| BMW roadside assistance |
[May. 31st, 2008|11:20 am] |
My motorcycle is "parked" in a 2 hour zone, so I thought I'd wake up early this morning and get it towed. I called BMW Roadside Assistance.
Highlights thus far include:
- them not calling 5-10 minutes before arrival, as stated, but rather angry tow truck guy who beat me there calling me, not understanding why I wasn't there.
- canceling plan to shower and instead rush to the intersection with crazy morning hair
- tow truck guy wasn't actually there, but rather 1 block away
- tow truck guy not having a flatbed, so he couldn't tow a motorcycle.
- calling roadside assistance again, waiting on hold forever, only to have...
- Roadside assistance guy doubting me and then explaining "that's not how it works" that the tow truck driver said he never heard anything about motorcycles and took off and wasn't coming back.
*sigh*
I'd just call a tow truck place myself and avoid these twenty levels of indirections & suck if it weren't for that I'd then have to pay for it myself. |
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| Fail |
[May. 30th, 2008|06:30 pm] |
Well, that didn't work.
Made it about halfway, feeling pretty confident because the bike started idling (and sounding good) at stops, but then it died finally. Pulled it over to the side and walked home, picking up some jumper cables on the way. (I'm pretty sure I already own some, but can't find them.... :-/) |
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| Battery Update |
[May. 30th, 2008|01:49 pm] |
Follow-up to this tweet: I was able to run-start it down the hill. (so awesome!) But it kept wanting to die unless I kept giving it gas. In fact, it did die again a few miles from my house, but fortunately on another hill. That attempt wasn't going so well to get it going again, and I realized I left the house without my phone. (gulp) Fortunately I got it going again (after using up a few hills) and rode it around some more and finally parked it back in front of my house with the intention of letting it idle for awhile while it charged.
No go. It wouldn't even idle.
Called the service center who suggested a "niiiiice looooong ride." I explained that it wouldn't idle and the trickle charger went green repeatedly but wouldn't start. He laughed and said, "Yeah, you're going to need a new battery."
"Okay," I said, "I should be able to make it there as long as I keep giving it gas."
He laughed some more and said, "Good luck."
My options are basically:
1) take the battery out. (did this once --- pain in the ass)
2) have it towed (annoying)
3) attempt to get it there.
With 3), the worst case is I go back to 2). And 3)'s the most fun. |
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| Sunny Saturday |
[Mar. 22nd, 2008|07:55 pm] |
Lovely Saturday. Sunny, productive, and fun.
Woke at 7:30 or so, did some work around the house, had breakfast with Becky and Tessa, chilled at their place a bit, came home and did a bunch more life chore/errand-type stuff, then went for coolest motorcycle ride ever up in Marin. Miles and miles of uninterrupted curves in the sun with views of the ocean, trees.... and the sun just starting to set as I was crossing the Golden Gate coming back. So awesome.
At one point I got lost, pulled over, and the iPhone geolocated me in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just west of the bridge. In reality I was a half mile from Stinson Beach, 8-10 miles northwest of where the iPhone positioned me. Useless. :) |
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| Battery exchanged... |
[Sep. 8th, 2007|06:54 pm] |
4 trips to BMW later, my motorcycle works...
trip 1: "Yo, I need a trickle charger."
trip 2: "Trickle didn't trickle. 0 volts." "Oh, here, borrow this real charger." (didn't ask my name or anything... impressive trust in lending!)
trip 3: "Here's real charger back, the trickle charger is trickling now..."
[go home...]
[see trickler is flashing again.... measure: 0 volts.]
call store: "Yo, me again, it's flashing." "Okay, come back, I got a new battery for you."
trip 4: "Hey." "Hey." (hands over battery, and Torx screwdriver)
Then, some disassembly...
A dozen some screws and some greasy hands later, it runs.
Time for a ride! |
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| Motorcycle Update: still no go |
[Sep. 8th, 2007|12:12 pm] |
Update on the motorcycle situation:
- I bought the recommended, smart trickle charger.
- It flashes red when connected to aux port (manual: "Battery not connected, or battery totally dead (under 3V)")
- Also tried connecting it to battery leads... same thing.
- Tested battery leads with volt meter: 0 volts. Needle didn't even twitch. Tested on car, to test volt meter: 12 volts. Volt meter fine.
Now what? Stupid "smart" trickle charger won't recharge the battery because it's too dead? Confused.
I'd remove the battery, but I'd need to remove the right side panel, and I don't have Torx tools.
Suggestions?
Buy new battery? Motorcycle only about 1,200 miles.. alternator should be fine, says the shop. |
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| Motorcycle won't start -- alternator? battery? |
[Sep. 6th, 2007|10:39 pm] |
My motorcycle (BMW F650GS) won't start.
-- turn the key, no lights (maybe I left it on?)
