What are you afraid of?

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Let’s talk about fear. I believe there is good fear and bad fear. Good fear keeps you safe; bad fear can kill you.

On the second day of my training course, we were shown how to change gears. Two cones were placed at either end of the parking lot, about 100 metres between them, and we were to ride down the straight, change into second, then brake, change back into first, then do the U-turn and head back the other way. Sounds basic, I know, but when you’re learning . . .  Anyway, the tough bit wasn’t changing gears. As you might guess, it was that U-turn, especially with a chain-link fence bordering the turn. The instructor said “Don’t look at the fence.” This would cause target fixation and make you steer into it. But of course, soon after we starting looping, one of the students got going too fast in second, panicked, froze, tried to do the turn, looked at the fence, and drove into it. This is an example of bad fear. 

The bike had cosmetic damage and the student went off to the hospital to have his shoulder checked. Turns out there was only minor damage there too but he had to pull out of our group and join another to complete the course. I asked after him later and the instructor said he was doing fine but “still thinking about it,” meaning he’d lost his confidence. Bad fear can hang around a long time and mess with your riding. 

For this reason, I’ve never watched those motorcycle crash compilations on YouTube. I don’t want to get spooked, and when you are a new rider you have fledgling confidence that needs to be protected and nurtured. Once when I was going through a roundabout, I felt the back end slide. Fortunately, I wasn’t going very fast. I immediately straightened up the bike and slowed to the side of the circle. I was thinking about that slide when I leaned the bike over later in the ride on an off ramp. It took me a day or two to regain my confidence in leaning the bike again. Before I did my road test, I did a private lesson to prepare. That instructor said I was a “natural rider.” When I asked what that means he said I lean with the bike. Many new riders get “crossed-up,” meaning they lean opposite to the angle of the bike because they are scared. 

But these incidents are minor. Low-side slides are the “easy” kind of accident to have. The bike slides out from under you and you and the bike slide it out. If you’ve got good gear on and don’t slide into traffic or an object, you can probably walk away from that accident with only a bruised ego. The real danger in riding are high-side accidents when you get launched over the bike, and the very real threat of landing in oncoming traffic or the back of a vehicle. Good fear helps avoid this by telling you when you’re pushing your limits. Jim Hyde of Rawhyde Adventure ures Off-Road Training says you should never ride at more than 80% of your limits. Leave a little buffer for the unexpected, he advises. Good fear will tell you when you’re approaching your limits. 

That said, I believe it’s important to get outside your comfort zone from time to time. I’ve put over 4000 kilometres on my bike this summer riding with the club, but I was still spooked by the prospect of riding at night and in the rain.  My first solo ride—the morning after I got my licence—began in torrential rain and ended with several hours of night-riding at highway speed. When I pulled into the driveway, I was a different rider. That doesn’t mean I will henceforth be mindless of the risk of hydroplaning or reduced vision at night, but a little more confident in those situations. And confidence is a good thing. It keeps bad fear at bay. 

Let’s admit it: some of the fun of riding comes from fear, that stomach-in-the-mouth feeling reminiscent of the fun-ride at the fair, but where the risk is real and not merely perceived. The goal is to ride that line of excitement but stay safe, or as safe as possible. Paramount is to have confidence in your bike. I knew my front tire was getting old so recently changed it. In the back of my mind was the thought of a blowout at highway speed or hydroplaning in rain. You also need to have confidence in your skills. This comes not just with road experience but targeted practice. When we were learning emergency braking, I got over-confident and grabbed rather than squeezed the front brake. Before I could say “Bob’s your uncle” the bike was under me with gas leaking onto the asphalt. (Fortunately it was the school’s bike which, by the looks of it, had been dropped more than a few times.) But I was still thinking of that incident when I did my closed circuit test and overshot the mark on the emergency brake test. I have since done some practice braking on my bike but need a partner to practice at higher speeds. That is on my list before the end of this season. Targeted practice develops muscle memory and muscle memory  supplants bad fear when there’s a real emergency. 

But all of this is rather grim to think about on such a beautiful sunny Saturday. I think I’ll hop on my bike and go for a little ride. If we thought too much about fear, we’d never swing a leg over the saddle. A little thought, however, can help keep us safe. 

Feel free to comment. The question in the title is genuine. 

Half the Fun

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Me under Car

I’m a teacher and so, as everyone likes to remind me, I get my summers off. I often respond by saying that it’s a good thing I do or I’d burn out. By the time the term winds to a close, I don’t want to be anywhere near a desk. I’ll shovel scrap metal before I do anything bookish, at least for a good chunk of the summer. Usually this urge to do something physical takes the form of athletic training or home reno, but this summer I dove into a large mechanical job on the car. I also did some work on the bike. Here are five take-aways I learned from this work.

