Salton Sea

A few weeks ago I decided to take a ride down to the Salton Sea. I'm not going to go into the history much here, but it's a sea that was created from an engineering mistake that was made in the process of trying to bring into the area more water for irrigation. Once the sea was created, it had no outlet, and the upping of the saline content began. It's currently higher than the saline level of the Pacific Ocean. Resorts and recreation areas popped up soon after the sea was created, but as the salinity increased, also run-off pollution increased from all the agriculture around the area, and the problem of no outlet meant that the sea became increasingly more salty and polluted. Eventually, all these pursuits ran out of business. Today, it's kind of a run-down area of abandoned houses and businesses. People still live there, but in general, there are lots of ghost-town elements. I didn't take many pictures on this ride, but there are a lot of opportunities for taking pictures that will look very cool converted to black and white.

One of the first things I noticed once I got off the main highway was the diversity of motorcycles changed. Around LA, my estimate would be that about half the bikes I see are Harley's, and of the other half, most are Japanese, with the small remainder being split between Triumphs and Ducati's. I've never seen a Moto Guzzi, but they are a pretty rare breed. When I got near the Salton Sea area, I entered Harley-town. I think I saw just a couple of non-Harley bikes other than my own. Almost every bike was a Harley of some type, and most of the riders were wearing matching jackets. I suppose it could have been a massive gathering of some sort, though I didn't see any groups bigger than 2 or 3 bikes riding together. The matching jacket guys didn't seem to notice or acknowledge me at all. The other, non-jacket-matching riders seemed friendly enough. I stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom, and a guy that I'll refer to as "cooler than thou" was leaning on his Harley. I made a quick wave before remembering where I was, and he stared at me for a moment, then looked back down at his smart phone. So be it. I still believe that my waving tells you something about me, just like him ignoring my gesture told me something about him. I'll keep being me, and I guess he'll probably keep being him.

It was about a 3-hour ride. For the most part, I went about 70-75mph, with a few faster runs when traffic was moving. The fast runs reminded me that my threshold of wind happens around 80mph. Above that, it's not a big deal, but it just gets more tiring as you drift to 90 or above. Got my usual 45-50mpg on the trip. Around town, I can get the same, but only if I take it easy. If I start having too much fun, it can drop into the low forties. Overall, I nice trip.

My obligatory black and white pic.

“A Short History of my Moto Guzzi V7 Stone”

I’ll peel this away like an onion, working from the broadest categories to the more specific.

The outermost layer would be the beginning of Moto Guzzi. The story goes that there were two Italian pilots and their mechanic during World War 1 - Carlo Guzzi, Giovanni Ravelli, and Giorgio Parodi. Ironically, Ravelli died just days after the war had ended in an airplane crash, and was commemorated with the eagle that is a part of the Moto Guzzi logo. Guzzi engineered the first bikes, and Parodi, who came from some wealthy families, financed the venture. The first engine design was a horizontal single which was used in various forms and versions for the first 45 years of the company’s history. That brings us up to the 60’s.

In the 60’s, we peel away the next layer. In 1967, a new engine was designed in an attempt to win a competition for who would build police motorcycles for the Italian government. It was a v-twin, designed by Giulio Cesare Carcano, the familiar form that all Moto Guzzi engines currently have. When Moto Guzzi owners refer to the “big block” engine, this was the first model, the origin of that “bloodline” of engines. It was called the V7, though you shouldn’t confuse it with the current model called the V7.

The next layer came in the late 70’s. In 1979, Leo Tonti designed a smaller version of the Moto Guzzi v-twin, the v35, a 350cc engine. This was the beginning of the “small block” engine. Tonti also previously created a new frame, that in various forms, is used on all Moto Guzzi models since the early 70’s. The previous frame was called the “loop frame” - the new one, the “Tonti frame”. The v35 engine was bored out to become the v50 (500cc), the v65 (650cc), and the v75 (750cc).

The final layer was the v7 Classic from 2007. The Classic led to a few later versions (with both modern and “vintage” stylings) which all led to the current V7 II model, which comes in three version - stone, special, sport - and I own a stone.

