Canada's Winter Olympics 2010

I have not written about the Vancouver Olympics yet, but I'm about to take care of that little oversight. And for you, Canadian sports media, commence ducking now.

First to congratulate Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue for their gold medal in ice dancing. I got to confess I just can't watch that sport any more since I saw Jessica Dube get hit in the face by a skate. I don't even know if they banned that particular dangerous move from the competition. But Scott is a relative of one of my brothers-in-law, so I feel obligated to write this.

Now back to the fun part, slamming the Canadian press.

My first criticism results from a game that the Canadian Womens' hockey team played early on, where they beat Slovakia 18-0. The Canadian press worked them over for scoring too many goals. My own opinion is that the Slovakians are big girls, they are in the Olympics, and if 18 pucks end up in their net, they just have to deal with it. Now I would have a problem if the Canadians were taunting them, yelling hateful things, etc. etc. But no, it was done in the finest tradition of sports. Somebody has to lose, and the Canadian team was obviously working up towards trying to win the gold. They don't need the added responsibility of making sure the Slovakians think they are a better team than they really are. On this one, the Canadian press who criticised our team earn a rebuke from me.

Next is the constant harping on the Canadians not winning enough medals. Apparently, our Canadian Olympic Committee started the slogan "Own the Podium", giving the impression that we would be the outright overall winner in these games. Really? Hey, I'm a Canadian, and I never for one second thought of that as being a serious commitment, or I would have started betting money on it (and I could get about 500-1 odds, I might add). No it was just a slogan. This is sports, we are up against teams from countries much bigger than ours with far more sophisticated drug programs. I only expect to compete fairly. Anyway we DO own the podium. As Mary Ann says, we will own it, but we should wait till the Olympics are over before we put it out for a garage sale. So another rebuke to the Canadian press: Drop it with the "Own the Podium" comments already. If you got your hopes up, think of it as a good thing not a problem.

So now it's pretty much established that the Canadian press is going to complain about our athletes whether they win, or lose, and probably also if they draw. I think our main problem is actually the press.

Now we come to something altogether different and unexpected. The CBC's coverage is so bad it is cringe worthy. It seems that for the first time, the CBC is not the official network of the Olympic Games, as the Canadian Television Network (CTV) outbid them. As part of the contract, it stipulates that no other Canadian network is permitted inside an Olympic venue, or to interview the athletes. So the CBC's Olympic coverage is limited to filming correspondents standing outside Olympic venues in the dark, all alone, telling us they are not allowed inside the games. It was funny for the first five minutes I guess. But this is what? the second week and they are not letting up. This morning I switched on the TV and there's the CBC reporter standing beside a dumpster outside in the cold, telling me he is standing beside a dumpster because he is not allowed in to the games. Next time they draw up that contract for exclusive coverage, they need to put a restraining order on the CBC crews, that they should not even be allowed in the Olympic dumpsters.

And one more show that I'm going to slam just because I never did like it. It's on Sun TV, called the "Casino Rama Grill Room", hosted by Gareth Wheeler. Its an irreverent look at sports, and Gareth himself takes the persona of an opinionated loud-mouth. Which may or may not be his real personality, I don't know but he makes it seem pretty genuine. Anyway I watched for a few seconds this morning, and one of his guests said (about the Olympics) that the problem is really with all of us here in the press. "Yes" I thought. "For once, these guys are on to something." But no, I was disappointed to hear that the "Problem" is we still cheer for our athletes even when they don't get podium finishes. So, another rebuke goes to the Casino Rama Grill Room, for making a stupid observation. You were right that the real problem is with the press, it's just not the problem you think it is.

Observations on Motorcycle Luggage

The day I took possession of my first motorcycle, I already had luggage I needed to carry, and my first trip was from the Honda dealer to my home 135 miles away. My small suitcase was tied to the back seat with a lot of string and I headed for home. Everything was fine until I hit the last 45 miles which was mostly washboard gravel road. I had seen plenty of washboard road in northern Quebec, but never with a motorcycle. Washboard is a term used to refer to a rippled road surface, created by the passage of wheeled vehicles, and it is generally full width (shoulder to shoulder of the road) bumps about three to six inches high and about twelve to twenty inches from crest to crest. On a bike with 2.5 inches of suspension travel in back, it is a bone jarring ride, and in 40 miles you may expect to bounce 200,000 times. Honestly I had never experienced anything like this before. True to Honda's reputation, the bike held together under the abuse. However, my suitcase did start to come loose, which I found out by reaching behind while the handlebars bars were being violently shaken, which was not safe. I stopped and retied the luggage even tighter. I tried to slow down, but that only made the hammering worse.

