It's an honor to be featured once again, long live Harambe. Now, would someone give me a hand loading this Lay-z-boy into the back of the van? You get in first and I'll hoist it up...don't worry, everything's cool!
A windowless Chevy van of 90s vintage got abandoned at the bottom of my road two falls ago. After sitting all winter, being a complete eyesore, I started contemplating ways to get rid of it. My 17 year old son said “why don’t we paint a big cock-n-balls on it. It will probably be gone within a week”. Ha! So that’s what we did. At 1am we rolled down there, he jumped out with a can of purple spray paint, and a giant twig n berries, complete with an “emission “ out the end appeared on the side of the van. As a pièce de résistance, he wrote “free candy” on the back.
It was gone the next afternoon. And my friends told me the local Facebook group was all abuzz with laughter over the whole episode.
Be safe out there! I was just reading about two Palm Beach County Sheriff’s killed on their Harleys when they were hit by a car while conducting a traffic stop
Great story, glad to see someone else getting out there on two wheels!
I really am disappointed that there's not some kind of regulatory incentive to get people on two wheels. Can you imagine the benefit of getting all these single commuters into modern motorcycles? I have no idea if they burn clean relative to passenger cars and trucks, but the reduced consumption of fuel has to count for something, right?
I've started poking through the classifieds again. So many decent starter bikes out there. Just gotta get my carport up!
the number of bike riders will go up when someone popular is seen riding one and people realize that other drivers actually pay attention to things on the road but thats not going to happen anytime soon
Universal lane splitting would make a big difference, as would cities doing more to either create bike parking or let people know it exists. As an example, the city of Columbus has bike reserved areas all around downtown for just $50 a year... but the amount of drama I went through just finding the program then getting the sticker was nuts.
I really don’t know why more motorcyclists aren’t killed out here in CA while lane splitting. Routinely see them doing 50+ mph more than the traffic around them. And often weaving around between lanes. Insane.
I suspect the ones doing 50+ more than surrounding traffic are the ones getting killed. I never went more than 10 or 15 miles faster than the surrounding traffic. I've found that the key to success is to watch the front tires of the cars you're approaching. If someone's gonna do something stupid, that'll be the first clue. It also helps to turn on your high-beams, your auxiliary lights (I had a big pair of PIAAs on my GS) and your flashers.
Yes, I look back and am amazed I was never even touched when I'd thread the needle 30MPH faster than the slow / stopped vehicles .
God protects fools and all that Jazz .
I like Tiddlers, I've never had a MoPed but I used to do group rides with the MoPed Army, interesting bunch, mostly kids .
I made sure my then young son (he just turned 47) was properly trained to ride a Motocycle, not surprisingly he's a batter, faster and SAFER rider than I could ever be .
I've been on that "sell all the bikes then miss riding, then buy a bunch of bikes" pendulum several times. Maybe I'll finally learn moderation and just have a single bike for the occasional ride, as I do now.
That red/blue/white with the gold wheels looks fantastic, really makes the bike. The grey variant just looks very bland.
'I've been on that "sell all the bikes then miss riding, then buy a bunch of bikes" pendulum several times. Maybe I'll finally learn moderation and just have a single bike for the occasional ride, as I do now.'
I went from 2001 to 2013 without a motorcycle. Never again.
Even when I can't ride it, I simply enjoy walking in the garage and looking at the XS11, and there is some sort of mental "rightness" knowing I've own a classic big bore jap bike. I'm increasingly convinced that the cinnamon "Magenta Red" and Indigo Blue of the '79s are the two best colors that these bikes came in.
The biggest thing was going through the carbs and finding the original owner's odd decision to put massively oversized main jets in causing the bike to fall on its face at high throttle mid/high rpm. All sorted out with a set of stock jets from my spare set of carbs left over from the '78. The tires were also severely cracked and dry rotted, I don't know how Jack was riding around on these things! Brakes were a bit sticky and rear master cylinder still has a bit of a leak even after rebuilding (I need to take an emery cloth to the piston bore). Lastly, the steering head bearings have a bad notch/wear so I will be pulling the triple tree apart to redo them. This thing is a joy to work on as it is (aside from the odd choice of main jets) totally stock and original. No hackery.
