271 Pimples on my Pretty Face

No, this guy isn't wearing a Halloween costume.
That's none other than Omar Gadhafi on one of his better days.
He's one of the luckier guys around because he needs to buy no costume come Halloween time. :)

Well, we're in the last days of February (thank God), and Tuesday marks March 1st.
What day I start riding my WR-250XX to work will depend on two key things:

1) When the streets will be reasonably clean of sandy salt.
We just had a nice rainy day yesterday that did well to clean a lot of that salty shit off the roads, but, my town's trucks were out early this morning putting more down since it went below freezing overnight.

2) When my dad, who lives next door, will have the garage clear, allowing me to park my bikes in there as I always have over the years.
99.99999999999% of the time he parks his truck outside by his kitchen door, but since we've had more snow covering the ground for a longer period of time that I can remember since the 1970s, and since he can't walk too well over snow and ice-covered ground, he's now parking it in his garage.

I assume sometime in March these two key elements will become viable.

Viable.
Ever listen to somebody talking and they start using words that you don't think they'd use everyday?
Kinda' funny to me it seems because it makes them seem like they're putting on a verbal Halloween costume for you.
I'd almost always get that feeling whenever I had to talk with some kind of salesman that would come into the shop I was working for at the time.
The smarter ones would drop the act as soon as they realized that the fancy words weren't doing it for me. :)

Got another message board/forum kick from another guy writing his opinion down having to do with the Yamaha WR-250R vs. Yamaha WR-250F.
To refresh your memory, the WR-250R is a dual-purpose bike made for street riding yet still being able to ride off-road.
It looks like a dirt bike with street-legal lights and instruments and street-approved tires.
The biggest hindrance off-road is the relatively cheap and poor-working suspension.
Poor compared to what?

Compared to the WR-250F, that's what.
You see, the guy was another of these guys who rides a WR-250R (as I did for over a year) and will basically be quick to try convincing anybody who asks about the difference between these two bikes that the WR-250R is the better choice.
Then, another guy who rides a WR-250F will post, saying that the WR-250F is much better off-road and it might make more sense to get one of those and register it for street use, depending on how much off-road use is planned upon.
When the guy on the side of the WR-250R reads this, I find it funny because I can tell from the response that he's never ridden a WR-250F before and can only write things about it that he assumes would be the case, things like, "It'll be a bitch to get registered...etc., etc..."

What these WR-250R riders never seem to want to acknowledge is that the WR-250R suspension is so much further down the performance food chain that a guy planning on more dirt riding than street riding would be better off on a WR-250F.
I'm one of those guys, myself, being out in the Pachaug rock pile every weekend that isn't in wintertime.
I have ridden my WR-250RX and my WR-250FY out there, and there is no comparison whatsoever between the two, the WR-250F works so much better off-road.
So, whenever I come across this kind of discussion, that's typically my input to the mix.

I also notice that more than a few (probably at least half) of the WR-250R riders are pretty mouthy about mounting heated grips, luggage racks, fluffy and cushy seats or seat covers, brighter headlights, heated vests, and all manner of luggage to their bikes.
They'll write many paragraphs on this stuff, making threads that are quite long.
I never really thought that doing that stuff required so many words, but, I guess it's a hot dual-purpose topic with lots of guys.

The ironic thing is that these same guys writing a long post about their saddlebags and sleeping bag packing will have to write-in and ask how to service their air filters and how often it should be done, or what oil is supposed to be used in the engine, or where the oil drain plug is located, or how to remove excess slack from the throttle cables.
I'm often surprised to read that many guys never thought their clutch cable could use a lube, even when they write-in asking why the clutch lever seems hard to pull and has started making squeaky and creaky noises.

Yeah, having to ask how one adjusts their drive chain has the word NOOB written all over it, and that it pretty much a large percentage of dual-purpose bike riders out there.
I remember when I, myself, had to first learn about drive chain tension and adjustment.
It seemed so simple, basic, and just a case of physics and geometry that was right there in front of you.
Amazing that many riders are out there and not sure how to do this, and these are the guys saying the WR-250R is the best bike out there.