For the rest of the ride, the suitcase kept coming loose. I was retightening and checking every few minutes. The next three months or so of riding my motorcycle consisted of finding a way to strap the suitcase to the luggage rack. On this model of Honda, there was a luggage rack under the removable passenger seat. I finally resorted to baling wire, wrapped over and over the suitcase. Although it took a good ten minutes to wrap it around, at least it didn't come loose, but as luck would have it, part way through the trip I needed to get something out of my suitcase.

I don't know how this discovery came about, but I do remember that around this time my mother sent me a package that included "Bungee cords", which I believe were one of the great inventions of the late sixties. (The term bungee cord as I mean it is an elastic cord with a metal hook at each end for securing cargo to a luggage rack outside a vehicle.) The bungee cord was the "magic bullet" solution, and never again did the suitcase come loose, nor did I have to spend ten minutes tying it down.

Over the years since then I have used bungee cords thousands of times, and I am familiar with not only their weaknesses, but I have a feel for how to attach them so that they don't come off. Apparently bungee cords are not fool proof. For example, they do weaken with time and lose elasticity. And you shouldn't overstretch them, and you should not use them to tie down a rolled up sweater, as the wind may get into the sweater and gradually work a sleeve out until the sleeve gets caught in the back wheel spokes. In other words, yes, things can still go horribly wrong.

About ten years ago, I noticed a new challenger come on the scene, the "Nylon Strap". Soon motorcycling friends of mine were telling me that bungee cords were a thing of the past. These nylon straps looked much tidier and more professional than the often mismatched bungees, but the bungees had proven their worth to me over twenty years and I wasn't about to give up just like that. One morning I was meeting up with a new riding acquaintance for a trip to the USA. He noticed my typically mismatched bungee cords and remarked that I should upgrade to the newer nylon straps as those bungees were not much good. Anyway, he had his tent and sleeping bag strapped on the back with neat black nylon straps. It was not long before I had to stop my bike to recover his sleeping bag and tent that had gone bouncing down the road in front of me. I still use bungee cords to this very day, although granted without the washboard roads there may be other alternatives that could work. Call me a dinosaur.

With specialized motorcycle luggage, each type of bag is designed to go in a specific place on the bike, and each place has advantages and disadvantages. There is the tank bag, which is much in favour in Europe, and that is the place to carry fragile heavy stuff as the ride is smoother on the tank, with less stress on the frame.

Americans have been slow to discover the tank bag, in fact the cruiser riders probably never will because it would block their view of the speedometer, and possibly the road too, as the seats are sometimes very low. American riders have generally gone with saddlebags and trunks. The trunk is usually a box mounted at the very back of the bike over the taillight. Trunks over 15 cm high were illegal in Germany, just to give you an idea of this divide in opinion between Europe and America. Trunks are not good for holding anything heavy, and on a rough road they get an awful pounding. So that's where you may want to keep your hat and maps. But not your camera or beer.

Next we come to saddlebags, an item that is quite popular both in America and in Europe. In England they are called panniers. The disadvantage of panniers is the width, which can make parking a problem, or in European traffic may also pose a problem, as motorcycles can get very close to cars over there apparently. The width also reduces fuel efficiency, as they stick out in the breeze. The two common ways of opening the saddlebags are bottom hinged, more popular in Europe (no idea why), where the door is the entire side of the case and the top hinged, where the door is the top of the case. I guess you can access all your stuff more easily with a bottom hinged case and big door, but since it usually falls out on the road, that is why you might prefer the top hinge. My BMW had the bottom hinge cases, and I fixed the problem by always packing my clothes in another bag that I stuffed into the saddlebag.

With saddlebags you have hard types and soft types. Hard means plastic or aluminum with locks or catches. Soft bags are leather or nylon with snaps or buckles. One real problem that happens over and over with the soft bags is they sag until they contact the mufflers, then they start to melt and finally burn. You are usually totally unaware until a car passes you waving frantically, then you pull over to check, and put out the fire.

Hard cases with locks are best if you need to leave your motorcycle parked with all its luggage. So far I have never had anyone steal my motorcycle luggage, but apparently it can happen. I usually leave my bike parked at McDonald's or Tim Horton's while I'm eating and I can keep an eye on it. At night it's parked at a motel, where I unload it. Or at a campground where I have never had a problem with, or even worried much about, theft.

