Questions you're too embarrassed to ask [Archive] - Page 2

Monsterbishi

28th February 2008, 20:47

OK, yet another newbie question from me - I came accross an issue tonight. I pulled up to an intersection with red traffic lights. I waited for the light to turn green, which was taking an unusually long amount of time. I was the only one at the intersection. I soon realised that me and my bike weren't heavy enough to activate the pressure switch, and the lights weren't going to change until another vehicle approached. Eventually I had to run a red light - are there any other options in this situation?

I can help here :-)

The sensors used to detect traffic at the lights are known as 'loops' and function using a method of induction, ie, the metal mass that passes above them changes the properties of the current travelling through it.

The loops in themselves are simple rings of wire in a doubled up figure 8 pattern, you can easily spot them in the road at lights by the bitumous rubber adhesive that is used to seal over them when they are installed.

A loop in good condition is sensitive enough to detect a steeltoe boot, the metal in your rims is more than ample to trigger them.

In instances where the loops are degraded/damaged, rolling back and forth over them is often enough, or alternately rolling over the loops in the lane next to you. Punching the pedestrian button works too :-)

I'm running a intersection reconstruction at the mo, replaced a dozen loops at the start of the week :sleep:

If you want to really get the loops attention, glue a small but decent speaker magnet on the inside of the bottom of your fairing, to the loops it makes you look like a sodding great truck :niceone:

2fst4u

29th February 2008, 16:20

I can help here :-)
If you want to really get the loops attention, glue a small but decent speaker magnet on the inside of the bottom of your fairing, to the loops it makes you look like a sodding great truck :niceone:

wow, that's actually a great idea.

Monsterbishi

29th February 2008, 16:22

It also screws with the traffic counter loops that are positioned in many places around this great country of ours :-)

Insanity_rules

29th February 2008, 16:34

Why is there no cheese in cheesecake?

Real cheese cake should have cream cheese in the middle, then I get it in my middle and turn into a fat bastard!

Soul.Trader

1st March 2008, 22:42

Cheers Monster.

Radar

2nd March 2008, 08:38

McDuck

2nd March 2008, 11:31

This solution was posted on a "50 Survival Tips" page featured on another KB thread: put your kickstand right on the wire. This seems like it will work but it could be a problem maneuvering a (big) bike on the exact spot - if in fact you can see where the wire's location, and the nuisance of having your engine stop when the kickstand is put down - if your bike has this safe guard feature.

Monsterbishi's magnet idea is a good one - if you can get a suitable magnet and attach it so it stays on.

just look on trade me for an old speeker for 2 bucks, and some wire....

TOTO

3rd March 2008, 17:11

Here is a Dumb Question coming from my stupid brain....

Why are Motocross helmets seperate from goggles - i.e - they do not have visor. can anyone from the KB Dirt Devision answer that mistery for me ?

headlesschicken

30th April 2008, 08:44

*dredge*
how do the mx boys get their bikes up on those stands. I've seen a rolling stoppie but that looks awful hard

McDuck

30th April 2008, 08:54

*dredge*
how do the mx boys get their bikes up on those stands. I've seen a rolling stoppie but that looks awful hard

upside down forks.

alanzs

18th May 2008, 20:28

Real cheese cake should have cream cheese in the middle, then I get it in my middle and turn into a fat bastard!

Real New York cheesecake is made from cream cheese... Yummy and will make you fatter than Homer Simpson at a donut shop! DOH! :drool:

Insanity_rules

18th May 2008, 21:43

Like from Eileens special cheesecakes in Cleveland Pl Manhattan. Man that place is off the hook! Any visitor to New York who doesn't go there and is a desert fan is stupid!

Insanity_rules

18th May 2008, 21:44

Real New York cheesecake is made from cream cheese... Yummy and will make you fatter than Homer Simpson at a donut shop! DOH! :drool:

You bet man!

Sellout

10th June 2008, 22:58

Ok, back to embarassing questions....

I just test rode a Rebel (the blue & cream CMX250 at Casbolts in Chch) and it got me wondering... Where should your revs be when you're tootling along at 50 or 100kph?? Is lower better? Or should they be floating fairly high??

Should I be in the highest gear possible? I know that different bikes have different rev ranges, does this also make a difference? Like the Rebel, being a cruiser, should be lower revs when cruising while a sprotbike with its 15000 redline should sit at 5k?