"Old Man Rules"

I have a few rules I ride by. I don't think any young, fast rider would like them, but they are how I ride.

Rule #1 - don't surprise cars - surprised cars can do surprising things.
Rule #2 - always be seen - actively choose where you are in the lane so that people have a better chance to see you.
Rule #3 - never be in a hurry - this doesn't mean not ever going fast, but is more about the frame of mind that can make you do stupid things for the sake of saving a few minutes.
Rule #4 - ride like cars can't see you - the sad truth is that most of them are looking at their cell phones more than the road or you.
Rule #5 - always wear safety gear - part of this is for safety in a collision, but mostly this is about having a different frame of mind when you ride. Just like you put on a helmet, gloves, jacket, pants, boots, you also put on a frame of mind specific to riding and being fully aware of your surroundings.

As you would imagine, lane-splitting isn't something I do - it violates my rules #1, #2, and #4. And rule #4 makes intersections a bit more exciting when a car turning left in front of you "can't see you".

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I smelled the oil. For a moment I wondered how I would describe the smell of oil to someone who had never smelled it. Sometimes I'm not even sure whether I actually smell it, or if it is just a symbol for me, something that reminds me of something else. Old cars, or tractors, a little barn full of tools, all smelling of oil. A place where I grew up.

The old man sat, silent. The younger men spoke a lot, throwing words around as if we all agreed on what they meant. Maybe each one was the child of a word thrower, so they were just doing what they saw their old man do. Throwing words around. I was a word-catcher. I looked over at the old man. Then I looked at the wall for a while. I'm of the quiet tribes. I come from the farmers. They didn't run from living alone, working alone. Their soul is in me, finding solitude enjoyable. I need people - I just don't need them a lot, or at least as much as most.

Someone talks about hipsters. Every era has their bogeymen, the 'others'. So, the hipsters are the 'others' of our time. They were birthed by the culture, just like the rest of us. But we need the 'others'. Something primal, something internal longs for it. It feels natural to view them as 'others'. We are the makers of the 'others'. We make gods, and we make 'others'. There's 'us', and 'them'. Maybe we understand 'them' a bit, but normally we don't. I don't know how I chose it, but I'm part of the 'them'. But I don't know how to make a commodity of it, how to have a product that helps me somehow. I'm just lazy, too lazy to change into what I know would let me fit into the 'us'.

I walk down into the basement. It smells of years of working with animals. Part of the smell is shit-covered overalls after years and years of long days, all ending down here, taking off the clothes, showering. I want it to mean something. Some might say I'm trying to too smart for my own good. Just let it be farming, or whatever. It was farming, and it doesn't have to mean more than that. Not everything deserves its own art, its own poetry, its own songs. But I'm not sure I agree, or at least I don't disbelieve enough to say that it -doesn't- mean something. I know a girl at work. She's a conscientious worker, does a good job. A part of me wants to help her do more, if she wants. But I don't think she wants it. Life is enough. Family is enough. Her brother in her life is enough. The rest doesn't matter as much. But we get sick, and crave the rest, until we leave our lives, our family, our brothers, all to get some -thing-, that will make us feel better. It's all just oil under my fingernails.

I don't have to act like a survival box. I can be the grain of sand I am here to be. I don't have to explain everything, nor be explained by someone else.

