My vacation from a few years ago
While not bike related, here is a little web thing I put together after my trip to England and Cypress in 2005.
http://www.the-wildwest.com/WorldTour/tour.htm
The REAL story on tankless water heaters
Several years ago, I had done some research on tankless water heaters as a way of reducing our electric bill, while at the same time having an endless supply of hot water. The theory is that the water heater only turns on when the hot water starts to flow, unlike a conventional tank that keeps turning the heating element on to retain the temperature level in the tank. You can also set the temperature so that the hot water is comfortable when using only hot water, with no cold water mixed in. That way you can avoid any scalding problems, and you don’t waste energy by heating the water up, then adding cold water to cool it back down again.
If you are contemplating getting a tankless water heater, here are the things you need to consider:
1. The temperature of the cold water that comes from the street will govern how powerful a unit you need to buy. In Florida, the cold water is most likely in the 75 degree range, while in Wisconsin, it may get down to the 50’s or lower. The unit needs to have enough power to bring the water up to the temperature you desire.
2. The flow switch will require a certain GPM rate in order to activate the heating elements. This means you can’t have a slow trickle of hot water coming from the tap. Most units seem to need between .2 and .5 GPM in order to trip the flow switch. Typically, you will be turning the hot water tap on full anyway, so this will probably not be an issue. However, there is a caveat. Most showers have a mixing valve, and when you want to make the water temperature colder, it actually adds cold water AND reduces the amount of hot water that is used. In your attempts to get the most comfortable temperature, you may end up reducing the hot water flow too much. This will cause the GPM rate to fall below the threshold, and turn off the heater. The next thing you know, you are taking a cold shower!
3. You will need to decide if you want a whole house unit, or a point of use unit. Using the point of use units is more involved and requires additional expense and installation, but provides redundancy in the event that one of them fails. If you have 2 bathrooms in your home, and the whole house unit fails, you will have no hot water anywhere. If you use point of use units, and one of them fails, you can still take a shower in the other bathroom. With a sink, it is not too tricky to put a small unit under the sink somewhere. When it comes to the bathroom, the location of the unit becomes more difficult, and may require additional plumbing that you hadn’t planned on.
After doing some internet research, I chose a unit from SETS in Miami Florida, and picked the whole house unit, which cost roughly $750 USD. I had an electrician run the 220v lines (two required), and I did the plumbing myself, since I am pretty handy with solder and a torch. The unit looks similar to this one, and mounts flat on the wall.
After the intial tweaking, I got the system to work fairly well and was pretty satisfied with the way it performed. Then, about 2 years later, I had a problem.
I noticed some drips coming from the bottom of the case, and the temperature of the hot water began to be inconsistent. I opened the case up and found that the internal copper pipes had sprung a leak. Here is where things get really ugly.
I called SETS to arrange to have it fixed since it was still under warranty. Over the period of 5 days or so, I made repeated calls to them, trying to find a technician who could authorize me to get the unit fixed. The guy who answered the phone kept telling me they were busy, and that he had been giving them the messages for me. Finally, I got hold of a tech, and after I described what was wrong, he told me I needed a new unit, which I already knew!! Needless to say, my frustration level was maxed out by now.
The problem was that they don’t make house calls, and their warranty policy is that I uninstall the unit, I pack it up and pay for the shipping to them, I pay for the shipping to have the unit sent back to me, I reinstall the unit when I receive it, and I live without hot water during the entire process, which is already 5 days long! Needless to say, this did not sit well with me, and I decided to skip the whole tankless water heater thing and go back to a conventional heater. I went to Lowes, bought one, and put it in.
The theory of a tankless water heater is a wonderful one, and it does save on electricity. When it works correctly, it is great. However, I cannot in good faith recommend SETS based on my experience with them. I suggest that anyone who is considering getting a tankless water heater do their homework and make sure they know exactly what the manufacturer’s warranty consists of before they buy it.
If I were to do it again, I would go with point of use heaters so that I have hot water in the event of a failure of one of the units.
My thoughts on personal risk management
Almost everything that a person does in life involves a certain degree of risk to their personal safety. And, every person evaluates these risks and determines those activities that they feel are safe, and those that they feel are not. Usually, a person will conduct their evaluation based on their own “formula” which takes into account various factors which they think impacts that risk factor.For example, if you ask anyone if they wear a seat belt while driving their car, you will get a variety of answers. Seldom, whoever, can a person give you any factual or statistical data to back up their decision. They will often arrive at their decision by using their formula and plugging in data that is known only to them. Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of sports, or Xtreme sports. This includes racing, skydiving, bungee jumping and the like.