I am guessing lower revs equals better fuel economy... but what is best for the engine??

To anyone who can be bothered with my conundrum..... Cheers!!

xwhatsit

10th June 2008, 23:25

Typically, especially on a 250 (I would guess) with their lack of torque, you want to choose a gear so the revs are about where you make most of your horsepower. Not redlining it of course, but you want to have a good slab of power available should a nasty situation crop up. It's hard to change direction suddenly and safely when if you wind on the throttle, all you get is chain slap and jerking vibration from the poor lugged engine.

Running an engine at really low rpm for a long time is bad too, especially if you are putting load on it. At low rpm, the oil pump isn't whirling around that fast, so there's lower oil pressure.

So there's no rule with respect to redline; it's all appropriate to your particular engine's torque curve. On a Harley, or a whopping great single, it makes lots of torque from very little rpm. So sitting just above idle would be quite fine. On my single cylinder 250, I usually want to be at least halfway towards redline.

At 100kph, your average 250 will be in top gear anyway, so that's moot.

Horse

11th June 2008, 15:14

On my 250 cruiser I'll be in either 3rd or 4th at 50km/h - the GV250 redlines at about 11krpm, it's doing about 6k in 3rd at 50km/h and about 4.5-5k in 4th (I could be about 1k out, just going from memory).

At 100km/h I'll be in 5th at 7.5k rpm, changing down to 4th for hills or overtaking or a headwind stronger than a mouse fart.

swbarnett

11th June 2008, 16:52

I tend to keep the revs a bit higher than is strictly necessary (even in the car) to give myself a better chance of accelerating away if I need to (something that doesn't happen too easily on the GN no matter what I do - time to upgrade...).

tate35

11th June 2008, 16:53

Hey, good question. It never crossed my mind but has now :rolleyes:

Xile

11th June 2008, 17:05

1-Make sure you got a girl/boyfriend with a 'tyre repair' kit in her/his bike.
2-Call her/him
3-Make her/him take off that f.. nail of your tyre, do the puncture and inflate the tyre (with those little strange bottle of compressed air, looks like miniature diving tanks lol).
4-Say thanks.
5-Think that you should probably have one of this kit yourself for next time...:rolleyes:

*going to buy one* soon...

rottiguy

12th June 2008, 15:29

McDuck

12th June 2008, 16:33

hey has anyone had any experence with those airasol tyre inflating cans ? I remember from a few years ago they would blow up ya tyre but if you didn't get the stuff out it would eventually stuff ya tyre permanantly. Are the new cans ok to leave in the tyre or is it still the same.

I wouldnt recomend one, most tyre shops i have asked they have said they do 'work' but they charge a large fee for fixing the tyre once it has been done with that stuff.

rottiguy

12th June 2008, 18:40

Cheers mate, yeah I thought it sounded too good to be true

I wouldnt recomend one, most tyre shops i have asked they have said they do 'work' but they charge a large fee for fixing the tyre once it has been done with that stuff.

McDuck

12th June 2008, 18:50

Cheers mate, yeah I thought it sounded too good to be true

Altho if the tyre was nearing th end anyway and you were in the middle of nowhere i would go for it :)

rottiguy

12th June 2008, 20:54

true, although my tyres are new :)

Altho if the tyre was nearing th end anyway and you were in the middle of nowhere i would go for it :)

FJRider

15th June 2008, 21:15

hey has anyone had any experence with those airasol tyre inflating cans ? I remember from a few years ago they would blow up ya tyre but if you didn't get the stuff out it would eventually stuff ya tyre permanantly. Are the new cans ok to leave in the tyre or is it still the same.

They get you home...If you survive a puncture at speed...a new tyre is the least of your problems. OR SHOULD BE !!!

rottiguy

15th June 2008, 21:17

mmm that's true, might keep one under the seat just in case

They get you home...If you survive a puncture at speed...a new tyre is the least of your problems. OR SHOULD BE !!!

cowboyz

15th June 2008, 21:48

every puncture I have had in either the front or the rear has just let the tyre down and the handling gets progressively worse as the air gets on the wrong side of the tyre. Nothing to write home about. Certainly wouldnt get all excited about "surviving" the experience. i got stuck in the hawkes bay once with a flat tyre and hopped from petrol station to petrol station to get home over inflating the tyre to keep air in it. Tyre was rooted by the time I got home and not recommended but meh.

