E2E Ride: Felton and Santa Cruz Mountains

Posted on March 27, 2013 by carolyn

My buddies over at The Pace Podcast are doing a photo rally/scavenger hunt thing this year and, since I’m unnaturally addicted to those, of course I joined right up.  It’s called the Equinox to Equinox Rally since it runs from March 20 until September 22.

One of the items on the list is a covered bridge, so I hopped on the newly-not-a-death-trap Ninjette and rode 50 miles south to Felton to the tallest covered bridge in the United States.

(Note crappy photo quality; I’m using my cell phone camera for the rally pics as I am WAY too lazy to take “real” photos, download/process them, and email them into the contest back at home.)

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Posted in Ninja 250, Rides | 3 Comments

The bike is back!

Posted on March 25, 2013 by carolyn

Hooray, the Ninjette is back in the garage!  Thanks to Andrew’s tender loving care, it’s running better than ever before, too.

Seriously, kids, this was really embarrassing. Not only was the chain in horrific shape (Andrew said he didn’t even have to break the chain to pull it off the sprocket) but the carbs were out of sync and the motor mount bolts were finger tight.  Andrew also re-did my valve adjustment to try to get rid of the noise (more on that in a sec), replaced the rubber dampers in the cush drive, and replaced the fuel line that I had Band-Aided with Rescue Tape (yeah, the same fuel line that I said 6 months ago that I was going to replace right away…)

The valve re- and re- and re-adjustment didn’t get rid of the ticking noise, so Andrew’s current theory is that I need a new cam chain tensioner.  I confirmed with him that this was not a “replace this tomorrow or risk a fiery death” item (see above about taking six months to replace a fuel line) so I guess the bike will just have an annoying tick for a while.  Andrew said that the stuff he read about replacing the tensioner all referenced splitting the engine, which….yeah, we won’t be doing that anytime soon.  Next time the bike is mothballed for a while, maybe.

All that said, the bike is running really nicely now.  Riding back from Half Moon Bay yesterday was super fun; the bike actually felt like it had acceleration and everything just felt tight and dialed-in.  I guess a lot of the idiosyncrasies that I’d chalked up to “a 250cc thing” were actually “a loose motor mount bolts thing” or “a worn cush drive thing” or “an ass-tastically synced carbs thing” or “your chain is about to fly off the sprocket thing”.  Go figure.

Tomorrow is supposed to be chilly (well, for Bay Area standards) but sunny, so I’m going to try to get out and take some photos for the Pace Podcast’s Equinox to Equinox Rally and play around with the Ninjette some more.  🙂

Posted in Ninja 250, Rides, Wrenching | 4 Comments

A short Sunday (!) ride

Posted on March 3, 2013 by carolyn

What? A ride, but it’s not Tuesday?  Well, it’s not a huge ride, so don’t get too excited. 🙂  My STN buddy Andrew agreed to do some wrenching on the Ninjette, so I rode over to his house on the coast today with Peter and Kira in tow in the car.

Why have Andrew do the wrenching?  As I learned the last time I worked on the bike, it’s just not the best use of my time these days.  I only have one “day off” per week, and it’s not usually enough to get all the work done, which means it drags on forever and I get frustrated and grumpy and say things like, “christ, this is so not the best use of my time”.   So….off to Andrew’s it goes.

The ride over was horrible.  The scenery is terrible.  No one should ever ride here.

 

When I arrived at Andrew’s, he was in his front yard with his son Frank and the sidecar.

I want a sidecar.  There is absolutely no earthly reason why I should have one.  They are huge and cumbersome and a pain to ride and they don’t lean and I have too many vehicles that I don’t ride enough as it is and I WANT ONE.  They are just so cool looking.  Plus, orange!  They come in orange!

Bah, this is not a battle that I’m going to win anytime soon.  But if the magic Garage Fairy showed up and cleaned out space and a sidecar were to magically appear…I wouldn’t complain, is all I’m saying.

After leaving Andrew’s, we drove down to Half Moon Bay, where Kira had her first meal at Cameron’s.  Yum yum coastside pub food!

So, no rides for a little while until the Ninjette is back.  Luckily I timed it well and it looks like it might rain for the next couple of Tuesdays anyway, so I don’t think you’re going to have missed anything.

 

Posted in Kira, Ninja 250, Rides | 4 Comments

Windscreens!

Posted on February 20, 2013 by carolyn

I didn’t go for a ride yesterday as the weather was craptastic.  Instead, I’ll regale you with fascinating photos of my new-to-me windscreen.

I had the incredible foresight to buy a used motorcycle from someone who fabricates and sells windscreens.  Mike doesn’t do a lot of work anymore for various reasons (though his website still says you can email him for a Ninjette or Versys screen), but fortunately he still had some Ninjette screens in his workshop that he was willing to send me.

I knew I wanted something a little bigger for the interstate but I didn’t want a humongous touring screen yet.  Mike did actually send me a humongous screen as well, but I haven’t installed it.

Instead, I installed the “goldilocks” screen:  not too big, not too small!  Here it is with the screen that Mike included with the bike (the new one is the bigger one):

Old and new profiles:

 

And old vs new from the front:

 

It doesn’t look like a huge difference, but it’s enough to make interstate riding a lot more comfortable.  When I rode the 70ish miles home on the freeway a couple of weeks ago, I barely noticed the wind at all.  If I wind up ever doing cross country on this bike, I might try swapping on the humongous windscreen, but I think this one will do nicely for up to a couple of hundred miles a day.

Posted in Ninja 250 | 2 Comments

Marin Headlands

Posted on February 13, 2013 by carolyn

Hooray, a week without errands!  After returning from Vegas, my Tuesdays were full of exciting things like dentist appointments and my monthly spinal decompression therapy visit.

Unfortunately, when it came time to leave the house yesterday morning, I realized that I felt pretty crappy.  I didn’t sleep well and I had that “maybe I’m getting sick” head fog.  Yuck!  I decided to stay fairly close to home and just do a short ride up into Marin.

Breakfast at The Depot Cafe first:

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Posted in Ninja 250, Rides | 3 Comments