Passes & Canyons Blog

The battery in place in my CB750.

Experience is what ensures that we are completely prepared to fight the last war. Too bad the next war is likely to be completely unlike the last one.

From now on, when I go to buy a new battery for one of my motorcycles I will double-check while at the store to ensure that it is the correct one. Of course, for the rest of my life I will probably always be given the correct battery.

That was not what happened today, however.

I knew it was to be a gorgeous day so I was up reasonably early and headed over to Performance Cycles very shortly after they opened at 10 a.m. I had my old battery from the Honda with me and set it on the counter saying, “I want another just like this one.” The guy brought one out, I paid for it, and I headed home.

When I went to put it in, however, it was clearly not the right battery. It was identical with the exception that the poles were swapped. Sliding into the bike transversely, the positive post needs to be on the left, as you can see in the photo. This battery had the positive on the right.

It’s not like I could just rotate the battery 180 degrees. You can see that there is stuff very much in the way. So I had to make a second trip to the store. And then, of course, they were stuck with a battery that had had electrolyte added and had been charged (by me) that they now needed to sell soon lest they later sell someone a “new” battery that was functionally old.

So all of this delayed my ride, but I did finally get out. And hey, what a nice day.

I also put a new headlight bulb in my Kawi. It took some figuring out but I finally did. I had looked in the shop guide to see how to go about accessing that bulb but all it said was “remove the cover and remove the bulb.”

No kidding? Wow, I never could have figured that out.

What I did finally figure out was that you can–if you have small enough hands–reach past the fork tube from above and get to it. There was a plug to pull off, and that was simple. Then there was a rubber gasket/cover that pulled off, and then I could reach the prongs on the bulb. But there was a little wire wicket in there that made certain the bulb stayed in place and getting that sucker off was a trick.

Keep in mind that when you can barely get your hand in, you don’t have a lot room for movement, and therefore don’t have a lot of leverage. Finally a pair of needle-nose pliers did the job.

Then the bulb just wanted to fall out. OK, keep that in mind putting the new one in. Once I got the bulb positioned correctly the wicket actually went back on easily, the gasket went back on easily, and the plug connected easily. I turned the bike on and by golly it all worked! Yee ha!

So now I’m fully functional again with both bikes, and just in time, too. The weather is supposed to be insanely nice this coming week so I may just have to ride to work. Please don’t throw me in that briar-patch!!

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Biker Quote for Today

You know you’re becoming addicted to riding when you open the door and push your car backwards with your foot because you forgot about this thing called “reverse.”

Who knew the bulb blew?

Safe riding promoters tell you to ride as if you were invisible, because for the most part you are. Well, I took that one step further recently, I almost really was invisible, although I didn’t know it at first.

I recently started a regular day job–something I hadn’t had in nearly four years–and frankly, I don’t expect to ride to work very much. The direct route takes me up I-25 to 6th Avenue and then west. The part on I-25 is a bear, with really bad stop and go traffic. That kind of thing is murderous on your wrists on a bike, as I’m sure you know.

But I have ridden twice. On Wednesday before Thanksgiving I knew traffic would be light, and it was supposed to be a beautiful day. It was, and I rode.

Then the following week, also on Wednesday, it was going to be another gorgeous day so I decided I would take a longer route that would help me avoid the really bad traffic. That worked out OK.

So that evening I was heading home, and it was dusk, getting darker all the time. I started noticing that my headlight wasn’t doing all that good a job illuminating the road in front of me, but I could still see OK so I wasn’t concerned.

But it kept getting darker. And I was starting to have a suspicion that something was wrong. I suspected that my headlight was out. I flipped on the brights and there was definitely light. I flipped them back off and there did not seem to be any light. I wanted to pull up close behind a car and see if I was shining a light on it but couldn’t really do that at highway speed. Finally I just decided that oncoming traffic, I apologize, but I’m running with my brights on. And when I finally did get off the highway and pulled up close behind a car there was nothing when I flipped the brights off.

So essentially, I had been riding in the dark with no light to tell other drivers that I existed. Talk about invisible. And how long do you suppose the light had been out? I don’t ride at night a lot so it could have been a good long time. Now I know; all I have to do is remember to do something about it.

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