Well, I agree that it's a great street bike and rates off-road as OK at best.
Sure, you can ride it off-road as I have many times.
Compared to my WR-250FY, though, it's lousy at it, and that's due to the Yamaha factory equipping the WR-250R with second-rate suspension parts.
This is a fact that I've proven to myself first-hand.
This is why I ride the WR-250FY on the Pachaug rock pile trails and not a WR-250R.
My WR-250RX has been sold, remember. :)

When the WR-250R riders read anything about the bike being second rate, this gets their nostrils flared-up and makes for some interesting posts to read.
Often seems funny to me with what they come up with.

Another thing that becomes apparent from their words and especially their videos they sometime post:
I'd be willing to bet that these riders are also riding their bike off-road so slowly that they wouldn't be able to percieve the performance difference to any appreciable degree.
I guess in that respect the WR-250R is a fine choice for them, and to these guys, what they imagine when somebody says the suspension on their WR-250Rs is not all that great is that it isn't meant to take landings from big jumps like you see AMA Supercross riders doing.
That's not it at all.
It's simply how it performs over the most ordinary bumps and plain ol' natural terrain you see while riding over a daisy-covered field, sleeping bag piled up over the rider's head. :)

Off to another freebee Saturday at jerk,
-John

270: Backpedaling in Progress

Don't have much time this morning, so I'll just jot down a couple things on my mind.

I saw pics and specs of the 2012 Honda GL-1800 Gold Wing motorcycle, a bike that's intended for what's called touring.
Two figures made me say, "Wow":
Weight of 933 pounds, and a price (base price, at that) of $23,000.
Goddam, I guess I'm out of the loop on what a Golden (Chicken) Wing costs these days.
I already knew they were obscenely heavy. :)

Another thing I read was how the guy that disagreed with my feelings on WR-250RX suspension performance seems to be having a change of heart.
Remember the guy who was waving the WR-250RX flag pretty wildly and giving the bike a big thumbs-up and giving my opinions on the bike a big thumbs-down?
Yeah, the guy who's not even sat on one, let alone having even ridden one, let alone being able to compare it to other bikes.
Well, just yesterday, I read a post he wrote that basically says (in other words):
Maybe I should back off on trying to convince myself the WR-250R is a bike that's as off-road capable as other bikes that are actually designed for that kind of riding to start with, and maybe things like the suspension aren't top-shelf after all.

I got a half-chuckle out of that.
Not because I felt vindicated (I didn't actually, because I knew from the start the guy was all wet and just pumped up with enthusiasm with the thought of maybe-someday-perhaps-in-the-near-future-maybe-next-month-I-hope buying a WR-250R and actually riding one).
But because I wondered what it was he read that made him show this change of heart.

Or, maybe it was a change in medication. :)
As in:
Getting off the good stuff for one shining moment and using your head.
Remember, folks, that this is the guy who complained about some kind of weird feeling that he disliked from a 1989 Kawasaki KDX-200, a bike that weighs 50 pounds less and comes stock with better suspension for off-road use, but yet thought a heavier and more cheaply-suspended WR-250RX would be mucho better for off-road riding, solely because it was a 2008 model motorcycle.

Off to jerk,
-John

I've Got 269 Medals of Dishonor

Moammar Gadhafi, Arab bigshot, looking a lot more like somebody overdressing for a Halloween party.
I wonder if that uniform cost more to make than my yearly income.
Somebody should tap him on the frilly shoulder and tell him that it's not polite to point, too.

I saw the above pic when I logged onto my mailbox this morning.
I got a kick out of it because the guy looks so silly dressed like that.
That uniform looks like it weighs 50 pounds and his hat looks like it's squashing his eyebrows down.
It really seems like something out of a comedy movie.

Of course, the "news" story attached to the pic was about more protests, shootings, blood, violence, and uncontrolled upheaval by the grassroots people of those Arab countries that are supposedly "protesting for freedom", or some jazz like that.