  1. Be Methodical: When I do a job, I get nervous. Almost every job I do is a first for me, so I’m heading into uncharted territory. I’m worried I will make a huge mistake along the way that will ruin my precious bike or cost me more money to fix than it would have cost to get a professional to do the job. (This is supposed to be cost-saving, right?) Or I’ll encounter an insurmountable snag that will stop me halfway through a job. I’ll have to call in the professionals, and in the case of auto and bike mechanics, that will involve a towing charge as well as the cost of the job. So I often rush. It’s stupid, I know, as a reaction to the situation, and I’ve become increasingly aware of my emotional state as I work and have been trying to slow myself down. This job was so big I knew I had to go slow. Fortunately I saw this video by Ari Henning from MC Garage before starting. In it, he gives three tips for being a better motorcycle mechanic. Take photos. Use zip-lock bags to label and store parts, and use a manual. I’ll add to that to lay parts out in the order they came off. (My front porch smelled like a garage for a good portion of the summer.) This forced me to go slow and methodically. It’s easy to undo bolts and rip the engine apart; the tough part is putting it all back together again. So I used my phone and took a picture of every item before it came out. I used sandwich bags and a sharpie to store and label bolts. I also used masking tape to label cables that were detached. I kept a list of items in the order that they were removed. And I bought and used the Haynes manual, which shows step-by-step how to do the job.
  2. When Things Go Wrong, Don’t Panic: Mechanical work is all about problem-solving. Nothing ever goes as planned or as described in the manual, especially if you’re working on an older machine. Sometimes it’s just a matter of figuring out how you are going to get a wrench in there, but sometimes, as in my case, it’s breaking an important bolt in the most inaccessible part of the engine. When this happens, probably the best thing to do is to take a break. Step back and give a little think on your options. Maybe go online and see what others have done. But if you let your emotions get the better of you, problems can compound quickly.
  3. Mechanical Work is a Workout: People keep telling me these days I look fit. My wife says I’ve bulked up. Okay, I’m never going to be bulky, but I do feel in pretty good shape. There were days when at the end I was physically exhausted. Mechanical work requires strength—not the weight-lifting kind but core and endurance strength, especially if you are working on your back on the driveway using hand tools. You constantly have your arms raised, you have to do a stomach crunch to reach something, just getting in and out from under the car every time you need a tool is tough. Same goes for working on a bike, whether you are wrestling a tire off the rim, or compressing the fork-spring to remove a retaining ring. And since mechanical work is physical, make sure you keep your body happy. Be sure to eat and drink regularly, just like an athlete or you’ll find yourself grumpy, working slowly, making mistakes, and wondering why.
  4. Have a Back-Up Vehicle: 3/4 of the job involves getting tools and parts when needed. I bought everything I thought would be needed before I started, but inevitably s**t happens and you need something. My parts supplier sold me 2 litres of gear oil and I discovered I needed 2.7. I broke a bolt, so had to go buy a tap plus a new bolt. I needed a socket extension, crow-feet socket set, more Liquid Wrench penetrating oil, hardware, etc.. And while I’m on this subject, never trust the parts salespeople; they can give you a bum-steer. Be sure you know your liquids and volumes (from the manual) and, when possible, take the original part that you are replacing. Often these guys (and they are almost always guys) are looking at an exploding diagram of your engine, trying to locate the exact thing you need, or worse, using a text-based database. And it perhaps goes without saying to keep all receipts in case a mistake is made.
  5. Get Dirty: I spent some time at the beginning of the summer reading Mark Zimmerman’s The Essential Guide to Motorcycle Maintenance. It’s a good book (review to come), but to learn you have to get in there and get dirty. Start small and simple, like an oil change, or coolant change. Then challenge yourself and try a bigger job. I did the brakes (actually not that hard) and that gave me the confidence to try replacing the clutch. The other day I changed the oil in my front forks—again, not hard. Most of the time these jobs aren’t that difficult but you just need to have the confidence to try, which comes from doing simple things first. I learned a lot from working on my bicycle when I was young. I used to buy bikes at police auctions, strip them down, then paint, clean, and re-lube everything, right down to the ball bearings. The more I work on my motorcycle, the more I see just how similar to a bike it is from an engineering standpoint, although it was the practical work on the bicycle that first gave me familiarity with tools, problem-solving, and observation of how mechanical things work. Later this fall I’m going to attempt to adjust the valve clearances. I’ve got 40,000 K on the bike now so it’s time. I’ve never done this before, but I’ll figure it out, using my manual and taking my time.

Last fall I did the first service on my bike by changing the oil and coolant to prepare it for winter storage. I phoned my dad to talk about how it went. He told me about when he stripped down the engine on his bike and had it rebored. Pirsig says you should work on your own bike because a lot of mechanics are hacks, which is probably true. No one’s going to care as much about your bike as you, and doing it yourself ensures it’s done right. Pirsig also seems to suggest a moral reason for doing your own maintenance. If the bike is you, it’s your responsibility to take care of yourself and your bike. But my dad had another reason for doing this dirty work. Just before he hung up he said, “I’m glad you’re doing your own maintenance. That’s half the fun of having a bike.”

Best accessory for under $100

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I spend a lot of time browsing online motorcycle stores. A lot of time. Probably too much time, certainly given my budget. I convince myself that it’s research for when I have disposable income. So I’m pretty up on the accessories available that manufacturers promise will significantly enhance my riding experience. Recently I came across one that really did live up to its promise, although no promise was actually given because it’s something that cannot be found in a motorcycle store, real or online. It is under $100, has revolutionized my riding experience, and is protecting my health more than any other piece of gear or item in my day bag. Curious? It’s a custom ear plug.

Most bikers are well aware of the potential risk of permanently damaging your hearing through prolonged exposure to noise from the engine and the wind. Of the two, the wind is worse. Even the most expensive helmets, like mine, that are the product of extensive R & D time in the wind tunnel can do little to shut out Aeolus’s angry growl. Most bikers invest in cheap pharmacy bought foam plugs, the kind that are yellow or orange, that you twiddle between your index finger and thumb to compress into a narrow cone that expands once inside your ear. They aren’t bad, but they don’t compare to a custom plug. I know because I’ve tried both.

