Riding season? What riding season?

I don't know why, honestly, but it burns me to hear about motorcyclists and bikers talk about some sort of riding season. Riding a motorcycle isn't like playing baseball. It doesn't take sunny skies to enjoy riding a motorcycle.

All it takes is a road and the right gear.

Where I live, it rains about eight or nine months out of the year. If I limited my rides to cloudless days and temperatures above 60 degrees, I'd ride maybe a dozen days out of the year. Well, maybe a bit more than that, but whatever the true number, it wouldn't be enough.

My philosophy all last year was that if it was dry in the morning, I'd ride in to work. Sometimes, I got caught in the rain on the way home. By December, I didn't care if it was raining on my way in to work, either.

Snow and ice, well, those sidelined me. I found out it can still be dry with the temperatures in the 30s. I  also learned that Carharts actually keep your warmer than denim, and long johns are even better.

Even so, some days I was pretty stiff legged walking into the office and it took until my second coffee break for my face to thaw out. This year, I'm going to invest in some Gerbing wear, unless all the BMW and Goldwing riders bought them out.

Recently, to save money, I joined a vanpool to work. I like my co-workers who ride the van. One of them even brought a dozen doughnuts for the group the other day.

Still, after four days in a row of the vanpool, I craved a morning commute where the only sound I heard was the wind and my engine. 

Well, and the 80's soundtrack I've got on my iPod. What can I say? That was my era.

Table o' parts

Confidence is a table full of carburetor parts.
My bike has been running rough since I replaced the petcock - the doohicky that allows gas to flow to my carburetors when the engine's running. My old one was, well, old, like 30 years old. It let me know just how old it was by letting all the gas that wanted to flow into my carbs just go do it, even when the bike wasn't running! Yup, that old petcock was generous.
But coming out to my bike after work to find a puddle of gas beneath it was unnerving -- as was the ride home thinking there was a potential bomb just beneath my crotch and I was riding it at 70 mph an hour down the freeway. At one point, it made me so nervous, I slowed to 60 because we all know gasoline burns much more gently at that speed.
So I parked my bike for a week while I waited for my new petcock to come in the mail and drove my hated Saturn Vue. Why did I ever buy that thing?! God, I hate even looking at it. I feel like such a jerk driving that box.
Well, the new part arrived and it was an ill-fitting after-market part. So off it went back to the company while I ordered the correct, stock part from a different company. Sigh. Another week went buy - meanwhile, I went to work, took a few days off, went camping with the family.
When I got home, yay! My new part was waiting for me!
On it goes and everything's hunky dory. No. Wait. What's this? I ride my bike around and its like slogging through mud. It has no power, and twisting the throttle feels like I'm pouring cold oatmeal down my bike's throat.
Sadly, I park the bike again.
Today, with some trepidation, I removed the side panels, removed my airbox, removed my gas tank and then - pulled the carbs.
When I got inside the most amazing thing - bits of rubber everywhere!
I think, although I'm no egghead or mechanic for that matter, that the seals on my old petcock began to dissolve and trickled into my carburetors, clogging up critical passageways for my fuel and upsetting that delicate balance required for the carbs to operate well.
It was a relief to find this junk.
I plan to wrap up the cleaning tomorrow and (fingers crossed) get back on the road.

I saw alot of anger growing up, and so I try to control my own. But I'm not very good at it, not at all.

So when the Harley Davidson flew past me, without even a wave, my hand began to twist the throttle without a conscious thought. My bike is old, I know that. It's old and tired and its 80 horsepower engine, a beast in its day, is a sopwith camel in a jet plane age.

Still, the bike respondedand I tore down the freeway, buffeted by the wind. I guess I'm old, too, and I'm an 80s guy in a Millenium age, but I cut my teeth riding the Los Angeles freeways, splitting lanes, weaving among cars, a shark swimming in a sea of traffic.

And so without much thought I flew through and among the cars, danced with my bike on the blacktop, the Capitol Dome flying by, and the fat, lumbering Harley, nearly as big as a car itself, was a quarter mile behind me in a few moments time, caged in by traffic.

The weekend was spent tightening down all the screws and bolts I shook loose on my poor old bike. That's what a temper will do to you.