Just one more comment about European styles vs. American. American tend to carry more luggage. At one campground we were talking to an American couple who were driving two Goldwings and two trailers to carry their stuff. Mary Ann and I were making do with just what both of us could bring on the one BMW. Then I read a funny account in a motorcycle magazine by a European couple motorcycle camping in America. (on one bike with no trailer). They were walking around and noticed an American couple also on one motorcycle with no trailer setting up their camp site. Thinking they had finally discovered Americans who thought like them, they stopped to chat and asked "How did you pack all this stuff on the bike?" The woman answered "We couldn't put all that on a bike!! We Fedexed it to the campground."

Picture: A Harley-Davidson Sportster loaded for camping. You think I photoshopped it as a joke? No. It's taken from the official Harley Davidson motorcycle camping adventures camping website.

Informal Debating: Recreational or Practical?

You could probably tell from a number of topics in my blog, that I like debating, or as some (like Mary Ann) may call it "arguing". A lot of people do not like debates, and don't even like to read about controversial subjects such as politics and religion. That's why I have started putting a "topic menu" on my blog.

There are many reasons I like to debate, discuss, argue, or whatever you want to call it. But one reason I still like to do it is that I try to maintain some perspective, that stops me from getting in too deep.

A way to maintain perspective on controversial topics is to be aware of the different types of debates that are out there. Some need to be avoided altogether, others are unwinnable, others are just for fun. Some topics are traps for the unwary. So let's just take a survey.

I don't want to prejudge these, but first you have some controversies that are commonly known as your crackpot conspiracy theories. The JFK assassination is an old one. Much newer is the "Truther" movement trying to prove that the buildings in 9/11 were brought down not by planes but by controlled demolition. One of the oldest I know is the "Area 51" conspiracy stating that the US Air Force is hiding Aliens somewhere in Nevada. While these are generally harmless topics, they not my favourite subjects. Anyone who wants to engage you in an argument on one of these topics is so much better prepared than you are, it will not be fun.

Next you have fundamentalist religious debates. They generally break down to the basic science vs. supernatural type, with a little bit of ethics thrown in for good measure. Almost always, these debates are a trap, more of a "recruiting ploy" rather than an honest inquiry into the nature of God and ethics. You cannot win a recruiting ploy any more than you can win an argument with a vacuum cleaner salesman. So it's not really that much fun, unless you eliminate the recruiting motive first. That's where you make it clear that no recruitment is possible (not easy to do actually), and take the offensive, not the defensive position. Recruitment debates go badly when you are always on the defensive, for example "Have you ever thought about Jesus as your personal saviour" ans "Ummmmm... no?". That's being defensive. And if you don't watch yourself you will end up chanting Hare Krishnas at a local airport before you can say "Kali-Santarana Upanishad".

In a religious debate, a more offensive position is the safest. Take a stand in saying that the religion in question is actually devil worship, and you are trying to rescue the believer from the clutches of Satan. That way it's more fun for both of you.

Now for politics. The most fun divide in politics to explore is the whole left vs. right thing that is so popular today. On the right the warmongering Fascists, on the left the tree hugging peaceniks and Socialists. I identify most strongly with the left, although every once in a while I find myself agreeing with some obscure point on the right. But it's getting so much less frequent as the positions seem to be getting more extreme. This is usually a fairly safe and fun debating topic, although all too often cut short by somebody accusing the other of being a Nazi.

There are fun nationalistic debates like "Canadian beer is better than American beer". Or more serious ones like "Canadian health care is better than American health care". In Canada, almost 99% of nationalistic debates are in relation to the USA, that's just a fact.

There are also usually some interesting debates going on in the public media, for example every time big business is getting in trouble destroying our health or the environment, a major "debate" breaks out on TV or in newspapers about the controversy of "Smoking" "Pollution" or "Global warming". Debates like this are fun because of their popular exposure. Due to their constant exposure in the media, a lot people are interested in the topic. But in the same way it also gets a bit boring because you end up debating the very same stale old stories with a lot of different people over the course of years. Yes debates like this go on a long time, and the old debunked arguments resurface over and over.

I would put some debates into the "Personal choices" category, such as whether to wear a loaded gun or carry a tazer or neither. Whether to drive a Hummer or a Prius. Whether to ride a motorcycle or a scooter or take the bus. If about motorcycles, it may be which is better, a Harley Davidson or a Yamaha?

Then you have the eccentric debates like "The Earth is Flat", promoted by the Flat Earth Society. As tempting as it may be to engage, don't bother. It's mostly about luring you into a trap with the promise of an outragously easy proposition to debunk, then it turns out to be impossible, because these people have been defending the flat earth theory for years. You may be right, but you can't prove them wrong.

