Motorcycling: The Elements of Cruiser Style

Every now and then a question is asked that sounds simple, yet the answer really needs some thought, which leads to enlightenment.

From a new rider "I am enjoying my V Star 650 Custom, but I am already thinking about my next bike. I am wondering if there is a "cruiser" that doesn't look like a traditional cruiser?"

To answer this, the first step is to break down what a cruiser is, and what a cruiser looks like. And what is the difference between the "is" and the "looks like". Frankly I never thought about it like that before, as I assumed that if it looked like a cruiser it was a cruiser.

One of the turning points in the history of the cruiser was the 1978 Honda CX500, Honda's first V-twin motorcycle. It was first made as a standard, which was normal for the day. In 1983, Honda created a version called the CX500C for the American market. The CX500 continued as the standard model, the CX500C was the cruiser model, and they were both on sale at the same time. The CX500C outsold the CX500 ten to one. It clearly showed that if you make a cruiser, people will buy it. And quite possibly the days of the standard bike were over.

Honda dropped the CX500C and CX500 the next year, deciding to go with their Shadow line of motorcycles, which took the cruiser style even further and were also introduced in 1983.

All this took place around the time that the Harley Davidson boom started. While Honda was trying to make bikes look more like Harleys, Harley Davidson disassembled some CX500 engines in order to study how to make bikes work as well as the Japanese bikes.

What were the differences between the CX500 and the 500C? A smaller diameter, fatter rear tire seemed to be a key element, which in turn helped lower the seat height. Then there were some buckhorn handlebars to help the rider sit back with their arms raised in a classic "cruiser" riding position often seen in Hells Angels movies. And another styling touch, was a smaller teardrop shaped gas tank, tapered at the rear. This seemed to be the shape that everyone in America wanted. It didn't really make sense, as a "fat" looking tank will hold more gas, but what was selling was the tapered look. Another popular trend at the time was longer forks, but that trend has since gone away and is no longer an essential part of the cruiser style.

So the key element to me, of a cruiser is the low seat height. The low seat height forces a cascade of other changes. First, to lower the seat, you have a smaller diameter rear tire. A longer chassis also helps you to make space for a low seat. But the low seat forces you to place the footpegs further forward to prevent knee cramping. To move the footpegs further forward, you need a long narrow engine, (rather than short and wide) meaning the preferred engine becomes a v-twin mounted transversely. With the narrower but longer engine, you need longer handlebars because the seat has been pushed back. And if the seat is set back and low, you can move the instruments to the top of the gas tank instead of over the headlight.

Once you put together all those elements, you have a cruiser. But now what to do if you want something a little different, but still a cruiser? I guess you need to decide what element you would like to change. Cruisers have been built with parallel twins, six cylinder engines, even v-8's. They have been built with non-teardrop gas tanks. You can change almost any element except the low seat. As soon as you make that seat high, I think you have to stop calling it a cruiser, at least in the modern sense.

If you want a cruiser that doesn't look like a cruiser, how about the Suzuki Burgman 400? Low seat, feet forward, but looks nothing like a cruiser.

What Does CTV News Know About Car Safety?

Obviously, the CTV news people have not been following my blog closely enough. I already wrote a blog on the relative safety on small cars vs. large cars. If they had been paying attention, I would not be forced to rebuke them publicly.
As part of my rebuke, I will state that CTV is less well informed than it's rival the CBC news.

The CTV news item was about a crash safety report coming from the insurance industry in the USA.

I had no problem with CTV's basic report, but right at the end of the segment, they threw in a gratuitous opinion about the lack of safety in small cars, even though this had nothing to do with the IIHS report.

I don't have the exact words, but this is the gist of the conversation.

The anchor person asked "But what about the fact that large cars are safer in crashes with small cars?"

The guest expert responded "Even with all the air bags, they have not been able to repeal the laws of physics, and a big car with the extra weight and metal will always fare better in a crash with a small car."

It seemed to me like this opinion was uncalled for especially with a new move on to reduce the size of cars on the road. The expensive "Cash for Clunkers" program has done a lot toward replacing big gas guzzlers with smaller cars.

