ReconRat

Should have just given it to MJ to advance her chemistry skills...

One of my three batteries is a BikeMaster AGM. It seems to work as well as anything else. I'll guess it's 7 years old. It came with the bike. One of the Yuasa is 12 years old and still works, but it seems like the amps are just starting to fade. A just noticeable slowness when starting the bike. It's now a spare. I charge them about once a month in the Winter. Charging now, since I forgot... edit: I looked, Wally World doesn't have one for 599 or 919. Not even on line... Batteries Plus and similar are running about 53 for the type. Which isn't a bad local price either.

This is what I'm getting at 11am. It hits closer to 20 early in the morning. This is just basic level cable, and I get the impression that paying extra isn't worth anything. ">http://

the cheapest lead acid I see for that is Sears.com and Rakuten.com 22.15 w/ about 9.50 shipping the cheapest AGM is widely available, the BikeMaster brand. About 30-32 bucks with 9 shipping. Big Bad Powersports is showing $30.67 with free shipping. (Normally priced at around $53.00) Probably older stock they want to move. With free shipping (if true), the AGM is cheaper than the lead acid. The correct Yuasa battery is YTX7L-BS (a premium AGM) BikeMaster shows MS12-7L-BS is their equivalent battery Which is the Product # 780740 linked at Big Bad Powersports

It's two different methods of dampening vibration. One is weight at a specific location to kill natural harmonics. Make it stop vibrating at a specific frequency. The other is removing vibration everywhere, by contact with a material that doesn't transmit vibrations. I would think that ground up cork or rubber would work better than sand. Vibration transmission is greater with density. Although lead does not vibrate very well. Sand is dense. But... I've never seen a sand bag vibrate... Put a metal cup of something up against the handlebars or engine and see what it looks like. Rev to find the harmonic. Lots of motion means transmission of vibration. Some sort of material will vibrate less than others. I've used a lot of cork and medium hard rubber in places to kill vibration. Especially mirrors. And I would guess that the ultimate material is the gel like we have in our gloves.

I use that also. They did change the formula. I prefer the older blue can. It's still around some places if you look. And I have seen squirt bottles of it (not aerosol spray). That's smaller and can travel on the bike easier. But I still believe in buying a really good chain, and then you pretty much don't have to do anything to it.

I think I might try that www.vibranator.com. It gets installed without the piece inside the handlebar that bar ends normally screw into. One of mine is goofed up, maybe a stripped thread, and I figure it's coming out anyway. Plus it comes with a removal tool. Although my hammer-pull would probably work

Mine was taken over (bought out) by roadrunner. No longer Insight. Last night the upload speeds went to zero. Appeared to be a data compression failure somewhere. I was about ready to take the cable modem back this morning and trade it. That's a logical first step if it continued. But I just saw that it's back again. Things don't always get fixed after hours. (Or holiday weekends.) edit: Yes, RoadRunner service has been a bit shaky since they bought out Insight. Running 16-18 down and 1 up. WOW is cheaper. About half the price. I might be switching.

Make sure you're sharing a room with a fellow traveler. Euro hotels have a habit of adding another person if you're alone. Unless you pay extra to have the room to yourself. edit: And for what it's worth, the food in Austria was fantastic. Especially desserts and pasteries.

There's nothing wrong with a white shepard. They aren't breeders or AKC, so nobody wants them. They are cheaper or even free. I had one that the black part of the coat was white, so it was two tone tan and white. A very good dog. It was adult when I got it, and would tease cats pretty bad (if she didn't know them). Rabbits, of course, didn't stand a chance. edit: ok, white shepard is an AKC type, I thought it wasn't.

I've been to Austria and Bavarian Germany in the South. I liked it a lot. Yes, the Alps would be very nice indeed. Have been to Innsbruck also. There was one place in the mountains, that had a Swiss border crossing near by. You could hike up there and get your passport stamped for fun. Apparently not many people cross there, and they didn't have much else to do. Innsbruck is a "rite of passage" destination for high school kids all over the area (multiple countries). At any time of the Summer, the place is packed with kids arriving by train for a holiday. It wasn't bad though. Just all these clueless kids all over the place.