There are actually an infinite number of things to argue about. Do you want an example of a good use for arguing? Say you're out on a first date with a girl, and you get uncomfortable, with nothing to talk about. Getting into a rousing debate about carrying a gun vs. Tazer will not only break the ice between you, but could lead to you making an interesting discovery that will avoid some serious pain later in the night.

Why Not a Smaller, Cheaper Motorcycle?

While I was in the hospital, I was reading the June 2005 Cycle Canada. It had road tests of a couple of interesting motorcycles, and I noticed in their specs, one appalling number. It was the fuel efficiency. The motorcycles were the 2005 Honda VTX1800N at 7.5 l/100km and the 2005 Yamaha Roadstar Midnight Silverado Canadian Special Edition at 6.7 l/100km. The second bike was a little better, and the engine a bit smaller at 1700 cc.

With these bikes, not only is their fuel efficiency in the same range as my Toyota Matrix, but so is their suggested retail price.

If anyone needs to know why American and Canadian consumers are in debt, and the price of oil is through the roof, you only need to ask people why they continue to buy ever bigger bikes, and avoid the 400 cc class of bikes. At the same time as you are running your psychological testing, you may just want to ask a few other questions like: Did you pay cash, if not how much down and what interest rate?

Don't get me wrong, I like a big honking motorcycle as much as the next guy. But I would consider several things in my purchase that other buyers apparently don't care about. First, can I afford it? By my definition, I can't afford it if I have to borrow the money to buy it. I can understand that people sometimes have to buy cars on credit, but a car can be justified as transportation, not a motorcycle. Yes, you can use a motorcycle for transportation, but that argument is delusional if you already have a car, or could buy a nice new car for less than the bike.

Another issue I would look at is the fuel efficiency. A lot of people just don't care about it, and that's why bikes are being designed and sold whose fuel efficiency is pitiful. Their owners like to brag about the power or the torque of the motors and how good that makes them feel. What makes me feel good is not wasting fuel, and any motorcycle that can't go as far on 10 litres of gas as my Toyota, is wasting fuel just as surely as if it had a hole in the gas tank.

By comparison to these hulking bikes, my 2007 Vulcan 900 with about half the engine size, gets between 3.9 and 4.7 l/100km. This is not really spectacular, but at least it beats my car, while the purchase price is also about half of the cost of the Toyota Matrix. This, I would consider reasonable for a big bike. But once a bike gets to be more than the car on price and fuel consumption, I'm starting to think someone is playing me for a sucker.

I have actually once owned a bike that got ridiculously poor gas mileage, it was my 1972 Yamaha 250. However that bike, if you ran it slow, could get consumption down to 3.5 l/100km. But the way I normally cruised it was about 7 l/100km. Anyhow the purchase price was very cheap, and so was the gas in those days. Back then I didn't even think about asking for fuel efficiency numbers, I just figured that a 250 cc bike would not use that much gas, I was wrong.

You can't just go by the size of the engine to determine the fuel efficiency, obviously. The stated size of the engine is the total size of all the cylinders, or technically the area of the piston top multiplied by the length of the piston travel. Normally this would be a good indication of how much fuel is sucked in to the engine on each turn of the crank. But many factors can change the theoretical or the practical on-road fuel efficiency.

Among the theoretical factors is the engine speed (Actually, crank speed in rpm) compared to road speed in top gear, the faster it spins at a given road speed, the more gas it sucks in. This depends on the gear ratio of the vehicle. Another consideration is supercharging or turbocharging, both are ways to get more than 1000cc of fuel into a 1000 cc engine, using a pump instead of atmospheric pressure. My Yamaha 250 was another example of "cheating" because a two stroke gets twice as many power strokes as a normal engine, so even though the pistons were 250 cc, they worked like a 500 cc four stroke. (To be more accurate, like a 375 cc four stroke, because of the holes in the walls of the cylinder near the bottom).

Then we have engine management, basically how efficiently is the gas burned? Any unburned gas going out the tailpipe is just like unburned gas going out the tailpipe. i.e. a total waste. Two stroke engines lost a huge amount of gas out the tailpipe, and did it mostly at high speed to help keep the engine cool, apparently. That's one reason why they ran so much more efficiently at low speeds. Any good, modern fuel injection system will be more efficient than an old fashioned carburetor, so that's another item to consider.

And finally, we come to the vehicle itself, where low wind resistance is important on the highway, and low weight is more important in the city to get better fuel efficiency.

