These may get you home

I ride year around and at times I have been on the bike when it
started snowing or icing over. Among the items I carry in my "survival
bag" are a good pair of side cutter pliers and several dozen cable ties
with a tie tensioner. Cable ties can be used for a lot of different
things like securing loose or damaged parts on the bike or securing
things to the handlebars. One of the best uses I have ever found for
the common cable tie is as traction devices in snow or icy conditions.
I would not recommend using them in place of a well made set of chains
or cables for a bike but they can mean the difference between making it
home or being stranded out on the road somewhere. I always try to find
the thickest and strongest cable tie possible and cut off the excess
length. When I need them I wap them around the tire and pull the cable
as tight as possible with the tensioner and then snip off all but about
an inch or two of the cable above the clip. It is more important to
have more on the front wheel than it is the back wheel if you don't
have a surplus of ties. As long as you don't ride too fast you should
make it home. I got caught in a spring blizzard in Western Nebraska a
few years back and the cable ties got me the 40 miles or so I had to go
to get to a nice warm Motel. Two days later they got me back to dry
roads to continue the rest of the trip home.

For those of you who don't know what a cable tie is here is a link with
pictures http://www.cabletiesplus.com/ties.cfm
Most Hardware stores carry them.

I hope you never need them but if you do. . . good luck.

Dennis

 

I'm going to try to forget this "advice" as quickly as possible. It
sounds like "TwoGuns" is either a troll or a dead broke dude with no
friends or relatives to help him out in a pinch, so he invents weird
ideas and "shares" them with us. I won't even speculate about the
results of a few of those cable ties coming adrift...

But I'm reminded of a story an old time biker told me about being
snowed in by an early blizzard. It never snows in Southern California,
he had to ride to Yellowstone NP in his
T-shirt in August to meet Jack Frost.

He said he hung around a coffee shop to stay warm, drinking coffee
until his teeth floated. When the coffee shop owner started getting
hostile about his continued presence, he talked a guy with a pickup
truck into hauling his Trumpet to dry pavement.

Another biker I know was packing his old lady on a BMW /6 and he was
talking to truckers on his CB about how sore his ass was getting from
pavement pounding.

A trucker agreed to meet him at a freight loading dock, and he rode his
beemer up the ramp and into the trailer where the friendly trucker tied
his BMW down and welcomed him and his old lady into the sleeper cab,
and the three of them had a grand old time truckin' and fuckin'...

And, for those who don't play "Gas, Grass, or Ass," there's always
U-Haul vans...

 

<G>

I have a solution for freezing winter rides. It's called a car.

 

I was thinking a stray cable tie might foul the chain or the
brakes---or the front fender. Not too much clearance between tire and
fender on many modern motorcycles.

I have some *big* cable ties that I scavenged from a dumpster. They are
about 1/4 to 3/8's of an inch wide and 18 inches long. I could probably
rent a U-Haul cube van with lift gate for what two dozen of those cable
ties would cost.

As I mentioned previously, it never snows in the cities and suburbs of
Southern C********a, you have to *go to the snow* and half the time
there won't be any snow below
6000 feet in the Angeles National Forest in the winter.

Sometimes it's warm and sunny at year's end, and riders congregate at
Newcomb's Ranch (there's a beer bar, cafe, pool tables, al fresco
dining, and a whole bunch of motorcycle butt sniffing occurs in the
parking lot) below the 6000 foot level, other times there's snow around
that level and die hard riders will still go there on Christmas Day or
New Years.

A bunch of riders I know talked about bowling with motorcycles when a
bunch of them were involved in a chain reaction crash when one rider
encountered ice, and all the following riders lost control too...

I remember riding above Newcomb's Ranch one late winter/early spring
morning and riding through a stream of snow melt water that had
refrozen the night before.

When I felt my tires crunching through the slush, I decided it was time
to turn around and continue the ride on roads at lower elevation.

With thousands of miles of motorcycle roads without snow, there's just
no reason to worry about getting home by wrapping $40 worth of cable
ties around your tires...

