Perception of Risk

In my previous post, I referenced an article at Home on the Range that gave some very good tips for home security. I particularly agreed with Brigid’s comments about alarm systems. An email exchange with my daughter-in-law caused me to lay out in my mind why I give armed self defense the priority that I do.

The article’s statistics indicate that 1 in 5 homes will be invaded or burgled. My own research indicates that a person living in Texas has a pretty fair probability of encountering some type of violent crime sometime in his or her lifetime. If you live in a city, the odds are higher. If you live somewhere that does not allow concealed carry, the odds are much higher still. I simply believe it is a good idea to improve my odds on the outcome. The original research of mine on these probabilities was based on public records from a time when the economy was good, by the way. It is a telling fact that statistics show that there is a direct correlation between increased concealed handgun licenses and decreased violent crime. Read one of John Lott’s books for more detailed information.

When driving, I wear a seatbelt. Not so much because the law requires it, but because statistics show that they save lives and minimize injuries. This was reinforced in my mind in 1988 when I rolled a pickup truck and found myself hanging up-side down from the straps – uninjured. When riding my motorcycle, even though there is no helmet law in Texas, I always wear a helmet. This is because I know for certain that it can alleviate the outcome of a motorcycle accident, having experienced such. I have had a helmet absolutely save me from a lot of reconstructive surgery on my face. It bothers me that some friends of mine don’t wear helmets. It’s their choice – but I wish for better for them, because they are my friends. I also know that if you ride long enough, eventually you will have an accident. Still, it is my friends’ call whether to wear helmets or not, and none of my business. I felt obligated to tell them about it; I did; and now it’s up to them.

In the same way, every once in a while I point out a potential risk to those I care about. I suspect that this gets me talked about.

One thing to realize is the principle of preparedness commensurate with the potential loss. I don’t carry an umbrella around all the time; if I get caught in the rain, I haven’t lost a lot or created a big problem. Although I am much less likely to need a gun than an umbrella, I do carry a gun when it is legal to do so, because I don’t ever want to be in the position of needing one and not having it if things go pear shaped. I even keep one handy when I’m sitting around in the living room of my house – because I am aware that it would be fairly easy for a home invader to kick in my door and get to me well before I could reach my gun if it was in the bedroom in a lock-box. (1) The potential for personal loss is great enough that I think it is worth the hassle to carry. I simply could not bear the pain if, for instance, somebody snatched one of my grandkids – and I could have prevented it if only I had been armed. Knowing how I would feel, of course I go armed. Selfish of me, I guess.

I’m 55 years old, and I have lived to see a decrease in compassion, an increase in rudeness, a big increase in population, and a large increase in the number of people who have no moral compass. It looks to me like the probability of needing an effective means of personal defense is increasing, particularly with millions out of work and some of them getting desperate. As these people’s unemployment benefits expire, a certain small percentage of them will begin to get more creative in how they get what they need, and the number of people in that category will continue to increase for quite some time to come. The current economy will inevitably result in an increase in crime.

As Robert A. Heinlein’s character Lazarus Long said, be an optimist by temperament, and a pessimist by policy.

I guess it’s a matter of perception of risk. I may err, but I will err on the side of safety for my family and myself.

-Popgun

Footnote (1): If the grandkids are visiting, I make darn sure the guns are locked up, except for the one that is on me; and I make sure that one is safe.

I Want One of These

This is cool! An amphibious ATV that can go 50 mph on land or water, and converts from one to the other in five seconds with the push of a button.

Nifty.

-Popgun

A Beautiful Day – So Far

Riding in to work this morning was about as perfect as I’ve ever seen. Beautiful weather, temperature perfect, very light traffic – a great way to start off the day!

On a related note, I was reading yesterday that somebody has determined that coffee (well, caffeine) can help prevent and / or cure Alzheimer’s. Especially if you drink three or more cups a day.

On the other hand, a month or so ago, I was reading that three or more cups of coffee a day can cause hallucinations.

And a personal observation: I drink a lot of coffee every morning, I’m in my mid-50’s, and I’ve never had kidney stones. I suspect that there is a correlation.