-- if I jump it from my car, it'll turn on, and engine will start
-- once I disconnect jumper cables, engine dies
It's that last point which confuses me: once it's going (and I left it run 5+ minutes), why does it need the battery anymore? I don't see why disconnecting the battery immediately kills the engine.
Any suggestions? |
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| Motorcycle Gas Mileage |
[Aug. 16th, 2007|04:09 pm] |
I had a meeting down the peninsula today, so I took my motorcycle, not having done 101 on it for any notable distance before.
On the way back I had to get gas, so I did an experiment: noted mileage, filled gas to the brim, then did the same once I was back in the city, 30 miles and 0.536 gallons later... so just under 60 mpg.
If I did that ride daily, I guess I'd have to fill up once or twice a week, since I only have a 4 gallon tank (but "you need gas!" light turns on at 1 gallon remaining, which is only gauge). And I guess it'd then cost $3.50 - $4.00 per day in gas, round trip.
But the wind, man... holy shit. Throwing me all over the place. |
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| Life Update |
[May. 11th, 2007|01:28 am] |
Hacking: lot of mogile, djabberd, brackup (now backing up some 40 GB, encrypted, to Amazon... i trust it all now)
Running: up to ~7.5 km, bounded today by running out of downloaded TV, not fatigue. (goal is 12 km for Bay to Breakers)
Scuba: now Nitrox cerified, as of this evening
Travel: Portland this weekend (leaving Friday evening). Lake Shasta soon. Then Russia/Turkey/Germany right after. Visa being processed now.
Motorcycle: trying not to put too many more miles on it before its 600 mile service wednesday (now more like 650 mile)
Gossip rags: me & SixApart all over Valleywag. so honored. also pleased to have my home address, phone number, and social security number made public to the world. guess wednesday night dinners might have more attendees now, eh? |
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| 1:30 am three-bridge motorcycle ride |
[May. 2nd, 2007|02:36 am] |
I decided to go exploring at 1:30 am. I ended up going 44 miles across 3 bridges in the Bay Area... Observations:
- Lack of traffic is fun.
- Gusty wind is fun.
- Fastrack is fun. And I don't need to actually stick it on the velcro I recently put on... it works from little locked storage area. Time to remove the velcro thingies.
- Had never been on San Rafael bridge before!
- Started to rain when I was in Marin and harder on the Golden Gate bridge... rain is fun. Lack of rain gear ... not so much. Kinda soaking wet now, and my shoes/socks are drenched as well.
- Golden Gate at night w/ fog is creepy.
- Those large earthquake-buffering metal teeth on the Golden Gate ... shit. Be ready for them! First set of them shook me pretty good, kinda freaked me out. Yay for instinctively auto-correcting.
- Going up steep hills (like Divisadero, near Lombard, going up to Broadway) makes it easy to accidentally pop litttle wheelies. Lean forward, accelerate slower than normal.
- Divisadero is slippery when wet. I got to feel the ABS a few times. (admittedly mostly on purpose, once I saw it work the first time, braking down a hill)
- Some asshole ran a red light on Geary, as I was crossing with my green on Divisadero. He broke hard, I accelerated hard... we missed by feet.
Good times! |
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| Wherein Brad does ~20/30(?) mile ride around city |
[Mar. 18th, 2007|07:02 pm] |
Observations from long ride all over the city in the extreme fog & wind:
- Heated hand grips are a lifesaver! Holy crap they're nice.
- San Francisco is awesome. So pretty.
- Wind is crazy. Damn. Felt like I was being pushed all over. Loved it.
- Oh, condensation... that's what that is! You gotta wipe off your visor sometimes when it's all windy and foggy driving up & down the coast.
- A 6th gear would be nice. I frequently found myself shifting into non-existent 6th gear.
- Don't pull into a scenic rest area parking spot, facing downhill. Damn. Almost didn't make the turn back out. Would've been embarassing to ask adjacent car to back out so I could leave.
My route was:
- Diamond Heights,
- Market,
- Fell,
- the park,
- beach, Cliff House, the baths, back down to Cliff House,
- Great Highway (or whatever), down the coast...
- Skyline...
- San Mateo county line...
- 280 back to San Jose avenue.
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| Fill 'er up |
[Mar. 16th, 2007|10:55 pm] |
I'm happy that it's now so cheap to fill up. $10 instead of $60. And 60 mpg totally beats whatever I get in the Audi.
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| Motorcycle Movies |
[Mar. 16th, 2007|08:30 pm] |
Ordered this guy so I can make movies on my motorcycle using my little camera's movie mode.
COMING SOON TO YOUTUBES EVERYWHERE.
(Because I bet there's not enough of them on there...)