Motorcycle Dance

Not every trip has a destination. Most of mine do. I climb on my bike, Monday through Friday morning, and ride to work. Not many cars in the morning, lots more in the evening. There's a certain rhythm to the traffic I ride in. I stay away from the freeways unless I have little choice. Just a long trip here an there requires it. Perhaps it's just my impatience that makes me not want to spend half of a day in my pursuit of keeping to the side roads, the surface streets, when a freeway or two can be done in an hour. I don't like the world to fly by so quickly, but LA is a very sprawled out place. I have family that live in Orange county, but I live in the San Fernando valley. We might as well be in different countries. I work at a hospital. They're puzzled by motorcycles. I'm not sure how it compares to the rest of the world, but in this country there's a strong aversion to risk. Maybe it's because we're a wealthy country. And healthcare workers are the cautious of the cautious. They've seen the emergency room visits. It's become a religion for some. Their god is safety, and the great trickster, satan, is risk. No defences from me, though, about motorcycles. They are more dangerous than cars. More dangerous by a good amount. One mistake can end your life. In a car, one mistake will more likely mean an accident that you probably walk away from. But I climb on mine every Monday through Friday morning, and I ride to work. I'm not that young. Maybe if I had a wife, kids, a mortgage, I'd think differently. But I don't. And I've chosen a safe route in a lot of ways, too many ways, through most of my life. I may die, or worse, get maimed by this thing I do - there's a better chance of it than if I just kept inside the four walls of a car - but I don't. Maybe it's as simple as we each choose our areas of risk. Or maybe a time is coming when we'll really need to risk something, something worth risking, and we won't know how. Who knows. Who can say? Each generation does their thing, struggles with both common and specific struggles to their time. I'll climb on my bike, and dance the dance put before me. Maybe that's all I know for today.

Oil, Shmoil

Newer motorcyles seem to be spec'd with fancier oils. My bike's manual tells me to use this kind of oil: Synthetic 10W-60 - JASO MA, MA2 - API SG.  Here's a little information from me learning what this all means.

Breaking this out, here's the four pieces of info:
Oil weight:  10w-60
Type: Synthetic
Standard #1:  JASO MA / MA2
Standard #2:  API SG

The oil weight and type are easy to understand. They're recommending a very wide range oil weight - 10w-60 - 10w when it's really cold, and 60w when it's really hot. On top of that, they are specifying full synthetic, which will survive better at higher temperatures than non-synthetic oil. Basically, the best of the best. So be it. On to standards.

"JASO" is a Japanese motorcycle manufacturer standard. It's the "Japanese Engine Oil Standards Implementation Panel". The JASO standard is divided between "2T" (subdivided into "FA", "FB", "FC", "FD") and "4T" (subdivided into "MA" [sub-subdivided into "MA1" and "MA2"] and "MB"). 4T is the more stringent one, MA the more stringent subcategory, and MA2 the more stringent sub-subcategory - i.e. the highest JASO standard would be 4T/MA/MA2 (the “4T” is normally left off). JASO 4T was introduced because modern automobile engine oils were having friction modifiers added to them, which was good for cars, but not Japanese motorcycles. Most Japanese motorcycles use a "wet clutch", meaning the clutch is in the same cavity as the rest of the engine and is lubricated by the same oil. As you would guess, clutches having an even more slippery oil doesn't work out very well. For a "dry clutch", where the clutch is in a separate cavity from the engine, this wouldn't have the same concern. On to API.

"API" is a standard from the "American Petroleum Institute". Their standards for gasoline engines start with an "S", followed by another letter. The first standard (now obsolete) was "SA". "SA" through "SH" are all considered obsolete, with the last few - "SJ" through "SN" - being the current standards. The API standards are more general than the JASO standards - they are for any gasoline engine - though they do seem to refer more specifically to cars, with each standard referring to an end date (i.e. use this oil for cars manufactured before year 199x). On to a summary of what we have so far.

So, adding these together, you have JASO MA/MA2, a motorcycle standard driven by Japanese motorcycles with wet clutches, and API SG, an obsolete automobile standard for cars before 1993. On top of it all, my bike has a dry clutch - the clutch lives in a separate cavity from where the engine oil lives - which makes the JASO standard a bit odd, combined with an obsolete automobile standard. Doesn't seem to add up, right? There's something else that seems to pull this all together, and that's zinc.