Nice, glad you've got it in good order and are getting enjoyment from it!
I've got rebuild parts for clutch master/slave cylinders and a replacement sight glass on the way. I am probably going to swap the line to braided stainless as well since the system will be apart in any case.
That color combo with the gold wheels is the best. Very nice choice.
It’s interesting to hear about motorcycles from someone who actively pursues bikes with DCTs. Usually DCTs are grudgingly accepted by motorcycle reviewers.
I thought I wouldn't like it that much. It's a little more boring, but being able to focus less on gears and not sweating stalling out, etc. makes me more aware of everything else.
That's a forever bike, if you want it to be. I too pined for one of those for a while because they are actually worthy of the term "excellent." Another couple of G's will get you some great suspension dialed in for your bodyweight. Then you'll ride someone's GS and think "what the shit is this pile of concessions and committee derived choice tree failures?"
You could ride the Dempster on that thing and have a caribou steak as a reward. There's a lot of hairy chested shit that bike will enable if you lean into it.
I had to look that up, and it looks like a cool ride. Logistics to corral at least one other rider to join me wouldn't be too bad, but just slabbin' it all that way to get to the actual road would be a chore!
Anything Alaska is a chore. The terrain just wants to coat everything in grime and grit, trucks don’t want to kill you but they’ll try, and the weather is like a bipolar ex you ran into at the waffle house. SoCal boys Zach and Ari took smaller bikes to Alaska and made a videomercial about it for Revzilla. You may or may not recognize Zach from his commuter series he does in El Lay.
I don’t think anyone really likes slabbing it, but that’s life in the big city.
You can check out some ride reports on advrider and see where some other folks have done the long hauls through Alaska along with touristy stuff on the Kenai. There’s also the Trans America trail that takes you across the continguous states with as much dirt/gravel as possible and eschews interstates.
It’s always more fun with other people. Probably the best times you might have are with riding buddies over coffee with campfire ash in it.
There's also the NorCal BDR (backcountry discovery route) which is a free gpx track done by the BDR non-profit. It's a lot closer to home for you and it's a big adventure.
Never heard of anybody trying to commute on a Sur-Ron before. Got a friend who brings one when we go camping out in the boonies. Fun toy (lack of noise while zipping through the woods is an exceptional experience) but it feels far more "bike with electric motor" than motorcycle.
There is an ACF reader (or was a year ago) who lives in Dallas/Youston/or Austin and rides an electric bike to work from the inner-inner suburbs to downtown.
With good maintenance they will go for 500,000 miles and more. Very well understood vehicles and underrated. My 20 year old D3 has more features than most cars a quarter of its age, and rides better too!
I could, but it would be a total snooze fest (though next week might get spicy). Plus it was already featured in an 'Ask Jack' article at one of his former employers. I don't wanna hog the mic here folks.
Harambe, you smile upon us and bring the memories back in a flood.
As a kid growing up in Iowa, state law allowed you to get a moped license at 14 and all the cool kids had Yamahoppers and Honda Expresses . (I thought the 'hopper looked cooler with the curved downtube; the Express looked too utilitarian.) In college I got a Honda Spree 50, and absolutely ALL of my friends teased me mercilessly about it ... until they were late for class and wanted to borrow it.
Gotta love the flat Army Green Elite - looks SO badass. Reminds me of a friend who rode with a sober fellowship I was part of. He had a Honda Helix 250 that he'd hot-rodded with parts he'd gotten from Europe. He would beat that thing mercilessly in the curves and hit absurd lean angles - and more than a few times startle some squid when he came up behind them. He also rode the thing across the country twice. Yeah, he's a bit nuts. Owns an Africa Twin and a Gold Wing Roadster these days. The Twin replaced a fifth-generation VFR that finally moved on after 108,000 miles on the chassis and 76,000 on the motor (original motor got swapped when a gear in the transmission decided to shatter into roughly 27 pieces. It was cheaper to buy a used engine/trans combo than rebuild the transmission.)
I rode an NX700 for a hot minute shortly after it came out. It was a fantastic Bay Area commuter, but about as exciting as biscuits and gravy. That said, for a long time I thought a Pacific Coast 800 would be the ultimate commuter. Clean ones comes up for sale every once in awhile if you keep an eye out and I've always thought it would be a great all-arounder, but at this point the youngest of them is 26 years old and an itch best left unscratched.
