[RJ2112]

Usually in the spring, when the weather first turns nice and I am one of the first sport bikes to start riding on a regular basis I will have a car or two try and egg me into a demonstration of what my bike is capable of.

Hasn't been a regular occurrence in the past few years due to health, covid, and work from home policies..... simply haven't been riding as much as in years past.

I managed to commute to work on Wednesday on the bike. 50's in the morning, and high 60's on the way home.

On the way in, going through Ft A.P. Hill, the bike was kissing triple digits for part of the run, where I know there is very little likelihood of an unfavorable interaction with the area LEOs. This occurred because a commuter car was clearing the way for me -- I don't recall the brand, but the driver was obviously keeping the pedal nearly buried; I'd let him get half a mile ahead of me, then reel him back in, and let him go again. 10+ miles of that.

On the way home (again within AP Hill), I had a more energetic challenge in the form of one of those Dodge station wagons with the big block motor (SRT8?) decide he wanted to air out all he could get from that thing.

He couldn't outrun me, and I had enough in reserve that I could have gone faster than them. In fact I did, as I was doing the same as I did in the morning, letting him develop a gap then charging up to run parallel. Traffic was just heavy enough that it would have required reckless passing to overtake so and I abstained. As we were already over 2X the posted limit (indicated) I didn't see a need to continue into truly stupid regions.

All in all a fun blast which ruined my MPG for the week.

I'm also smart enough to know it's a good idea to take a couple of days off so the memory of that bright green bike subsides......

 

[riverszzr]

Hooligans I tell ya, Hooligans everywhere............. lol

So it was a whooping 92* here and humid as shit (dewpoint near 70*) on Wednesday I kept the doors mostly closed and the AC pumping nice cool air for most of the day but I did have a pair of Bikes come and get service while they waited and depart....but as I took the first bike out for the 3+ mile "test ride" and shot down the local county road..... bike two passed me doing triples, I rolled on the power and paced him as.... I knew who it was immediately, when he turned onto my road to make the final 500' charge to the shop I decided to pull a little whoolie and drive by.........
much to the shegrin??? of the owner of the bike who was outside watching this unfold, but it was a nice 300' long 6" high power up slow down whoolie, no drama involved, capped off with a little stoppie pulling up to the owner......

he just smiled and shook his head and said something to the effect, "I hope that was enjoyable I could hear you coming for atleast a half a mile how fast were you going?"
I simply replied......... "fast enough to know your bike is all set for everything you throw at it, see you in about 3000 miles."

he got on smugly says, "probably before that"....does a bit of a smokey burn out and he paints a half smiley face in the asphalt to turn the bike direction around and tears off, and guess what......... You can hear that bike for atleast half a mile away. The first stop sign once on the main road is about 0.6 of a mile away and we laughed as we heard him at redline shifts all the way to it and the bang bang bang of multiple downshifts as he came to that stop, then a long break of nothing before hearing him rip away from the stop sign with more redline shifts til we longer heard it--could have easily been more than 3/4 mile away by then
I have a feeling his rear tire may need replacing yet again long before 3000 miles........... I had looked up his service records later while typing up his invoice to email to him;
this new set of tires replaced a rear that had been on for only 1805 miles, another rear before that for 1610, another rear before that for 1959 miles- which was the time the front went on....so nearly 5400 miles out of the front ( I included that note with the email along with hearing him nearly 3/4 mile away and thought he may want a more stealthy exhaust to not announce his arrivals and departures

This guy strictly rides on the street, and mostly drives it to and from work and then to some car shows etc......... pretty ham fisted if you ask me, I have only seen him ride it actually once but he departs and arrives for service nearly the same way all the time- full steam ahead......... thus my no worries about the whooly or stoppie

So rider two says to me as I finished work on his bike and was wheeling it out to go "test ride it"............ (also got tires and more) "You are not going to burn off 20 miles of my treadwear like you did on his are you?"
I just smiled and shrugged my shoulders at him with a "maybe, I do need to scuff them in for you for best traction"
he then says.......... "fuck it is hot out here"...............like he just then had some sudden realization how hot it is......... I had to chuckle, because it was just as damn hot when he arrived two hours earlier as it was then.......
4 T-shirts later, 3 pairs of socks, 3 times changing footwear, and 5 sweaty baseball hats that day and I mostly stayed indoors......uggg---------- I hate hate hate high heat and high humidity days

this am.......a nice cool 55* heading to only 75*, much more tolerable......... I may even work today with the OHD open most of the day....

 

[RJ2112]

FWIW, I just about perfectly match tread wear front to rear over the life of the tires. So far as why my Avons last as long as they do, I attribute that to control smoothness, and limited use of brakes. Roads around here are primarily gravel in asphalt, sometimes really smooth, but the vast majority of the time the surface may have stuff 1/4" or more sticking up out of the surface. Most of the potholes around here are only through the skim coat applied over the base concrete substructure, so they are often something like 1-1.5" deep, and are typically only as wide as the area semi truck tires run in the lanes. Easily avoided with decent sight lines.

I will admit, it was fun yanking on the loud handle with ~10K RPM on the tach and letting it run up from there in 6th.