The Return Of Spring

It got all the way up to 70 degrees today, so I celebrated by riding a 28 mile loop on the local trails. The hobo jungle between Hampton and Dartmouth is still there. Some of the encampments are expanding into split-level dwellings with tasteful driftwood siding to set off the blue plastic tarps. Some of these folks are obviously unemployed architects.

The confluence of Sanderson Gulch and the Platte river is being upgraded to a flagstone lined mountain stream motif to about a block back from the river. If anyone ever visited there, they would certainly be impressed.

The rest of the gulch up to Heart Failure Hill is as usual.

Heart failure Hill is reached by going West on Jewell to Kipling which isn't a bad ride. Alternatively you can go North on the Kipling trail to Jewell, which will make the name seem quite apt. Note that going South on that stretch of Kipling Trail is quite exciting in that it's easy to reach 30 mph going down, narrow trail, limited visibility, and as you go under the tunnel, there's a narrow 90 degree right hander with a decrepit chain link fence on the outside to help break your plunge into a small creek about halfway down so the heart failure is possible both ways although accompanied by abrasions and contusions on the downhill side.

Civic improvements to the Bear Creek trail at Wadsworth include two telephone poles with perches on top big enough to sit 2 golden eagles in the prairie dog town there. Should be some great bird watching opportunities here this year.

Will It Run? 5

I may have spoken too soon. Driving around the block seems to flatten the battery, and a voltage check shows battery voltage lower with the engine running at high speed (12.4V) than when the motor is shut off (13.6). The book says I should be seeing 14-15V with the engine spinning in the upper rpm ranges.

Repeating the input voltage check with the original voltage regulator in the circuit gives the exact same results so it looks like I don't actually need the replacement unit and I can put the original one back into service which will get rid of the kluged up installation job

A resistance check on the stator wires gives readings way off what they are supposed to be and the recommended solution is to replace the stator. These things range from $30 brand new to $120 used on e-Bay so I'm thinking $30-$50 including gasket or pull mine over the weekend and see if the local salvage yard can help me. The part looks to be common across several models, but that wouldn't be the first time someone had told me that in error.

The backup thing to do is to visit the local Yamaha dealership and confirm that the part is in fact common. They also have a way of confirming my suspicions that XV535 bikes are made mostly from unobtanium by NASA contractors using space-certified parts.

Will It Run? 4

Well yes. It runs and I drove it around the block (3 x 3 block) today to prove it. Now it needs some minor stuff like a new turn signal relay and to figure out why the headlight doesn't work. The lamp that came with the bike seems to be undersized for the retainer ring, and the other one I picked up is way over sized.

The last bugaboo seemed to be a pair of hopelessly fouled spark plugs although cleaning out the float chambers and jet passages can't hurt. The insides of the carbs looked quite clean.

Runs nice, sounds nice, and even idles thanks mostly to having the right switches on the handlebars. Makes me wonder if the original voltage regulator is in fact good after all.

At this point I could get insurance and a plate for it. Only problem is that the DMV is closed for the weekend.  Oh well, Monday. Meantime I can work on the petty details.

UPDATE: Seems the headlight lens for this thing lists for $127 and the turn signal flasher/relay assy is $163. Seems awfully steep for relatively ordinary parts. They also seem to route a lot of the rest of the harness through the flasher relay widget so simply switching to more common parts is a bigger deal than it should be.

Will It Run? 3

I got the left hand switch set today and hooked it up. It sort of looks like it won't work completely until I've cleaned  it out as the switches feel like they've been lubricated in tar. Nevertheless, I get spark, fuel pump working, and starter function so I'd say I'm pretty close to hearing it run. If only the tiny battery was a bit bigger.

Top to bottom: H-L beam, Turn, Horn. Horn does not work yet.

Top to bottom: Run-Stop, Fuel tank on/reserve, Starter

Bloody damn cold in the garage too. The passing polar vortex left 3" of snow (officially) and got the temps down right next to freezing. Currently in the mid 40's and projected to stay there until Friday when we'll see 70's. Springtime in the Rockies.

The right turn signal switch gets me flashing on the right front and left rear. The left hand switch gets me a plaintive buzzing noise from the general area of the signal relay. I'm not seeing this as a big problem. The headlight still doesn't work under any circumstance. I need to soak both switches in some sort of solvent, then lube them with conductive silicone oil.

