• Check and adjust valve clearance
• Jet kit installation and performance tuning on dyno
• Remove wheels,mount and balance new tires, re-install wheels
• Reposition handlebar, replace missing bolts

The last item on there was from the Great Nevada Gravity Experiment; the left clip-on turned a bit on the fork when the bike went over, so the nice folks over at G-Force made everything happy and symmetric again. It also turned out that the desert ride ate two more bolts than originally thought, bringing the grand bolt-eating total up to four.

Interestingly, the intake valves were all in spec (all at .12, with spec being .10 - .20) but the exhaust valves were all tight (front cylinder valves at .19 and .18 and both rear cylinder valves at .18, with spec being .20 - .30).

I rode the bike home fairly cautiously (new tires and all), but could still notice the difference from the jet kit. It didn't stutter around 2,000rpms as it did before, and the higher end of the rev range (8,000+) seemed a lot smoother. After I got home, I looked at the dyno sheet – not surprisingly, those were the areas with the greatest deltas between stock and the jet kit.

All in all, a seemingly successful endeavor. I'm looking forward to taking it out this weekend and trying it in the twisties. New tires plus a more stable high end? I say OK.

a baby bike adventure.
It occurred to me that I completely neglected to mention the mini-adventure that Cat and I had last Wednesday.

When I took the SVS to G-Force, she rode her Ninja 250 down to meet me and give me a ride back. We stopped at a nearby Starbucks for caffeine immediately after leaving the shop, thoroughly entertaining a fellow rider who was there on his YZF (“you're riding two-up on that bike?").

As Cat and I are both vertically-challenged individuals, neither of us are used to riding with someone roughly our own height. It was quite a surprise to both of us when we knocked helmets the entire way back to my apartment. It was hilarious, though. I'm sure we looked very badass in our Helimot full leather suits, cruising along on Cat's 250.

At my apartment, I let myself into Mark's garage and borrowed his Bandit (with permission!). I remembered to adjust the clutch lever for my hands this time, thereby eliminating the Friction Zone Scavenger Hunt that I always end up doing with someone else's bike. All saddled up on our baby bikes, we headed for the hills.

Well, we didn't quite make it. Cat's Ninja started stalling out partway to Woodside, and we stopped at the intersection of Hwy 84 and Whisky Hill Road to investigate. She puttered around, got it started again, and we turned onto Hwy 84. It stalled again a few blocks later. At this point, we decided to stop for lunch at a roadside café we'd seen about a block before, and continue our mechanical adventures post-food.

After burgers and sodas, we tried again, with similar results. By this point, we'd figured out that the seat cover was coming unstapled in front, and was pressing up against the vacuum nipple on the tank. We went on a search for duct tape.

The restaurant had no duct tape. A helpful person in the parking lot told us about a nearby hardware store, but we made a wrong turn and didn't find it. We eventually ended up at Cat's friend Creech's house; we called him at work only to discover that while he "normally had a lot of duct tape, [he] didn't at the moment." I took pictures of our bikes, along with one of Creech's Ninjas, while Cat was on the phone.

Fortunately, Creech lives across the street from an elementary school, and we happened by just as school was letting out. Lo and behold, one of the cars waiting to pick up a child was a pickup truck from Someone-Or-Other's Auto Parts. Now, they had duct tape.

Sadly, however, the duct tape didn't solve the problem - now it was the duct tape pressing up against the vacuum nipple and closing it off. We found ourselves back on the side of the road. Once more, I annoyed the hell out of Cat by taking pictures.

Obviously, the nipple needed to be vented, so off we rode back to my place, where, luckily, I had clear vinyl tubing of the correct inner diameter. Last I heard, the tubing was doing the trick, since Cat made it home that night without further stalling. Every day is an adventure!

end of an era.
I sold the Nighthawk on Monday. I feel good about it, though. My friend Sara bought it, and she seems to be in love. I talked to her yesterday, and she had already ridden it to lunch with another mutual friend, just to show it off. This makes me happy. The Nighthawk deserves love.

summer's here, zippity doo dah.
At some point over the past weekend, summer appeared. It's sunny every day now, in the high 70s, and, well, summer. Yay! Summer means lots of riding.

There's a Sport-Touring.Net ride and BBQ on Saturday that I'm hoping to get to. Peter and I are in a wedding on Sunday, though, so I think it'll depend on whether he survives the bachelor party tomorrow night, and what the percentage chance of survival for Saturday night's rehearsal dinner seems to be.

Reason #129382 why I love my boyfriend: on the phone tonight, with no prompting at all, he says, "I thought we could take the bikes over to Half Moon Bay for the rehearsal dinner". *happysigh* This was almost as good as last week's reason: "sure, come on over; there's motorcycle racing on the Tivo and Heineken in the fridge.". I love it when he talks dirty.

My mom is coming to visit next week, which will be pretty fun. She's never been out here alone, so it'll give us a good chance to hang out and have fun together. Fortunately, she likes hearing about my motorcycle stuff (since, well, it's not like I ever talk about anything else). I'm going to take her to the coffee gathering before the Wind Dancers End of Month Putt next week Saturday (I offered to find someone to take her as a pillion for the ride itself, but she gracefully declined), since she wants to meet my "biker friends". Maybe they can help me convince her to get a trike. :D

That's about all that's going on around here. I realize I never really wrote anything about Peter and my trip to Clear Lake - I'm still hoping to write a "real article" about it, so I've intentionally kept from doing a write-up (magazines have this funny thing about only buying previously unpublished material…). You can see a condensed version here, though. We had a really great time.

No promises of any new entries before the wedding on Sunday. I'll try to get something up before my mom flies out on Wednesday, though.