August 24, 2000

yay me.
So, I really have nothing to talk about in this entry, I just wanted to say that I split lanes at a stop light for the first time today. Go me! Now granted, I only lane-split at like 3 lights out of about 20 on my round-trip commute, but, y'know, gotta start somewhere. I had previously been worried that both of the cars on either side of me and I would all start from the light at the same time, thereby giving me nowhere to go; I found out today that that generally isn't true. For the most part, I have a lot better acceleration than they do; plus, most cars stop at or slightly before the crosswalk, and I can pull forward another foot or so. So I do have somewhat of a head start. Also, for the most part, cars have no idea how to react to a motorcycle lane-splitting, and they therefore generally react by not going until the bike takes off. 'Course, there are always the guys who try to pull out at a million miles an hour to cut you off or race you, but a lot of times you can kind of tell when the car next to you is going to do that (they've tended to graciously rev their engine at me, giving me a nice warning to just let them pull out ahead of me and have their little trip somewhere else). Maybe I've just been lucky.

nothing else is really going on.
Obviously, I've been commuting every day on the bike. Always the same times of day, always the same roads. I'm getting a little tired of it; maybe this weekend I'll try to find somewhere fun to ride. I'll be low on time this weekend, though, getting ready for Burning Man (and therefore another week not on the bike, feh). We'll see.

Oh, I guess I could mention my new shifting...I'm experimenting with when I'm shifting; I'd been shifting really early, like around 5500rpms. Not too terribly surprisingly, I get a lot more power out of the engine now from waiting until around 7500rpms to shift, though I have noticed that it causes a huge increase in vibration. I have to shake my hands out at stop lights in order to keep them from getting really tingly and numb. But at least the bike has more power. ;)

Peter claims he's going to fix his tire before Burning Man. Do we believe him? ;)

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