swingset

Yamaha EPH-50 earbuds with Comply Foam tips. Works great to reduce noise/fatigue and I get much better audio through the Sena.

Not a great place to live for trails, obviously. Allegheney NF is the closest GOOD trail network. Wellsville/Yellow Creek is another option.

6 hours ago, Isaac's Papa said:

Fast isn't the goal. It's the byproduct of being smooth and relaxed. If your heart rate is climbing on a ride, you're already above your skillset. Following faster riders won't make you fast. Listening to solid advice from faster riders should, if you remember to go slow and make sure you have the mechanics under control.

Fast should never be the goal. Fast will happen if you spend time learning how to ride properly, versus trying to ride fast. 

 

Great point. I'd wager that 95% of the group ride accidents I've seen were when someone was riding above their skill level, comfort level, or trying to keep up with someone when they should be riding their own ride.

IF you want to test your limits, a track is a much better place to do it. You can pay for limit testing with runoff, leathers, and a safe environment with an ambulance nearby. On the street, you can pay for it with life-altering injury or death.

Only place I'll ride above my pay grade is in the dirt.

Wayne is fine solo, only danger there is 2-way traffic. Hold your fist up when you pass to let other riders know it's just you, and you'll be golden. Always someone coming by if you break down or have an issue....hard to get lost, too. It's maybe the best place in the state to ride solo.

Perry is an entirely different animal - don't ever ride solo there unless you never wander off the main parking lot corridor. Learned that one the hard way.

On 4/1/2017 at 11:59 PM, max power said:

New camp toy

Congrats, I rode that puppy through Wayne last fall after Scott bought it, it's a good trailie...makes good power.

Last time down at Perry I was riding my Strom through there...just screwing off, had knobbies mounted up just wanted to play a bit on the not-that-gnarly stuff. Came around a bend and two rangers in a SXS were sitting there. A girl ranger motioned me to stop, so I went over and stopped. She was like "Uh, have you been here before?" and I said sure, lots of times. "Oh, ok, because not very many people ride a street bike through this you might wanna take it easy". lol, I thanked her and said I'd be fine. Mostly just rode the main trails and climbed some hills. First time I've ever seen any rangers there, on the trails, and I've been down there a hundred times I'll bet.

Congrats! Sharp looking bike...welcome to the dirty side.

On 9/17/2016 at 10:11 AM, Tonik said:

I would suspect the dropping issues are due to range.  Larger groups would be more spread out..more hills and curves between riders.  I honestly don't get from a tech standpoint how they can claim a 1.2 mile range.  That is far beyond anything I have ever seen from bluetooth.

Not complaining, as I have made clear I won't be pairing with anyone.  At least not anyone that is alive.

And I am very happy with mine.  The battery life is wonderful.

Range isn't the issue...it'll happen when we're bunched up in traffic. Occasionally someone disappears from the group. I've experienced range issues, they're precipitated by static, loss of signal, beeping as it tries to re-establish. This is different.

Also, ANY disconnect from the group and re-entry (via switching to a call, someone's listening to music for a while, or we re-start things at a stop) things are screwed up. Sometimes you come back in to the 4-way group and you can only hear two guys, etc. Then, without anything changing, same guy drops out and back in, and it's working. Sometimes a soft reboot helps, but it shouldn't require that and it's a pain.

It ain't just one bad unit, either, we've tested around that. There have been other bugs...like I'll take a call, and the group can hear my call (and whoever's on the phone with me) not supposed to happen. Even SENA's stumped about that one.

I'm not saying every person who has a 20s has or will have these issues, obviously that's not the case but read the ADV thread posted - problems are rampant.

I wish it wasn't the case, I want to love the unit but it's a buggy fuck...no two ways about it.

I'm on my 3rd Sena 20s.

Overall it's a good unit, and when it works it's just awesome....but I think it's a flawed product that could be a lot better. 4 of the 5 guys I ride with have the 20s, and group communciation is always a fucking pain...people drop off, pairings don't retain, we end up fussing with it at every stop. Annoying as fuck, everyone's technically savvy, all matching settings, firmware, they just don't play nice in a big group. Now, pairing with 1 other person? Pretty flawless, and the features rock.

The other issue I've had is a bad base on one of my units (wouldn't ever seat correctly, lost audio on one channel). Sena replaced it, the second unit worked for a while but kept locking up, requiring a hard-reset with a paper clip...replaced that one too. The 3rd unit has been good so far.