But it is the sanctimonious statement that "you can't repeal the laws of physics" that gets me the most. If the CTV news writers (who probably drive big SUV's) really want claim the laws of physics as their authority, here is another view. The lower wider car will be less likely to roll over than a car with a high centre of gravity relative to it's narrow wheel track. And because the popularity of SUV's with a high CG and small track, we are now getting more rollover deaths than collision deaths. That is the other law of physics to consider the next time you people at CTV want to report on car safety.

The picture: for an example of how lightweight cars have been made safer, formula one racers have substantially reduced deaths in the last fifteen years, in spite of hitting walls at speeds of up to 300 kph. No they did not repeal the laws of physics. It's done with car design, and I will also mention the drivers wear helmets, and do not text their friends during races. Also notice the low centre of gravity and wide track. These are arguably the safest cars made, although I would not want to drive the kids to hockey practice in one.

Going for Another Motorcycle Ride

This was the first day of the year that I used my electric vest. Mary Ann and I decided to ride together to London, where we could do our own thing then meet up at her parents house in the afternoon for a ride home. The day started at 3 degrees C. went up to 8c then back down to 3c at sunset.

Mary Ann's Burgman just turned 20,000 km. and has had very few problems. It still has the original drive belt. The only annoying glitch is that the reset button for the trip odometer stopped working. She had one flat tire a while back, and we replaced it with a new one. Once this summer it didn't start, and I did a valve inspection, but the valves were OK. Now it does not start quite as quickly as before, but at least it fires up reliably on at most two pushes of the starter button. It has never gone back to the shop since we bought it, for the new tire, I just took the wheel in.

We got rolling at 10:30 AM, about 30 minutes late because of having to put on all the cold weather gear. It is actually so much work putting on the clothing that you can work up a sweat, which is bad because as you cool off, it reduces the effectiveness of the clothing. So the way I do it is to move the motorcycles out of the garage in my normal clothes, to stay cool. Then I put on everything but the gloves, jacket, helmet, and carry them outside to put them on where I don't get too overheated.

Mary Ann took the lead. We have a lot of European style traffic circles in this region, and when I followed Mary Ann around the first one, I scraped the left floorboard trying to keep up. I'm guessing the Burgman has only a little more ground clearance than the Vulcan, because I could see she was pretty close to grounding the centre stand lever. It was the first time I grounded in a traffic circle, and obviously Mary Ann is getting faster as she gets more confidence with about 15,000 km of riding now.

When we got to London, I headed off to Inglis Cycle, and she headed for her parents house. That gave me a little time to buy an Air Hawk seat pad, and to look at the Triumph Scrambler without worrying about keeping her amused.

First the seat pad, which is air filled. I knew this would work for me, because I already did tests with an old air mattress on my seat. I bought a 12" wide Air Hawk 2 "Cruiser" seat pad and installed it in the parking lot, so that was easy enough to do. I did have a little trouble finding what I wanted, because the sales people seem to know nothing about these pads that sell for $140 each. First I wanted one that fit my seat, and they told me that a 12" wide would do, even though the seat is 14" wide. Anyhow, it seemed they did not have any 14" ones and they were not sure that they made them that big. All they had was a "Cruiser" 12" and a "Touring" 12", and when I asked what the difference was, they seemed to think that there was no meaningful difference, it was to just give the customer more choices. Well, the choice I wanted was 14" wide, not some arbitrary alternate name for the same seat. But I guess I should have known better than to tangle with sales associates before Googling the product on the Internet. I bought the 12" seat, but later, I saw the website advises that the 14" is correct for my bike. In any case, the 12" seat pad is more versatile. I also have a 1970 Honda CD175 that could use a 12" seat pad, I can use it on the passenger section if I want to, and the 12" seat does not look bad on the wider driver seat either. But the best part is that eliminates numb butt, which is really all I could ask for. It felt really comfortable for the rest of the day.