To me, it's my gut feeling that it's probably more like sneaky insiders who want some kind of change inserting mouthy and violent people on the scene and stirring trouble up, then getting the troops out to mow some unneeded people down and set the tone that this is some kind of really big deal that suddenly popped up all on it's own, and finally get some new form of government regime in there to "solve the problem" and make things all nice.
Democracy, supposedly, although the end solution will just be a way of destroying the old way of living under whatever god those Arabs worship and to instead step up into the 21st century.
You know - getting world bankers involved that simply have to loan serious dough to this new regime to "improve" the country, dough that accrues serious compound interest that will get the Arabs into the mega debt like the USA is now in to those same international bankers.

And, of course, like the British did in the late 1800s to South Africa, these international bankers and their many cronies making mega-bucks a year will gain control (take over) all of those lovely natural resources like the oil fields, minerals, and whatever else is there in the ground that has value.
I mean, if those Arabs are just gonna' stir-up trouble like that and get the troops in there to settle things down, they can't be allowed to just let their resources be managed by the same unruly lot, right?

Sounds like a good time for all.
And all the while, the people in those countries getting taxed like they never had been before, will basically be told that there's no other way to do things.
Yeah, bring on that shit.
You can be sure this mess was hatched years ago in places like the UN.
Only brainy guys like them really know what's best for them.
Oops.
I mean the citizens.

-John

Pot Farm Raiders: Smoking is Cool

Man, what an awful-looking pic.
You know who that is, don't you?
It's Britney Spears, performing in some new music video that I made sure I haven't watched and became sick because of.
I felt like adding this pic and comments as an edit to today's post because she looked so downright ugly in this pic.
Amazing how that is the case, no matter how long the hair stylist and makeup artist and wardrobe person spent on her before the pic was taken.
Sorry, I'll take a helping of God-given beauty, thanks, as Britney seems to have erased all of the artificial beauty in one fell swoop by striking this pose.
Poor girl.
Egad.

**************************************


I saw this new game available for playing on Facebook this morning.
That hip dip couple looks like a couple of people I went to school with.
Hmmmm.
I was wondering what had happened to them since graduation, too.

I tried smoking pot when I was 16 and 17 years old.
Why?
For the same ol' reason a lot of other people start smoking it, I imagine:
It was readily available and it had some kind of try-this-and-you'll-be-a-cool-dude mystique about it.

Well, I smoked it semi-regularly (mainly on weekends) for about a year, and then suddenly realized I didn't want to end-up looking like the couple shown in that pic above.
And I don't just mean in physical looks or appearance.
I mean in believing what was important to me, not to mention my health.
I didn't want to look like some grubby hippie that thought getting high was Job One.
I came to dislike having my mind clouded by a substance in my bloodstream, affecting how I felt.
(To me, that's very unnatural, although pot smokers will always claim pot is all-natural, insinuating that it's good for you, so get off their back about it.)
I didn't want to have breath and clothes that smelled like burning leaves.
(That stuff stinks, by the way, although lots of potheads seem to think they've got everybody fooled with how sly and sneaky they are by smoking the stuff where and when they shouldn't be.
Get off it, dude, because I can smell it pretty easily.
Like, from a mile away.
And, the smell lingers in an area for quite a while, long after Lenny Pothead Toker has finished puffing his little roach.
You can literally smell it on the walls. :) )
I didn't want to be on drugs, most of all.
That stuff contains a drug that makes you all spacey, although supporters will call it something like "a relaxant", or that it "frees your mind" or, which is often said, to "help my concentration".
Sorry, folks - it's a drug, plain and simple, and I wanted no part in being a drug addict.

Drug addict pretty much sums it up, you know.
Every pothead I've known would be offended at being called a drug addict.
For a time, I regularly hung around other potheads.
I wouldn't matter that they don't want to go very long from one joint to the next because in their mind, they're not addicted to anything.
They just like to smoke it and they believe it isn't hurting anything.
Hell, they would say it helps them by relaxing them, or helping their concentration, or whatever else they feel like conjuring-up about the benefits of smoking pot.
To me, all that is putting a pleasant light on the fact that when you like to smoke pot, and make it a habit, and don't want to go very long without it, you are a drug addict.
You like it.
You want it.
You would defend it against naysayers because you believe in it and you think it is good.
You will even treat it as if it's something that won't hurt your lungs, never mind that you are still sucking smoke into your body.