I’m also a drummer so I’m pretty familiar with ear plugs from that passion, and I’ve tried a variety. The waxy swimmer’s plug works well to cut out sound but is tricky to get in right, and if you’re riding in a group and the lead rider says “Let’s go!” you’ve got about 30 seconds to get earplugs, helmet, sunglasses, gloves, jacket (if it’s a hot day and you’ve taken it off) all back in or on, the bike started and in gear, and ready to pull out. You don’t want to be the doofus holding everyone up. So you want a earplug you can pop back in, no fuss, and know it’s going to work once you pull out and get up to highway speed.

I have a musician’s earplug, the kind with the filter running through the middle. It cost me about $250 bucks, but it doesn’t do squat to cut out wind. Wind must be the same frequency as human speech because the filter just lets it blast right through. I decided to invest in a full plug, and went to my audiologist to get it done. The appointment only took about half an hour. He made a mould of my ear canal and sent it off to the lab. Ten days later my plug was ready, in a colour that matches my jacket. (Bikers are extremely fashion conscious.) Because I’m completely deaf in one ear (the result of a mountain-climbing accident in my teens), I’m using the singular. The plug cost about $70, so double that if you’re not a freak like me. Companies like http://www.bigearinc.com/ probably offer custom plugs for less.

My first long ride with it last Saturday was down to Smuggler’s Notch in Vermont, a 550 km round trip, and it was heaven. Imagine driving 550 clicks in your car with your radio between stations and blasting loud static in your ears all day. That’s what it’s like without earplugs. Now imagine reaching out and pressing the button that turns off the radio leaving you in a cocoon of blissful silence. That’s like popping in custom ear plugs.

Suddenly your other senses, that have been deadened in a self-preservation sensory clench, come alive, especially the tactile sense. The sound of the engine is now just a slight buzz, so I have to feel the frequency of the engine more than hear it, and my butt tells me when to shift. Sight and smell are also heightened without the distraction of an all-encompassing noise. The absence of pain really is pleasure.

But beyond this immediate reward is the knowledge that my one good ear is safe. When it comes to safety, as you already know from a previous post, I throw machismo to the wind. Earplugs also reduce fatigue, which can lead to even more serious consequences. Custom ear plugs are comfortable, washable, reusable, and the most effective hearing protection available. If you ride, do yourself a favour and get yourself a pair.

The 11-Month Itch

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'How sweet, he's smiling. He must be dreaming about me.' (Man is dreaming about a motorbike).

It’s been 11 days, 12 hours, and 13 minutes since I last rode my bike. It sits in the shed, and once in a while I take it out and poke about with it, then put it back. Yesterday I got as far as putting my biking pants on and fetching my helmet before prudence caught up to me at the front door. It was a beautiful day, perfect weather, and there was nothing wrong with my bike. Why, you ask? Because here in Quebec, for the first 11 months after obtaining a learner’s licence, you have to ride accompanied by someone with a full licence, and the few people I know who ride have been busy. I’m in biker purgatory, limbo-land, the 11-month itch.

Obtaining your motorcycle licence here in Quebec is a complicated and expensive process. There are three separate exams—theory, closed circuit, and road—and you must take a course with a certified training school. There are theory classes, closed circuit practice, road practice with an instructor, accompanied riding—the whole process takes at least 12 months before you catch sight of the holy grail. It looks something like this:

motorycleprogram2015-2

I’ve got no problem with the theory test or taking a course. Such courses have been around for some time but are usually optional. Apparently they give you the equivalent of two years of experience, and as a teacher, I’m all for learning from more experienced people. I found the course extremely helpful in developing both the skills and road awareness necessary to stay safe, and I believe it foolhardy for anyone to ride a motorcycle without taking such a course.

Motorcycles are powerful, dangerous machines. Search YouTube for “newbie motorcycle fail” and you’ll see videos of people climbing on sport bikes before they barely know how to change gears and heading off on the road. You just know that’s not going to end well. Having an instructor take you through that learning curve will save you a lot of road rash. But the 11 months of accompanied riding does not make sense and here’s why.

I understand the rationale. According to statistics, a rider is almost twice as likely to have an accident in the first six months of riding as someone with over four years of experience. And many fatal accidents result from someone coming into a corner too hot and swinging wide into oncoming traffic. An experienced rider knows how fast to take a corner and has a better awareness of road hazards. He or she rides in front and can alert the newbie to potential dangers, as best as one can from the seat of another bike.

But there are several problems with this aspect of Quebec’s motorcycle licensing law. For one, it assumes that your escort is responsible, which is not always the case. A newbie could be peer-pressured into keeping up with a group of canyon carvers, which could actually cause a crash, and often does. What if, like me, you don’t have any (or many) friends that ride? Then the bike sits in the garage and you don’t get in much practice while muscle memory deteriorates. Then when you do get on the bike you are even more at risk until you regain familiarity with the controls. And what about after the 11 month period? According to the same statistics, a rider with 2-3 years of experience is even more likely to crash than someone who’s been riding for less than 6 months. Who’s going to save the “newbie” then?

The law groups all motorcyclists into one camp, but I’m not an 18-year-old with little or no experience with defensive driving. I’ve been driving a car for 35 years without even a fender-bender. Sure, I did some joy-riding in my youth; who hasn’t driven country highways at 100 mph with ski goggles on? But that was a long time ago, before that thing called “the internet” existed and smoking was fashionable. I think that clean driving record of 35 years should count for something. Surely it shows I can anticipate potential accidents and avoid the risks of sharing the road with unaware and aggressive idiots.