For your amusement... cleaning in a back room, I ran across this in a plastic baggie. old broken H&R Model 1904 - smooth bore 38 S&W kinda neat, the cylinder is removable broken cylinder pawl (cylinder spins free, won't take position, spring might be missing) chipped full cock on hammer (might not hold full cock) grips chipped on bottom the cost of a replacement hammer is about what the whole thing is worth the cylinder shift pawl can be lengthened by gently hammering on it and tuning the timing carefully I disassembled it since firing it was not a good idea edit: I found a hammer for 22.40. And the hammer I have isn't the original. It's been replaced once already. edit the edit: errr, most nickel revolvers didn't have a nickel plated hammer. So dunno. And I just looked at values, and this was worth 40 bucks in the mid 80s, is now worth maybe 300.

yes, warm enough to ride for sure in the afternoon. But... if I want to ride to work at 7am (temperature drops till around 8am), it's a risky game of humidity and wind chill creating icy patches that try to take me down. (Hint: check the wind chill temperature, if it's close to freezing, watch for it.) I've found that ice can be there at morning temps of 36F. And I once got caught thinking 38F was ok. It wasn't...not on that particular day. Even riding out through the cold wet grass of my front lawn, can ice up my cold tires as they spin on the road and chill. It gets noticed on the first corner. I knew it was going to happen one morning, and the bike spin 180 in the first turn. A little surprise, but stayed upright. A bit better than spinning 180 on it's side...

Current quote from RT news. Arabic, Spanish, Russian newspaper source. http://rt.com/news/ukraine-crimea-referendum-future-014/

I took a look, and it appears that high and low temps will run about 5 to 10F below normal averages through April 15. Can't really see ahead any farther than that. So it looks like too cold to ride in the early mornings through at least mid April on most days.

And the parts not mentioned. The troops at Sochi reportedly moved to the Crimean naval base at Sevastopol. Russia will not want to lose that. This area is very pro-Russian. Other Russian troops moved to border for sudden training. The "training" is live fire in new training areas. Basically Russia wants to keep the peninsula where the Crimean navy base is located. If that means splitting the country, it will happen. The naval base at Sevastopol is jointly shared and operated by both Russian and Ukrainian naval forces. Russian has a lease till 2042.

There was one year in the 90s, that it snowed 8 months out of 12 that year. Weird, but a lot of it was just a trace. Still cold.

I can picture exactly what that beam looks like. I have a sun gun for cameras that runs on AC. It can start fires also.

They look good. I can be convinced to try those.

lol, for around $2295.00 - no thanks (price in Germany)

Thanks, no MACs here, but I'm spreading the warning.

Interesting... Q: Can I use rechargeable CR123 batteries in any of the Streamlight flashlights? A: No. Streamlight products are optimized and the components can be damaged or destroyed by the use of anything other than the recommended battery type. The use of improper or substandard lithium batteries can be especially dangerous. Q: Who's CR123 Lithium Batteries can I use with Streamlight flashlights? A: Streamlight recommends the use of Streamlight Battery No. CR123A, Panasonic Battery No. CR123A or Duracell Battery No.123 with these products. Use of other batteries or mixing of used and new or different brand batteries may present a risk of leakage, fire, explosion and serious personal injury. Do not recharge, misuse, short circuit, improperly store or discard, disassemble or heat above 212°F (100°C). Keep away from children. http://www.streamlight.com/faq/ edit: I checked, and it looks like Streamlight runs a bit over 2.00 each, Duracell about 1.80-1.90, and Panasonic is 1.40-1.50. All prices are on-line mail order, cheapest found from other than ebay source. Non-rechargable. Btw, Li-Ion batteries work much better at low freezing temperatures. All the others crap out when cold. And for use in something like a camera, they last a lot longer.

I haven't start using rechargeable Li-Ion (CR123 size) yet, but soon. I use a lot of rechargeable AA and AAA. They don't last forever, they burn out and won't charge. Somewhat disappointed, since they were all Duracell and Energizer stuff. The chargers are all good ones. The main charger in particular is capable of re-building a charge on a bad battery, but it didn't help for some of them. edit: It seemed to me that the Energizers were the ones that failed most, not the Duracells. I have more Energizers than Duracells, but I don't even recall a Duracell with an early fail. The box with dead/bad batteries is all Energizers. I bought some fancy Maha Japanese rechargables, but they didn't seem to be any better than anything else. The Maha charging units, at one time were about the best available. Bought a bunch of stuff from http://www.thomasdistributing.com/ , but they don't sell cr123 gear. That was way back before amazon.com. Rechargeable batteries require regular steady maintenance charging. Don't get anymore than what you need and will use and take care of. If you suddenly need more, buy a pack of non-rechargeables.

Haven't bought a high output yet. Not sure which one to get. Sounds like 600 lumens is good enough. I have a Green Trident headlamp(C4-80lm), a Night Com white hi-low(C4-115lm max), UV(365nm) and UV(390nm) flashlight, and a mil spec Sidewinder white(C4-50lm), red, blue, infra-red. Not sure why I want to signal/mark in infra-red, but I can. The infra-red works well with night vision. edit: The Pro Tac HL 600lumen looks good to me. I see it at 72 bucks.

Noticed in the news that this situation was supposedly defused by three European Union ministers. Putin oddly silent in public about the situation. We're not hearing about something. The debt to Russia isn't much of a big deal, just cheap fuel/oil prices. Most countries have a debt to some other country. Operating on credit, like normal...