I also had time to look at the Triumph Scrambler in real life for the first time. They had two, one a flat green colour with the dual seat and the other a shiny black. By talking to the sales rep, I found out that you cannot get it with the two-into-one Arrows exhaust. What I mean is that you would have to buy it with the factory exhaust then order and pay extra for the Arrows. I guess this is to conform to Transport Canada's noise and pollution requirements, but they don't worry much what you do after you buy the machine. Funny thing is that Harley for years was selling their bikes brand new with aftermarket "Screaming Eagle" exhaust systems. I don't know why Harley Davidson was the only company allowed to do this, but it smacks of unfair competition to me. Anyhow, apparently Harley has stopped doing that now.

There was a Triumph America parked right behind the green Scrambler, and I have to admit that in real life I liked the look of the America more. I guess it's just the more traditional look with brighter colours and chrome that I like. But if the Scrambler came with the Arrows exhaust and the solo seat with luggage rack, I might have changed my mind.

I stopped in to visit my Mother, then headed out to meet Mary Ann at three, as we had agreed, but she was not ready. So I knew with all the cold weather gear this was going to be another half hour of waiting while the sun was dropping quickly to the horizon. It must have been about 5c as we departed for home, and I had removed my sweater, which was dumb because this was going to be the coldest part of the ride. Anyhow when we got stuck for some construction, I had a chance to at least plug in the electric vest. That worked for a while, then I realized I was getting cold again. Finally I figured out that I had accidentally knocked the switch "OFF", and then I got back to feeling warm again. But with the sun going down, and my sweater in the saddlebag, I never fully recovered my body heat from turning off the electric vest. Which means I never got toasty warm again, but I also didn't get uncomfortably cold, just a little chilly in the fingers (Yes, they are affected by the main body temperature and the electric vest)

The two most scenic places on the drive were Jubilee Road, on the other side of London, and the other was Dundas street going through London. Lots of traffic in the centre of London, but I don't mind once in a while, just as a break from all the farm scenery.

Picture: My Vulcan parked in front something that looks like an old WW2 Dodge truck. I took the picture because it looks like the Dodge Power Wagon my father drove in the army.

My Blog Gets a New Look

The blog is almost a year old now. I am marking the occasion by updating the banner picture. It used to be my Vulcan parked on a beach. Now I have an artistic picture I call "Sunset at Tim Horton's". I caught the reflection of the setting sun in the engine side cover of the Vulcan, with the Tim Horton's sign next to it. And because I had just cleaned the engine, the reflection is almost like a mirror.

I have also changed my profile picture because I got tired of Google chopping my head off when the picture appeared in comments. And I fixed up my comment name to match my blog name of "Lost Motorcyclist".

I am going to leave the rest about the same. During the year, my average daily hits have gone from about 0 to now about 15-20. This I think is mostly because Google's top secret indexing scheme seems to rank some of my blogs quite high on the search index. For example my blog "Battle of the plains of Abraham" (with and without quotes) ranks second on Google after Wikipedia. But comes ahead of MacLean's magazine, and ahead of the Canadian Military Museum, and the Canadian encyclopedia. To name only three of the 2,000,000 plus competing pages. And several other pages have a high Google ranking too, for example "street scrambler" motorcycles.

Motorcycling: Group Rides: Safety in Acceleration

I used to belong to a motorcycle club that did a lot of group rides. Quite often you hear comments in group rides, that the leader is going too fast or too slow. And strangely enough it may happen in the very same ride from people in different positions in the group. The fact is, it is not the leader of the ride causing these conditions. It is inherent to group rides, and it is caused by the laws of physics.

I don't want this to be complicated, and basically it is simple, but requires a little background. First, a review of the distance to be maintained between motorcycles. It should be a 2 second gap to the motorcycle directly in front (in the same wheel track), which actually means the faster you are travelling, the greater the distance. This blog is about how best to maintain that spacing without having to reach ridiculous speeds.

If several motorcycles are riding together, with the speed varying from time to time, there will be a lag between the time the leader begins to accelerate, and the next motorcycle begins to accelerate. It may be half a second or 5 seconds, depending on the following rider. You can then add that lag to each rider in succession, because it is cumulative, so with five riders it may be a total of 20 seconds lag from the first to the last.