I was fortunate enough to have a steady gig for 16 of the 20 years I've been here. It took roughly 7 years of hustling and a couple of lay offs just to get to that point. Plus I met an east bay native, married her and started a family.
Nowadays I'm more than ready to get us out of here, don't like what the state has become even though it's still a mostly beautiful place. The wife's family are all here and it's gonna take some major convincing to move away from it all.
Which is what I've been doing since everyone caught the stupid. I just think of how much less horseshit there would be and the pay raise we'd get merely moving across a state line.
Granted we wouldn't be able to surf and ski in the same day, bruh....thankfully I don't do either. Decisions, decisions.
Beautiful bike.
I'm very distracted, though, by the brown creeper van lurking in the back and checking out the scene. Don't accept any offers of free candy.
He's the one making the offers!
I remember! I think my attempt at humor was probably a bit too obscure...
No, you're doing it right, we're just doing it wrong!
It's an honor to be featured once again, long live Harambe. Now, would someone give me a hand loading this Lay-z-boy into the back of the van? You get in first and I'll hoist it up...don't worry, everything's cool!
Patrician reference, Mr. Gumb.
"What are you, Jack, about a size 48 Long?"
The wheel chock in front of the Land Rover isn't sending out bad vibes at all, either.
I forgot to put the link to the van...
https://www.avoidablecontact.com/p/vannin-for-hamambe-part-two
hey kid you want to buy an extended warranty
A windowless Chevy van of 90s vintage got abandoned at the bottom of my road two falls ago. After sitting all winter, being a complete eyesore, I started contemplating ways to get rid of it. My 17 year old son said “why don’t we paint a big cock-n-balls on it. It will probably be gone within a week”. Ha! So that’s what we did. At 1am we rolled down there, he jumped out with a can of purple spray paint, and a giant twig n berries, complete with an “emission “ out the end appeared on the side of the van. As a pièce de résistance, he wrote “free candy” on the back.
It was gone the next afternoon. And my friends told me the local Facebook group was all abuzz with laughter over the whole episode.
One of my prouder fatherhood moments!
Gold.
Don't sell this one! Stay in the motorcycle game!
Signed,
Guy with four bikes who lives somewhere with much worse weather.
Great writeup! I like the "filed it away in the 'one day....' database" because I have the same thought process.
Be safe out there! I was just reading about two Palm Beach County Sheriff’s killed on their Harleys when they were hit by a car while conducting a traffic stop
😢
red white and blue with gold wheels is a fantastic colour combo
choice ride
Great story, glad to see someone else getting out there on two wheels!
I really am disappointed that there's not some kind of regulatory incentive to get people on two wheels. Can you imagine the benefit of getting all these single commuters into modern motorcycles? I have no idea if they burn clean relative to passenger cars and trucks, but the reduced consumption of fuel has to count for something, right?
I've started poking through the classifieds again. So many decent starter bikes out there. Just gotta get my carport up!
the number of bike riders will go up when someone popular is seen riding one and people realize that other drivers actually pay attention to things on the road but thats not going to happen anytime soon
Universal lane splitting would make a big difference, as would cities doing more to either create bike parking or let people know it exists. As an example, the city of Columbus has bike reserved areas all around downtown for just $50 a year... but the amount of drama I went through just finding the program then getting the sticker was nuts.
Same with Asheville. We have them peppered around downtown, but they make 0 effort to ensure tourists know about it. It's so dumb.
I really don’t know why more motorcyclists aren’t killed out here in CA while lane splitting. Routinely see them doing 50+ mph more than the traffic around them. And often weaving around between lanes. Insane.
I suspect the ones doing 50+ more than surrounding traffic are the ones getting killed. I never went more than 10 or 15 miles faster than the surrounding traffic. I've found that the key to success is to watch the front tires of the cars you're approaching. If someone's gonna do something stupid, that'll be the first clue. It also helps to turn on your high-beams, your auxiliary lights (I had a big pair of PIAAs on my GS) and your flashers.