 

Sorry I posted my advice about using cable ties as emergency traction
devices. I thought it might help some of you get through a bad
situation in the future but I can see from the replies several of you
posted that most of you don't ride when it gets below 70 degrees F and
you always have a U-Haul in case of trouble. Oh I forgot cell phones!
The only thing needed for any possible emergency a cell phone. What a
joke.

Dennis

 

Let me guess, Dennis. Your motorcycle is a 1979 Yamaha XS750 and you've
never owned a four wheeled vehicle in your life and are inordinately
proud of that fact.

You're alienated from your family, and you live in a one-room studio
with your cat (which the landlord doesn't know about).

Your cat is a recent acquisition, a stray who did not arrive at your
present accomodation
on the back of a motorcycle, he just wandered in the door one hot
summer day and stayed and you are glad of the company that doesn't
argue with you...

You can haul all your possessions in a plastic milk crate bungeed to
your luggage rack.

Your most prized possessions are the latest issues of Rider magazine
and Cycle Trader.

You have your eye on an ad for a pristine 1980 XS-850 and you're
waiting for the seller to come down to your price.

But you want to feel like you're part of a wider motorcycling
"community", so you post a weird suggestion about mummifying your tires
with cable ties, and you feel rejected when some more fortunate riders
poopoo the idea.

Now you'll probably take a solo ride towards Wyoming and ponder
Hamlet's classic question: "To be, or not to be..."

Say. Did I mention that I have a whole bunch of relatives that are
buried in Dawes County, Nebraska? They were Nebraska pioneers who went
there for the free land in the 1880's and survived the drought of 1890
and then they were just too numb (or dumb) to leave Nebraska.

Yeah, well. Human beings have being communicating with each other and
asking for help for ten thousand years. The cell phone and the internet
are just high tech ways of hollering for help. Add a GPS tracker to the
cell phone and you can actually tell emergency rescue units where
you're at, if your signal gets out of the snow filled ditch in the
blizzard that you chose to ride through...

 

Get your head out of your ass B-12 so you can see this clearly. I have
owned many four wheelers, boats, snowmobiles, 18 wheelers and
motorcycles over the years. Current bike a 900 Vulcan. I didn't say I
rode a motorcycle exclusively in my post did I? I said I ride year
around. I don't intentionally ride the bike when it is a blizzard
outside but I have been caught away from home on a bike when a blizzard
hit. You might ask your relatives in Dawes County Nebraska about how
quickly a Nebraska Blizzard can appear. Oh I forgot they all died. Any
in a Nebraska Blizzard?

With the one exception of an asshole brother-in-law I get along just
fine with my family. As a matter of fact that asshole BIL has an
arrogant superior attitude a lot like you. Is your name Harry?

No cats. I am a dog person.

Not a bad idea but sorry to say on my recent move to the new cave it
took a few trips with a rented U-Haul truck to move all the gear.

I ride motorcycles not read about them. I have picked up a copy of EASY
RIDERS at times for the pictures though.

Never owned an XS-850. I did have a 78 XS-1100 back in 78 but no desire
to own another one.

Did I say leave the cable ties on all winter dumbass? I said I carry
them along with a few other items in my survival bag. They can make the
difference. But I forgot you live in a part of the country where it
doesn't snow and you only ride when the temperature is above 70 F.

No trips planned to Wyoming on the motorcycle until Frontier Days next
summer and I don't care for Shakespeare, Vince Flynn is a better writer
IMO.

My ancestors were a tougher breed. They arrived in SW Nebraska and NW
Kansas in the late 1860's and homesteaded and stayed. One of the
homesteads is still part of the family farm but it wasn't FREE. My
Grandfather paid $.50/acre. Not a bad price for land worth over $1,000
or more now.

At last you got something right. A cell phone in a Nebraska Blizzard is
about as useless as tits on a boar. When you live in an area where
your next door neighbor may be a few miles away you learn how to
prepare for unexpected contingencies. The whole reason for carrying
cable ties in the first place.

