Great news about Colorado. Filtering came to AZ a couple years ago. It’s not as great as riding in California, but it’s a big improvement.
I ride to the front, but stay near or on the lane line. I stop when my front tire is even or slightly ahead of the front bumpers next to me. I wanna be seen.
While the light is still red, I double check that I’m in gear, and at the green I leave promptly so I’m not holding anyone up, but I don’t rev it too much so I’m not noisy. I know some drivers are nervous about a bike that close.
Regarding giving your 6th grader a ride to school, can you do the ride on residential streets?
The kid will love it. But you’ll need to buy a helmet that properly fits. I started on mini-bikes when I was five, and I had a Bell helmet that fit. Take the helmet with you when you drop the kid off, and bring it back when you pick him/her up. Get your kid used to riding behind you first.
Oops. Posted before I read this.
Eleven is plenty old enough to ride on a motorcycle.
This is one part I question. I’m in the habit of trying not to be the first off the line at stop lights, under the idea of letting someone else take the hit from the light runner. I often fail at this because people are so slow here, but anyway, the point is it’s easy to jump ahead on a bike, but then I’m also jumping into the path of any red light runner I don’t see.
That’s the problem, how? No point in going the two miles on the motorcycle unless I’m then going straight to work. So I’ll need to carry the extra helmet and my lunch and any other work stuff. There is a small luggage rack, which is too small for my existing tail bag.
The best I can come up with is use a bungee net to hold my lunch on the luggage rack, then go two up, then put my lunch inside the helmet, and use the luggage net on the whole thing.
Other options are ride two up while wearing a back pack with just my lunch in it, and attach the helmet to the rack.
I could keep a weeks worth of lunches in the fridge at work, but that requires planning and other hard stuff.
There are two choices on how to get to the school. The entire way on 25 mph neighborhood streets, and then a .125 mile walk on a path through a field, or go all the way to the school by going about 1.5 miles on a 40 mph main road.
I mean, the motorcycle could go on the path, but I expect that is frowned on, and it might scare the horses.
I was riding my RZ on Hiway 89 around Prescott, AZ, and came up on a Mini-Van in a series of gentle S-bends. I was able to straight-line a Left/Right/Left combo, catching the van in the right turn, blowing past at about 70 mph. I don’t think they ever saw me. Prescott Arizona was some of the best riding I’ve ever done. I was up around Mount Rushmore, but in a pickup truck and really wished I had a bike with me.
It’s a nice day, so I thought I’d ride the R1 down to the next town to go to the bank. ‘Thought’ being the important word in that sentence.
There I was, cruising along at an indicated 90-something mph, when I see traffic ahead. I dutifully slowed down… and stopped… at the tail. The R1 is not made for sitting in traffic. I watched as the temperature gauge crept above 120ºF (not hot enough to trigger the overheat alert). The line was sort-of moving, so I couldn’t put my feet down and I couldn’t pull them up. I rarely could release the clutch all the way. Most of the time it was all the way in or partially in. My hand was getting tired. I finally pulled over to let the engine cool a few degrees and to rest my hand. This is where I once again complain that lane-splitting is not allowed in Washington.
So I sat in traffic for about two miles, slowly inching to the next exit. Naturally, a semi had the same idea. I had to be behind his slow self until the light before my turn where the road had two lanes.
The ride home was much faster and much more fun. A neighbour had seen me leave (I waved), and I guess he saw me come back. He came over to look at the bike because he hadn’t seen me riding it yet.
I do occasionally see motorcyclists riding on the left shoulder. That is specifically against the law. While a few motorcyclists ‘change lanes to pass’ sometimes, almost everyone just stays in the lane.
Yesterday I was caught in a tailback due to road construction and a lane restriction. This morning there was another problem in the same area, just a little beyond where I was finally able to exit the freeway yesterday.
A 20-year-old car driver lost control, struck the left-side barrier (according to a different article), and stopped across the right lane (photo in article). The driver of the car was arrested, as drugs and/or alcohol was determined to be a factor. The car occupants were transported to the hospital under Basic Life Support protocol. The motorcyclist was transported via Advanced Life Support protocol, and was in critical condition. Someone in the local FB group posted that a friend of hers knew the motorcyclist, and that that friend said the rider had died.
I got a stern reprimand from a Nevada Highway Patrol officer for doing it/getting caught in Vegas. He didn’t ticket me but gave me The Business. I gave him my AMA card with my license. He really liked my bike, too (one of the RZ’s). So, that was cool.