Yes, I look back and am amazed I was never even touched when I'd thread the needle 30MPH faster than the slow / stopped vehicles .
God protects fools and all that Jazz .
I like Tiddlers, I've never had a MoPed but I used to do group rides with the MoPed Army, interesting bunch, mostly kids .
I made sure my then young son (he just turned 47) was properly trained to ride a Motocycle, not surprisingly he's a batter, faster and SAFER rider than I could ever be .
-Nate
I've been on that "sell all the bikes then miss riding, then buy a bunch of bikes" pendulum several times. Maybe I'll finally learn moderation and just have a single bike for the occasional ride, as I do now.
That red/blue/white with the gold wheels looks fantastic, really makes the bike. The grey variant just looks very bland.
'I've been on that "sell all the bikes then miss riding, then buy a bunch of bikes" pendulum several times. Maybe I'll finally learn moderation and just have a single bike for the occasional ride, as I do now.'
I went from 2001 to 2013 without a motorcycle. Never again.
Even when I can't ride it, I simply enjoy walking in the garage and looking at the XS11, and there is some sort of mental "rightness" knowing I've own a classic big bore jap bike. I'm increasingly convinced that the cinnamon "Magenta Red" and Indigo Blue of the '79s are the two best colors that these bikes came in.
Is the XS1100 sorted enough to ride after Jack left it to turn into a death trap?
Says man who needs to rebuild or replace a leaking clutch slave cylinder.
It's doing great, from what i hear!
The biggest thing was going through the carbs and finding the original owner's odd decision to put massively oversized main jets in causing the bike to fall on its face at high throttle mid/high rpm. All sorted out with a set of stock jets from my spare set of carbs left over from the '78. The tires were also severely cracked and dry rotted, I don't know how Jack was riding around on these things! Brakes were a bit sticky and rear master cylinder still has a bit of a leak even after rebuilding (I need to take an emery cloth to the piston bore). Lastly, the steering head bearings have a bad notch/wear so I will be pulling the triple tree apart to redo them. This thing is a joy to work on as it is (aside from the odd choice of main jets) totally stock and original. No hackery.
Nice, glad you've got it in good order and are getting enjoyment from it!
I've got rebuild parts for clutch master/slave cylinders and a replacement sight glass on the way. I am probably going to swap the line to braided stainless as well since the system will be apart in any case.
"a single bike for the occasional ride, as I do now"
I expressed my concern when you went down to zero. I am happy to hear this!
That color combo with the gold wheels is the best. Very nice choice.
It’s interesting to hear about motorcycles from someone who actively pursues bikes with DCTs. Usually DCTs are grudgingly accepted by motorcycle reviewers.
I thought I wouldn't like it that much. It's a little more boring, but being able to focus less on gears and not sweating stalling out, etc. makes me more aware of everything else.
That's a forever bike, if you want it to be. I too pined for one of those for a while because they are actually worthy of the term "excellent." Another couple of G's will get you some great suspension dialed in for your bodyweight. Then you'll ride someone's GS and think "what the shit is this pile of concessions and committee derived choice tree failures?"
You could ride the Dempster on that thing and have a caribou steak as a reward. There's a lot of hairy chested shit that bike will enable if you lean into it.
I had to look that up, and it looks like a cool ride. Logistics to corral at least one other rider to join me wouldn't be too bad, but just slabbin' it all that way to get to the actual road would be a chore!
Anything Alaska is a chore. The terrain just wants to coat everything in grime and grit, trucks don’t want to kill you but they’ll try, and the weather is like a bipolar ex you ran into at the waffle house. SoCal boys Zach and Ari took smaller bikes to Alaska and made a videomercial about it for Revzilla. You may or may not recognize Zach from his commuter series he does in El Lay.
I don’t think anyone really likes slabbing it, but that’s life in the big city.
You can check out some ride reports on advrider and see where some other folks have done the long hauls through Alaska along with touristy stuff on the Kenai. There’s also the Trans America trail that takes you across the continguous states with as much dirt/gravel as possible and eschews interstates.
