I have the rest of the sacrificial fairing primed for another paint test. My plan is to paint the next third with two coats of base, two coats of colour, and two coats of clearcoat. (I put three colour coats on the first third.)
I was planning not to paint the inside of the cowling. I mean, why? No one will see it. But when I got some of the flaky black primer or paint off, and some of the orange primer, I saw blue. *sigh* That means I have to paint the inside. But I just took another look at a salvaged Reddish Yellow Cocktail cowl on eBay, It looks like it’s just primed and has overspray from painting the outside. I know that the cowl has not been repainted because it still has the original graphics and caution sticker on it. So… That will make painting it easier, going back to my original plan of not painting the inside. (I’ll still sand it and prime it though.)
Two rides today. The first one was to the supermarket to buy corn on the cob to go with our rib-eyes. I also picked up a pound and a quarter of ‘perfect burger’ ground beef, which I’ve made into four 5-ounce patties, a packet of four large Hebrew National hot dogs, a head of lettuce, and some tomatoes-on-the-vine. I would have picked up buns, but they didn’t have any keto ones. I still had room in my backpack.
The traffic headed to the beach was heavy, so I decided to take the long way home. An SUV made the same turn I made, but they moved over to let me go by. I waved ‘thanks’. I could have made a left for the shorter route home, but I thought I’d turn right and go around Drayton Harbor. I had to wait for like 87 cars to turn right to take the same route, before I could make my left. I kept going past my turn to go up the beach. The speed limit along the beach is 25 mph. Someone at the head of the line of cars going up the beach decided 12 mph was reasonable.
We decided not to have steaks tonight, so I needed to go to the corner market. It’s only ⅔ mile away, but at least I got a short second ride. I got some potato salad for my wife, and cottage cheese for me. I’ll have a cheeseburger on multi-grain bread, and maybe a hot dog, and my wife will have a hot dog.
12 mph might have been reasonable with enough beach-going peds & kids about. We certainly have tourist-dense areas like that for a half-mile or so every few miles. Not everywhere of course, but enough to impact a long trip more than once.
What does the speed of cars in front of you, or the number of them, have to do with motorcycle riding? Just go around those annoying obstacles exactly as you would a fallen tree branch or bag of garbage found in the roadway.
When I lived at the top of the Santa Cruz Mountains and worked down in Santa Clara Valley, my daily commute took me from Summit Road and down Highway 17, a twisty 2-lane highway at highway speeds. In other words it wasn’t a 35mph road. I used the 2 lanes and slalomed around the cars as if they were moving pylons. I commuted that way every day, year round, rain or shine. Fun times
After almost two and a half decades on The Dope, I’m sure everyone is aware of my knee injuries. My right knee has a limited range of motion, and my right great toe is paralysed on top, making is impossible to assume a proper crouch position on the 2002 Yamaha YZF-R1 I bought new in 2003. It was a ‘tight fit’ then, and it hasn’t gotten any better.
Since SWMBO thwarted my plans to do some painting on the 1994 XJ600 Seca II cowling, I just went on a short (6-mile) ride on the R1 after our six-hour excursion. I re-discovered that I need to wear shoes with heels. I wore Skechers on my ride today, and they don’t have heels. Since my knee doesn’t go all the way back, and I can’t put my toes on the peg, my right foot sort of hangs down. (Needless to say, I don’t lean very far into right turns.) Without a heel on my shoes to put over the peg, it’s hard to keep my foot into an acceptable riding position.
So lesson learned: Wear my chukka boots or other heeled shoes.
Speaking of double yellow lines. On the final leg of my circuit, I turned up the beach 1.8 miles from home. The beach road is a golf cart zone, and there was a golf cart ahead with a car between me and it. The car driver must have been a tourist, as she deemed 11 mph a reasonable speed for a 25 mph zone. By this time, the golf cart was well ahead. She was getting on my nerves. I revved the engine a couple of times, but she didn’t take the hint. So I gunned it across the double yellows. The golf cart very courteously moved to the right onto the shoulder so that I could pass, and I gave the driver a wave.
The double yellow talk reminded me of crossing through Yosemite on hwy CA-120, the Tioga Road. My in laws used to live in Bishop when I lived in San Francisco. I’ve been across Yosemite on that road many times. Lots of twists and turns. Only one lane. There are only 1-2 places in the park where passing is allowed. In the summer there are lots of RVs on that road.
It’s great on a bike, being able to pass on a double yellow.
Well… I tried to sand out the runs. But I sanded a bit too much in a couple of places. I went ahead and sanded the whole thing with 1500 grit, painted the front (where the runs were), painted the rest, and then gave it another coat. I’ll apply the YAMAHA decal in an hour or so, and then spray the clear coat.
Not perfect. It is, as they say, what it is… and it looks a helluva lot better than the vandalised version. I think I’ll probably end up with ‘B’ or a ‘B-minus’, which is OK since I’ve never done this before.
I was solidly on-track for a B-plus finish until I messed up the last coat before clear-coating a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday I still thought I was going to give myself at least a B. But I bollixed it. The only way to recover is to sand the whole thing down to the plastic and start again. I’m not going to do that. When the bike goes into the shop to get the engine rebuilt and the frame stripped, I’ll have a professional paint them both.
I’ll still paint – or attempt to paint – the fender and tailpiece.
Paint is hard; very hard. As you’ve learned. I’d call that a victory of sorts; you’re now a lot more skilled than you were. Just not quite skilled enough.
I found high-quality painting to be impossible given the way my mind works (or doesn’t).
I simply cannot pay careful enough attention long enough to such a boring task not to have a false or hasty move occur someplace while my attention has [Squirrell!!]. Every damned time.
You rang? I might be doing my own painting soon. Found a deal on a Yamaha FZ6R, just taking a couple days to talk myself out of it. The current owner admitted they slid it, so I’m waiting on pictures of that side. As long as the case and frame look fine, I’ll be hard pressed not to buy it. And then the fun begins, because I don’t like stickers or graphics or words, just a clean two-tone paint job. I might go with the vinyl wrap again, though - as long as you’re patient, you can get most surfaces, even with the complex curves on a lot of fairings. And no runs or sanding.
Well, the seller has just ghosted when I asked for pictures of the scraped side and the VIN, so that made the decision for me.
That said, it looks like bike prices are starting to become slightly less ridiculous, plus it’s now mid-summer. People are realizing they’re not riding and trying to acquire more garage space. The hunt is now own in earnest.
Filtering[1] became legal in Colorado last week, though lane-splitting[2] is still illegal. I haven’t done this yet, or actually been driving and seen it done (just illegal lane-splitting). Any advice? When I reach the traffic light should I stay in the in-between position, or move in front of the front car?
Next week my kid starts 6th grade at a school 2 miles away. There is no bus, so either bicycle, walk, or parental drop-off. Can I take my kid on the back of my motorcycle? My wife’s old jacket will fit, and there are some old size small helmets, which will be too big, but better than nothing. I have two primary questions related to this: What to do with the helmet during the day? Is this a bit cringe in some kind of cool Dad way?
moving past stopped traffic in an occupied lane ↩︎