My dad was self-taught. When he went to buy the bike, the owner basically showed him how to change gears and brake. He said he drove home practically the entire way in 2nd gear. Then in the evenings, when traffic on his road dropped off, he’d drive up and down practicing. For his test, he had to drive around the block. When he returned, the evaluator stepped off the curb in front of him to test his emergency braking. And that was that. The next day he and my mom set off for Cornwall.

He only came off once, when a boy ran out from between parked cars in front of him. While I wouldn’t recommend this method of learning as the norm, it shows I think that, after you master the technical aspect of riding—an aspect I don’t mean to belittle—the rest is a matter of maturity and attitude. The same could be said for learning to drive a car; the only difference is that on a bike, the consequences are higher.

As for the technical aspect, what makes most sense to me is the stepped system used in the EU, where licensing is restricted by age, experience, and engine size. Roughly speaking, 16-18 year-olds can ride mopeds and 125cc bikes; 18-20 year-olds 250-400cc bikes (technically speaking, it’s restricted by horse power and power-to-weight ratio); then after 2 years of experience, one can get a full-power bike. As I understand it, if you start riding over 20, you still have to ride the smaller bike for two years before you can graduate up to a full-power bike.

This makes sense since the real technical difficulty of riding is a factor of power and weight. You shouldn’t be allowed to have all that power at your fingertips until you’ve mastered how to control it. It’s not just a matter of speed but controlling the throttle on turns so you don’t slide out the back end, and weight of course affects stopping distance. I couldn’t believe my ears when one of my fellow students at the course said he was going to buy a 1,700 cc bike upon graduating. He’d just finished swinging his leg over the school’s Honda CB125. “Dude,” I thought, “all 1700cc’s?” That’s a bigger engine than my son’s Toyota Echo!

I’m glad to read that the SAAQ recommended back in 2013 that the 11-month probation period be scrapped. It’s not working. It’s not enforceable and not effective. There has been considerable interest in the news lately about motorcycle fatalities. Let’s hope the Couillard government acts quickly to bring Quebec’s motorcycle licensing up to date with most other jurisdictions. Such changes would not only save others like me this excruciating waiting period but, more importantly, also save lives.

Review: Proficient Motorcyling by David L. Hough

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ProficientM

I’m out of bookmarks. Now when I start a book, I have to go scrounging from my bookcase for one that remains in a book half-finished. When I started reading Proficient Motorcycling by David L. Hough, the one I happened to grab was a promotional one for Douglas Burnet Smith’s collection of poems titled The Killed. I almost swapped it for another, but didn’t. As disturbing as it was to keep using this one, I was reminded each time I came back to the book why I’m reading it. I’d counter that thought with The Bee Gees song in my head: “Staying alive, staying alive . . . Ha ha ha ha . . . staying alive, staying alive.” It’s a bit macabre to think about it, but that’s exactly what David Hough wants us to do.

Hough was one of the first, if not the first, to break the ice on the subject of motorcycle fatalities. As he says in the introduction, there’s a taboo on talking about the risks: “You won’t hear much about motorcycle fatalities from your local motorcycle dealerships or in mainstream motorcycle magazines. Discussing fatalities has long been a motorcycling taboo. If a rider survives the crash, the experience might provide some bragging rights. But talking about the fatalities tends to take all the fun out of the sport for riders, and for those in the industry it has a chilling effect on sales.” So in the 1970’s, Hough started writing about the risks in an obscure little magazine called Road Rider and then Motorcycle Consumer News. Proficient Motorcycling is the culmination of those articles in one book that has become the top-selling motorcycle book of the decade.

Chapter 1 looks directly at those fatalities, using the Hurt Report, a study of over 9,000 fatalities in the Greater Los Angeles area by Dr. Hugh Hurt. Hough (the other Hough) acknowledges that a regional study will be slanted, but there has been no other major study of this kind, a fact that points to the taboo and a dearth of reliable data on the subject. Hough walks us through the data, looking at types of accidents and when they occur in a rider’s career. For example, we would expect there to be a lot of accidents in the first six months of riding, but one statistic I found interesting is that there’s a spike in the 25-36 month period. We don’t know why, but perhaps over-confidence is to blame. After 36 months, the fatalities drop off dramatically and stay low. So the lesson is to be careful for at least three years and especially during the third year.

Hough also looks at types of accidents (angle collisions, left-turners, driver error, animal strikes, etc.) and their percentages, as well as percentages of impact areas on a helmet. If you’re considering an open-face helmet, note that almost 1/5 of all impacts are on the chin-bar. We learn of other factors such as engine size, age, alcohol, and training. Not surprisingly, you are three times more likely to have an accident if taught by a friend or family member than by a professional at a school. The chapter concludes with a risk assessment questionnaire which gives you a good idea of “how far you’re hanging it out,” as Hough puts it.

Chapter 2 examines the physics of motorcycling—all the forces interacting as you weave through the twisties. There were terms here I’d never heard before, like rake and trail, and others like gyroscopic and inertial stability, centre of gravity, and centrifugal force that I was familiar with but not in as much detail as applied to motorcycling as Hough explains. Fortunately, Hough is by profession a graphic designer, so there are a lot of illustrations and photographs to help the reader through some of this abstract material. The chapter also covers cornering, braking, ergonomics, and includes exercises to practice your cornering and emergency braking. In fact, each chapter includes practical homework to help you apply in your everyday riding the concepts presented in theory. The idea is to be prepared with muscle memory when there is no time to think.