That is another common thing amongst pot smokers:
They will often not even consider smoking pot to be smoking something as far as the health of their lungs and the rest of their body goes.
Many times, a pothead will be happy to tell somebody how they don't smoke, yet they'll suck that marijuana smoke in the next chance they get.
What they mean is that they don't smoke tobacco cigarettes, and although they still toke the pot, it's not as much smoking as it was when they smoked cigarettes, and you're not supposed to know about or speak publicly about their pot smoking habit.
That doesn't count, in other words, so cut them some slack.
To me, that's like saying you've given up eating junk food, yet you'll regularly suck down a Hostess Twinky when one is suddenly in front of you.
You're still a junk food junkie - you have just changed your eating schedule.
Reduced it?
Yes.
Quit it?
Don't bullshit me.

Wouldn't it be ironic, though, if these nature freaks who defend that stuff were to find out that the smoke from it is as harmful to their bodies as cigarette smoke?
Hmmmm.

Off to another freebee Saturday at jerk,
-John

267: Environmentalist Heaven

We HAVE to start saving the planet.
But first, let's get stoned.


I got a kick out of some of the posts I read on a forum yesterday.
It was a forum dedicated to the WR-250R and WR-250X, and the thread was discussing opinions of keeping the stock muffler and fuel injection programming versus aftermarket ones made for better throttle response and power.
Naturally, the most vocal one was for keeping the bike 100% stock, keeping it all plugged-up, and, not surprisingly, the guy basically sounded (or read, since I couldn't actually hear his voice)
as if he were some kind of brainwashed environMentalist who thinks it's a crime against every person on the planet to modify the bike so it will run better.
Not only a crime against every person on the planet (actually, hardcore enviro-nuts would rather have you and me die so that there are less people on Earth wrecking it - they would be allowed to remain, though ;) ), but a crime against the planet, itself.

Cynics out there will say I'm being way too presumptuous by drawing those thoughts from reading a thread on a motorcycle message board if the the guy doing the writing didn't come out and write that, himself.
I don't think I'm too far overboard, though, as the guy went on to add that he went from aftermarket muffler and FI programmer back to the stock parts, and did so in order to sneak around as he rode his WR without disturbing anybody, and also in order to help the environment via keeping the catalytic converter that's inside the stock muffler.

He also claimed better low end power just above idle speed, and although I don't remember that being tha case with my own modified WR-250RX from last year, at least that claim is based in the realm having to do with the actual performance of the motorcycle and not written as some sort of environmental statement and a pat on his own back for doing something to help the goddamn planet.
Like the planet is really in need of help in the first place.

Myself, I think that anybody who favors a catalytic converter-stuffed muffler on his motorcycle is either a complete newbie who is literally still learning how to ride (so he doesn't need any additional performance), an old-timer who's too frail to require any additional performance, or has been brainwashed by the environmental propaganda that's been put out there for decades, now.
I don't mean the guy who is basically riding around with the stock muffler simply because he feels no need to spend money modifying the bike.
I'm talking about the guy who makes it a point and wants to let his fellow riders know that the stock muffler is the way to go for the typical enviro reasons.

Some guys will write really nice things about other people they see riding their dirt bikes in the woods, especially when they don't agree with that the other guy is doing.
Just a couple days ago, while the subject was on how much noise is acceptable from a dirt bike ridden on trails and whether or not you should use the stock muffler, one guy wrote that when he sees (and I'm going to try to recall the exact words):

"...some asshole ripping a trench with his loud bike through a damp meadow, I want to shoot the stupid son of a bitch..."