Dennis

 

Explains your ignorance, does that.

Were the words too complicated?

 

To make you jealous, when I take my van into the shop I use for a
oil,lube,filter, and tuneup I often get a bill with no tuneup on it. When
asked, I'm told they checked and it didn't need a tuneup!

I just wish they worked on motorcycles.

Needless to say, I've been going there for 18 years now and will continue till
I die or they go out of business. The owner started as a one man shop
specializing in VWs. Now he has 5 or 6 bays and about a dozen employees.
He's been known to mutter that he never gets to work on cars any more .

 

Okey dokey. I will schedule a seance and channel their spirits for an
in-depth interview. I've been trying to find out exactly what happened
to my great aunt Bertha. Her immediate family packed up and left
Nebraska after she died in infancy. My great grandma nagged great
grandpa until he agreed to move.

Southern Dawes County is arid, looks like badlands with eroded buttes.

My relatives lived around Whitney, near Hardscrabble school and
Starvation Gulch. Great grandpa was only eight years old when the Civil
War started, he didn't enlist, but all the other males fought on the
Union side.

Chadron is forested, it's on the pine ridge that leads to the Lakotah
reservation of the same name. The Lakotah and Cheyenne used to gather
at Chadron and trappers traded furs with them.

The west really developed about as fast as the railroads were finished,
the wagon train pioneers were pretty much just passing through. But the
US goobermint published pamphlets about all the free land in Nebraska.
My great great grandpa had made a lot of money on land speculation in
Missouri, so why couldn't his sons do the same?

Problem was that the west is arid, it doesn't get enough rain for a
single family farm to survive on only 80 acres, the basic homestead
size, unless there is irrigation.

My great grandfather and his brother arrived in Nebraska around 1880,
but the US Army held settlers back until they had the hostile tribes
controlled. Whitney is about five miles from Fort Robertson, where the
hostile chiefs were imprisoned. Wounded Knee is only about 90 miles
away.

My great grand uncle, a Civil War veteran, enlisted at fifteen years of
age.

He claimed (or otherwise acquired) a homestead of 1200 acres and fully
improved it. He'd made his money breeding horses in southeastern
Nebraska and shipped them back east by railroad. He was a good
Republican.

Great grandpa had the good sense to get out of that part of Nebraska.
He went to Greenwood County, Kansas and claimed a homestead there.

Excellent guess. Maybe I'm your BIL, ya never know on Usenet...

So tell us what genre he writes. The Older Gentleman wants to turn
rec.motorcycles.tech
into a social club again, so we're now open for way off topic threads,
since he can't get me to play Summerlee to his Challenger...

Say, did I mention that Wild Bill Hickok was my great grandfather's
fourth cousin? He died in Deadwood, South Dakota, about the time my
grandma was being born there.

My Scots-Irish great great grandmother Catherine was a sort of pioneer
heroine in the northeastern corner of Missouri in 1842. Great great
grandpa established the first of many homesteads and returned to
Illinois for supplies. He couldn't return immediately because he got
sick. So Catherine had to walk ten miles through Arikara territory to
borrow flour from another settler. That grocery run wasn't exactly a
stroll through the country, as the Arikara were known to be cannibals.

Damned near died...

My Melungeon great grandfather was one quarter Scottish, one quarter
German, one quarter Cherokee and one quarter African with a surname of
Portuguese Sephardic Jewish origin.

But he was college-educated. He and his Cajun wife homesteaded Hand
County and Gerauld County, in the Dakota Territory in the late 1880's.

The Great Blizzard killed thousands of settlers and drove many of them
out of the Dakotas. Great grandpa moved to Kansas for a while, but he
couldn't stay in any one spot for too long, he also lived in Iowa,
Missouri, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and California.

If I'm in a warm place that's perfect for all-year year motorcycle
riding, it's great grandpa's fault for coming to California on his last
adventure and making it possible for me to live
the good life and only ride when it's 70 degrees or above. ;-)

One final question:

What's your favorite flavor of Jello pudding? Say the magic word and
become an official member of rec.motorcycles.tech crew...