Other chapters cover cornering in more detail, urban traffic survival, booby traps like surface hazards and dealing with deer and dogs among other animals, and a chapter on special situations, like riding in the rain or at night, in extreme heat or cold, and in gusting wind. Of course some of this I’d read about in preparing for my theory test, but Hough goes into much more detail than the SAAQ booklet, and Proficient Motorcycling contains many tips and techniques for dealing with these hazards. Hough draws on his extensive experience to provide concrete examples, and provides case scenarios to show how all this applies in real-life situations.

The final chapter covers riding in groups, which has its own set of risks, although I was happy to read that my particular club is doing everything right. For example, we do a pre-ride talk, take regular breaks, ride in formation, use hand signals, and keep less experienced riders near the front. In this chapter, Hough also examines the added issues of riding two-up, and how to load your bike properly for a longer trip. The chapter ends with a section on the merits and addiction of the side-car, something not seen much in North America, and the book concludes with a final section on additional resources and a glossary.

I couldn’t help thinking as I read this book that it should be mandatory reading for all bikers. Yeah, the SAAQ booklet and online sources are a fine start, but when it’s your life at stake, why wouldn’t you want to study a book like this? It can’t replace real-world experience, but it can prepare you better for that experience and the inevitable incidents that will occur. One reason I waited over thirty years to ride is because of the risk. But managing risk is a part of life, not just riding, and a book like this is invaluable in doing that. It’s no wonder there are so many accidents and fatalities when the status quo for years has been to hop on a bike ill-prepared for the risk that riding entails. Proficient Motorcycling will most certainly lower that risk significantly and should be on every rider’s summer reading list.

All About Oil

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motor-oil-101

My wife has a saying she uses to remind me to drink more water. “Water is like oil for your body,” she says. She knows which analogies work for a guy. I’m going to turn that around and say that oil is like the source of life for your engine. Using the best possible oil and changing it regularly is probably the single-most important thing you can do to maintain the life of your vehicle. Most of you probably already know this. Some people don’t. I once overheard a conversation at my garage with a woman who didn’t know she had to put oil in her car or where to put it. She’d let the car run dry and the engine had seized. But not to pick on women, I know a guy who did the same. “Ah, dude. Here’s your problem. There’s no oil in this car.”

Given the importance of oil, it’s surprising there are so many misconceptions about it. I fell to one recently by putting the wrong grade in my bike, based on a recommendation from the previous owner. He said, “You have to put 20W-50 in a single-cylinder motorcycle because it revs high.” So I did. Then I had trouble starting my bike once we got into the cold mornings of late fall and early spring. I started to suspect my cold-starting problems were related to oil, and a user forum referred me to bobistheoilguy.com. I don’t know Bob, but he knows a lot about oil. You will find at this site Motor Oil University containing ten classes complete with midterm and final exams. Clearly, oil is the source of life for Bob.

The following is, I hope, a fair summary of what I’ve learned mostly at that site, but also from user forums and conversations with club members as I researched the important decision of what to put in my bike. This should be useful for car owners as well as bikers.

Let’s start with some of those misconceptions:

  • Engine wear occurs when oil breaks down at high temperature
  • Oil grades like 10W-30 or 20W-50 refer to viscosity, or thickness
  • You should choose your oil grade based on the ambient temperature
  • Engines that run hot, like sports cars and hot-rods that have high revs, require thicker oil (this is the one I fell for)
  • You should change your oil when it turns black

Engine wear occurs when the engine gets too hot

Actually, 90% of engine wear occurs at start-up. And sadly, there is no oil on earth that fully protects an engine at start-up; a good quality oil can only minimize the damage. This is why it’s important never to rev your engine when you first start it, especially in the wintertime. My ex-wife used to get out of bed 10 minutes before her train left the station, then, in midwinter -20C Montreal, instead of walking the three blocks to the train station, would race there in our car immediately upon starting it. Don’t do this. No wonder she’s my ex.

To minimize the damage, you want your oil to be as thin as possible upon starting. So why not just buy the thinnest oil, you ask? Because there are actually two temperatures we have to be concerned about. One is starting temperature, and the other is operational temperature.

The two numbers on the oil container roughly correspond to these two contexts. But that’s about as direct a connection as you should draw, and many people (including Bob) suggest you forget about the numbers and labels for a few reasons. The W in 10W-30, for example—a reference to winter—is a misnomer. It would be more accurate to think of the first number in relation to starting temperature. Moreover, the numbers do not really reflect viscosity because viscosity changes with temperature. For example, according to Bob, a straight 30 oil has a thickness of 250 cS (centiStokes) at 75 F, but 10, the ideal viscosity, at 212 F, the optimal operational temparature.

The second number refers to operational temperature, but all liquid-cooled engines (i.e. most bikes and all cars) have a constant operational temperature of 212 F. Ambient temperature while running is only a consideration if your bike is air-cooled.

Confused? You’re not alone. Now let’s add another factor.

Mineral vs. Synthetic

There are few more controversial issues amongst bikers than which is better, mineral (i.e. traditional, dino) oil or synthetic. The debate in Hell between the fallen angels in Book II of Paradise Lost has nothing on the debates in user forums on this topic. If you want to have some fun, go to a popular forum (I won’t say which out of fear of being banned) and pretend to be a newbie, asking innocently which you should use. It’s like throwing a french fry to the lurking seagulls at a chip stand.

Many people believe the biggest difference between mineral and synthetic oils is that mineral is natural and synthetic is made in a lab. That’s a pretty big difference, for sure, but the more significant one for your engine is that synthetic is “naturally” thinner at start-up, the crucial time when most wear occurs. That is, it does not thicken as much upon cooling as mineral oil. The viscosity of the two are identical at operational temperature but synthetic has the edge on start-up. One point for synthetic.

