 |
 |
 |
 |
|
The
Dog's Tits Premium
core Girls,
Girlz, Grrrlz Beautifully
Wicked Anti-suckage Aussies
Up Your Arse
|
|
Live
Whacking Permalink Archive 6 July 2003 Gratuitous gorgeous beach photos I went on a motorbike ride to Tathra this weekend. The beach at sunset is a place of aching beauty. The photos don't do it justice, but they're still pretty good.... Looking north. You can see the haze created by the surf-spray.
Looking south-east toward Tathra cliffs.
The breaking surf.
Looking toward that same beach the next morning from the cliffs.
Looking out to sea from the same place.
Oh, and here's the cabin we stayed in. Very comfy. And cheap.
The best
part was that because it was winter, there weren't many people around.
No, I don't mean condoms. Performance motorcycles are not good for one's bank account. I just had a new set of tyres fitted to my bike, at the not-so-modest cost of $475. My last ones lasted 9400kms, and they were absolutely shagged by then. These ones will most likely be replaced after 7000-ish kms.
The difference in bike behaviour caused by different tyre brands often amazes people new to sportsbikes. An ill-handling bike can be transformed into a quick-steering and stable machine, simply by picking the right brand of rubber. The new tyres on my ZX9 are Metzeler Sportec M1's, and they are - quite simply - fantastic. Offering superb feel, quick steering, mid-corner stability and fabulous traction. My previous tyres were Michelin Pilot Sports. Decent tyres, but these new Metzelers are the biz. If you're on a sportbike, be sure to get a pair of these at your next tyre change. Worth every damned cent. Bike stuff - Part Two (bad stuff): Carb Icing So here I am having returned from my overnight trip to Tathra on the NSW coast. A fantastic weekend. A illegally fast motorcycle beneath me, awesome roads, great scenery and one of the best beaches in the world.
Motorcycling is not only expensive and dangerous, it can also be really uncomfortable and bloody scary. To start with, the initial stage from Canberra to Cooma nearly resulted in me freezing to death when we hit an Arctic fog around 30kms from Cooma. Even with my thick bike gear and thermals on, I was so bloody cold I nearly turned back - and this was at midday. I've never seen fog - even in winter - on the way to Cooma at this time of day. My breathfroze on my visor, I couldn't see for shit, the road was slippery (not helped by my brand new tyres, which are covered in a waxy substance it usually takes 150kms to get rid of), the other road users were idiots, my fingers were so cold I could hardly use the brake lever. And then, joy of joys, I experienced first-hand what so many had told me about: the wonders of carb-icing. My Kawasaki ZX9R is the only bike in the 1000cc sports class still using carburetors. It also uses Kawasaki's wonderful Ram Air system, which acts as a very simple, very cheap and very crude form of turbocharging. It's what gives the ZX9R it's massive top-end power and without doubt the best sound in motorcycling: the deafening howl produced as huge quantities of air are sucked into the engine. The carbs and Ram Air work wonderfully well, except when it's really cold. And you know what happens then? To put it crudely: the engine freezes. Well, not exactly, but essentially there is ice where there shouldn't be, and instead of running on four cylinders, the bike will suddenly be running on two. This has scary consequences: I was overtaking a bus and as I got alongside it the bloody throttle died, then suddenly came alive again as I tried to accelerate. So the bike doubled it's horsepower in a fraction of a second. Having never experienced carb-icing before, this was a seriously unnerving experience, especially as the back tyre squirmed and slipped as it suddenly tried to cope with a doubling of horsepower. Thank Jeebus I wasn't going around a corner at the time. So here I was, frozen stiff, in an arctic fog, fighting a brutally powerful bike which was going spazzo, constantly having to pull the clutch in and rev the shit of of the bike to clear the carb-blocking and making sure the whole bloody engine didn't seize up. And the slimy road surface was not helping in trying to stay upright. Kawasaki were supposed to have fixed this problem. Frankly, they've got a long way to go. Ah, the
things we do for love.
|
Motorcycles Guns
Support Brave Multinationals!!!
|
Why
the outlay for these black rubber hoops? Because when it comes to sportsbikes,
the rubber maketh the performance.
Sadly,
setting out yesterday morning was not so fun.