It’s always more fun with other people. Probably the best times you might have are with riding buddies over coffee with campfire ash in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Geb_QFxp_hs
There's also the NorCal BDR (backcountry discovery route) which is a free gpx track done by the BDR non-profit. It's a lot closer to home for you and it's a big adventure.
https://ridebdr.com/cabdr-north/
Fly, ferry, or van the long-haul?
Never heard of anybody trying to commute on a Sur-Ron before. Got a friend who brings one when we go camping out in the boonies. Fun toy (lack of noise while zipping through the woods is an exceptional experience) but it feels far more "bike with electric motor" than motorcycle.
There is an ACF reader (or was a year ago) who lives in Dallas/Youston/or Austin and rides an electric bike to work from the inner-inner suburbs to downtown.
If that guy is still here we NEED a longer write
up !
LR3? I can see you are a man of culture
Or mentally deficient. I'm about to get the slipping transmission looked at.
With good maintenance they will go for 500,000 miles and more. Very well understood vehicles and underrated. My 20 year old D3 has more features than most cars a quarter of its age, and rides better too!
This is interesting.
I’ve always wanted an LS Swapped high trim 2003 Disco.
Can one of you do a Driving for Harambe on the LR3 ?
I could, but it would be a total snooze fest (though next week might get spicy). Plus it was already featured in an 'Ask Jack' article at one of his former employers. I don't wanna hog the mic here folks.
"don't wanna hog the mic here"
Don't worry; we'd tell you if it becomes a problem!
Yeah, he's free to contribute more!
I would consider doing one, although mine doesn’t really have a special story behind it, yet
Harambe, you smile upon us and bring the memories back in a flood.
As a kid growing up in Iowa, state law allowed you to get a moped license at 14 and all the cool kids had Yamahoppers and Honda Expresses . (I thought the 'hopper looked cooler with the curved downtube; the Express looked too utilitarian.) In college I got a Honda Spree 50, and absolutely ALL of my friends teased me mercilessly about it ... until they were late for class and wanted to borrow it.
Gotta love the flat Army Green Elite - looks SO badass. Reminds me of a friend who rode with a sober fellowship I was part of. He had a Honda Helix 250 that he'd hot-rodded with parts he'd gotten from Europe. He would beat that thing mercilessly in the curves and hit absurd lean angles - and more than a few times startle some squid when he came up behind them. He also rode the thing across the country twice. Yeah, he's a bit nuts. Owns an Africa Twin and a Gold Wing Roadster these days. The Twin replaced a fifth-generation VFR that finally moved on after 108,000 miles on the chassis and 76,000 on the motor (original motor got swapped when a gear in the transmission decided to shatter into roughly 27 pieces. It was cheaper to buy a used engine/trans combo than rebuild the transmission.)
I rode an NX700 for a hot minute shortly after it came out. It was a fantastic Bay Area commuter, but about as exciting as biscuits and gravy. That said, for a long time I thought a Pacific Coast 800 would be the ultimate commuter. Clean ones comes up for sale every once in awhile if you keep an eye out and I've always thought it would be a great all-arounder, but at this point the youngest of them is 26 years old and an itch best left unscratched.
Enjoy the Twin...
This comment makes it sound like you also have some good material for a Riding For Harambe post…
If you would be so kind, plz consider
Very nice bikes & story .
-Nate
Cool ride, compelling tale, kudos!
(Also, kind request for a “Getting A Highly-Paid Enough Job To Live In the Bay Area For Harambe” post) (from you ICIP or anyone who sees this)
I was fortunate enough to have a steady gig for 16 of the 20 years I've been here. It took roughly 7 years of hustling and a couple of lay offs just to get to that point. Plus I met an east bay native, married her and started a family.
Nowadays I'm more than ready to get us out of here, don't like what the state has become even though it's still a mostly beautiful place. The wife's family are all here and it's gonna take some major convincing to move away from it all.
An advantage for you is that the SFBay has the highest percentage of remote work.
Which is what I've been doing since everyone caught the stupid. I just think of how much less horseshit there would be and the pay raise we'd get merely moving across a state line.
Granted we wouldn't be able to surf and ski in the same day, bruh....thankfully I don't do either. Decisions, decisions.
Great story, great bike.
The word “doofus” does not get used enough anymore, as it is the perfect descriptor for, well, doofuses. Of which the world has in great abundance.