The fuel pump comes on with the key and there is now an odor of gasoline in the garage so it's going somewhere. A squirt of ether got me a couple of pops but no sustained running so there may be petrified fuel in the carbs although I was assured that the bike ran last year.

Springtime In The Rockies - Fine Scottish Morning

The Pedals and Pints group* has scheduled a bike ride in my neighborhood, coinciding with the arrival of the latest cold front that has dropped feet of snow on the Sierras. At start time it's to be 52 deg and overcast while we have out warm-up beer at Blind Faith Brewery. We then take off riding the uphill part South along the Platte river to Living The Dream overlooking the Platte Valley. By 3 PM we have only a 15% chance of rain for the return trip which might end at Locavore or might end at Jackass Hill Brewery which at least is on my way home.

If I get home soaking wet and freezing and thus die of pneumonia, I'll post about it.

*Happily combining the pub crawl with the urban bicycle tour. A fun group.

Will It Run? 2

Found the right hand switch set and that's on the way. The gas tank cap I got with the bike fits almost every Yamaha ever made, the exception being the one I got. Finally found the part number for the right one: Price = $182. It can be had for as little as $112 if you search but gee, that seems a bit steep for a gas cap. It also seems that when someone got the bike and found he had no key, he used the screwdriver on everything, leaving the filler neck slightly egg shaped. If he would only come around and bring that screwdriver, I could show him one more place where it could be used.

Money For Nothing

I was riding my bicycle along the Platte a couple days ago and discovered a brand new hobo encampment along the river. These things are becoming more and more common as Denver works hard to outdo Seattle in its welcome to ihe professionally indigent. The sight of one fellow with his shopping cart piled high with bicycle wheels finally set me off and got the wheels to spinning so here, to the tune of Money For Nothing, is my tribute to folks who make their living sponging off the rest of us:

Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You camp by the river in a little tee pee
They ain't workin' that's the way they do it
Money for nothin', welfare checks for free

Now that ain't workin' that's the way they do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb

Wage slave or salary man workin for a living

Gotta be there 9 to 5

We gotta build disposable doo dads

You need 'em badly, gotta make you believe

See the little beggar with the shopping cart and cardboard
Yeah buddy that's his own beard
That little beggar got his tarp tent and camp site
That little beggar works 2 hours in a day

Wage slave or salary man workin for a living

Gotta be there 9 to 5

We gotta build little plastic doo dads

You need 'em badly, gotta make you believe

I need a sign that'll tug at your heart strings
All I'd need is a Sharpie and a box
Look at that hobo, standin in the median
He's got a bit of Merlot in a little paper box

And he's down there, what's that? Bottle of Mad Dog?
Suckin' on the bong like a chimpanzee
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Get your money for nothin' get your checks for free

Wage slave or salary man workin for a living
Gotta be there 9 to 5
We gotta build disposable doo dads
You need 'em badly, gotta make you believe

Will It Run?

In the spirit of numerous You Tube videos, here's my Will It Run project.

I had about decided that my 84 Honda V65 Sabre was getting to be larger and heavier than I wanted to horse around any more. Driving to work on the freeway was a treat, but I don't do that now, just run back and forth to the hardware store. So here's this 87 Yamaha Virago 535 at the bargain basement price of $400. Looks to be nearly all there, and allegedly ran last year but currently having some electrical problems. Complete with a clean title. Just what I wanted, having been a motorcycle mechanic in the distant past, this should be a relatively easy fix.

Not bad for a 32 year old bike, no? The "clean" title turned out to be in the name of the original owner when the bike had but 2 miles on it and the finance company had released its lien, so it was clean. The owner had even gone so far as to sign off as the seller and whomever got the thing had never bothered to transfer the title. Fortunately they had also not bothered to sign anywhere either so I'm the second owner. The title formats have been changed several times since this one was issued, and the wife was convinced I'd be lucky to get out of the DMV without handcuffs, but it went through although it did take more than average amount of consultations with higher ups.