McDuck

15th June 2008, 21:59

Unless your tyre has an inner tube, then you have little more than seconds before it is dead flat (apparently)

Delphinus

15th June 2008, 22:40

Depends on the puncture.. I had a quite obvious wriggle mid corner while overtaking a car. Then kept riding for nearly half a km wondering wtf was going on with the handling. (trouble seemed to be coming from the front) Pulled over to check what was going on and tyre was flatter than a pancake. Could push it right in. And it was the rear. Have since been told wiggles at the front mean issues at the back and vice versa.

CookMySock

16th June 2008, 07:45

Unless your tyre has an inner tube, then you have little more than seconds before it is dead flat (apparently)No, its the opposite. If you get a nail in a tubeLESS tyre is will slowly slowly leak out, progressively making the bike harder and harder to ride. You can stop at a garage and top it up and move on. If it has a tube fitted it will go down real fast.

The safety seal is the best repair kit for road tyres IMO, provided you have access to plenty on re-inflation air. You can do a permanent repair on the side of the road with safetyseal.

DB

swbarnett

16th June 2008, 15:32

No, its the opposite. If you get a nail in a tubeLESS tyre is will slowly slowly leak out, progressively making the bike harder and harder to ride.
I'm sure for the majority of cases this is correct.

I had a 6 inch nail go through the tread and come out just outside the rim on my DB750. It was flat within a couple of bike lengths. A heart attack later I managed to get down from 100kph with a wild fishtail. Thankfully was not the front tyre!

Biggles2000

18th June 2008, 14:12

I carry to fix tyres a AA card and a cell phone, also; a set of tube patches inc glue, a set of tubless temporary plugs inc plug tool, a set of small tyre irons, a valve removel tool, 3 small co2 gas bottles and finally small push-cycle air pump.
I think I have had 5 punchers in 30 years. 2 of them were blow outs, actually in both cases I ran over a bit of sheet steel and it cut into the tyre. The bike just went very wobbley and I pulled over, no probs.

musicman

18th June 2008, 20:58

Last Friday I went to the petrol station to pump up my tyres because handling felt funny, found the rear was quite a lot down, didn't think much of it at the time. Saturday rode to Hamilton, when I got there I saw a nail in my tyre, but being a late Saturday afternoon and in another town I couldn't really do anything (didn't have a puncture repair kit). Sunday morning pumped up the tyre again and rode back on Sunday afternoon, then to work and back home on Monday all without pumping it up again. I guess I was quite lucky that the nail kinda plugged up the hole so the tyre didn't deflate much.

mtroskill

24th June 2008, 12:32

I dont actually have a bike yet but....

I know you should always wear your gear.... but from a practicle perspective...

Do you strictly wear all your bike gear on the way to work and get changed into your work clothes once there? Or is it ok to wear your work pants on your bike.. just seems like a pain in the... having to lug to sets of clother round everyday.

Bike security: When taking your bike out to the shops or whatever - how do you secure it/deter theives? What do you do with your helmet etc?

breakaway

24th June 2008, 12:44

Ideally, everyone should wear all their gears at all times. Realistically, not many people do.

It's all up to you.

For example, when I go out to uni or work, I'll always wear jacket and gloves, and maybe the boots if I get a bad vibe. However, on weekend joyrides, I'm always fully geared up.

/waits for ATGATT brigade to come crucify me :bye:

vifferman

24th June 2008, 12:47

/waits for ATGATT brigade to come crucify me :bye:
Personal responsibility / accountability.

musicman

24th June 2008, 12:59

Do you strictly wear all your bike gear on the way to work and get changed into your work clothes once there? Or is it ok to wear your work pants on your bike.. just seems like a pain in the... having to lug to sets of clother round everyday.

Bike security: When taking your bike out to the shops or whatever - how do you secure it/deter theives? What do you do with your helmet etc?

I don't know about others, but I wear overpants so when I get to the office I just take off my jacket and overpants and I'm good to go. I don't feel safe riding on the motorway wearing just my work pants (I have to cross the harbour bridge between home and work), but I've seen people riding on the motorway in shorts so you could just wear your work pants on the bike if you really wanted, I really wouldn't recommend it though.

When out in public places I always lock the steering and also put on a disk lock (and leave it in a bike park or in plain view if possible). I take my helmet with me, but if you have a topbox (I don't) you can store it in there.

Ragingrob

24th June 2008, 13:01

It's not hard to chuck some bike pants and a jacket over your work clothes, then ya just need to take them off and ta da... All of 5mins to put on and off!