Another difference is that, for example, a synthetic 10W-30 oil is based on a 30 grade oil and a mineral 10W-30 oil is based on a 10 grade oil. The mineral oil has additives in it that prevent it from thinning excessively as it heats up, and it’s these additives, not the oil itself, that break down over time. So with age, a mineral oil will lose its viscosity. This is why you have to change a mineral oil sooner, about twice as often, as synthetic oil. Second point scored to synthetic.

These additives age even outside of use in extreme temperatures. Don’t store your mineral oil in the shed during winter because it will lose some of its viscosity. In fact, contrary to what you might think based on what I’ve said above, Bob says that mineral oil ends up too thick, not too thin, with age. I don’t know why, and now I’m as thoroughly confused as you must be, but thankfully Bob offers this summary, twice, because it bears repeating:

“The synthetic 10W-30 grade oil is based on a heavier 30 grade oil while the mineral based 10W-30 oil is based on a thinner 10 grade oil. They are both similar at operating temperatures yet the 30 grade based synthetic is actually less thick at startup and much less honey–like at low temperatures. This is the opposite of what common sense dictates.”

It would seem that synthetic, in the red corner, is the winner, but wait: my BMW owner’s manual says “Alert: Do not use synthetic oil.”

Ah, there’s the rub

I’ve never seen any rationale for this, not at least from BMW, but there’s some anecdotal evidence on user forums that synthetic oil can produce clutch slippage. Remember your dad yelling at you, “Don’t ride the clutch!” when you were learning how to drive manual? That’s because cars have a dry clutch. But all bikes today have a wet clutch, meaning it’s lubricated by oil, the same oil that’s lubricating your engine, so you can ride it all you like, and should, because there are lots of times when you’re between gears.

Another difference is that synthetic oil is more slippery and lubricates better, regardless of viscosity. This can lead to the clutch slipping and, in time, burning out early, especially in older bikes with engines designed for mineral oil. The upshot is that gearing is much smoother, the engine quieter, and (so I presume) less wear.

High-Rev engines need thick oil

When I was 18 I worked as a self-serve gas attendant at Sunoco. We had cans of oil stacked on the shelves inside the kiosk and the tattoo boys would pick up 20W-50 for their muscle cars. Now at 53 (next week), I can laugh at them for wrecking their prized possessions. Bob says you don’t need that oil unless you are going to the track, not the bar or corner store (or gas station, for that matter). He says that for all he knows about oil, even in a hot engine, it’s better to go thin than thick. Why?

As I’ve said, normal operating temperature is 212F. At that temperature, most engines want the viscosity at 10cS. The thick multi-grades have a viscosity of 20cS at that temperature. Not perfect. But as Bob points out, when we increase the temperature from 212F to 302F, the 10W-30 thins from 10cS to 3, but the thicker oil thins from 20cS to 4, only 1cS difference. So the difference in viscosity in a hot engine is negligible while the difference at start-up is huge. If you need any more proof that a thicker oil isn’t worth the cost at start-up, Bob says that F1 cars run a straight 5 or 10 grade oil.

Change your oil when it’s black

No, change your oil when you’ve driven the recommended distance for the oil or when the recommended time has elapsed. (Remember, oil ages even when it sits, so even Grandma has to change it regularly. Maybe not her, specifically, but someone for her.) There are a number of factors that can turn an oil dark, but that doesn’t mean it’s lubricating less. Don’t believe me? See this page on motor oil myths by Valvoline. You’d think an oil company would want you to change it prematurely, but they say otherwise.

The final answer

What did I put in my bike? Because I’m a Gemini, I like compromise and put in a semi-synthetic 10W/40. (The manual recommends 10W/40.) This vid by Ari at MC Garage says not all synthetic oils are created equal and to look for one that’s Ester-based. I read that back in the 70’s, Mobil took Castrol to court for advertising its Syntec oil as synthetic. It’s all about the base that’s used. In the end, the court decided that Castrol changed its oil enough to call it synthetic, but if you’re looking to put a top-quality synthetic oil in your car or bike, look for one that has a base of PAO (Poly-alpha-olefin) or “esters” (chemical compounds consisting of a carbonyl adjacent to an ether linkage. Are you listening, my Chemistry colleagues?).

The other goof I made was forgetting to check the oil level at operational temperature. This is contrary to a car, which you check after it has been turned off for at least 30 seconds. When I took the bike out of storage this spring, I checked the level at start-up and, not surprisingly now, it was low, so I added a good litre. Doh! BMW’s have a dry sump system and it’s essential to check oil after at least twenty minutes of riding, with the bike level, pointed North, at a full moon . . .

Fortunately I caught that one before I caused serious damage to the engine. (Overfilling can cause seals to melt, among other problems.) Now I have the oil in it that I want, and at the correct level, which apparently is on the Min. line. I hear from both The Chain Gang and my BMW guy that these bikes don’t burn oil, and it’s better to err on the side of low than high. I think I’m set now for the season, including the fall. That’s good because an oil change on my bike is a full day affair. I’m envious of Pirsig who writes of changing the oil practically while Chris takes a whiz, while on my bike I have to remove half the fairing, the crash guard, engine guard, etc.. But what I pay in labour and cost for a good oil I gain in peace of mind, knowing I’ve got the best stuff possible for my bike in the crankcase.

Safe vs. Cool. Where do you fall on the spectrum?

