Street Bike?

Should I really be looking at a street bike? I rent a place in town so that I can walk 10 minutes to work, plus this way I don't have to pay for parking near work. If I buy a street bike I'll want to drive it as much as possible...which would most likely mean during the week too. I would go from walking 10 minutes to work to driving the bike in the summer, and after the 1 hour drive from home I pay for parking. Or even funnier I could keep renting a place in town, be at work in 10 minutes and not pay for parking. Plus there's the cost of a bike, insurance, and gas that has to go into the equation. Even funnier would be if I bought the bike and drove it to town, then parked it at the appartment I'm renting now and walked to work. Hmmm, i wonder how much the gas would be for about an hour long commute...$10 dollars a day is only $200 per month...it's all that other stuff that'll get me in the end.

It sure would be a fun way to travel though, this is one of the bikes I've been looking at. I need to do some reading to find out what people are saying about it.

Plans for the Weekend

First thing I'm going to try is removing the starter to see if it's sticking. The only bad thing about that is that after i get the starter working i can't really try it until i get the valves set. Which brings me to the next thing i have planned, my second attempt at setting the valves. I'm hoping that i have them right already, but i think i'm going to make sure before i actually fire the bike up....maybe i should see that the valves are set right before i get the starter working, or i may be tempted to start the bike.

Setting the Valve Clearance

So I took this cap off the side of the crank with a 10mm hex and now I can turn the crank.
Then I took this plug out so that I can find top dead center, at least I hope that's what the T is for.
Now how am I supposed to set the valve clearance to 0.010mm? I can't even tell where I'm supposed to measure that at. I did figure out that loosening the nut allows me to turn the 'screw' to move the valve up and down...now I just have to figure out where to measure the clearance at.

Luxury Items

If someone asks you for 'help' installing accessories you should be wary of how much help they are looking for. I found that helping can often mean i'm doing most of the work while someone that i am helping watches. Oh well, at least I didn't have to do all of the work by myself, it was like having an assistant. In the end the windshield, thumb warmer and heated grips were installed without any major problems. Wow, does that ever sound like an atv with all the luxury items or what? I thought i was spoiled when my bike got a headlight, maybe i should invest in some stuff like hand guards.

Almost The Weekend

I'm working nights for the first week since I started my new job and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. Although I'm still getting up too early for someone who doesn't go to work until 12:30. But lucky for me I only work until 9pm, so it's not like I'm working the graveyard shift. The big downside is definitely that on friday night when I normally leave my desk right at 5pm I'll just be getting back from lunch to sit there and wait for another 4 hours to pass before the weekend. I'm not going to complain though, I like the new job :D

The Death of my Battery

Anyone know how to bring a battery back to life? This one didn't respond well to being hooked up to the booster cables. After five minutes on the booster cables with the car running there still wasn't enough life to get more then a 'click' out of the bike when I tried the starter. I think maybe the next step might be to hook it up to a trickle charger and see if maybe that'll bring some life back into it....or I could just go buy a new battery. Nope, I'm too cheap for that, I'm going to try charging it first.

Honda CRF230f Battery

Honda CRF230f Battery
Originally uploaded by BadDriver.

Well this is the battery out of my bike, I'm pretty sure that I need a new one. Anyone have a new one just sitting around?

I found a downside to leaving the bike in the walkout basement. When you want to take it out of the basement and into the garage you have to push it through a lot of snow to get to the garage. It would have been much easier if the garage was downhill. Oh well, live and learn :D

Notice Anything Missing?

Notice Anything Missing?
Originally uploaded by BadDriver.

Yeah my battery is garbage, the bike won't even turn over with the battery connected and booster cables on it. The bike actually came closer to starting when i took the battery out and ran booster cables from the car to the bike.

Winter Driveway

Winter Driveway
Originally uploaded by BadDriver.

This is a view of my driveway half way between the house and the road. Doesn't the plow on the four wheeler do a nice job? I don't think the crf would quite cut it for plowing, although it would be pretty funny to see me try sometime.

Maintenance Time

I put the bike in the basement a while back so that I wouldn't have to take out the battery. I know that may sound lazy. Well actually it's a walk out basement so I just pushed it through the doors. But even sitting down there where it's warm the bike isn't turning over fast enough to start. If charging the battery up doesn't do the job I may have to take it in for some maintenance. I've had the bike since April and still haven't had the valves checked, I think the only thing I've been doing is making sure the oil is changed and the chain is lubed. Maybe if I keep saying I'm taking it in for maintenance I'll actually do it.

Any one out there want to try and diagnose my problem for me?
-needs to be push started to start it
-will start with the electric starter if it's been running long enough to warm up
-the air temperature outside is about -5 degrees celcius

I'm pretty sure the battery is near dead...I should charge that and see if that helps. Being out in the cold may have damaged the battery enough that it won't hold a charge.

Happy New Year

The year is off to a good start, I'm sleep deprived at this point, so every time a thought comes into my head it's gone again before it gets to the keyboard...yup, so I totally forget what I was going to type here...so I'm going back to sleep now.

Happy New Year!! :D