One last point, and that is to address the perceived problem of smaller engines, that don't have enough power for some people. Mary Ann's Burgman, with 400cc can cruise at 120 km/hour, consuming 4 l/100km. You do not really need to go faster, as this speed (which is is technically illegal), handily matches actual traffic speed. Maybe you live where there are steep hills, maybe you need to accelerate hard to get on to the freeway. Most people could learn to use the gearbox better, shifting down a gear or two makes a lot of difference. And I would suggest that if you could drive with a little more anticipation, you would often eliminate the need to play "catch up". In other words, speed up a little before you get to the bottom of that steep hill, or maybe get on the gas a little earlier on the on-ramp. Yes you will have to learn to corner a little faster, but it's better than wasting gas on the entire rest of the trip. And the best place to learn all of these power increasing techniques? On a small motorcycle.

Picture: Taken at the Motogiro America, a "race" with 175cc and under bikes, a common technique of reducing wind resistance is leaning down on the gas tank.

My First Experience in a Socialized Medicine Hospital

This Blog is rate R for rude, crude, and a bit disgusting too. It's an adventure in Canada's Socialized health care system for a motorcyclist of 61 years old. You have been warned.

Getting old and riding a motorcycle, things happen. For example I got a bladder stone, which caused extreme pain when hitting a bump on my Kawasaki Vulcan. I also had to ride my bicycle standing up. A couple of times I had blood in my urine. My urologist said he needed to take a look, which means running a tube up the urethra, which you can look up yourself if you don't know what it is. In the tube is a camera, which the doctor used to find large stone in the bladder, the likely cause of my problems. He suggested I get it removed for free (this is Canada), but I said if removing it is more painful than looking at it, I would keep it a while longer till it got really bad.

A couple of years later, amounts of pain ranged from none at all to some, but mostly no real inconvenience. Lately I decided that if I ever wanted to do some serious riding, I needed to be sure that this bladder stone would not act up, so I said lets schedule the removal.

The removal is done by sending a tube up the urethra, but this time it would be surgery, where I was unconscious. They use this tube to shatter the stones with ultrasound then flush the particles out the urethra, so no cutting into my organs. It would be day surgery, meaning I could go home the same day. Also, quite an adventure for me as I have never before really tested out the Canadian Health Care system.  Our system is the subject of some controversy, as it is free for Canadians, therefore it is "Socialized Medicine" and scorned or praised by the various political camps in the USA.  In America, it's pay as you go medicine. If you don't pay, you don't go.

I arrived at the Hospital and was checked in by a series of friendly, efficient clerks who compiled a three ring binder of all my paper work, and sent me to a room to get changed. I put on the hospital robe and lay down on the bed and found some car magazines beside me which I started to read. A nurse came in and hooked up my hand to an IV, which stayed connected all the time I was in the hospital. It is a tube that runs from a bag of fluid on a pole to a vein in your hand. If you want to walk around you have to push the pole with you and not get the tube tangled. Right on time, a porter arrived and whisked me and the bed off to the operating room, where my doctor, and a group of other people were readying the procedure. It was all very efficient and clean, everything was double checked, and when I woke up I was in the recovery room with a young cute nurse. When you are 25, more than half the nurses are old, when you are 61, most of them are young and cute. Anyhow, at this point I was hooked up to a second tube, which was a catheter going in my urethra again, and this time it was a tube to drain out urine into a bag, so now I didn't need to pee in the toilet any more, it just drained in to the bag.

I was thinking just how useful this catheter might be on an Iron Butt rally, where you would not need to stop as much to pee. In fact, you might never need to stop if you rigged up a drain hose down to the road surface with a shutoff valve when you needed it.

I was supposed to wait a while until the catheter was removed, and then try to pee on my own. If I could do it, I could go home by 6:00. Unfortunately, I couldn't. Not enough anyway, so things started to get complicated. My nurse couldn't get hold of the doctor, he had gone home. She said I would need to stay overnight, and she would have to reinsert the catheter and contact the doctor the next day. This was about 6:00 pm.

She was unable, despite her best efforts, to get the catheter all the way in. It was kind of painful. So then she found another nurse with more experience, and the two of them tried together. This time I was given a shot of morphine in the arm, and from this point on things seemed to get a lot more humorous, as they both hammered away on my penis. Finally the more experience nurse said, "Do you have an enlarged prostate", I answered, my doctor tells me it's the biggest he's ever seen", and then she said, could you try coughing? I did, and it started to move. I was still in a lot of pain. I coughed again and it went all the way in. By this time my bladder was really really full, adding to the discomfort, but as soon as they got it in and released the valve, the pressure started to decrease as the urine flowed to the plastic bag. I remember one nurse saying "you just had a baby!" Of course she was kidding.

