Monday, October 21, 2002 I'm in San Jose attending a JProbe class. San Jose is nice, but the class is a little slow. muttered around 2:29 PM

Saturday, October 19, 2002 I've created a new blog for motorcycle content called "motorcycle meanderings" (the link is in the site nav section to the left, too). I'll babble on and on about motorcycles there, rather than here, from now on. muttered around 11:09 PM

Monday, October 14, 2002 After getting some really great advice from a person I met via the internet, I ordered an owner's manual and a Clymer's maintenance manual from Bob's BMW today. muttered around 4:42 PM

Sunday, October 13, 2002 Hey, it just hit me that I bought my new motorcycle exactly two months to the day after I posted here about my renewed interest in motorcycling. Scroll down to see it! muttered around 10:37 PM

My New (to me) K1100RS Mit der anti-lokken binders, unt der hangen stout baggen. Ja, unt having only 6500 english miles for der seven years olt of der moterrad. (Apologies to my German friends and relatives - I married a German (2nd gen) girl, so I feel a little OK doing the goofy German accent thing). The color? BMW calls it "Palmetto Green". I'd call it "Granny Smith Green". Much more descriptive! The owner's manual for the bike is missing in action. This really sucks, as the bike is fairly complex, having ABS, random idiot lights, etc. I'm on the hunt for a copy, and it's amazing how tough it is to actually find an original owner's manual. I did get the warranty book for the bike, and a set of service records from the local dealership. Turns out the warranty book has the original owner's name and phone number in it. I may just give him/her (it's a unisex name) a call to find out the source of all the fairing scrapes and cracks, and to get a feel for how the bike worked for him/her. While at the dealership, I also purchased a set of spare bulbs, the small Marsee tank bag you see in the pictures, a FirstGear MeshTex jacket (awesome warm weather jacket!!), and a pair of BMW "Street" gloves (no gauntlet). The BMW gloves really rock - the leather on the palms is very thin and the gloves fit like a, um, well, they fit really well. In the week before my shopping trip I'd gone to Fay Myers and bought my helmet (a Schuberth Concept, in white), and a pair of gauntleted Heine-Gerick gloves. The HG gloves turned out to be way too hot for warm weather use when I eventually test drove cycles at the BMW dealership. That's what led me to buy the BMW gloves. muttered around 9:48 PM

Motorcycle Update In my previous post I gave a list of the dealerships that I planned to visit on Friday. Well, I never left the BMW dealership, except to eat lunch. They had plenty of bikes to keep me interested there. I sent my friend Steve this mail Saturday as I was contemplating the purchase of the BMW K1100RS I'd ridden the day before: Schtevie, I spent basically the entire day at the BMW dealership yesterday. I rode the f650gs, the r1150r, the r1200c, and a used r100r that only had 875 miles on it (but the r100r's aren't nearly as good looking as their new 1150r incarnation). My favorite of the above was the r1150r. the f650gs felt a little like riding a lawnmower. The r1200c was a joke (I guess I hate cruisers). The used r100r had a fairing on it that effectively funneled all of the wind right into my head, and ran very rough. Then I rode a used ('95) k1100rs. The K bikes have 3 or 4 inline cylinders. The engine is much like a car engine, and lays on its side. It's basically a big brick. The k1100rs is a sport-touring bike, and looks the part. It's got a big fairing, etc. More bike than I thought I wanted. However, I decided I had nothing to lose, the dealer was more than willing to let me ride anything in the store, so I did it. Anyway, this one turned out to be my favorite of the lot. What I thought would be too sporty of a position and too-narrow bars all made sense once I was moving (kind of like the right position on a road bicycle). It's not super hunched over, but it's definitely a little more aggressive than the others. Great accelleration, and pretty damn smooth compared to the two-bangers. It has anti-lock brakes and comes with the big touring panniers (the bags represent about $800 worth of equipment). The only downside is that the bike has obviously "fallen down" a few times, and the fairing is dinged up in a number of places. I doubt it's been truly wrecked, because the damage would have to be much worse. I wouldn't mind it at all, but one bit of damage is relatvely severe, and in a very obvious place. If you look at the link I sent you (it's exactly the bike I'm looking at, down to the color), the damage is a "crease" along that big flat triangular panel that extends back from the front headlight fairing. It goes all the way back to the edge of the fairing and terminates in a little rough crack at the edge. I can't imagine how that would have happened. The bike must have fallen over into something else that put stress on that piece of fiberglass. Then there's the color - but I can live with that. The bike only has about 6500 miles on it - pretty amazing for a 7 year old bike. I'm going to try to get the previous owner's name from the dealership and call him to see how the random damage occured to the bike (i.e. make sure it hasn't been crashed - he now has nothing to lose to be truthful). The dealer had a price of $6995 on the bike, but has so many used ones that he says he needs to get rid of the older ones. I asked him what his best out-the-door price would be. He showed me a printout from a notebook that showed that he has $6200 in the bike (I find it hard to believe that he gave that in trade, but anyway...). Then he did some calculator-punching and came back with an OTT price of about $6900. I looked up the blue-book on this model and it's around $7100. Deduct the damage, and add the bags, and it's a decent deal. The idea of ending my search by committing to a particular bike is kind of depressing. I was trying to explain it to MB last night. While I was shopping, every bike was potentially "mine". Once I've committed, only one bike is mine, and I have to live with that choice for a while. She, of course, said "did you feel that way about getting married, too?". Hehe. OK, so that last paragraph sounds a little ridiculous, eh? I should have been ecstatic about having found the "right" bike, and I was. But I had to express the slight feeling of loss - the end of the search, etc., etc. I also now had to face some of my lingering fears about whether or not this whole motorcycle thing was a good idea. Balancing that was the fact that I'd found a great bike for myself at a price that was pretty hard to walk away from. I ended up buying that bike Saturday, the 12th. Pictures to follow. muttered around 9:38 PM

Friday, October 11, 2002 Passed the MSF RiderCourse!! I passed the MSF RiderCourse with flying colors (sort-of) last week-end. Today I go motorcycle shopping. I got a "comp day" from BEA to make up for the overtime I was working a few weeks ago. Here's the list of places I plan to visit: BMW of Denver (um, BMW) Fay Myers N (to see their used Aprilia Pegaso) Erico Motorsports (Triumph) Twin Peaks Powersports (some interesting used bikes) Fay Myers S (to check out the new Ducati Monster 800) There's also a used '97 Ducati Monster 750 being sold by an individual for a decent price. It's a color I like (silver), so I need to have a look at it. Hopefully I can avoid impulse purchasing today, and sort of get my ducks in a row, then commit to a purchase tomorrow. muttered around 8:02 AM