 

I guess in the U.K. riding is so unpleasant because of all the traffic
and people driving on the "wrong" side of the road that it is much
easier to read about motorcycles. Come across the pond Older Gentelman
and I will take you on a tour of some of the greatest country on the
planet. Don't bother bringing your own bike. I have a couple older
Triumphs in the garage I can have ready to go by the time you get here.
Of course if you can bring a Limey gas tank with you for a 66 & 68
Bonneville you could ride them restored in original condition. Paint
not required.



Dennis

 

Yes but it is fantastic country. Great Deer, Turkey, Rabbit, Quail and
Pheasant hunting in addition to some pretty decent fishing holes.

My Great Grandfather sold horses and mules to the Army before and after
the Civil War. One of the Step Uncles, Charles Hester, settled in the
SW part of Nebraska in Dundy County after making a few cattle drives
from Texas during and after the Civil War. The Step Cousins still own
part of what used to be one of the largest ranches in the Nebraska
Territory.

Yup. The Chadron National Forest has been decimated by forest fires
during the past two decades. Still it has more trees than most of
Nebraska LOL.

Most of my ancestors were attracted by the horse and mule trading
opportunities that came with the 1849 California Gold Rush and later on
the 1859 Colorado Gold Rush. They knew there was more money to be made
selling to those with Gold Fever than there was in Gold itself.

It has been especially tough the past few years to survive with dryland
because of a severe drought in the area. Our family farm is dryland and
if income from crops was all we depended on it wouldn't make it.

You mean Fort Robinson I think. A few miles North of my home grounds of
Yuma County Colorado, Dundy County Nebraska and Cheyenne County Kansas.

Sounds like my Grandpa but he was in NW Kansas and SW Nebraska. Heck
they might have traded a few horses. Who knows. Somewhere in the old
picture archives I have some photos of a horse & mule auction that my
Grandfather and his partners had at North Platte, NE on or near the
Cody Ranch. Also a good Republican, a tradition that the family has
carried on to this day.

I'm not sure where Greenwood County is. Heck if Nebraska taxes get any
higher I might head back to Kansas too. LOL.

Vince Flynn writes political thrillers. Fluff but good fluff.

Do a Google for Charley Hester, one of the step Uncles. In one of his
books I think he met Wild Bill. I know he met John Wesley Hardin under
another name.He wrote a few stories about his adventures from the
1850's to the 1890's. He consulted with John Ford on a couple of his
Western movies; DODGE CITY starring Errol Flynn was one of them. One of
his nephews took some of his notes and compiled a couple books about
his adventures. Very interesting reading. I just wish I could remember
the titles.

I think maybe the reason most of my ancestors stayed around Western
Nebraska is because we are are blessed with a few extra pounds of body
fat. That makes it a lot easier to survive the cold winters LOL.

Sorry. I don't eat any kind of Jello except for their Cherry
Cheesecake. Not enough calories to keep me warm.

Dennis

 

Very kind. Been there, done that, in NM. You might be interested,
incidentally, to learn that about as many countries drive on the left as
drive on the right.

Virtually every old British colony or possession (so that accounts for
nearly a quarter of the land mass) does so. Japan, too....

 

Man, this is so true.

 

Volume $tealer$hip$ are like that...

There was nothing actually *wrong* with the water hoses on my three
year old GT-750 Suzuki, but the manual said I should replace them at
specified intervals.

So, I went to Van Nuys Screwzuki, which was, at one time, *the* volume
Suzuki $tealer$hip, nationwide.

Van Nuys Screwzuki did not stock the water hoses, and suggested I use
generic automotive hoses, which wouldn't fit and I told them so.

Van Nuys Screwzuki agreed to order the hoses.

Three weeks later, I returned to see if the hoses had come in. Chuck
Graves, the famous racer and owner of Van Nuys Screwzuki, checked my
order and said, "Nope, not here."