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FoolCool

The first night of my rider training course, the instructor asked the class: “What colour helmet are you going to buy?” Three-quarters of the class said black. Then he said that’s the worst colour possible because it’s the same colour as asphalt. The most common thing a driver says to a motorcyclist lying on the road after being wiped out is “Sorry, man. I didn’t see you!” When the trick to staying alive is being visible, it would seem a no-brainer, so to speak, to get a colourful helmet.

What colour is the instructor’s helmet? Black, he admitted. What colour is mine? Black.

Yeah, it’s the Cool Factor that draws us to making stupid decisions, like smoking when we were teenagers, or donning no helmet at all when we hop on a bicycle. Something weird happens in the frontal lobe, the part of the brain that controls judgment, when we are presented with a safe vs. cool decision. It’s like the neuropathways short-circuit to cool, by-passing all the good reasons for choosing safe.

Let’s admit something. Motorcycles are cool. They’re fun, sure, but they are also pretty cool and part of the attraction of riding is that extra attention we get on the road. Drivers stare, pedestrians turn, dudes nod, kids wave. Suddenly we’re special, and all we had to do was buy and ride this dangerous machine. Now why would we want to pull the red carpet out from underneath our boots by sporting a hi-viz helmet?

But it’s not just about the helmet. On one of my first rides in road practice I saw cruise through my peripheral vision at 120 clicks what appeared to be two naked obese people on a Harley. I did a double-take and it turns out they were wearing swimwear, she rockin’ a string bikini. My imagination flashed to what all that flesh would look like if they ever went down. Don’t they know that the implement for removing gravel from under flesh is a wire brush? Not cool.

Or there are the guys on sport bikes with their T-shirts blowing half up their backs, riders with no gloves (even a tip-over at parking lot speed will take flesh down to the bone), passengers in flip-flops, bare arms, legs, etc. etc. Like being in the Canadian bush in June, any exposed skin is potential disaster. Why do we take such risks in the interests of being cool?

Why did I choose a black helmet? Honestly, because it was 30% off and all the store had in stock, and 30% of $800 is not nothing. I used the store credit to buy kevlar jeans which completed my gear (I already had jacket, gloves and boots) from fingertips to toes, so I know if I do go down I’m at least protected to some degree from road rash. Then I went looking online for hi-viz stickers I could add to the helmet. Not all reflective stickers are the same, I discovered, and the ones I bought comply with NFPA (i.e. firefighter) requirements; if they’re good enough to reflect in a dark and smoky building, they’re good enough to illuminate me in a dark tunnel. And being fluorescent yellow-green, they are pretty eye-catching even in daylight. No one is going to have the excuse they didn’t see me.

“You won’t find any stickers on my helmet,” one of the younger riders in my club said. Maybe you have to be over 40, already resigned to the loss of a good portion your coolness, before safety starts to make sense. Maybe it’s because you start to value the years you have left all the more that you want all of them and are willing to trade a little coolness to shift the odds that you will. Maybe it’s how you define “cool” that shifts.

When I see riders in shorts and T-shirts, I can’t help thinking “Amateur Hour”; serious riders wear ATGATT (All the Gear All the Time). Besides, my Joe Rocket leather jacket with its CE approved shoulder pads makes me look like the football player I never was, and the knuckle armor of my Five gloves turns me into James Caan in Rollerball. Now that’s cool!

Buzzed

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coyote_vibrating

My bike is a single-cylinder, also known as “a thumper.” If you haven’t figured it out yet, that single piston fills a chamber 650 cc (652 to be exact) in size. There are pros and cons to a single-cylinder bike, but one downside is that, well . . . it thumps. But thumping is really a bit of a misnomer. The piston may thump at TDC (top dead centre) and BDC (bottom dead centre), despite its counter-weight, but at idle it gurgles, at 3,000 rpm is growls, and at 4,000-5,000, it buzzes. Thumpers are known to be a little buzzy in the handlebars.

Some are worse than others. I have it on good report that of all the single-cylinder bikes ever made, BMW’s Rotax engine is among the smoothest. (The KTM 640, by contrast, is known as The Paint Shaker.) But still, when I’m on the highway buzzing along at 100-120 km/hr, my throttle hand goes numb. It starts in the thumb and then travels into the other fingers, up the arm, splits at the shoulder, and disperses partly into my chest and downward (we won’t go there) and partly up into my cranium.

I imagine it like the Coyote when he’s flattened by a massive boulder then struck by the second falling rock or back-firing projectile he was aiming at the Roadrunner. In the cartoon, we see the wave of energy travel through his wafer-thin body. Only with me the wave is oscillating at 5000 rpm. The worst is when it moves into my nose and develops an itch deep inside my sinuses. It’s not like I can simply reach up and rub the bridge of my nose to dispel the itch, although that’s what I tried to do the first time this happened, only to be reminded that there’s this thing called a visor in the way. In a full-face helmet, your face is safely guarded inside its shell of carbon fibre and plastic from bugs, pavement, and probing fingers. Then I turn into Samantha on Bewitched, desperately issuing the anti-nose-itch spell over and over again.

Actually that’s not the worst. The worst is when it’s cold and my hand has another element making it go numb. Then I actually have to be careful because I need some feeling to  operate the brake lever properly when needed. I know someone who was sitting cross-legged at a party once and whose leg went to sleep without him knowing and when he got up to go get another beer he fell over and broke his leg! Of course, he might have simply had too much to drink but these kinds of things do happen when the tactile sense goes AWOL. Maybe that’s in part why my bike has heated hand-grips.