Then they called for a porter to take me up to a bed they found for me for in the regular hospital (up to now I was in Day Surgery). The porter was taking a while, so the nurse said I'll push you up there myself, it'll save time. So laying down on the bed, this nurse, and another to help pushed the bed and me along the hallways, and each time there was an obstruction they would say "coming through" or "we don't know how to drive". In the elevator, I asked if TV hospital programs are realistic to people who actually work at hospitals. I found out that to these Nurses, anyway, they thought E.R. was very realistic, and daytime soaps were not. I was actually thinking of "Scrubs". 

I got to the seventh floor room and was welcomed by another nurse, and put in a room with two other men, with the nurse's desk next to my bed. She helped me adjust the bed, and she was the second nurse to notice I has the IV tube wrapped around the pole. I guess all nurses must refer to people who walk around with IV's and get them tangled in the poles as "Pole Dancers" they think it's quite funny.

The Night Nurse told me how to use the phone to call Mary Ann to come for a visit, and I used the phone to also ask Mary Ann to bring some Motorcycle Magazines.

The Nurse (also called Mary Ann) asked me if I had eaten anything all day. Actually I had two crackers with grape jelly and a cookie and a ginger ale in day surgery. She asked me if I wanted something to eat. I said I was thinking of getting a donut at Tim Horton's. Every hospital in Ontario must have a Tim Horton's in the lobby. She said "You're not going to enjoy that donut much when it's on the way back up, and besides they're not healthy." How would you like a sandwich, or a jello, or a juice or a pudding, or maybe all of them? I said that sounded good and she went off to get them just when Mary Ann arrived with my magazines.

I asked Mary Ann if she wanted to look at my bladder stones, as they had given them to me in Day Surgery, and were in my personal effects bag. She said no. I insisted, and she had a look, and was quite amazed at the size and number of them. 

Meanwhile my lunch arrived, and the night nurse put a button on the bed, and explained it was to call the nurse if I needed help. I said, but you're going to be right beside my bed at your desk all night. She said, but once in a while I step out, and so I'll know if you need me then.

Soon Mary Ann left, I spent an hour or so reading the motorcycle magazines, interrupted by the nurse checking my blood pressure, temperature, pulse and whatnot. And being very friendly too. Then I turned out the light for the night. The rest of the night was not very restful, because the nurse spent a lot of time in the dark with a small flashlight emptying urine bags, and the other two patients were in a lot of pain and needed pain killers, and were also throwing up a lot, and I was hooked up to two separate tubes, I still had the I.V. going to my hand. So I could hardly move all night.  The good part was I didn't have to get up and go to pee during the night, the first time in years. When I'm at home and I can't sleep, I turn on the TV. But the stuff going on in hospital is way more interesting than night time TV.

In the morning the Doctor came back, and we decided I would go home with the catheter still in, instead of trying to take it out and see if I could pee on my own. I was very nervous after the experience the day before. But now I'm wondering if I made a mistake because I can hardly walk with this damned thing in, it's only comfortable when I'm not moving.

Now I have a home care nurse coming tomorrow to take a look, and Monday to remove it. Also a I got three prescriptions to take, free because they are covered by my hospital visit.

And because we have socialized medicine, it is all taken care of. I mean I don't have to pay, just show my health card. Yes you may think that I pay a lot of taxes, maybe a do pay taxes, but so does everybody. It's not just the taxes you pay, it's the quality service you get for them. I think I got very good quality service. I've been to expensive Caribbean resorts that I enjoyed less than my overnight hospital stay. I think it is possible for socialized medicine to work a lot better than the out-of-control costs of health care in the USA, where people lose their homes when they get sick, even if they are covered by insurance ahead of time.

Did Somebody Need to Kill the Two Stroke?

Does anyone still remember when Honda was the only Japanese motorcycle with a four stroke engine? All the rest were the infamous "two strokes". I have only ever owned one "two stroke" engine, and when I bought it, I knew nothing about it. Kind of typical of my motorcycle purchases. All done in too much haste, with lots of time to think about it afterwards.

