Dear Diary,

i rode to work today for the first time this year. Wooha!

I ordered up some Joe Rocket Ballistic Pants that should be here tomorrow.

http://www.newenough.com/browse/view_product_images/820



I hope they're everything they say they are!

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2000 Suzuki Bandit 1200s
Vespa Rally 200 in pieces

So jealous that you're riding again. Nice pics btw - it's nice to see greenish grass again even if it's not near me .

You'll have to keep us posted on how the pants work out for you.

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Of course I'm generalizing from a single example here, but everyone does that. At least I do.

thanks!

I'm hoping to write a review of the pants in a few weeks, once I get some miles on/in them.

and colors, things are pretty much brown around here right now. But i guess brown is better than white although there is still a little bit of that too.

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2000 Suzuki Bandit 1200s
Vespa Rally 200 in pieces

Booo!!



The good news is, my GPS mount, my V-strom Handguards, and my JR Ballistic pants all showed up this week!

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2000 Suzuki Bandit 1200s
Vespa Rally 200 in pieces

nothing to report this weekend as we got a half of foot of snow and sleet on friday.

However, I just ordered a set of Progressive Fork Springs. The stock suspension on the bandit leaves a bit to be desired. AND i have a leaky fork seal, so i figured why not knock it all out at once.


I found the best deal at Bike Bandit, $67:

http://www.bikebandit.com/partsbandit/p ... Path~4.asp

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2000 Suzuki Bandit 1200s
Vespa Rally 200 in pieces

I have a hard time updating this thing every day. Not that I have to. I'm just one of those people that have a hard time saying something if I don’t have anything to say...

Anyhow, I got my progressive front springs in today. They're sitting here on my desk at work. I think the delivery people at my work are getting tired of delivering my personal packages to me all the time. This is like the 6th thing I’ve ordered online in the past few weeks, and there is more coming

Next Friday the Bandit goes in for the fork seals, new springs, and inspection. I've been riding it anyway. I've got about 600 miles or so on for this year. This is really the first week I've ridden it more than one day to work. It feels nice to be out of a cage again.

In other news, I'm moving this weekend. The new space doesn’t have a garage, but it does have off street parking for the bike, and enough space to do my own maintenance outside. It's also only 7 miles from work which is good in some way, but I'm actually going to miss my 20 mile back road commute I’d take on the bike each way. ..

In the near future I will hopefully have some more interesting moto-related material. This is because in late may, myself and another fellow TMW member (Nalian) are going to ride to Halifax, Nova Scotia. I'm going to be leaving Philly on a Friday night and getting most of the way to Boston, where Nalian lives. Then over the next week we'll be heading up the coast, through Maine, into Canada, to Halifax, around Nova Scotia, then winding are way back towards home. Should be a good time and I think we're both really looking forward to it! Look for more updates on that - I might even start a new trip blog for that.

Anyway...that’s all I have now. Back to work.

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2000 Suzuki Bandit 1200s
Vespa Rally 200 in pieces

The bike is inspected, new progressive springs in the front, new tires, new gps system, we're about ready for takeoff.

and thats just what i'll be doing in just over a month when i leave for Halifax. I can't freakin wait!

I still do have some things do to though. I need to wire up the power outlet for the bike to run my gps/ipod/phone charger. I also technically am do for a valve adjustment, although I think I might put that off until I get back from my trip.

36 days until I leave!!!

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2000 Suzuki Bandit 1200s
Vespa Rally 200 in pieces

yesterday, I killed a fox

see here:

http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/BBS/view ... hp?t=21698

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2000 Suzuki Bandit 1200s
Vespa Rally 200 in pieces

Dude, get a set of feeler gauges and adjust your valves yourself! My old bike needs 'em adjusted 2-3 times per season. Takes about a half-hour, maybe less.

Unless of course your bike has more modern technology than mine...

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1979 XS650F -- "Hi, My name's Nick, and I'm a Motorcyclist. I've been dry for four years." (Everybody: "Hi, Nick.")

Witnessed two crashes this weekend, one per day:

Saturday:
I went for a nice ride with some friends. One of my friends brought a guy whom I didn’t know. He showed up on a brand new looking Ducati 749s, wearing a new Ducati leather jacket, a Ducati watch, a Ducati t shirt, and I think he was showing some Ducati tighty whiteys coming out of his pants. He seemed like a nice guy when we were talking, so I cut him some slack. He informed me that he just passed the MSF course in August of 06 and this was his first bike. I said something like, oh ok, well I guess you’re extra careful having such an expensive bike as a first bike. He said he was, and when we started riding I have to say he was very cautious. I will say though that he was seriously lacking in skills, in turning, and in slow speed maneuvering.

Anyway, the short of it is, we did some low key cruising around, stopped from lunch, and Mr. Ducati forgot to take the bike out of gear, or pull the clutch in when we got to the hot dog place, and he fell over and dropped it in front of about 30 people, almost taking me out next to him. He then, embarrassingly and with the bike still running, tried to pick the bike up by grabbing the grips..He of course revved the bike to about 1 million RPM and the bike started to skid across the parking lot while on its side. Luckily by this time, one of my other friends went over and hit his kill switch. I should have done the same, but I was kind of in a dumbfounded awe just watching this entire event, and I didn’t start to move or get off my bike until they had it turned off.

We helped him pick up his bike and get him righted. He broke off his brake lever, and scratched the fairings up a bit. He was pretty angry, and left right away for the dealer to get it fixed. Turned out he got a new lever for $120 and is going to try to clean up the fairing with his Ducati pen…

Overall, I’m glad this happened, because we rode some technical roads after he left, and I wouldn’t have felt comfortable having him there.

Sunday:
Every year I help my local scooter club organize the “long ride” for their annual rally. It’s basically a 40 mile scenic ride we take 100-150 scooters on. Sunday we rode our proposed route. It was myself on the bandit, and 4 or 5 other small bikes/scooters. One friend of mine was on his wife’s brand new 125cc Buddy Scooter. It had about 25 miles on it. He leaned into a turn a little too much and dragged the side stand on some gravel and dropped the bike. He put some nice scratches down the side, and broke the headset. He also scratched up his hands pretty good (wasn’t wearing any gloves ).

Aside from these events, it was a great weekend, and I got about 150 miles or so of riding in.

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2000 Suzuki Bandit 1200s
Vespa Rally 200 in pieces