I really don't know whether that's just a humorous figure of speech or if the guy really got all hot and bothered over the incident and started to get a twitch in his trigger finger, but that is an example of how even other dirt bike riders sometime feel about other people doing dirt bike riding, especially when the guy doing the observing is a closet environmental kook.

Myself, if the guy doing the trench ripping was on land he wasn't supposed to be on, and he knew it, I guess I can't complain about that kind of a comment.
If he was simply out in the middle of the woods, and maybe faced with the decision of either riding his bike out of a soggy piece of land or leaving it there and walking home, I'm all for ripping a trench to get my ass out of there and back to food, drink, and shelter from the elements.
Maybe the enviro-guy with the trigger finger would have calmly shut his engine off, leave his WR-250RX axle-deep in the wet ground, hike back to his hybrid enviro-econobox vehicle, and dial-up some 911 environmental save-the-planet rescue squad to come extract his bike in some enviro-approved manner.

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the guy with the itchy trigger finger couldn't ride his own bike to save his life, which is something I've come to see for myself over the years.
Basically, the typical scenario is that the more of an environmentalist the guy is, the crummier of a dirt bike rider he is.

Maybe he was just envious of the guy roosting through the woods. :)

Off to jerk,
-John

266 Cream Horns in my Stomach

The cream horn.
Mighty tasty, although this horn doesn't make many tooting sounds.
Unless you have gas because of it. :)

Yesterday morning before jerk, I stopped and picked up a 4-pack of yummy cream horns, also called cream twirls.
Totally delicious going down, but how I feel afterwards sometime ain't good.
That's what happened yesterday, because after I ate all four of them, I felt a bit under the weather for the remainder of the work day.
When will I ever learn? ;)

This morning, I was getting a kick out of seeing pics of the motorcycles of other riders, especially when the pic shows the exact same model of bike I currently own or have owned in the past.
I saw a couple pics of WR-250Rs, the same bike I rode on the street last year.

You know what gets my attention most when I see this bike in other riders' pics?
It's how much stuff the bike is loaded down with.
I'm talking about piles of tents, sleeping bags, tennis racquets, kitchen sink, and who-knows-what-else.
This is often in addition to heated grips, tank bags, saddle bags, tea bags and douche bags. :)

I suppose it's simply fitting, then, that some of the WR-250R riders out there discovered the hard way that a certain area of their bike was worn without them discovering it until the damage was already done.
Specifically, the drive chain was wearing through the bottom of the guard that protects the swingarm from the chain.
I don't mean just wearing through the guard material, but literally sawing right through it and sawing into the metal of the swingarm, itself.

This was, and in fact still is, an issue bandied-about on forums that cover the WR-250R and WR-250X.
Most of the riders who were surprised to find this on their bike had no idea how it happened.
It's believed by most that it is caused by switching to a smaller front sprocket (12 teeth vs. 13 teeth) to achieve lower gearing and better acceleration and better gear spacing for off-road use.
(In my opinion, the bike needs lower gearing even if you stay 100% on the street.)
The belief is that the smaller-diameter front sprocket brings the bottom of the chain into stronger contact with the guard, and over time, will cause the chain to saw away at the guard and swingarm, itself.
Because of this, many well-to-do riders - the ones that will create websites devoted to their WR-250R or WR-250X and load the site up with lots of personal info about what they think of the bike and what modifications they've done and/or deem necessary - outright warned other WR-250R and WR-250X riders to steer clear of putting 12-tooth front sprockets on their bikes.

Myself, I don't agree with staying away from them because my own WR-250RX had a 12-tooth front sprocket on it for nearly all of the time I rode it (the bike had 7,500 miles on it when I sold it last September), and it was still on it when I sold it.
The chain was not even close to wearing through anything, and the chain guides and guards showed only normal wear that all chain guides and guards show after any kind of use.

So, why were some riders getting this saw-my-bike-in-half wear?
My opinion has to do with two key issues:

1) The bike is simply being overloaded with shit piled-up on the rear fender, causing the rear suspension to be constantly sagging down three times as far as it usually does.
This puts the drive chain in contact with the swingarm a whole lot, especially when combined with issue number 2.