Spiffy aftermarket seat and handlebar grips and a headlamp dangling from the wires. Should be no big deal to get up and running, right? Closer inspection, after I got it home, revealed that the fuel pump was a NAPA aftermarket unit attached to the stock wiring harness but not turning on. Also the original ignition switch had been turned with a screwdriver, the key having long since gone missing, and cut out of the harness leaving 3 short wires peeking out at me. It also had 2 cables hanging out with large connectors on them and no obvious connection points.

So far I've found out that the handlebar switches are from a larger/later model Virago and while the cables plug neatly into the rest of the harness, the pin assignments do NOT match anything which is why the ignition module begins humming when you signal a left turn. Also the wiring on this is unique to 87 and 88 only in this displacement so finding a workable set of switches could be difficult.

The gas tank, which looks stylishly small, turns out to be only a cosmetic shell. Notice no gas cap. The actual tank is under the seat. The cap is missing, and the neck looks like it was resized a bit with a hammer.

Shorting a wire to the starter spins the engine over smartly so that's good although there's no spark or fuel pump running. Wires for that are routed through the handlebar switches which pretty much don't work yet.

Found a left hand switch set at Sunshine Motorcycle Parts and it's on the way. Still need the right hand set. Spares that came with the machine included an ignition switch with key and the wrong connector, the handlebar switches from the wrong model Virago, and grips that fit way too loosely.

More as it develops.

Fun With Headlines

Who writes these things anyway? This one was too good to not mention. From The Wash Post:

Washington Post: Cory Booker ‘Stands Athwart’ the ‘Pitchfork Populism’ Against Big Tech

Visualizing Mr. Booker athwart a pitchfork, I have to admit, brings a smile to my face. Story here.

Plant Life

Can't all be sturm und drang now can it? I've got a couple of Juniper trees in the back yard and one of them is producing some interesting fruit. Normally all one sees on those trees is the little blue berries that are reputedly used for making Gin, but this spring one of them produced some large black  nodules with soft spikes on them. About 1/2" diameter, plus the spikes.

Today the nodules have "hatched" and the black spikes have turned into orange bananas, albeit, rather small ones. Here's the side of the tree:

That's a petal from the apple tree next to it

You can see a blue Juniper berry in the upper left. 

Here's a close-up of one of the fruits:

The center is about the same color the original spiky ball was

Here's a close-up of a large one, just about to pounce.

I've never seen my tree do this before, so any ideas? If you eat a bowl full for breakfast, do you gain super powers or just turn into Groot?

Update! Ask and ye shall find! This is Cedar (or Juniper)-Apple Rust Fungus which grows on the Cedar (and Juniper!) and spreads to the Apples within a few hundred feet. Harmless to the Juniper, it degrades the quality of the fruit from the apple although the apples are still OK to eat.

Highlands Ranch Shooting

The school in question is only about 4 miles from me, about the same distance as Columbine so I'm beginning to wonder if there's actually something in the water around here or if we just have an abnormal population of whack jobs in the general population.

As of right now, little enough is known that a detailed story isn't possible BUT unlike most of these things, both shooters are in custody and only one person is dead so detailed information may actually be forthcoming.

So far Gov. Polis has not issued a carefully prepared statement calling for more gun control, but I expect that will happen very shortly if not today.* What is known about the shooters is that the 19-year-old male (the adult) is a vehemently anti-Trump liberal, and the 18-year old (the juvenile ) is a female in the process of transitioning to becoming male. Both of them sound like perfect candidates for the Red Flag process which becomes effective(?) in January of next year, maybe.

Frankly I see this as confirmation of my own personal theory on gun control, namely that if we simply disarm and prohibit gun ownership to all Democrats, we can at a single stroke, reduce mass shootings like this by about 95%. Given the political proclivities of criminals in general, this in theory would also nearly eliminate gun-involved violent crime. In practice however, as criminals tend to ignore the laws anyway, that aspect would probably go on unchanged.

The good news is that the male shooter was rushed, knocked down and disarmed by one of the students at the school. This is consistent with what I've been told about dealing with a shooter when you have no weapon of your own and retreat may not be a viable option. A gun is a distance weapon and is hard to aim when you have multiple assailants piled on top of you trying to disarm you. I hear the hero here is planning to join the Marines when he graduates. Sounds like he'll do well there.