When zinc in oil is mentioned, it's actually referring to one of two ingredients - zinc dialkyldithiophosphate (ZDDP), or zinc di-thiophosphate (ZDTP). They're often used together, listed as ZDDP/ZDTP. The oil industry did some testing recently, and it was found that many older engines have a short time during engine startup where lubrication between certain metal parts is insufficient when lower amounts of ZDDP/ZDTP are in the oil. This is bad because the first moments when an engine is started is when the majority of the wear takes place. The downside of the additive, though, is that the phosphorous in the ZDDP/ZDTP creates carbon build-up, and also the premature demise of catalytic converters. Because of these downsides, the newer standards of oil have been phasing out the levels of ZDDP/ZDTP. This all started with the currently obsolete API standard of SH - making the use of the obsolete SG standard, with ZDDP/ZDTP levels that were not reduced yet, not so surprising.

Us, and Them

I was reading one of the motorcycle blogs I follow. It's someone who basically admits to being a "grumpy old man, stuck in his ways". He makes it clear that he doesn't mean for his words to be taken too far, that it's his opinions, and if you don't agree, that's fine. He'll probably still think he's right and you're wrong, but that's ok. That's life. He threw out some opinions about a brand or two of motorcycles. Got some flack. Turned out I owned one of the ones he dissed. Stung a little, but like good writing, it got me thinking.

It got me thinking about the things we own, and how we view them, what they mean or don't mean. I thought long and hard about which two wheels to make my own, researched it for a time, then made my choice and bought one. You start with the broad categories, like cruisers, sport bikes, standard bike, adventure bikes, off-road. Once you decide which one you want, or that would fit your needs, and that would fit your price range, you start looking at the brands. You have your regular Japanese companies. You have your American ones. You have a few European ones. In each case, it may vary from model to model where they're actually put together. Some are for the "regular joe" (or "Jane"), while others might seem be a bit more exotic. Maybe you want it to look a certain way. Maybe you want it to be easy to work on. Maybe power is the most important thing. Maybe you want a dealer in any major city. Maybe you want new, or maybe you want it to be used. Maybe you want as much horsepower as you can afford, or maybe that isn't your main criteria. Then you make your choice and buy it.

That's where it gets interesting to me. If I buy a Harley, to a lot of people this means something about me. If I buy a European bike, same thing. If I buy new or old means something. Maybe it's living in a country where capitalism is the economic system that makes our possessions mean more than if we didn't. But we become part of a group, maybe even a tribe. For me, not caring much about cars, I have a fairly reliable late 90's car. It does what I ask, doesn't need much work, and can be repaired by any mechanic who knows much at all. But I'm into motorcycles, so those same things don't mean the same. I have a bike some would call an exotic brand, that not every motorcycle shop would know how to work on, that is more expensive for parts, and more expensive than a similar bike by the non-exotic brands. But it added up to what I wanted. What does that tell you about me? Does that make me impractical? A hipster? Depends on who you ask. Could it also just mean that I'm someone who doesn't feel like I belong to any group, so I chose a bike that doesn't belong to too many people? Maybe.

But with some people, our possessions separate us, make us into "us, and them". I fall into the same sometimes, but try to resist it. I'll wave at any other biker or scooter-rider I see. Most are friendly. A few ignore me, and one or two have given me an angry look. Like I said, though, most are friendly. Most see the bigger tribe of motorcycles, while a few see only the small tribes of this brand or that brand.

It's hard for me not to generalize, though. Right now, there are people in some religious tribes who want to set up their own world, and the method is by eliminating all obstacles, i.e. anyone who isn't in their tribe. Their reasons are partly the crazy reasons of any standard madmen, but the rest of the world is not without their faults, not without a few mad things we've done to set up the world the way it is. It seems, sometimes, that we just naturally create or join groups. Maybe it's religion. Maybe it's politics. Maybe it's just the culture we think is best. Maybe it's what motorcycle you bought and ride. Something in our long journey from little furry animals to what we are now makes us most comfortable in groups - we are the children of generations and generations of people who gathered in groups to survive. Now, survival isn't the reason, but we group together just the same. It makes me a little sad, but then again I'm not much for groups. I think I wish there was a group for me, but have always felt I had to give up something dear to be in them. But each choice, in the eyes of some people, define who we are, or worse, simply reveal who we were all along.