Enough of the sad story.  Here are the funny pics.

Yup, using stainless hardware as filler for that monster gap  where I had cut the original stock exhaust off.  The can i’m throwing on there was actually from a buddies SVs from like 98 or something.  I just wasn’t about to let this thing go w/my Carbon Leo exhaust on it!  I really wish I’d kept the OEM brake lines, those stainless lines weren’t cheap, and the grip heaters were nice too.  Oh well, live and learn.

• Got ’98 berg for 1750, excellent condition, tons of extras in early 09

• Commuted on it off and on for 4 months

• threw a roller through the valve-cover in mid 09

• rebuilt and re-rebuilt the motor after various metal bits tore up the insides of the motor for about 3 months 
• bike sat in pieces for an entire winter
• summer 2010 I acquired a basket case ‘berg ’97 to use for parts
• late summer 2010 still no success

This brings me to the 21st of Sept 2010.  I want this bike ready for the awesome winter trail-riding in the PacNW.  So I took the motor to one of my Boss’ most trusted mechanics.  He’s working on swapping the munched bearings out for the less used and fresher ones from the ’97 case.  He’s also going to reassemble the whole bottom-end for me since I’m just fed up with doing it myself, and want to focus on other things this month.

Here’s hoping for a solid rebuilt motor that will get me through the winter, and maybe spring.  For the short time I rode the bike, it really was like nothing else.  In supermoto trim, she’s absolutely volatile, and in dirt trim, a force of nature.  She’s my tall, blonde, Swedish high-maintenance woman and she needs to be back in my life.  It’s going to be another long winter, and I need to get my skills up so I can do RedBull Romaniacs in a year or two, OR do Endurocross when it comes back to Seattle.

Halo: Reach: Decog

I have dropped almost all other games I own, just so I can focus on these two.  I played the heck out of SC1 back in the day when I was in high school.  But every time I tried to play online I got pwned pretty badly, so I pretty much only played weird custom games like ‘paintball’ and messed with the map editor quite a bit.  Well this time around I’m determined to get to Gold League.  I don’t expect to get any higher than that to be honest, but Gold is my goal.  I’m not doing much multi in ladder matches currently, been playing a TON of custom games.  I’m focusing on getting some achievement points and also just drilling my build order for each race into my head and hands.  Need that early game stuff to be nearly autopilot.  If you want to try a 1v1 just add me and give me  a holler.  I’m pretty shabby (especially when tired), but I love to learn new stuff, so have it me.

Now about Halo.  Oh man, it is so awesome to be playing Halo again, and kind of giving a crap about it.  I haven’t played Halo since the first couple of months after H3′s launch.  I got pretty competent, then took a break to play other stuff, and when I came back, the entirety of XboxLive was light-years better than me.  Again, this time, I am hoping to stay faithful to Reach and to StarCraft and actually stay competitive.  This is the goal anyway.

I’ve seen some pretty awesome clips thus far of Halo: Reach impossible kills.  Can’t wait to have some of my own to share.  I had some incredible ones (especially with spikey ‘nades) where I’d get crazy multis and streaks, and Reach is just rife with low-hanging fruit in this category, and plenty of loftier ones too.

Here is a pretty sweet top-10 vid I saw yesterday.

And here is  a pretty wicked hijack!

I’ll leave you with that.  And be back soon hopefully with more.

I’ve heard them called all sorts of things: “hippo hands”, “elephant ears” or “gauntlets”.  The latter definitely sounds the coolest, but in reality they end up looking like either of the prior.  The fact though is that while people can deride them all day long, the only person laughing is the guy riding with them on his bike.  He gets to wear normal riding gloves, and his hands and wrists stay toasty warm, and more importantly, DRY.  I purchased a pair of PowerMadd Gauntlets just recently, in preparation for the winter commute.  I ride about 15 miles each way to work every morning and eve, and I usually leave in the coldest part of the morning, and the coldest part of the evening.  I’ve tried all kinds of gloves, except the $200 plus pairs out there.  These gauntlets were sub $40.00 and came highly recommended so I gave them a shot.  What fallows is a basic install guide, and my thoughts.

a shot of the exterior

a shot of the interior

Install:

I’ll do this in photography with captions…seems to be the simplest method.

Step1: remove your hand guard and slide the gauntlet over the guard so that the elastic straps are stretched around the large part of the guard.

Step2: insert this end first!

Step3: Bolt up the bar-clamp bolt now and tighten it down.

Step4: You should be looking like this. Make sure your bar-plug is fully inserted. Depending on how temperamental your clamps are, you may have to monkey around with this a bit.

Step5: Velcro part one

Step6: Velcro part two

Step7: Tighten down the strap, and cinch it up.

Step8: I put the extra length back through the top of the loop (toward the front of the bike)

front view of the left side

back view of the left side: I just want to stick my paws in it!

What is missing here?

Alright now that wasn’t so bad.  So I went and did the right side in 1/8th the time it took me to do the left, and quickly realized something.  In our lovely state of WA, mirrors are a requirement on motorbikes.  Well I don’t see any accommodation at all for a mirror in these gauntlets.  Was it just missed?  Unlikely.  It’d be my guess that these are meant more for off-road use only.  Well that being the case I’m going to have to make a solution.  Can’t be riding around tempting the police to pull me over…lord knows I don’t need that.

something like this

going to need a punch-hole right about here

like so

I added a little nylon washer to the mirror post, in hopes of sealing a bit better against the fabric.

As we like to say in the office: D U N

Impressions:

I’m excited about using these.  I much prefer to ride a normal glove, with better protection than my winter dirt-bike gloves, as they get the job done off road, but they make me nervous in the street.  Going down on asphalt in those would not be fun at all.  So these gauntlets do inspire a bit of confidence, which is always a great thing on your motorbike.  The fit was great, they look OK, and they aren’t too floppy or saggy or anything, even though they are on Barkbusters, and not PowerMadd hand guards.  I should mention that on the internal view, you might be able to see the little elastic ‘pocket’ toward the open end of the gauntlet, this was designed specifically to fit on PowerMadd hand-guards, and so I’m not using that pocket on my bike, but it does not appear to be a necessity to install them.

(+)

• nice material and stitching quality
• easy to install on (presumably) any hand guards
• keeps paws happy
• run normal riding gloves
• easy on/off (just remove the hand guards)

(-)

• there hast to be a more attractive solution (besides $200+ gloves)
• no mirror options! Really!?

I’ll ride these for the remainder of the winter and offer up a report to you guys about my long haul impressions.  Hope this helps someone!

You may catch me waxing on about the following:

- video gaming

- riding motorcycles

- motorcycle…stuff

- industrial design

- art

- music

- relating to humans

- relating to children (since they don’t count as ‘humans’ apparently)

- riding bicycles

- building anything in the above list (save for children of course)

- modifying…anything

- using design software

- 3D modeling and rendering

- Adobe CS4 (or 2 or 3)

- drawing/sketching and idea generation

- inspiration

- motorcycles