Motorcycle riding, whether for sport purposes such as motocross or racing, or for transportation purposes, is generally accepted as being more dangerous than walking or driving a car. People will usually base this decision on the fact that a bike offers the rider significantly less protection from injury, whether caused by the rider themselves, or by other vehicular traffic that may impact the bike and the rider. Very few people will argue this fact. What is interesting is that some people will modify the risks associated with riding a motorcycle by other outside factors that seem to make sense only to themselves.
I had a discussion with a co-worker about this very subject. He said he might consider buying a bike and riding it back and forth to work, but he felt he lived too far away. What he meant was that he felt that the time he would spend on the bike each day would elevate the risk factors, and he was not comfortable riding it that distance each day. So, I asked him:
Me: “How far do you live from work?”
Him: “20 miles.”
Me: “What if you lived 17 miles from work, would you ride a bike then?”
Him: “No.”
Me: “What if you lived 14 miles from work, would you ride a bike then?”
Him: hesitating, “No.”
Me: “What about 12 miles?”
Him: “Ummm…”
Me: “What about 10 miles?”
Him: “Yea, probably.”
So, what does his personal formula contain that makes him arrive at that decision? Why does he think that 10 miles is OK, but 20 miles is not? I would agree that the more time you spend doing ANY “dangerous” activity increases the odds that something will happen to you. What I don’t understand is how an individual processes this risk formula and comes up with their Go/No Go decision.
It would appear that logic plays less of a part in this process, and emotion and feeling plays a much larger part. The old saying, “don’t confuse me with facts, my mind’s made up” truly applies here.
Once an individual arrives at their decision about how risky an activity is, they will then begin the process of comparing the risk to the enjoyment of that activity. A skydiver may decide that the exhilarating feeling of jumping out of an airplane is worth the amount of risk their formula has determined. A motorcycle rider may feel that the joy of riding, the wind in their face, and the esthetics of swooping through a series of twisting turns are worth the chance of being killed by a person in a 4 wheeled vehicle. Again, their risk assessment is most likely based on their vague, ambiguous, and unexplainable formula.
Some people will carry this process to the extreme. I sat next to a woman on an airplane once who told me that she never wears any nylon clothing or rubber tennis shoes on a plane because, if the plane crashes and catches on fire, she does not want her clothing to melt and burn her. In my mind, if that happens, all the cloth and leather apparel in the world is not going to save you.
There have been millions of conversations over the years about motorcycle riding and protective clothing. Many of these discussions have become very heated, and there is no shortage of opinions on the matter. I don’t think there are many people, including those who are opposed to wearing protective gear, who will not agree that wearing a helmet and protective clothing affords significant protection to a rider in the event of a spill.
Most of these discussions usually revolve around mandated helmet use, or the inconvenience or discomfort of wearing protective clothing. “It’s too hot during the summer. I don’t have a place to store it once I arrive at my destination.” The arguments are many and varied. The riders who don’t want to wear a helmet or protective gear are willing to accept the increased risk associated with riding while not wearing gear.
Where these discussions become testy is when people attempt to convince others that their own view on the topic is correct. Riders who gear-up are not going to convince those who choose to “ride free”; no matter how much they try. The opposite is true as well.
Then, there are those who abruptly decide to quit riding and sell their motorcycle because a family member or friend has been injured or killed in a bike related accident. Their reasoning may be that the dangers of riding have finally hit home, and they now realize just how dangerous it really is. Or, they may decide that they don’t want to put their loved ones through the same grief that the other family has had to endure. Regardless of what their decision is based on, they have made a subjective decision to stop riding, and it is unlikely that anyone will convince them to change their minds.
Ultimately, what this all boils down to is this: People are going to make their risk management decisions based on factors that are often only understandable by them. They will ride or not ride, wear gear or not. If they suffer serious injuries or death as a result of their actions, then that was their choice. All the forum posts or water cooler discussions will not change that.
Really entertaining reading
I stumbled across BustedUpCowgirl.Com, which is a site featuring the efforts of some people to fight back and really mess with Internet scammers. This particular woman is in the horse business, but these Nigerian scams are frequently used for online motorcycle or automobile advertisements.
Click on the link in the Blogroll list on the right hand side of the page.
Have a look, I think you will get a kick out of it!