If the front bike begins to accelerate, it will by definition begin increasing its speed. When the following motorcycles begin to accelerate, they also begin increasing their speed, and as long as both are accelerating at about the same rate, the first motorcycle will always be travelling at a higher speed. As long as the front motorcycle is travelling at a higher rate of speed, the distance between the first and the next bike will be increasing. The increasing distance is also cumulative, to the point where the distance between bike 1 and bike 5 is a kilometer or more.

And eventually, the following riders want to close the gap, and so they speed up a little. Eventually they will catch up, but they may have to reach some quite high speeds to do it quickly.

What can be done about this entire process, which is variously referred to as the accordion, the whip, or the slinky? The lead rider should maintain a constant speed, but of course this is not always possible in traffic. Another question often asked is, should the lead rider ride at a slower speed to minimise the effect? I don't think it actually minimises the effect at all, and I have tried this myself and found the accordion effect apparently works just as much at low speeds. There is also a negative side effect of slowing down, and that is creating a jam of cars behind, which will lead to some cars tailgating and trying to overtake a long groups, which end up forcing their way into the line of motorcycles.

One answer is to keep the group at five or less, if possible. Another solution is for every rider in the group to accelerate harder than normal when following another rider. Many riders think it is dangerous to accelerate hard in a group. I just want to correct this misconception. Speed is dangerous, yes. Not acceleration. That's because speed takes time to bring down and involves momentum. Acceleration can be eliminated instantly by simply turning the throttle off. So in my opinion it is safer to accelerate hard and maintain a position, than to accelerate slowly, lose distance, then have to increase speed to close the gap. In the end, what we need to worry about is differences in speed leading to accidents, and not hard acceleration.

I adopt a policy that the lead rider sets the speed, the following riders set the distance. When I am in the lead, I sometimes want the the following rider to close the gap, but slowing down never seems to work. All it does is make the following rider slow down too. So when I'm the leader, I just set the pace and let the following bike decide how far behind they want to be. When I'm the follower, I try to maintain to correct spacing, and never "push" the rider ahead to go faster.

Just a few more ideas, to keep the group together without going so slow as to create a hazard. If I am in the lead, I try to slow down ahead of traffic lights, rather than speed up to get through. And I stop longer at stop signs to wait for people to catch up, and to find a safer opportunity to pull out. If the lead rider loses sight of the last rider, you need to wait at the next turn or intersection to make sure everybody is together. I also try to avoid overtaking other vehicles, unless I know everybody in the group can handle it.

I also want to mention that in my opinion, the worst type of traffic control for groups is a merge sign onto a two lane road. This is where the group can get split up easily so if possible I try to avoid them.

Friday 13th Wrap Up

On any Friday 13th that has a temperature of over 10c and no rain, tens of thousands of motorcyclists and bikers will drive there from as far away as the United States, in fact I saw one plate from Florida. But mostly from the Toronto Area, as that is where the biggest nearby population centre is.

Several friends in Kitchener formed a group, using email for about four days, where each person made up their mind as to whether they could take the time, or if it was too cold. Finally by Thursday night, 7 people were confirmed, and we planned to meet at the Tim Horton's near Conestoga college, and there would be a sub-group formed at another Tim Horton's which would join us at noon. Although things were a bit late, with the number of cell phones on hand, we were able to steer everybody in the right direction until we all ended up together.

Now seven people is a bit of a large group, and normally I am hesitant about anything over five. But most of us have had practice driving together. And if this Friday 13th lived up to expectations, there would be so many bikes on the road that it wouldn't matter how big the group was, we would just be in an endless parade of bikes within 40 km of the town.