But this way I can show people some of the ridiculously beautiful stuff around here. |
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| Police Encounter |
[Mar. 16th, 2007|11:03 am] |
As I'm zipping to work today on Cesar Chavez, accelerating quickly, and going faster than I should (35-40 in a 25, yet no faster than people normally drive on that street), I see a guy in a funny outfit holding a funny device.
Ah, shit, a cop on foot!
I hit a red light and he walks up to me from across the street.
Shit, shit, shit.
I open my visor and he starts asking me questions:
"How you doing?"
"Pretty good, and you?"
"Good, good. You commute on that?"
"Yes."
"How's it handle on the freeway?"
"Well, it only has 5 gears. Can't get up too fast."
"Well, cool, looks like a nice bike.... have fun, be safe. Have a nice day."
He walks off, the light turns green and I take off.
Phew. |
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| Class M1 License |
[Mar. 14th, 2007|04:48 pm] |
As of 3:00 pm today, I'm now a class M1 licensed motorcyclist.
Time to hit the highway at night, with a passenger. WHO'S DOWN?
(j/k... those are the three things I can legally do now, compared to a permit...) |
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| Today I... |
[Mar. 11th, 2007|10:41 pm] |
- had breakfast with
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dan_erat at new place "toast" on Church @ 29th-ish. motorcycle = easy parking. good menu. will eat again.
- played with X10 gear that I found in a bin. verified it still works, can control it, & outlets I want to control are all on speaking circuit. once I verified that, bought a Universal Module to close the circuit to the garage door, so I can open the garage door from my cellphone.
- rode motorcycle all around Glen Canyon park, several times. and all over Noe Valley, and to Dolores Park twice
- Russian vocab -- been typing in all the Russian/English vocab pairs from my textbook into a file for my vocab quizzing program (which I've used for years and is currently console-based, and I need to update to be web-based... probably will just rewrite it to keep its per-word/phrase stats/state in MySQL and stuff...). anyway, Russian typing speed is much improved... and don't need to look at keys anymore.
- had a beer and laid in Dolores Park while listening to conversations and people-watching and enjoying the ridiculously awesome weather
- gave NetFlix a bunch more data, rating movies I've seen, and adding crap to my queue.
- played with audio distribution stuff -- looking like mpd + clients will play a big role. then probably having that inject into PulseAudio, and PulseAudio sync send audio UDP packets to all SlimPlayer devices? then "plugin an iPod" is easy too: just make a pipeline that's Line-In into audio device that PulseAudio's default output. we'll see. but I'm digging mpd. ALSA and I are still enemies.
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| Today I... |
[Mar. 10th, 2007|04:09 pm] |
- woke up on my couch after sleeping 14 hours -- wtf?
- biked to breakfast -- parked right in front, and paid 10¢ for an hour of parking. <3
- saved myself $420 by doing my own electrical work -- $12 GFI from the hardware store and crawling under my deck. done with sewer problems now?
- found gardeners -- to maintain my yard every other week. I got to speak in Spanish. I love it when that's useful.
- attained new level of love with motorcycle -- biked all over San Francisco... steep hills, curves, up to Twin Peaks, etc. my shifting is now smoother, going both up and down. If I have to slow suddenly going uphill, I'm now pretty good at knowing what gear I have to go in to resume after I've slowed down... I now turn off my blinkers pretty reliably after a turn... got my helmet all adjusted and nice, got anti-fog liner in there, nose gaurds, vents setup right... etc, etc, etc... basically just loving it and not having to think as much about the basic shit.
- enjoyed the beautiful day -- damn it's nice out. can't believe this.
Later:
- Suppenküche mit Randy und Freunden weil Randy heute Geburtstag (30!) hat.
- trinken -- viel (natürlich).
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| "bike" ambiguity |
[Mar. 9th, 2007|11:02 am] |
I love both my bicycle and my motorcycle, but I hate both those nouns.
Yet the better noun for both, "bike", is now ambiguous.
The verbs "ride" and "bike" are a little better, as "ride" leans a little bit towards motorcycle, but not really. Not enough to be clear.
In any case, I rode my motorcycle to work today for the first time. I'm not sure it was any faster than bicycling to work (because I can go faster than traffic and break rules on my bicycle), but it sure was fun. I'm sure going home (which is 400 ft or so higher in elevation than work) will be faster by motorcycle, not having to pedal uphill in low gear.
Help me with wording! Qualifying each of these terms will drive me crazy. |
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| fun in the sun |
[Mar. 7th, 2007|03:12 pm] |
Went out riding with henrylyne this morning. Much fun. Getting better.
(from daveman692) |
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| Ticket |
[Mar. 7th, 2007|10:15 am] |
Already got a ticket on my motorcycle.
Forgot it was garbage/street-cleaning day and didn't move it to the other side of the street (actually haven't ridden it yet, because it was delivered late last night, and I just woke up an hour ago....).
That's $40 of amusement.
On a happier note, I slept 12.5 hours. Feel wonderful. |
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