Month: April 2009

Running in CBF500

The official 500km run-in period specified in the manual is complete. Next destination is 1000km. But before that, let’s examine how did we do in the most important period of any motorcycle’s life.

So most importantly, overrevving is strictly forbidden. I tried to always shift my gears between 3,500 and 5,000 and have never went above 5,500. Note that max revs for CBF500 is 14,000.

Secondly, the engine should never be overloaded. This means rapid acceleration, heavy weight load (including a heavy pillion), and early gear switching should not be practiced.

Finally, the engine should always be properly warmed up and responsive before riding, especially after a garage night. 30 seconds of choke when starting the engine are enough to do the job if the air temperature is above 10° C.

Easy rules to follow and you have a solid machine that will serve for long.

The one difference that I notice between 3km mileage and now is that the engine sounds much smoother. This is a sound I like much better.

After the 1000th km the oil and its filter should be changed. In the meantime, I can allow myself a little bit more revs.

Barcamp Yerevan

Barcamp Yerevan is kicking off tomorrow, 18 April.

If you’re a geek and blogging, you should definitely drop by to meet at least two amazing, extraordinary and just plain cool (did I forget to mention humble?) people – Jaguar over at Starlight Galaxy and your humble servant.

Most importantly, Jaguar is throwing off a mega presentation at 12:00 in the afternoon on Saturday, and I do know it’s gonna be nothing anyone expects (oh yeah, and missing it is lame).

So, be sure to register and see you at Barcamp.

Riders on the Storm

Err, rain!

Yerevan has been flooded with rain this whole week, and even as I’m typing this there are gloomy clouds  up above.

But here’s the cool thing:

I love riding in the rain!

Last two days I have experienced the most pleasant ride on my current motorbike ever (yes, it’s been whole two weeks now I think), partially because it no longer feels like ‘who’s motorcycle is this?‘ (it’s mine, baby, and I’m everything but dead!) but mostly because riding in the rain feels so damn good!

The imposed carefulness and smoothness of the ride, the imposed extra attention, the feeling of survival, the mystery of the water-filled potholes, the raindrops vortex on the helmet visor, the smell of the rain on the coat and the gloves afterwards is just so addictive — you keep wanting to ride more and more and more.

What, the bike washing thing? Meh, screw it!

Snow

We haven’t made it.

After a whole night’s preparation and a lot of excitement, the morning was grave: 1° C, frost-covered trees, freezing wind and, well, the promised precipitation.. snow!

The trip is postponed till the next weekend: although there is the damn 60% precipitation chance on both upcoming Saturday and Sunday, the expected temperature is much higher, which allows one to expect a safer type of stuff that falls from the sky (for those of us on two wheels): rain.

On the other hand, it might even be that I change my trip to a fully-blown ride with an overnight stay. Let’s see how the things roll.

The Perfect Vehicle

Traditionally, an excerpt from the book The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles:

…Riding on a motorcycle can make you feel joyous, powerful, peaceful, frightened, vulnerable, and back out to happy again, perhaps in the same ten miles. It is life compressed, its own answer to the question “Why?”
Why? they ask, those who don’t ride. Those tho do ride are incapable of understanding the question. Riding feels good, they say – it feels damn good. But I think there is more, just as there is always more underneath the obvious, and a little more underneath that. The great layered mysteries of human motivation are oddly both variegated and amazingly uniform. And they are revealed in the many reasons, as well as the one simple one, why people ride.
Motorcycles are what they feel like (profoundly sensual – vroom, vroom – and perhaps a bit primordial) and also what they look like (fearsome with a strange deep beauty). Look at that engine, out for anyone to see, and those two simple wheels: what else announces its intent so brazenly?…
What bikes feel like is an extension of the self – a better you, a perfectible, fixable you, an ominously powerful you.