I was actually looking for a Honda CB350, which of course would have been a four stroke like my first bike, the Honda CD175. Just bigger. Motorcycle sales were apparently booming in the spring of 1973, and the Honda dealer was sadly sold out of his fastest selling model. Being kind of short on funds, and not in the habit of buying stuff on credit, I decided to pass up on the bigger bikes that were for sale. But at the Yamaha dealer, there was a forlorn leftover 1972 model, the DS-7. It was a 250, if you looked close enough, you could see the difference (the 2 even looked like a 3 the way it was written on the side panel). I asked if they had the 350, and was told no, they were sold out. It seemed like my choice was limited, and I hesitated because I wanted something a bit more powerful than my 175. But the savvy salesman had an ace up his sleeve. In those days, they could let you take a test drive. So he rolled it out of the showroom, and gave me a helmet, and pointed me up the road. It was quite a rush to be back on any bike a year after selling my CD175. But then I turned the Yamaha onto a steep uphill road in Sherbrooke. Before I continue, let me state that we have no steep uphill roads in Kitchener. This particular road in Sherbrooke was challenging to my 56 Chevrolet, and a few times I had stalled going up it because I could not shift down to first gear, as there was no synchro on first, and I didn't know how to double clutch. I pretty much had to stop at the bottom and climb it in first. Which was why I avoided it. But here I was on a new motorcycle, and there was the hill, it was irresistible.

So I pointed it up the hill kind of like pointing a space shuttle at the moon, shifted down and gave it full throttle. Lucky it was not the Yamaha 350, or I would have found myself and my passenger lying at the bottom of the hill while the bike sailed over the crest 3 feet in the air. But this was only a 250, and thank God for that, because I was totally blown away at how we accelerated effortlessly up the very long and very steep incline to the top. I went back to the dealer and signed the papers for the bike. It was only $800 new.

A few days later, it was starting to dawn on me that this prodigious amount of power from a mere 250 was being made by an unconventional combustion process. Not exactly black magic, but something quite unheard of in usual American automobiles. It turned out it was a two stroke motor. Now what was this going to mean to me?

First, was the sound. It actually sounded at idle like it was rattling instead of purring. Maybe that was normal. Then there was the oil. Apparently I had to add oil to an oil tank every 600 miles or so, as indicated by the sight glass, or the engine would blow up. On the other hand, there was no engine oil to change, so that might be good.

As I looked more into the theory of the engine design, I found that the main difference was in the number of strokes. A stroke is defined as a complete one-direction motion of the piston in the cylinder. The most important stroke is the "Power stroke", where the piston starts at the top, and burning, expanding gas pushes it down with great force, creating power to push the motorcycle forward. In a four stroke engine, three other strokes are needed to set up a power stroke. One to push out the used up fuel, one to pull in fresh fuel, and one more to compress that new fuel just before the next power stroke. That all made sense to me even if it does not to you.

Now what does a two stroke do? As the name implies, it has only two strokes to do all the same stuff that apparently is needed in a four stroke. A brilliant idea, if you can do it, as it results in twice as many power strokes per turn of the crank. The way it is accomplished is even more brilliant, as it is done with far fewer moving parts than a four stroke. Once you understand it, it is simplicity itself. The understanding part can take a while though.

I will make a modest attempt here. First, of course there is a power stroke. But during the power stroke, the piston is also doing a compression stroke. What???? Yes, it does the compression stroke on the UNDERSIDE of the piston, compressing the fuel in the crank case instead of the cylinder. What the heck good is that, unless you are going to spark off the gas in the crankcase to drive the piston back up to the top later. No, that's not what they do, all power strokes take place in the combustion chamber. The compression under the piston is not actually the full compression stroke, it is just a preliminary compression, and when the piston gets to the bottom of its travel, the compressed fuel is TRANSFERRED from underneath the piston to the top of the piston through a hole known as a transfer port. At the same time as the new fuel is coming in under pressure, it is pushing out the old exhaust gas ahead of it out the exhaust port. The coming of the new fuel and the pushing out of the old both happen at the bottom of the stroke, and then the ports close as the piston comes up again on a final compression stroke, and the two cycles repeat.

Whether you think it is simple or complex, it certainly is different, and lots of other issues come up. Like what about the oil pool in the crankcase? Well there is none. You mix oil into the fuel and that's what lubricates the crankshaft and connecting rods. A person familiar with car engines might wonder how this can ever work, but it does because all the bearings are ball bearings, which work well in mist of oil, fuel, and air.

Another issue you may not think of, with an air cooled engine, the piston and cylinder only have one stroke to recover and cool off before the next power stroke. So a common ailment of two strokes is overheating and "Seizing" meaning that the engine locks solid, the rear wheel too, and suddenly instead of just riding along, you are sliding down the road at the same speed with the locked rear wheel fishtailing about. And people wonder why I'm not scared that my Toyota throttle may get stuck under the floor mat.

When I returned my bike to the dealer for the 500 mile checkup, the mechanic informed me that these bikes were not designed for continuous high speed highway riding, and that I should stop every 30 minutes and let it cool off for 15 minutes before continuing. Advice that was totally ignored as I used to run with  full power up grades that were up to 20 km long, and quite steep in places.