Once we hit the road, there was no need to stop until we reached Port Dover, where the usual conundrum is where to park. When the all-motorcycle traffic ground to a halt about a kilometer from the centre of town, I pulled over to find a parking space big enough for seven bikes. It was easy to find, but with a bit of discussion we decided to try our luck plunging further into the maelstrom of Harleys and other motorcycles, that is Friday 13th in Port Dover. My ultimate objective was the Apple Fritter place. We parked a bit closer then started walking. Soon the police closed off the main street, so everybody moved into the middle of the road to keep on walking. But a few bikes got through the roadblock, and we were dodging bikes while we walked down the centre line of the road.

Finally we reached the Apple Fritter place, and there were eight parking places empty right at the curb! For the first time in the three years it has been in business, I saw a line formed all the way to the door. It wasn't even this busy during the last record setting day, where there were three times the number of bikes in town. Maybe the word is getting out. Four of our group opted to go to the fish restaurant around the corner, and three waited in line for fritters (including me). We planned to meet up later.

But when we went to look for the fish restaurant, we found there were actually about five of them around the corner, since Port Dover is a fishing port. And unfortunately, of the four cell phones in our group, all four were with the fish people. So we decided to head back to the bikes, as the sun would be setting soon, and along with the setting of the sun would come the Canadian reality of November. That is, cold and dark.

We were distracted by many apparitions on the way back to the bikes. A Suzuki Burgman in the shape of a truck. A motorcycle gang wearing raccoon coats and horns riding Indian trikes with ape hangers. A couple getting married, Santa Claus, one Hell's Angel, the widest tire I have ever seen on the back of a bike, I'm surprised the bike could lean enough to touch the kickstand down, and another bike that fell over as we walked past (we didn't touch it). But no nudity. Or should I say, because Mary Ann was present, thank god there was no depraved nudity.
Once back at the bikes, we met up with the fish loving bikers, who had similarly given up the search for the fritter people, and were planning a run for home, or at least the next Tim Horton's on the way home. So we hadn't needed the cell phones after all, ESP was enough for us to meet up.

Pictures. I took both today in Port Dover. For once I didn't steal the pictures off the internet. First picture is our motley group of seven bikers. Mary Ann and the Burgman are in the middle. And I believe it is two firsts for our group: to have two women riders on their own bikes, (normally none) and also the first scooter ever.

Friday 13th Port Dover

Tomorrow is Friday 13th, and there might be a lot of motorcycles going to Port Dover. In case you didn't know: (A) Friday 13th is an unlucky day for the superstitious. (B) Every Friday 13th, many motorcyclists defy certain death by going to Port Dover on their bikes

I always knew Friday 13th was an unlucky day, because my father was born on a Friday, (actually November) 13th, and he was very sensitive about this unlucky occurrence. Every unlucky thing in his life could be somehow traced back to this event.

I am not superstitious, and maybe that's one of the reasons why. But if I happen to die in a traffic accident tomorrow, on my way to Port Dover, it's probably just a coincidence anyway, don't worry about it. If I don't, I could still die of a sugar overdose at the Apple Fritter place near the river channel. But that will not be a curse, it will be deliberate.

Next, I want to make an award for the Blog of the Day. This for Erin Easley who wrote a blog on Nov 10 commenting on Mark Steyn's anti-Muslim propaganda. In retaliation, Mark has linked to her from his website as the "Reader of the Day", and as usual his legions of devoted followers follow the link, and leave comments on Erin's blog to set her straight, letting her know just how ignorant she is, and how brilliant Mark is. I'm sure she doesn't even know who Mark is, because she apparently wrote these well crafted words:

"Fortunately I've had the pleasure of never reading Mark Steyn until now"

http://erine-closereadingnyc.blogspot.com/2009/11/steyn-rant.html


Actually I found Erin had been quite mild in her criticism of Mark's writing style. When I was bashing Mark at around the time I was given Mark's Reader of the Day award, I had gone much further, calling his writing garbage and referring to Mark as a Nazi.

http://lostmotorcycles.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-i-blog-about-propaganda-and.html

Picture: I photoshopped a Friday 13th reaper image I found on the internet onto a still from the movie "Yes Man", with Zoey Deschanel riding an Aprilia Mojito scooter. Then I added the words November 2009 myself.