Looks like I’m not going to have to worry about Alzheimer’s or kidney stones. The hallucinations are y’all’s problem.

Now, if I could only sleep all night….

-Popgun

Motorcycling Has it’s Risks

Yesterday, Friday, I was riding my Suzuki DR650SE through some residential streets on the way to the mechanic’s shop; they had my old van.

Anyhow, I was going down a perfectly straight stretch of road at the posted 30 MPH speed limit, oddly enough. Traffic was light, just a couple of approaching vehicles in the other lane. One of them was an old beat-up pickup truck with an old man in it, (older than me!).

This sucker turned left in front of me, without leaving nearly enough room. The SOB (sweet old boy) had the temerity to wave at me, as if to say “oops! – my bad!”.

I wasn’t precisely expecting his maneuver, but I was paying attention. I instantly hit the brakes and downshifted; the back wheel locked up for a fraction of a second, and danced to the right a little. Then the rear end of the truck passed in front of me so I had somewhere to go; I got off the brakes, cussed a little bit and went on. I was seriously annoyed that I had locked up the back tire – the tires are new, and I hate wasting rubber.

A motorcyclist is helped somewhat on reaction time by the fact that most of the time, your hands and feet are already on the controls. I can put my brakes on quicker on my bike than I can in my car.

What kept this incident from being a visit to the emergency room was the fact that I was paying attention to my surroundings. Wool-gathering while riding will get you killed – and I wasn’t wool-gathering. Also in my favor – I knew what to do without the need to think about it. I’m an experienced rider, and I’m comfortable with my bike – I knew how it would react to an emergency stop situation, because I had practiced emergency stops with it shortly after I got it. (This is a good idea for any motorcyclist – practice emergency stops – carefully).

Had I been half a second slower to react, I’d have hit him. If he had commenced his turn a fraction of a second later, I’d have hit him. If I’d been in a car, I probably would have hit him. Also note the slow speeds. If this identical event had happened with me traveling at, say, 60 mph, I would have surely gotten to see the inside of an ambulance. But I was only going 30 mph, to begin with.

Here’s the deal. A motorcyclist will face this sort of incident, probably several times a year or more, especially if you ride in traffic a lot (which I don’t). It pays to be alert.

ADDENDUM:

Oddly enough, today at lunch I happened to learn about another motorcycle accident, which happened about a week ago.

The time was around 10:30 PM, on an unlighted country highway, at a ‘y’ intersection. A motorcycle rider, aged 27, was proceeding down the straight leg of the ‘y’ at high speed, reputedly over 90 mph. Another vehicle was sitting at the branch of the ‘y’, at a stop sign. He pulled out, and the motorcycle hit him broadside. The motorcyclist died at the scene.

I don’t know whether the vehicle that pulled out got any citation or not. I hope not, though. First, it is extremely difficult to judge the speed and range of a motorcycle that is coming towards you at night; with only one headlight on the vehicle, you don’t get the visual cues you do for an oncoming car. Second, the driver had no reason to expect anything to be approaching at twice the posted speed limit. The driver probably thought he had plenty of time to get out into the other lane.

The rider violated quite a few common sense safety rules. Speeding. In the dark. “It’ll never happen to me” syndrome. Not anticipating potential problems. Shucks, an armadillo would have taken this guy out – at 90 mph, he was outrunning his headlights. By that I mean, if a brick wall got in front of him, he could not possibly have stopped before hitting it – he wouldn’t have seen it in time. I mean no disrespect for the dead, but this poor young man died from his mistakes.

Motorcycles are a lot of fun, efficient, there’s lots of good things about them and I love them. But the learning curve is where things like this happen.

My sympathies to the family.

-Popgun

Motorcycle Tires – Finally

Well, I finally got the tires mounted on my Suzuki.

As mentioned earlier, I mounted the tires myself, to save the $150 the dealer would have charged. Of course, I had to buy a set of tire irons, and altogether, it probably took me around four hours.

I did the back tire first. Removing the wheels went exactly as predicted by the manual, and with a little help from my son, J, I finally broke the bead off the rim with the use of a middling-sized C-clamp. It took several tries.