Sunday morning ride
Here is a little video I put together from my home made camera mount and my cheapo Canon digital camera.
Feasting On Asphalt
I would be remiss in my blogging duties if I did not mention that I have gotten hooked on Alton Brown’s Feasting On Asphalt show which is aired on the Food Network. Alton, who also hosts Good Eats, takes his crew on a motorcycle tour of the US, finding all kinds of small mom and pop places to eat. Diners, cafes, and bars are the epitome of “Road Food”, and they typically have wonderful food, and great service.
What I find particularly attractive about the show is not just the food aspect, but the history that they reveal along the way. They find many really old buildings and business, and some have been around for over 100 years. They also give great background information for some of the most famous food people in history, from Duncan Hines to Colonel Sanders.
The Feasting On Asphalt crew is also extremely humble and respectful. The crew treats all of the people they meet with dignity, are never condescending, and are always genuinely interested in what these “plain folk” do and why they do it.
This show highlights classic Americana at its best, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, and from Lousiana all the way up the Mississippi to Wisconsin.
The show is in its second season, and the first season can be found and downloaded on most of the popular BitTorrent sites.
This show is wonderful. Check it out, you won’t be disappointed.
Handlebar Camera Mount
I was in the mood for some fiddling in the garage, but nothing too involved. I had wanted a camera mount for the Shadow, so I surfed around to see if I could find any information about making one. I found something quick and easy at www.knick-knack.com, so I decided to fabricate my own, using that one and the Bottle Cap Tripod by Jake Ludington as a guide.
Here is what I did:
I went to Lowes and picked up the parts:
1″ x 3/4″ PVC T joint
4″ piece of threaded 3/4″ PVC
A threaded end cap
1/2 x 20 bolt, 1.5 inches long A piece of sheet rubber Some flat washers and some rubber washers Here are my parts, all laid out:
The T was too long to fit between the handlebar clamps.
So I cut 1/8″ off each end with a hacksaw and it fit just right.
The threaded end cap was rounded a bit, so I flattened it with my belt sander.
The upright shaft had hex nut stuff molded into it, so I sanded off the edges to make it round.
The cut down T fit just fine now.
I drilled a hole in the end cap to fit the 1/4 x 20 bolt.
Here is the contraption, ready for a trial fit. The rubber pad sits between the T and the handlebars.
Looks good, but the upright shaft is too long, and my camera hits the inside of the windshield. I replaced the 4″ shaft with a 2″ one, and it fits just right. I will add a pic of it later.
A pic through the windshield.
A pic with the engine running to check for vibrations.
I painted it white with some spray paint, and gave it a road test. Here is a 15mb video.
Carbs back on…but problems
I reinstalled the 4 into 1 exhaust, after finding I was missing the sleeves for the OEM exhaust. I put the carbs back on, and tried to fire it up. Nothing. Not so much as an attempt to fire. The engine turns over just fine, but it still looks like there is no fuel reaching the cylinders. It will still fire if I spray starting fluid into the air intake, so I am getting spark. I am baffled now. I feel like I was pretty careful about taking the carbs apart and cleaning them up. The gas makes it to the float bowls, but evidently, no farther.
Basically, I am at a crossroads where I have to decide how much more money I want to invest in the bike, if any. I am considering parting it out and selling the parts on eBay.
“New” pipes
The used Cobra Slashcut Deluxe pipes arrived, and other than a few scratches that are not very visible, they look pretty good. I mounted them on Father’s Day morning, and they sound really nice. Not too loud, but much deeper and more throaty. I took it out for a spin and and found no performance issues, it still runs like a top.
A great bike trip in Florida
I was given this document by a co-worker. It was intended to be for an automobile trip, but it would work well on the bike as well. It was laid out to allow the traveller to see the sunrise on the East coast, and then see the sunset on the West coast, with some nice leisurely stops in between. Enjoy!
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Sunrise, sunset: A Florida adventure
Ken Clarke | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted February 18, 2007
And maybe there are better ways to say goodbye to the day than by admiring the sun’s blazing slide into the Gulf of Mexico.
But I doubt it.
And you can do both on the same day - if you live in Florida (don’t try this in Iowa).
So on a recent Saturday my friend Annette Day and I set out on a unique Florida adventure that took us from coast to coast, sunrise to sunset. Unhurried, we traveled mostly two-lane roads on a roundabout route that carried us from Marineland, south of St. Augustine on the east coast, to Cedar Key, west of Ocala on the Gulf coast.
