Getting a ride set to your liking can be a tricky thing. Each bike is different and has their own set of intricacies that make things a pain to set.
Many moons ago I did a riding course called “Ride Forever”. It was the precursor to the courses that ACC runs for motorcyclists these days. Back then the mantra was “You’re going to ride fast so let’s learn how to do it properly”. Obviously, as a government department, ACC can’t use that mantra but the course is basically the same. Back then the course was done on the Taupo racetrack which was a mini-Monza design. It’s a different layout these days.
During the course of the day we learnt all sorts of techniques including cornering, braking, acceleration, etc. Towards the end of the day my left wrist was killing me because of using the clutch so much. I pulled into the pits and told the instructor that I couldn’t go on. He suggested we looked at my setup and he realised that my hands were almost right angled to get to the clutch. He lowered the level so that there was a straight line between my elbow to my fingers on the clutch. I went back out and noticed an instant change and I could go for the rest of the day. Sadly, 10 minutes later the course ended.
This highlights just how important it is to have a motorcycle set to you, not the previous rider or anyone else.
This week I’ve been able to get on the bike more and really try and get the feel for it. I did 300KMs per tank. I probably could have gone more but I haven’t done the jerry can test just yet. Either way it’s an interesting stat when you do the math.
My ute runs on diesel and it costs me around $120 to fill its 75 litre tank. That tank gets me about 650kms. Most likely more but I also haven’t done the jerry can test on that either. It’s also more of a hassle doing the jerry can test on a diesel given the nature of diesel engines.
But here’s the kicker. A tank of 98 octane fuel costs $2.959 on date of publishing this post. So we’ll round to $3 / litre. Multiply by 15 litres and that will cost me $45. If I round to $2 / litre for diesel and apply that to the 75 litre tank that’s $300. So to get roughly the same kms as the ute I’m paying $90 on the bike. So even allowing for the hire annual cost of registration, having a motorcycle is more cost effective than a ute. Obviously though, the ute is more practical, hence the name utility vehicle, but from a commuting perspective the bike wins hands down. Also, from a mental health perspective, the bike wins hands down.
I took the bike out on Wednesday for a ride to see how it handles on the dirt roads. Given that that’s where I want to head into, it makes sense that I should test the bike. It is designed for this sort of riding but I need to ride it to test myself as well. It handled really well. In fact it was rock solid. I feel the heavy weight of the bike really centres the weight well and makes it pull into the ground giving that stability you need for off road riding. There’s another road a little further down the main road that’s a much longer dirt road which I’m going to go on this afternoon while Little Wookie goes to his school readiness event before he goes back to school from summer holidays.
Here’s the photos from that ride.
Incidentally, I’m going to do less tech posts and this blog is going to be aimed at my riding from now on. Motorcycling is the one thing I am the most passionate about and now I have my own bike again I’ll be doing more posting as I’ll be doing more riding.