UPDATE 1: Sure enough, later this same day I got a form letter from the Giffords group calling for more gun control and asking for money. No mention of any mental health issues of course as that might cut in to their voter base.

Update 2: Seems the local politicians set up a "vigil" for the one dead student in order to press their anti-gun agenda and lo and behold, most of the students dragooned into attending didn't buy in to the narrative and walked out, put off by the use of Kendrick Castillo, who died defending his fellow students, as a prop. Amazingly prominent pols and anti-gun groups were able to attend a next day event:

The event also featured two Democratic politicians, Colorado Congressman Jason Crow and Senator Michael Bennet. Moms Demand Action, a group that advocates for gun control legislation, also had representatives at the event.

Colorado Gun Laws - Monkey Motion

RMGO is announcing that they have found a loophole by which they can get our Red Flag law annulled. It seems that any law wending its way through the legislature must, if requested by a member, be read in its entirety on two separate occasions in each house in which the request was made, otherwise it doesn't count so to speak. RMGO claims this request was made in not one, but BOTH houses, and the bill was never read and is thus void.

The opposition claims the request was not correctly worded so the reading was not actually required. Who knows, they may be right. If not, then the law goes away for a bit. If it does, the first item on the agenda when the legislature re convenes will be a by-the-book passage of the bill that will closely resemble the knighting of Danny Kaye in the Court Jester. If we're lucky, the process will happen in the capitol building and not in the Dank Shaft hearing room of the Lost Superstition Mine Building between 12 AM and 6 AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

In any case I expect no opposition will be tolerated and the elapsed time to signature will be a new state record.

Of course if it distracts the legislature from other mischief, then good, but I doubt it will delay anything very much.

Gun Sales - NICS

Here's the April update with no surprises at all really:

Just the normal post-tax-rebate dropoff. A new record for April? Sure, but the curve normally creeps upward year-on-year.

Advice in a Red Flag State

Colorado's red flag law is one of the most poorly written in the country and disclaimers to the contrary notwithstanding, seems to allow anyone to "Red Flag Swat" anyone anywhere in the state, anonymously and without fear of retribution. In that light, here's a snippet from the Colo RKBA newsletter that looks like it was taken from an advisory to Jews in Germany in 1938 or blacks in the civil rights movement in the late 50's:
------------------------

1) Your status as a gun-owner/concealed-carrier needs to be a secret. Most relatives, co-workers, neighbors, even friends don’t need to know. Don’t talk about specific guns you may own, particularly military rifles. Maintain a low profile. Find other things to talk about!

2) Guns you own need to be adequately secured, and always out of sight. Ammunition boxes, loose rounds of ammunition, gun magazines and other literature, holsters, rifle magazines, accessories, etc need also to be kept continuously out of sight. Casual visitors to your home, office, car should never see any of that!

3) Get rid of gun-company/ammunition-company/pro-gun organization decals, patches, logo clothing, hats, bumper-stickers.

4) Watch your language and general demeanor, in public and in private! Don’t do, nor say, things that are likely to be interpreted as threats. Don’t make threatening comments, even when directed at a third party who is not present.

5) Don’t become involved in family, nor neighborhood, spats, particularly those involving marriage issues, child custody, etc. Be very good at minding you own business!

6) Don’t invite people you don’t know into your home, including police officers (unless they have a warrant). With your door remaining closed and locked, you can talk with unknown/uninvited visitors through a microphone.

7) Keep the subject of guns and gun issues out of casual conversation. Talk about guns only with people you know well.

8) Gun-organization literature, flyers, etc need to be shredded immediately after you finish reading them. Tear off address-labels on gun magazines and shred them too. You don’t want your residence address associated/connected with guns, nor gun-organizations.

9) When carrying concealed, assure guns, magazine-carriers, etc remain discretely out of sight. Open-carry, even where technically “legal,” is a really bad idea (except perhaps in extremely remote places)!

10)  Don't make enemies! Be a polite, civil, pleasant, courteous person. Don't inject yourself into other people's business

American gun-owners have no friends among Democrat politicians, particularly those currently aspiring to be president, and they would all like nothing better than to make “examples” of some of us, welding the illegitimate power of their new “red-flag” laws.

The sinister “knock-on-the-door-at-midnight” is coming for some.

Don’t be “that guy!”