducati appassionato, I acknowledge, blue (earlier models), green (matrix), and others). For my own reasons, I prefer sliver. Color is almost a religious passion for some Ducatista. Unfortunately (not for my wallet though) the 1098 initially will only be available in red.


While I have seen other (photoshopped) versions of the 1098 in different colors, here is my quickly rendered iteration in silver.