Tpoppa

Focus on being smooth, which means improving your technique. Speed comes from smoothness, not the other way around.

If/when I need to get over a mental hiccup, or fix something with my technique there is always one thing that works for me. A LONG SOLO RIDE. I set out for 4-500 miles and tell myself this ride won't exceed 75% of normal pace. It takes all the pressure off...no one behind or in front to worry about...the pace is relaxed...adrenaline is low. I can then focus on riding smoothly and fix whatever problem I was having. By the time I get home, my pace is way up (yeah, that 75% doesn't last for the whole ride) and it feels effortless. I am smoothly gliding through corners and having fun, which is why I ride in the first place.

Whenever someone goes down, I think the natural reaction to be more cautious. But if every time you ride, you are overly concerned about going down...you will & you probably aren't going to enjoy riding very much. Focus on doing the right things, not on what you are trying to avoid. I am not going to analyze the video. But I'll say that even if you do all the right things you can still go down. You just need to put the odds in your favor as much as possible. Practice your technique until you feel it's perfect, then practice it some more. Ride with a margin of error. If you encounter an obstacle mid corner do you know what you are going to do to best avoid it? Wear gear. It sucks when a motorcycle gets totaled, but it's just a motorcycle. There are plenty of others out there.

I've seen brand new ones on eBay with a BIN price under $6k (+tax & title). I think the cheapest I saw was around $5,700. Before I would buy the FZ8 and fiddle with cams, I would just buy a used 2008-2011 FZ1 for the same money or less.

You can find smoking deals on new, leftover FZ8s, but that is because they sold rather poorly. They have some handling limitations that will probably never matter to 90% of street riders. If knee dragging isn't your thing, the FZ8 is a reliable fun bike that you can find with deep discounts.

Sorry to hear your day turned out like this. Glad you both were wearing gear and it wasn't worse.

Called due to Ohio weather. Eyes on next weekend.

Creekside in N Ridgeville. On Lorain, near Root Rd. You'll get lots of different opinions on compact .380s. I'd have a real hard time calling the TCP the best. I am not a big Taurus fan, that said I own one and it's reliable. IMO, Taurus is hit or miss (pun intended). If you get a good Taurus you may never have a problem. If you get a bad one it may need several trips to Taurus to get sorted out. Taurus does have good warranty and good service, but by the time to pay to ship it you might have been able to just buy something a bit nicer. For my money, the best compact .380 is the S&W Bodyguard (I have), or the Kahr CW380/P380 (I want). The LCP is also solid, and the Glock 42 is nice but larger than most pocket pistols.

Opens the door to lots of new options with the Go Pro.

A shop in N Ridgeville had new TCPs for $199. Build quality is far superior to Phoenix.

It is, but the good parts are south of Millersburg. I've had one of these for about 15 years. The design is odd, the materials are mediocre, and there are a weird assortment of safeties as mentioned above. However, it functions well and is surprisingly accurate. I've put close to 1,000 rounds through it with very few problems. It's good for a cheap pistol. I like it for what it is. It's cheap enough that I wouldn't lose sleep if it got lost at the bottom of a lake on a camping trip.

I just got the mail. Apparetly I may aleady be a winner in the PCH sweepstakes. So long suckers

If the US gov't were a motorcycle, I would have parted it out years ago and bought a new one.

I thought the federal courts were above the political party bickering. So now I have no confidence in any of the 3 branches of the US Gov't.

Not cancelling this yet, but the forecast isn't looking so good. If I can't ride this weekend, I might have to ride both days next weekend. Hell, a 2 day overnight WV ride might need to happen.

If I put on my Washington DC decoder ring, I'd say that the Obama administration felt it was more likely that they would get they results they desired from the CDC than from the ATF.

I've had bad luck with both dealer and independent mechanics. Once, I had a dealer mechanic strip threads on a engine cover and try to hide it with copius amounts of loctite. After I noticed it and went bat shit crazy & they eventually replaced it, but they were more then happy to half ass it and send me on my way. Factory trained means much less to me then finding a mechanic that gives a damn. When I find a mechanic I can trust I stick with them.

Is there such a thing as a non-biased news site?

No way I can ride Saturday this weekend so it's Sunday or nothing. I'm keeping an eye on the forecast. We'll head south via 93 & 83 and back north on 800. There will be much twisty awesomeness in between.

Correct.

Not sure if that was meant to be a shot at HD, or just a statement of fact...but Zing!

People with really low milage bikes think they're still good as new. After 3 or 4 years, I tend to disagree. Battery, tires, hoses, fork seals, carbs, etc are the obvious things to look for. The not so obvious is this...if there is any kind of manufacturing defect with the individual bike or known issue with the model/year they tend to appear in the first few thousand miles. Ideally it all gets sorted out under warranty, if not it can get expensive. I don't know much about the yzf600, it very well could be a bulletproof design. If it were me, I'd be more comfortable if it had a few thousand more miles. My $.08.

Based on how much he's ridden since 06, I think it's fair to assume that he's not a super passionate motorcycle enthusiast. The tires may have plenty of tread left, but they're also old and hard by now and might start cracking if they're suddenly back on the road again. I'm not saying don't buy it, but I would consider the total cost of making it road worthy if you make him an offer. My $.02 and I buy lots of used bikes

Agreed. Miles that low isn't a good thing. It's spent 99.9% of it's life sitting unused & aging. Plan on replacing tires, hoses, seals, etc. I've ridden more than that in a weekend...plenty of times.

"Bike is in amazing shape...never been laid down" I going to have to call shenanigans on that.