McDuck

24th June 2008, 13:25

If it is just a commute i wear jeans with steal cap boots, jacket helmet and gloves. I dont actually find it to much of a PITA to change in and out of gear anyway?

idb

24th June 2008, 13:27

I always wear my leathers anyway cos I think I look cool - so it isn't a problem to me.

headlesschicken

24th June 2008, 15:05

re helmet most bikes also have a helmet lock, just enough to put your d ring buckle into so it hangs off the side. but its up to you to trust people not to drop their icecream in it.

Atlas

25th June 2008, 10:42

Accidents dont happen at predicable times, so it pays to wear all your gear every time. Commuting is hazardous, pedestrians and cars being unpredictable and not looking before they take you out.
Helmets left on bikes get knocked around and can get wet. Cold wet helmets are not nice:slap: .
A good oversuit is my pref for commuting and keeps your work cloths clean. I like body armour when I hit the road.:whistle:

avgas

25th June 2008, 14:16

why dont they have draggin dress pants........cos not all of us have millitia jobs or work as ZZ Top roadies

Ixion

25th June 2008, 14:30

Second that. The Draggin catalog mentions Chinos. But I can't find anywhere in NZ that has them

musicman

25th June 2008, 14:40

why dont they have draggin dress pants........cos not all of us have millitia jobs or work as ZZ Top roadies

Second that. The Draggin catalog mentions Chinos. But I can't find anywhere in NZ that has them

Can't you just order off their website?
http://www.flexegate.com.au/cgi-bin/djstore/chino.html?id=s6ViGaIf&mv_pc=48

rottiguy

25th June 2008, 17:34

Too right, always wear all my gear all the time, just like insurance really, you don't get it cause ya planning to come off or get it stolen but just incase. Same for bike gear, when ya sliding down the road on ya arse you don't want to be grinding skin off aye :oi-grr:

Accidents dont happen at predicable times, so it pays to wear all your gear every time. Commuting is hazardous, pedestrians and cars being unpredictable and not looking before they take you out.
Helmets left on bikes get knocked around and can get wet. Cold wet helmets are not nice:slap: .
A good oversuit is my pref for commuting and keeps your work cloths clean. I like body armour when I hit the road.:whistle:

mtroskill

25th June 2008, 17:47

over pants it is....

One more for now...

When parking do you bother paying? (park meters, wilsons etc).

cowboyz

25th June 2008, 19:14

thats what footpaths were made for. I park as close to the shop I am going into as possible without blocking the pavement. Some traffic wardens take exception to this.

In the city there are plenty of motorcycle parking which are usually free. Also parking buildings (which is a good option) usually have free motorcycle parking next to the kiosk so the attendent can keep an eye on your bike if you build a repor with them.

Insanity_rules

27th June 2008, 13:31

Not usually on the paying. Theres alays a corner somewhere. Tip is to park with other bikes.

EJK

9th July 2008, 20:06

Stupid question here...

Why some race bikes cover their lights with ductapes?

Katman

9th July 2008, 20:08

Stupid question here...

Why some race bikes cover their lights with ductapes?

They're not racebikes.

They're road bikes doing trackdays. The tape helps to hold the glass in bigger chunks if the bike goes down.

EJK

9th July 2008, 20:09

They're not racebikes.

They're road bikes doing trackdays. The tape helps to hold the glass in bigger chunks if the bike goes down.

Ah cool thanks :niceone:

Qkchk

10th July 2008, 08:02

They're road bikes doing trackdays. The tape helps to hold the glass in bigger chunks if the bike goes down.

And then you get guys who forget to turn their headlight off / pull out the fuse and bake the tape onto the headlight :doh:

EgliHonda

22nd July 2008, 14:25

My first stupid question is (and this one comes from my missus'):

What do you do if you get a flat tyre?

p.s. Please feel free to chastise me for my newbie ignorance if it makes you feel big/ important :clap:
Ooh, had that happen with wife on the back of the old Triumph for her FIRST EVER ride last year. Complete blowout on open road at rear and quickly veered towards drainage ditch with very little control. Didn't know what happened and assumed somethng had let go at sprung hub at first. Anyways, called a mate who rocked up with compressor full of air (no good, tube shredded) and a trailer so got home ok, if a little embarassed. Not such a good start to introducing (the then) fiance to the joys of motorcycling...