My main problem was in the fact that two strokes are very sensitive to exhaust pipe shape and back pressure. And they put out a lot of soot, which coats the inside of the exhaust pipe, and begins to reduce performance within 10,000 km. I never even knew that exhaust pipes needed to be cleaned out on these things until I was stranded with a non-functioning bike in Moosomin Saskatchewan, and somebody suggested cleaning out the baffles.

The animated 2 stroke combustion cycle, I picked two that looked good, there are many worse ones on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuCUmQ9FxMU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW1jixDvUSY&NR=1

A similar motorcycle to hear the distinct sound.

http://www.youtube.com/user/YaMatthias#p/u/5/qFv9e_B8qco

Top Picture: Me on my new Yamaha 250 in the spring of 1973

The Myth of the Simple Motorcycle

It seems a lot of people like the idea of a simple motorcycle, and I have felt the same myself. But is there any real reason why I would want one? I guess the assumption is that a simple motorcycle is also cheap, and can be repaired with bubble gum and a popsicle stick. It may also be lighter, and have fewer things that could go wrong with it.

I am torn between wanting a simple motorcycle, or wanting all the comfort and conveniences technology has to give. I already have one of the simplest motorcycles you could ever want, the Honda CD175. One set of points, one carburetor, four valves in all. Gravity feed fuel tank. It doesn't even have a paper oil filter to change, just a centrifugal cup inside the engine. The electrical system is simple enough that you could actually put the wiring diagram on one page.

It is one of those bikes, that one person could probably have a chance at understanding the entire thing if it was all taken apart. Even the carburetor and possibly the gearbox. Yet it works well, and can do 100 kph on the highway after forty years.

Compare that to some of the new motorcycles with electronic cruise control, radios, anti-lock braking, drive shafts, fuel injection, computer engine management, electronic ignition, satellite navigation systems, liquid cooling, even airbags. All covered by intricate plastic panels that take forever to get off and re-attach.

I love some of the instructions I find in the shop manual for my newer bikes. If I want to replace the clock on my BMW, first "Remove the front fairing". To adjust the valves on Mary Ann's Burgman 400, first "Remove the passenger backrest pad". I mean, come on. With the Honda CD175, I could swap in a reconditioned engine and transmission in the same amount of time. And I have two of those lying around. The first instruction in the CD175 shop manual to remove the engine is just common sense. "Shut off the fuel cock at the tank".

My Kawasaki Vulcan is one of those motorcycles that have the appearance of simplicity. One front brake disk, without ABS. Only two cylinders. Superficially it is simple. Really nothing at all fancy or luxurious. Like the CD 175, it does not even have a tachometer. Unlike the Honda, it has a rev limiter so I don't really need the tachometer.

But the 2007 Vulcan has all the modern engine management stuff, like fuel injection and electronic ignition. Much of the complexity is hidden beneath the surface. Even the surface is hidden beneath the surface, as there is a plastic cover over the engine that looks like an engine.

As long as nothing fails, I don't care. In some ways it is less maddening than the CD175, which despite its simplicity, can develop weird intermittent problems that take days if not weeks to troubleshoot.

Finally, I think the appeal of the simple machine comes down to the satisfaction of understanding how it works. But there are some technological items now that I would not want to give up. Hydraulic disk brakes really stop your bike when you need them. Fuel injection burns more efficiently, and starts instantly even if the bike has been left standing for months. Electronic ignition never needs adjusting. Counter-rotating balance shafts help keep things from falling off your bike, and fillings from falling out of your teeth due to vibration. And these new technologies seem to not break down much either, at least not in my experience. So you give up, to some extent, the fun of constant maintenance, and the understanding that comes with it. And you substitute the fun of not having to understand it, so I guess you have more time to do other things like surf the Internet or maybe even do some riding.


Picture: The Ural Sahara motorcycle and sidecar. I don't think you can beat the Russians when it comes to making simple stuff that works, like the AK47 assault rifle. Even on their space capsules, they didn't take a ten million dollar urinal module, they just pissed out the window.

Apparently the Ural works, I never had one so I don't know. But I have read hilarious stories from Ural riders in the past. In one Iron Butt rally story by Paul Pelland, a valve push rod broke, so he phoned his support crew to discuss the problem.

"Alex told me if the glue didn’t work, just find metal, make pushrod.”

He succeeded in doing it and finished the race. Notice: Finished, not won.

On another ride across Canada, a Ural was stranded and needed to be towed and repaired three times north of Lake Superior. The rider found it embarrassing that the same tow truck driver came all three times. ("American Borders" by Carla King) Apparently more modern Urals today work a lot better than the older ones like Carla's.