These are spoked rims, so the tires have inner tubes. First you use the tire-irons to pry one side of the tire bead off of the rim, then you fish the inner tube out, then you pry the other side of the tire off the rim. This takes about three hands, but it is manageable with just two. It helps to set the wheel on the floor so you can use your knees. Ow.

Also, note: tire irons, when left in place to hold a position, are under tension. They can hurt you if the tire moves and they can flip around when your hand isn’t on them. Ow. At one point I had the end of one narrowly miss my face – an incident from which I learned, and made darn sure it didn’t happen again.

Pay attention to the rotation arrow on the tire. Motorcycle tires are unidirectional, unlike car tires. Even though I knew this, and checked it, I still somehow managed to put the back tire on backwards, and had to take it back off. I made doggone sure I had the front one on the right way!

In removing the front tire from the rim, I managed to pinch the tube, which punctured it. So I had to go find a 21″ inner tube. That, and rain, caused a week-long wait to finish the job.

After assembling the front tire, I used the shaft and a couple of jack-stands to spin the wheel to balance it. Not having any of the proper weights, I used some heavy gage copper wire that I happened to have on hand. I’d spin the tire gently and see which side came to the bottom. Then I cut a piece of wire and taped it to the spoke closest to the top of the wheel (opposite the heavy side). Repeat until the wheel no longer brings any particular side to the bottom.

Remove the taped-on wire and lay it all in a line, cut one piece that length. Weave it between the spokes, centered on the one spoke that the pieces had been taped to. Bend the ends around the spokes near the end of the wire (hard, because it was seriously stiff wire). Crimp to the spoke at those bends, and put a bit of tape in the middle to keep it from moving around.

Mounted the front tire on the bike, checked everything, and test rode it. It’s all good, so if there’s still air in the tires tomorrow morning, I’ll be riding it to work.

I plan to buy actual made-for-the-purpose motorcycle tire weights to replace my improvised weight. What I did works fine, but looks tacky.

-Popgun

Motorcycle Tires for a Dual Purpose Bike

I’ve been riding a long time; I think I’m on my tenth motorcycle, at the moment; It’s a DR650 Suzuki dual-purpose. Dual purpose bikes are sort of a niche product – if you can only afford one bike, they are a reasonable compromise for someone that wants to commute to work, and take an occasional trail or dirt road. This Suzuki is the fourth bike in this category I’ve owned.

I’m pretty disappointed in the tire mileage I’ve gotten on this one. I have around 4400 miles on it, and the back tire needs replacing. The front tire is at about 50%.

So I did some research, and found some Pirellis that I like the looks of – the Pirelli Scorpion Trail. These are not the cheapest tires out there, but they probably aren’t the most expensive, either.

The local dealership quoted me a total of about $320 for the two tires, plus $150 to mount them. The other local dealership quoted almost the same. So, around $470 from the dealer.

I found the same identical tires online at a motorcycle on-line store, total cost $212 for both, with free shipping. So I ordered them. I’m going to take a swing at mounting them myself; I’ve done it before, although it was a long time ago. I do need to buy some motorcycle tire-irons. I don’t expect it to be easy, but I can devote this Saturday to it and maybe save around $255; my fall-back position is taking them in to the dealer to get mounted, if I just can’t do it myself.

Frankly, I’m a bit amazed at the quoted $75 per tire just to mount them. But I may be finding out why it’s so high.

-Popgun

Motorcycle Physics

Most people, even those who ride motorcycles, don’t realize this bit of physics.

Have you ever wondered why it is easy to balance a motorcycle while going down the road, but hard to balance one while sitting still (with your feet up)? It has to do with how motorcycles are steered.

At speeds above parking-lot speeds, you actually steer a motorcycle left to turn to the right, and vice versa. Don’t believe me?

It’s easy to check out. Get on your motorcycle, on a long straight stretch of road with no traffic, of course. While proceeding in a straight line, gently push forward on, say, the left handlebar, thus turning the handlebars to the right. You will find yourself banking left.