Fat pig

I saw a bike today that looked like a fat pig. A black Suzuki with a gargantuan gas tank. A beast on wheels with oil for blood. It brooded at the rear of the dealership basement, the other bikes, bright greens and blues and reds, filling the other aisles.
But this metal creature sat alone. I climbed astride it, and felt as though I were the first to do so, like the monster was lonely and craving someone to care for it. But it's an ugly beast. When I left it, I doubted I'd ever visit again.

Why I ride

When you're a kid, the world seems, well, big.

And so do people. Probably 'cause you're always craning your neck looking up at them.

Like the man in denim I saw in the grocery store line when I was seven. He seemed huge, tall, with thick black hair down to his shoulders.

I looked up at him, standing in that grocery store line, and, man, I wanted to be that guy.

When he left that store, I had no doubt he hopped on a motorcycle and rode away, paper sack of groceries in hand.

A few years later, I was stuffed in a VW bus with my siblings, tooling down a stifling hot L.A. freeway on the way to Santa Monica beach.

The big fat Hondas and Suzukis and Yamahas came roaring through the knot of cars and trucks and vans, splitting lanes, the men riding one handed, hair flowing in the wind, hollering at each other and laughing as they rode.

Man, I thought, that looks like fun.

More years passed. I was maybe 15 and saw an ad in a magazine - just a photo of a guy in jeans, head in a dark helmet, riding a Kawasaki LTD, the motto "Let the Good Times Roll," just below the image.

And so, when I turned 21 I walked into a Suzuki dealership and bought my first motorcycle, a red Suzuki GS650.

It just looked fun.

Riding

Damp. Cold. Air.
Every morning ride begins this way.
My muscles are stiff and tense.
Without fail, I think to myself, "Why didn't I take the car again? I could listen to the radio. Sit in warmth and comfort. Keep a cup of Chang's watery but hot coffee and one of his awesome chocolate doughnuts just an arm's stretch away?"
The pot holes are jarring. My visor is fogging up.
But then I hit South 19th Street and head west to Pine.
And I make that left turn, the one that forces me to spot the oil patches, gravel, whatever road debris is inevitably strewn at this one junky intersection -- and my mind kicks on.
It has to.
I glance at my mirrors, watch the road ahead, the cars at my side, look for the tell-tale signs of the inattentive drivers - the weaving, the pointlessly blinking signals, the cell phones pressed against ears, the backward glance at crying children.
But I'm not doing any of that - I'm watching the road.
I'm watching the big rigs loaded with logs, or lumber or mysterious, industrial objects.
I'm listening to my engine for any new sound.
I'm smelling the air, the diesel, the damp.
I'm using all my senses.
I'm alive.
I'm on a motorcycle racing over blacktop at 65 mph, astride a machine that is power and drive and in the grip of my hand, with a twist, I know I could do 85, 90, 100.
But I don't.
I forget about my warm car sitting alone in the driveway.
I don't crave a coffee.
I don't want for music.
I don't even care if I make it to work.
I'm just riding my bike. That's enough.

Valve job from hell

Sometimes, I truly believe that my brains are only enough to help me breathe, walk and earn a living (barely).
But tasked with anything beyond that and the noodle in my skull utterly fails me.
Such was the case when I embarked on my first motorcycle valve adjustment. Doesn't that phrase alone send you into a soft slumber? I know. I don't mean to become a motorcycle geek, but somehow, it's happening to me nonetheless.
There are as many bikers as there are bikes. I wish I were of the tatooed, long-haired, cable-muscled variety. But, sadly, I am not. I've never had a tatoo beyond the temporary variety from a Cracker Jack box. My long hair is long gone. My muscles, well, lets say those Soloflex ads are wrong - 20 minutes a day three times a week will NOT give you the physique of a male underwear model.
To the point - I attempted the valve job. It took me two days, I momentarily locked up my engine, I'm not sure I have the valve settings exactly right and I got into a huge fight with my wife in the middle of the entire project. Can you imagine anything more challenging?
Well, we survived. I mean, my bike and me. I think we're closer for the experience.
Here's my bike with its guts all exposed. It gives new meaning to the term, "naked bike."
You know, I go on these websites, forums, really, filled with other owners of classic Japanese motorycles and so many of them sound like expert mechanics and I'm just totally jealous.
I'm not a mechanic and I know that. But I just really love jamming my hands into the guts of this bike.