We fell into synchrony with the unhurried rhythm of the rural land, stopping frequently to admire the beauty that is there to be seen if only you take the time: the dignity of a country church, a fiery field of phlox, gently rolling countrysides of huge oaks and pampered horses, unspoiled lakes wearing fringes of cypress trees.
We visited (or passed through) 13 towns that have populations of less than 900. We talked to a potato farmer, we crossed the St. Johns River on a two-car ferry. Leisurely, we covered 234 miles in 9 1/2 hours. We loved every minute of the day.
There isn’t much in Marineland, and that was the attraction for us as a starting point. Marineland is the home of the world’s first oceanarium, but it’s also an incorporated city with a population of 12, not counting the dolphins. The humble marine park and an oceanfront motel allowed for a quiet, almost private beginning to our journey.
Arising from the sea at 6:42, the sun tried to sneak into the sky behind a bank of sullen clouds, refusing to dress the morning in its usual array of gentle gold and orange pastels.
Except for the rumble of the waves upon the shore, the beach was quiet, and the morning was ours.
Shortly after 9 we started our journey, driving north on State Road A1A to Crescent Beach, then west on State Road 206, bound for Hastings 22 miles away. The land quickly changed from coastal marsh to hardwood forest, then gradually to pineland, and finally to the potato fields of Hastings (pop. 629), Florida’s potato capital.
It was harvest time at Fortner Farms. Imagine 480 acres of french fries and potato chips just waiting to be plucked.
Lou Fortner has been boss of the operation since his dad died when Lou was 22. ”That’ll scare the heck out of you,” said Fortner, 48. ”I went from being a kid, really, to running a farm.”
As Fortner talked, tractor-drawn wagons arrived at the loading shed from the fields. One by one they were relieved of their spuds by a 100-foot conveyor belt that spewed the potatoes into a tractor-trailer. Along the belt a dozen workers culled the bad and undersized potatoes.
By the time the tractor-trailer pulled away, it contained 86,000 pounds of potatoes bound for a transformation in Pennsylvania.
”They will be chips by Tuesday or Wednesday,” Fortner said.
We left the farm and continued west on S.R. 206, then south on State Road 207, all the while surrounded by fields of potatoes, cabbage and broccoli. We passed roadside vegetable stands, each one announced by hand-lettered signs (”Cabbage: Slaw Down!”).
In East Palatka we picked up U.S. Highway 17, then took County Road 309 about seven miles to Welaka (pop. 547). Along the way, wildflowers called phlox embraced the road in passionate splashes of red, pink and magenta.
Turning off C.R. 309, we followed a dirt road 1 1/2 miles to the Fort Gates Ferry. There has been a ferry in these parts since 1856. If you want to cross the St. Johns River without driving 50 miles out of your way, this is where you come.
The half-mile ride on the two-car barge costs $9, but there’s a bonus: natural beauty as wonderful as any in Florida. Deep forests of cypress and oak hug the broad, dark river with moss-draped arms. Patient herons stalk the shallows, ospreys circle in the sky and catfish abound in the dark water.Only lightly have humans touched this land. In return, the land offers timeless serenity.On this day, Bob Briant was the ferryman, guiding the barge on crossings that never become routine. ”Every trip is a little different,” Briant said, ”depending on the wind and the tide.”
A washboard posing as a dirt road greeted us on the west side of the river. It was five jangly miles until we saw asphalt again, another 10 miles until our eyeballs would hold still.
We were heading for the community of Cross Creek, where the home of author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings has become a shrine for those who love books and Florida.
To get there we took several backroads, passing through the villages of Fort McCoy (pop. 167), Orange Springs (pop. 56) and Citra (pop. 737) before finally turning west off U.S. Highway 301 at Island Grove (pop. 60) onto County Road 325. Four miles later we reached Cross Creek (pop. 285).
”When I came to the Creek,” Rawlings wrote, ”I knew the old grove and farmhouse at once as home.”
That was in in 1928. Rawlings lived in Cross Creek until 1941 when she married her second husband, Norton Baskin, who owned a hotel in St. Augustine. From then until she died in 1953, Rawlings divided her time between Cross Creek and a beachside home in Crescent Beach.
Although Florida has grown by 12 1/2 million people since the time of Rawlings’ arrival, Cross Creek retains its shy personality. In these parts, yesterday is closer than tomorrow.