My experience is not rare, btw, here's a big thread on the 20s and a lot of people have had some niggling issues.

http://advrider.com/index.php?threads/sena-s20-experience.993790/

Would I buy the 20s again? Probably, it's so nice when it works, but I think for the $$ they charge, it's got too many bugs and the build quality isn't there.

It's a good road, brings back bad memories for me I hit a couple dogs on that road and ate the pavement pretty hard a few years back.

Trade for an X-box and 420, bro? No, seriously.

Nice bike, not worth what you're asking. I'll give you $1150, but I won't come look at it.

I'm torn.

On one hand, Ohio barely deserves to have any of its roads called proper twisties....most are a haphazard re-route around someone's farm to make a series of turns kinda affair, or a small twisty section in an otherwise fairly boring road. Eh, we're not a mountain state, it is what it is.

But then that site is full of weapons grade fail because they've ignored about 100 absolutely awesome roads that are world class twisties and chosen some that are tepid at best.

Look at WV - SR50? All the epic roads in that state, and they chose 50? lol

16 hours ago, ludwb675 said:

I'm still waiting to see how they will create autonomous driving in snow states. It's all fine and dandy down south and out west where the roads never get covered. They will have to start embedding stuff into the roads that don't require cameras. 

Either way, I don't see myself ever getting one. I prefer to drive and hate being a passenger. But i will admit, i can't wait until everyone else starts using them just so they are out of the left lane. It should make motorcycle riding much safer as well. 

That's a good question too...white out conditions? Snow and grime covering cameras or sensors? over 50% of this nation is in snow regions by population. I've not yet seen a good answer except "computer defaults to driver control".

On your second point, if they're widespread enough that cars are all autonomous, which I think is a long, long way off, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a conscious effort to eliminate non-auto-vehicles like motorcycles which only complicate traffic for the safer autonomous vehicles. Hey, greater good and all that jazz. Driving's not a right, insert whatever populist bullshit here.

But then, as I mentioned above, I think it's all academic.

Liability is going to be the biggest hurdle, if not the grinding halt of self-driving cars (at least for mass traffic situations, I still think point-to-point trucks will be viable).

Right now when you fuck up and run over a pedestrian, it's on you the driver.

When your Tesla or NissanAutoTurd4000 does because it chose between a single guy in the road or a crowd on the sidewalk, who gets sued? Tesla or Nissan.

During the teething years, which will be made worse by infrastructure not designed for this technology and growing pains at the software level (make no mention of hacking), there are going to be deaths and serious fuckups. EVERY one of them is going to come back on the makers.

How many lawsuits can the companies weather before it becomes not worth it? Like the Amazon drones, the limitation isn't the tech, it's the "what happens when shit goes wrong?" black cloud that grinds this to a halt.

On 6/1/2016 at 8:16 PM, Tonik said:

I agree, in the context of this thread you are dead on.  But it's what Casper needs. He is getting old, that Daytona his killing his back.

Strom is more upright than an FJR, even better for an old guy and his back.

I use OsmAnd+ for navigation, and Tyre to lay the routes out. Both are free, very powerful and do everything I need.

OsmAnd isn't as intuitive to use as a car GPS, takes a little getting used to, but the maps can be stored offline, and it's got a ton of tools that make it very powerful for motorcycle travel.

On 5/23/2016 at 6:28 PM, Tonik said:

Yet fast and nimble. Comfy as hell. Its the perfect compromise.

Ain't a compromise if you can't do a ride like this on it....it's decidedly focused. They're cool bikes, don't get me wrong, but in the context of this thread about fucking worthless.

I've used my AMA roadside twice, once in a car, once on the bike...worth every penny and they were fast and easy to work with. I like the AMA discounts on stuff, too, really it pays for itself by the end of the year just on the hotel/bike part discounts. Can't see a reason not to have it, honestly.

Squids wear Icon. Come on, you know it's true.

Bump with a lower price, will let it go for $550.

Yeah, neither affects the abs much - mostly whether you want some upperbody at the same time.

Congrats, I really love the FJ....came super close to buying one but I do enough gravel/dirt I thought the WeeStrom might be a better fit, but I sure loved the Yammie.

Nice ride, love the Explorers....join us for some adventure rides! There's a great one in Romney, WV at the end of April.

http://advrider.com/index.php?threads/spring-2016-romney-west-virginia-april-29-may-1-2016.1113542/