After a 350K ride, which is what my club has been doing on its day trips, my entire body is vibrating in sympathy with the engine. We have become one, synching our bodies in a kind of energetic dance akin to the pogo. I step off the bike and it’s like stepping onto land again after being at sea or in a canoe for a week; there is the sensation that I am static and the earth is moving, although in fact it’s the opposite. My vision is blurred and my thoughts are fuzzy. I have to leave the bike and sit with a beer (preferably on my lawn lounge chair that has a cushion) while the sensation subsides. I’m not very communicative (although this is also because I’m exhausted) and I can’t make any major decisions, such as what we could make for dinner. I stretch out and, if possible, close my eyes. It’s a total body stone that lasts for hours.

By now you might be wondering what the advantages are. For one, because the cylinder is so big (as opposed to two or several smaller ones), more power is transferred to the wheel with each stroke, so the bike has a lot of torque through low and mid-range. Okay, so it has a sucky top end, but when you are off-roading, who wants to be riding at 100-120+ km/h? Only folks who race in the Dakar, that’s who, (which, incidentally, a version of my bike, appropriately named the Dakar, won two consecutive years in 1999 and 2000). Through gears 1-4 I have tons of power to climb hills, sand dunes, fallen trees, and out of Montreal potholes.

The other big advantage is that I don’t have to shift gears as much; there’s a broader range of speed through those middle gears with lots of overlap. I can start from stand-still in 2nd gear if I want to (or if I forget to gear all the way down at a light (doh!)), and if I’m in stop-and-go traffic, I can slowly roll on the throttle and ease out the clutch when traffic picks up again instead of having to gear down and back up. But where my bike really excels, I’m beginning to learn, is “the twisties”—the stretches of secondary highway that contain lots of twists and turns, preferably with hills, that every motorcyclist lives for.

I can see the other guys in my club working like mad to prevent their bikes from either over-revving or lugging as our speed varies through the straights and turns. But with my bike, I can pretty much stay in one gear, usually 3rd or 4th, and simply roll off the throttle into the turn, then roll it back on with a growl on the way out. My dad calls it a “true European touring bike.” Yeah, the Honda Gold Wing might have been designed for the super slabs of North America, but my bike was built for twisting highways that cut through the Bavarian forest. And when I do get my full licence and start touring, you can bet I will be going on the straight-and-boring only as much as necessary. There are now motorcycle GPSs that have a setting to take you on Twisties, and you can be sure I’ll have my GPS set for that.

In the meantime, I’ve installed something called Grip Buddies (clearly a knock-off of Grip Puppies out of the UK). They are neoprene sleeves that wrap around the handle-grips and help alleviate the vibration, I think. This will help me on those sections of our club trips when we are forced to take the highway to get to where the ride really starts.

I’m also learning to enjoy the buzz.

Realizing a dream

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When I was 19, I had a dream to ride across the country on a motorcycle with my girlfriend at the time. The girlfriend betrayed me but the dream stayed loyal, and now, 33 years later, I’m doing it.

What took me so long, you ask? Well, when many of my high school friends were getting bikes, I was saving my shekels to put myself through university. Once I finished grad school, I became a father, and there was another whole set of concerns—getting a job, starting a career, paying the mortgage, not orphaning my child—so buying a motorbike seemed like a crazy idea. But always I’d feel a little twinge of envy when I saw someone on a bike, especially if that person was around my age.

Now my son is 22 and is on his own, and things aren’t quite as financially tight as they once were, or so it seems (my wife would differ). Last spring I was texting with my cousin in England who rides a bike. It was a sunny Saturday morning, and I was sitting on my front porch drinking my morning café au lait. The conversation went something like this:

Cousin: “Rode through the New Forest this weekend to my folks. Here’s a photo of your dad’s 350 Matchless.”

Me: “I’ve always wanted to ride a bike. It’s in my blood.”

Cousin: “You should. Why don’t you?”

Me: “Hmm . . . ”

I got a referral to a good local motorcycle school and went to their website. You could sign up for a course online. Again, I was sitting on my front porch (I spend a lot of time there in the summer). My wife was inside watching TV. A pop-up menu showed June 15 as the starting date of the next course. And before my mind could stop my gut from doing what it wanted to do, I’d registered and committed to realizing this dream.

Little did I know the dream would take on a life of its own.

That was last summer. Since then, I’ve bought a bike, done the course, and obtained my Learner’s Permit (in that order). This summer I’m riding with a club. The date for my road test is set for August 11. (The rules governing obtaining a licence here in Quebec, Canada, are complex and will be a topic of a later post.) The Bike (as I’m sure my wife thinks of it) has quickly become a passion for me. When I can’t be riding, I spend hours online in forums reading about the particularities of my bike, researching affordable upgrades, watching helmet-cam vlogs, reading books about biking, skills development, maintenance, studying my Haynes repair manual, and working on the bike.

This blog will in part trace my planning, preparation and eventual ride across Canada and perhaps beyond, but it’s going to be much more. I want to make it relevant to all bikers and perhaps even non-bikers by sharing some of what I’m learning. The underlying premise is if a newbie can learn from an experienced rider, can an experienced rider learn something from a newbie? I hope so. You tell me. Please comment and let’s make this a dialogue, and exchange of knowledge.

This blog will change in appearance as it evolves. For now, I’m starting with the default formatting until I get more familiar with wordpress. I’ll update the banner image once I find or create a better one. For now, it actually looks quite similar to the beautiful orchards I was riding through last weekend in the Eastern Townships here in Quebec, except the apple trees were in full bloom.