What is going on is this. A motorcycle is extremely stable going in a straight line. All forces are being applied in the plane of the wheels. Balancing is easy while doing this because you are constantly making micro-corrections in handlebar position to keep your center of gravity in that plane; you do this instinctively and unconsciously.

When you go around a curve, you do this by driving out from under your center of gravity. If you want to go around a left hand curve, you steer to the right slightly, driving the wheels out from under your center of gravity, which is now left-of-center of the motorcycle; and you bank to the left.

Having established this situation, once again, you instinctively maintain this balance until it is no longer needed, at which point you bring yourself back to a straight-line balanced position by using the same principle.

And that is how motorcycles work.

-Popgun

Motorcycling in August in Texas

Highs today seem to be in the upper 80’s, and the area is threatened with rain. I went ahead and rode my Suzuki to work, because last week one day we had 100% chance of rain, and I actually saw about four drops of rain on my windshield during the day. So with a mere 40% chance, I figured I’d give it a whirl.

I dug out my Aerostich Roadcrafter to wear today. It’s actually a bit warm yet to be wearing this, but I wanted to make sure it still fits and is in good shape. Mine is Hi-Viz Yellow with silver trim. It’s nearly waterproof, and has armor at elbows, knees and back, and you get where you’re going clean – it keeps all the road grit off of you. It’s got a bunch of pockets on it, eleven I think. It is extremely visible, which is a large safety factor. Excellent protection, short of actual racing leathers. And you can put it on over street clothes in about 20 or 30 seconds. Very comfortable in temperatures below about 80, and warm enough down to about 30 F, depending on how you adjust the various zippers. I love this suit – I don’t think there’s anything superior.

If you are in an accident, and find yourself in court with whoever hit you, and they say they didn’t see you, all you have to do is show the judge this picture. If they didn’t see me, they are blind. The reflectors on the breast and across the back are actually so good that they have to cover them with a different material to take press photos – flash photos in the dark tend to make the rest of the suit hard to see.

So far, I have been mistaken for a rescue worker, an off-shore fisherman, and a Power Ranger at one time or another…

For the style-un-conscious fat old guy on a dual purpose dirt bike in East Texas. With a gun. Snort. Ride’m Cowboys!

-Popgun

Motorcycle Update – around 1250 miles

With new Corbin seat installed, my rear end is finally a happy camper! I can ride for as long as the gas lasts without hurting! At last! I cannot express how big a difference this makes.

I bought a rear wheel stand for the bike, since it has no center stand. This makes chain and rear wheel maintenance, and changing the oil much easier. I also found out that a bit of brake cleaner is really good for cleaning chain lube off the back wheel.

Still having a good time!
-Popgun

Rainy Days and Mondays…

100% Chance of Rain today. Rats. I put the new Corbin seat on my Suzuki DR650-SE and haven’t had the chance to ride it yet. I don’t mind riding in the rain if I get caught away from home, but if the probabilities are above 50%, I leave the bike at home. Oh well, looks like it’ll be Wednesday, by the forecast.

And it’s Monday. My company is beginning to implement a safety program, and I’m the liaison with the company that is setting us up. Trust me on this, setting one of these up is not something you want to do from scratch; it’s worth the money to get informed help. Plus, we have to register all of the related information and records with a couple of on-line services which make your safety training and OSHA records and so forth available to your customers. Bogged down in paper, again. So it should be an interesting week.

As a business grows, you spend higher percentage of available funds doing things like this, which are requirements of your customers and the government, but contribute nothing to the bottom line. In my grandfather’s time, if you wanted to run a stable and be a farrier (the guy who shoes your horses), you put up a sign and went to doing it. Nowadays, you have to have insurance (in case you, your employees, or a customer gets kicked in the head), more insurance (in case your customer sues you if a shoe comes off), and even more insurance (in case the barn burns down), and you have to file OSHA reports (so the nanny state will know your accident record), and it goes on and on. And you have to file all this information with a third party online service as a requirement some of your customers has, or they won’t do business with you.

When I was a kid, I didn’t know it would be like this. Of course, I was a kid long enough ago that back then, it probably wasn’t like this.

Oh well. Life is as it is, and often not as you would like it.

-Popgun