I told him that it seemed to me like those hoses should be in stock. He
said, "Nope, we don't stock 'em."

I came back another time, and one of the hoses had arrived. Graves
said, "Well, we didn't need to order the long one. Seems like we had
one in stock all along."

I told him to cancel my special order for the short hose and sell me
the other long hose so I could cut it down to length.

I told Graves that he didn't seem to be all that enthusiastic about
helping me, that he didn't seem to care.

Graves told me that there was no money in a volume dealership, that he
just had to work his ass off, when what he wanted was to be out there
on the track, racing motorcycles.

Now he sells specialized machined parts for sportbikes, there's more
mark up...

Another time when I went into Van Nuys Screwzuki to order parts, I
remarked to the parts guy behind the counter that, if I couldn't get
parts for the Suzuki I had, I would never buy a newer model. I told him
that I wouldn't pay $1500 for a new motorcycle with an MSRP of $3000 if
I couldn't get parts for the motorcycle I was riding.

He told me that I had "made" his day...

What happens to $tealer$hip$ that treat their cu$tomer$ like shit?

Last time I went by Van Nuys Screwzuki, they had about low production
six motorcycles in the showroom and NO customers.

 

I won't set foot in a $tealer$hip if I can get the parts I need
anywhere else.

The Honda $tealer$hip in Hollywood (CA) was nicknamed "Bill
Ripofferson's" by people who were mistreated there. They said that he
gets no repeat business, but survives on gouging customers.

In 1992, I heard that Honda was coming out with a new lightweight 900RR
sportbike, so I headed over to Riperofferson's and asked what the MSRP
would be. The salescreep said, "Oh, it will be about $9000, and you'd
better make your deposit as soon as possible, becaise that model will
be limited production."

I told the salescreep that the 900RR wouldn't be worth more than $7000,
and if it was "limited production" I wouldn't want one anyway.

 

That's a very strange riposte. Odd logic, too.

 

And we're talking about [insert nom du jour here] here, so what part of
this is surprising to you?

--
Later,
John



'indiana' is a 'nolnn' and 'hoosier' is a 'solkk'. Indiana doesn't solkk.

 

I don't suppose you ever dressed up in a pirate costume on Hallowe'en,
and went around saying "Aaaarghhh!" to all the other revelers...

 

Oh, I see that I amuse you. Again.

OK. Lemme 'splain something to you, Lucy.

Motorcycle riders all over the world were delighted by the fact that
Honda got into GP racing in the 1960's by using MV Agusta's engine
technology.

Exactly *why* were they so delighted? It's because they hoped that
Honda would mass produce their wailing 4-cylinder engines and put them
into mass produced motorcycles that would sell for far less than
$50K...

Like $500 was more like it. We could afford that, when we were making
less than $4K a year and thought we were pulling down "the big bucks"
in our blue collar manufacturing jobs.

It's mass production that has brought the price of all our wonderful
consumer toys down to the point where we can afford to make time
payments on them.

All of our production 4-stroke club racing and canyon squirreling is
based upon availability of inexpensive motorcycles and inexpensive
repair parts.

I would never spend $20K for a Ducati Corsa or an Aprilia, unless I was
going to spend part of every day and all of every weekend *riding* it
in the canyons.

I did fork over 9K for my FZR-1000 (marked down from $10.3K) but there
was no way in Hell that I was ever going to pay $ 9K for a Honda, and
if they were "limited production" as the salescreep claimed, I knew
that I would have a hard time getting parts for it.

Who wants a "garage queen" that is always waiting for parts that the
$tealer$hip parts creep claims are "on the boat", being shipped from a
foreign country?

The only thing worse than hearing that your parts are "on the boat" is
hearing that your
parts order has reached the Ducati factory and they will manufacture
*your* part as soon as they get enough orders from *other* owners who
want the same thing.

Case in point was the optional Ducati 749cc Monster's center stand that
could be ordered
and paid for, but might never be seen...