I’ve ridden my bike several days since legalization, but still haven’t been brave enough to try filtering.
The two big problems I have are that at most stop lights the cars seem too close together to filter between the lanes. The only bike I’ve seen try it since legalization didn’t get far before not having enough room.
The other problem is that on the super annoying road I often have to take, the traffic doesn’t stop for very long, it just creeps along at 5 mph with the occasional stop for a few seconds. The law says the cars have to be stopped, and their not, they’re definitely moving, just very slow.
You haven’t lived (or died) till you’ve lane-split in Los Angeles on the 10 or the 405.
I once had somebody pinch me over from the right, pinning me between the two cars. I had to knock on his window to get his attention. Thank goodness for bar-end weights.
I’ve clipped more mirrors than a slalom skier knocks gate out of the way.
If the lanes are of normal width that’s usually not a problem. It isn’t spacious in between there, but it isn’t impossible either. As long as you’re not riding a GoldWingabago.
OTOH, if the roads commonly have extra-narrow lanes (perhaps they squeezed in a bike lane or parallel parking or something), then yeah, there’s not really room in there. Doubly so if the car drivers are inattentive and tend to randomly hug the left or right edge rather than adhering to being centered in their lane. Soon enough you’ll encounter a right-hugger alongside a left-hugger and your progress is stymied.
It’ll be interesting to see how the common cultural expectations and the “going rate” on enforcement develop over the next year-ish. Just like very few people abide by the speed limit exactly, or come to 100% full stops at every stop sign, some consensus will emerge to answer the question “How close to truly stopped traffic is stopped enough?”
Did a lot of that in my HS and college years. A few close calls, no collisions with mirrors. I count myself lucky, not skilled. Had I commuted that way for more years for sure I’d have whacked a few.
I particularly enjoy the 101 westbound right after the intersection with the 405 and the left-side on-ramps. The lanes are delightfully narrow, the road surface isn’t great, and you’ve got two lanes of people merging from the left that want to dive over to the right asap. Good times!
Failed again. I thought the tailpiece would be easy after my test panels on the sacrificial side fairing. Not gonna deal with it.
I had a $50 reward from Men’s Wearhouse that expired today, so I hopped on the R1 for a trip into town. (Got some dark grey slacks for $9.99 after the reward was applied.) As I neared my exit homebound, I noticed the MFD was no longer showing the trip mileage and was displaying FTRIP instead. Sure enough, the orange low-fuel annunciator was lit.
I pulled into the Arco station at my exit with a little over 131 miles on the trip meter. I topped off the tank with a little over 3.6 gallons. So I got a bit over 36 mpg. I don’t remember what I was getting in L.A., but 42 mpg sounds familiar.
I ride at about 80 mph or so, at 5,000 rpm. [Full disclosure: There are excursions.] I don’t know if my speedometer is telling me the truth, since I find it hard to believe everyone else on the freeway is doing 75 to 80. Or maybe they are. Now that I think about it, I guess that’s the prevailing speed when I’m commuting home in the Prius. So maybe the lower fuel mileage is due to my riding faster than when I was splitting lanes in L.A.
At my most recent fill-up I noticed it’s been 1000 miles since I lubed my chain, because I ran out of the I bought when I first got my bike.
What should I use to clean and lube my chain?
There are too many options and I’m in choice overload. Ryan F9 says gear oil. I even have some, but I don’t want my bike to smell like a rotten egg fart. Will it really stick well enough so that I don’t smell like a rotten egg fart?
And what to clean it with? He says don’t use kerosene (what I’d been using), but doesn’t really give an answer of what to use.
When I get an answer to that, what engine oil should I use? (It says “Castrol” on the engine, so I just use that, because it’ll be fine, and is much easier than thinking about it.)
I need to find an iPhone mount for my 2002 Yamaha YZF-R1. Though it’s not impossible, I find it very unlikely that everyone else on the freeway is doing 80 mph. I want to use my iPhone’s speedometer app to check the bike’s speedometer.
Absolutely! About all I can say is that using any lube of reasonable quality every 2 fill-ups in dry weather will be just fine. I was always partial to the waxy formulations. Most;y I just bought whatever my dealer had up at the counter. Same with whatever cleaner they had. I did like that three-sided Grunge Brush as a cleaning tool.
