Motorcycle stuff...

EDIT: I wrote this in Word and copy-pasted it here. The formatting is schizo and I refuse to change it.

I’ve had motorcycles on the brain for a while now, but never before has the fever burned so insistently. Bikes are literally all I think about these days. Providing that my love of motorcycling doesn’t displace my love of guitars, the panoply of my dedicated hobbies will paint me as a totally rad dude.

I’d been thinking of replacing the Hornet since I had the experience of riding a 400 in driving school. I think I finally came to my (financial) senses this week, or at least I’ve been able to convince myself that the Hornet is worth hanging on to. I’ve been doing a little reading on the 250 Hornet and the CB400 standard bike. Apparently (and this is anything but unexpected) Japan has restrictions on the amount of power middle class (chuugata) bikes can have (not just a limitation on displacement), meaning that the difference in displacement between my 250 and a 400 doesn’t actually lead to a large difference in power between the engines. Admittedly, I’m not knowledgeable on this topic yet and expect that there are severely diminishing returns when you increase an engine’s displacement to increase the power, but I anticipated a greater difference in power between the Hornet and a CB400 than a mere 8-10 hp (citation needed). Torque is much more kicky on the 400, of course. I’m still hunting for more information on this issue…

Anyway, I’m currently in the midst of a renaissance with my bike, the Hornet. I was sort of down about it a few months ago when I got around to replacing its fat-ass rear tire (180 on a 250?!). It’s just goddamn expensive. Also, I put slight scrapes on both sides of the tank that detract from its appearance significantly (update: I totally cratered the tank on a curb while racing the other day; no punctures, though). The wheels and rear sprocket are filthy with road grime, brake dust, and thrown-off chain grease, and the rust damage continues to creep. It’s a pain in the ass to work on anything without a center stand, so I’m checking the internets for one right now. I’d love to spend a weekend cleaning the thing…

Now I love the green machine. The current renaissance is a product of my constant reading about bikes. In comparing the Hornet to its potential replacements, I unwittingly learned more news about it. And the news is good.

First, I think I’ve got an early Hornet, maybe as early as 1996. It was received extremely positively (citation needed), and it’s cool to be riding an original.

Second, as I briefly mentioned before, the engine is pretty rocking for a 250. The 249 cubic centimeter motor gets over 24 Nm of torque (11,000 rpm) and 40 hp (at 14,000 rpm). Why did I just name those figures in metric and Imperial units? I don’t know—it just seemed more tangible to me than using one system or the other. Anyway, this engine is meant to scream. It redlines at 16,000 RPM and doesn’t even get busy (and this was news to me) until 10,000 rpm. OK, I knew that running higher revs would produce more power generally (thank you), but going over 10,000 had always just seemed excessive to me. I usually kept the machine turning slowly as I went about town thinking that it would save gas and prolong the life of the engine. However, my mileage driving that way was about 180km before reserve. Last week, when I tried running the machine at higher average rpm (and with more playful power), I got 220 km before reserve. I’m still trying to sort that out (and repeat the experiment), but I think that this engine is meant to be run faster than I had been running it. In short, the bike has a lot of power that I wasn’t effectively utilizing. Also, while it has a high pitched whine at low (>8000) rpm, the timbre radically changes to an absolute scream when opening the throttle. It’s easy to visualize air and exhaust racing through the system.

Third, I am now dead certain that the (a?) previous owner did some custom work on the appearance of the bike. Unlike stock Hornets, my bike doesn’t have the jagged Hornet logo painted on the sides of the tank. Instead it’s got chrome automotive letters spelling ‘HORNET’ running along the sides. Also, the green paint is chipping in places, revealing a layer of silver underneath. Why is this good news? I’ve been thinking about painting the Hornet, and I wasn’t certain whether the plastic parts could be easily painted; apparently it’s not a problem. I’m considering black and white right now, but I’m going to draw up a few designs. A new coat of paint would help cover the tank scrapes and give me reason to remove those chrome letters. They are odious.

Anyway, it’s an exciting time for motorcycling. I recently got riding shoes and gloves, so I’m pretty excited about the next track day when I can show off my latest fashions and subsequently get destroyed on the time trial.