Rawlings’ Cracker-style house of cypress and pine and its 60 acres of land is a state historic site. It was on the broad porch that Rawlings wrote The Yearling, which won her the Pulitzer Prize and fame in 1939. It was probably on the same porch that she enjoyed the occasional - make that frequent - drop of alcohol. The house is filled with her belongings - furniture, books, bed, typewriter . . . liquor cabinet. A guided tour gives visitors a hint of what her life was like.
A quaintness break A dozen miles away is the town of Micanopy (pop. 620), the permanent address of quaintness. Micanopy (MICK-a-no-pee) also is the home of 12 antique shops, two bookshops and the Herlong Mansion, an impressive, historic bed-and-breakfast inn.
A visit to Micanopy is worth an afternoon, at least, but Annette and I could spare only a couple of hours: We had a sunset to catch, and we were still 80 miles from Cedar Key.
We started with lunch at Mildred’s, a coffeehouse and garden cafe that is more yuppified than charming, then stopped at the Micanopy Museum. The museum is housed in what for decades had been the town’s general store, run by John Thrasher, then his son, John Jr. The Thrashers are distant cousins (my maternal grandmother’s grandmother was a Thrasher), so walking through the old store was like stepping into my family’s past.
Returning to the present, we dropped by the town’s bookstores, O. Brisky Books and W.G. Winter Bookseller. They sit cozily side by side on Cholokka Boulevard, the town’s main drag, and both specialize in used and rare books.
On the road again, we drove 10 miles south on U.S. 301 to cruise through McIntosh (pop. 411), a town where even the Florida sun doesn’t stand a chance: Huge old oaks seem to shade every square foot of the place, lending it an air of dignity.
We left McIntosh and drove west on County Road 318. Now west of Interstate 75, we found the towns more scattered. In the 30 miles between McIntosh and Williston, the landscape changed from the cool green of horse farms and pastureland to the harsh brown scrubland of dirt farms.
This is the kingdom of the gopher tortoise and the battered pickup truck. Here the towns are farming communities, dressed in dust, not charm, and stubbornly proud of it.
In this land we passed through Williston (pop. 2,198), where C.R. 318 runs into Alternate U.S. Highway 27. It was 15 more miles to Bronson (pop. 868), where a turn to the west put us on State Road 24, a straight and narrow homestretch that carried us 25 miles to Cedar Key (pop. 679).
The road to sunset A few miles outside of town, the hardwood forest we had been passing through yielded to sandy scrubland then quickly to coastal marsh.
Two kinds of people come to this town: Fishermen and other lovers of the outdoors, and tourists who value quaintness and simplicity. Cedar Key isn’t a resort of landscaped grounds, fancy spas and lighted tennis courts. It’s a scruffy seaside town with no traffic lights, no sandy beaches and no one who is in a hurry. It’s humble and authentic.
If you weren’t sure of that fact before arriving, the sign identifying J.D. Davenport’s place on D Street is enough to convince you.”Bait, tackle, art gallery,” it said. (Which immediately brought thoughts of other incongruous combinations: Lisa’s Lingerie and VCR Repair, April’s Cafe and Fill Dirt, for instance.)We checked into the Faraway Inn, which sits near the Gulf. The motel is run by Cleve and Rose Garner, who also maintain a home in Melbourne, 200 miles away on the east coast of the peninsula. Cleve makes the 400-mile round-trip at least once a week. He shrugs at the suggestion that such a routine is out of the ordinary.
”Lots of people live in Cedar Key and work in Gainesville,” 50 miles away, he said. ”They’re traveling as far in a week as I do.”
As sunset approached, we explored the 200-foot fishing pier, scouting the photo angles and occasionally dodging one of the bold pelicans that hopped and swooped about, looking for handouts from the two dozen folks who had lines dropped into the Gulf of Mexico.
For many of those present, the sunset seemed of little interest, perhaps because the display has become routine for them. Or perhaps because tiny gnats called no-see-ums were gnawing at all available ankles.
But it wasn’t routine for us.
The pier points toward the southeast, more than 100 degrees from the magnificent show in the west. But it remains a strategic spot, giving visitors a broad, sweeping view of the horizon.
Standing near the end of the pier, I admired the western sky as it slowly changed from orange to lavender then to purple, its image doubled by the reflection in the Gulf of Mexico.
Camera in hand, Annette went from this spot to that, taking pictures in the fading light. We jumped into the car and drove less than a half-mile to a small beach that offered an unobstructed view of the day’s final rays.
Now that the sun was down, our day, our adventure was finished.
We celebrated with wine.