2) The drive chain is being kept too tight, with insufficient slack.
This has been going on with many, many, many, many, many, many, many riders since long-travel suspension came out in the late 1970s.
Long story short, the longer your rear suspension travel (movement), the more slack the chain requires when the rear suspension is unloaded.
This is because the rear suspension arm (swingarm) pivots not around the front sprocket but behind the front sprocket, and the geometry and physics involved dictates that the drive chain slack will decrease as the swingarm moves upward.
So, when you plop your fat ass and 354 pounds of "camping gear" on the back of the bike (which weighs 275 pounds, itself), if you're one of the many who keep their drive chain too tight, you'll basically be adjusting the parts of your bike to eat away at each other.

The amazing thing to me is that most of these riders aren't aware of what they're doing.
And, this will probably make you ask, "Well, why in fuck's name are these guys adjusting their drive chains too tight to begin with?!"
Answer:
I believe it's because they automatically think that the chain should have zero (or close to zero) slack or free play in it when the bike is unloaded.
They probably assume the chain will derail from the sprockets unless it's tightened right up snug as a bug in a rug.
I've actually seen more riders adjust their chains like this than ones who did not, even guys working in the Service Departments of official Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Suzuki dealers.
Really.

Sounds like a lot of hootin' and hollerin' over a trivial subject, but, look at the grief it's caused more than one rider.

Off to jerk,
-John

265: Clearance, Clarence

The WR-250FY during the procedure known as checking the valve clearances.
The Yamaha 4-stroke dirt bikes are well-known for having bulletproof valve trains, and that was the case here - all were in spec.
As far as that goes, it's all set for another year of riding. :)

Now that that has been done, I'm waiting on the rear shock to come back from Go Race Suspension down in Virginia.
After that and the rear suspension and rear wheel are installed, I'll grease the steering head bearings, change the fork oil, and wait for appropriate weather and ground conditions.

Last year, the middle of March had good conditions without the typical soft and gooey mud and half-thawed-out ground you typically see in the middle of that month.
That was because we had what was basically a heat wave that seemed to speed-up the thawing of the ground, and by the third weekend of the month, it was good riding.
I'm hoping we get the show on the road with the melting of the snow and thawing of the ground.
I'm quite tired of seeing this stuff on the ground.

I'm disgusted with these silly news snippets I see on the Internet, telling me that activists, both here and in Egypt, are so happy that the hubbub is dying down over there, and that now they'll have a shot at some real, down-home, ol'-fashioned democracy.
I don't believe it for a second.
Firstly, I'm not over there myself, seeing and hearing for myself exactly what's going on and why it's going on.
All I have to go on is what I'm reading over here with a few pics to go along with it, and I don't believe for a second they will let me know the whole story - just what they want me to know so they can steer my beliefs and opinions in the direction they want me to go.
That would be something along the lines of:
Yeah! Go Egypt! Take a double-scoop of Democracy! You'll love it!
WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!

No, I think the whole affair is simply a staged event that was planned a while ago, and very carefully, with key players heading the stirring-up of the locals you see pictured in the news.
The goal is simply to remove the former approved-for-use guy and insert the new approved-for-use guy, all the while making it appear as if the people of Egypt called for this and made it happen.

Pure bullshit, folks.
It's just a ploy to get a guy in there who wants to play along with the real movers and shakers of the world (not you or me or our so-called political leaders who supposedly are working for our well-being) and take Egypt into the future that these movers and shakers want.
This probably means something that Lenin would have been proud of, which is probably the worldwide goal, too.
Naturally, the UN military forces will be around to knock anybody on the head that wants to say differently.
You wouldn't see or hear about that one on the news, though, at least not without it being twisted around to look quite different from how it really was.
Fact is, the UN (which is probably just a front group for the world's big shots to use to get their biding done) has been keeping the middle East in turmoil since the end of World War ll, so what makes you think anything has suddenly changed?
Huh?
Because of some people with home-made protest signs?

-John