Say No to the Off Season: Part Deux
By Victor Cruz
Snow keeps coming, keeps blocking my wheels from leaving the garage. I think its time we start thinking of opening a satellite office. Yankee Beemers South, where we keep a stable of bikes somewhere in Mexico. A bunch of ambitious YBers are going further than that. Our very own are heading off to Patagonia and Chile for two weeks of wine-drinking, goucho-slapping, hardcore riding later this month. We wish them a safe journey over the Andes.
If anyone has read Fred Rau’s “Coming Home” piece in the January Motorcycle Consumer News issue, the lines that got my attention were… “I now respect [New England riders] more than ever, for their continued commitment to the sport despite Mother Nature’s efforts to dissuade them.”
Yes, we are heavily dissuaded every year at this time, slapped in the face by recent snow squalls, with more forthcoming. But I would not be so quick to raise the white flag just yet, or to attempt at satisfaction by watching the Speed channel. Like the opening scene in the Monty Python movie, where the undertaker pushes a cart through town repeatedly crying, “Bring out your dead,” we must respond in kind as did that one body, the guy who said: I’m not dead yet.
Yes, I admit my batteries are on IV. A two-foot high curb of snow blocks anything on wheels from leaving the garage. Ice thick as a wedding cake layers the driveway. And I’m scratching my head wondering about the size of the worm holes eating away my beautiful machine thanks to 10% ethanol. But I’m not dead yet.
About E10, thanks again to MCN for running a letter directly from Marcel Manzano of Gold Eagle Co., makers of Sta-bil. He wrote, “Many components (including gaskets, carburetors, rubber, fiberglass, etc.) manufactured in the ‘80s or earlier will not hold up well when ethanol is introduced….The biggest issue with E10 is that it constantly absorbs moisture which bonds with the ethanol, creating a highly corrosive, hard to burn mess. Keeping the tank full with a healthy dose of Sta-bil should take care of this issue.”
Keeping the tank full with Sta-bil? How much are we talking about? Mr. Company Man says we should throw in copious amounts of his red juice into our tanks. When you read the label, it advises to add in ounces, not in gallons. C’mon, gasoline is suppose to keep its properties intact for six months. Is Sta-bil even necessary during the three months of winter? Always question assumptions. Instead of using Sta-bil, ride your bike at least twice a month.
I made a promise to keep you all posted on how Mr. Gerbings could lend me a major hand in saying “no” to the off-season. Last month I wrote how I plunked down a small fortune to be emperor of the full Gerbings system. The system works. I rode down to the Foxwoods area in Connecticut. By 3:00 the temps were in the 20s. I felt no cold whatsoever, the exception being the cold stares I got from people everywhere I passed. What a nut! They must have said. Or What an idiot! I had the regulator set to full blast. I wasn’t cold, not in the least. Yet one spot on my knee was cinder hot. Turning the regulator knob a notch down solved that hot spot, and when I got home I felt for the coated wires running along the pants liner and spread them further apart at the knee area. But that snow keeps coming, keeps blocking my wheels from leaving the garage.
More about E10. I have nothing against it. Less dependence on foreign oil? Sure! Why not? But leave Alaska out of the picture. I don’t want Big Oil screwing up the Arctic. I want it for myself. Keep it pristine long enough for every motorcyclist to ride up there before the oil runs out.
A gas station attendant went as far as to tell me that E10 bumps up the octane levels in gas. Well, I can be gullible but I don’t believe every word a gas station attendant tells me. But there’s something else creeping up from under the freshly varnished 2008 floor boards. The environment, global warming, Goreism. How much longer before the greening of political activism starts imposing its moral high-ground rhetoric on us operators of leisure gas-wasting vehicles? Pleasure boats, pleasure bikes. Can you think at all about riding your gas-burner without some smidgeon of guilt while soldiers are dying for it? Are we suppose to act as ostriches? I do, at times, feel guilty for taking a hedonistic attitude toward oil. I don’t commute to work, so that helps. Still, the feeling lingers…The guilt is all very short-lived. Motorcycles are so darn lovely. Guilt vanishes the moment when the thumb finds its way to the starter button… the high-pitched squeal of the starter rotor, then the sudden muffled roar out the rear-facing pipe… what a relief; it’s the sound of liberation itself… Suddenly all talk of global blah-blah takes a backseat, rendered mute, as important as yesterday’s newspaper.
What are your own thoughts on this subject? Write me at editor@yankeebeemers.org.
P.S. Please consider signing up for the Montreal Hound Butt. Also the Holiday Party offers a great value. And have you renewed your membership yet?