The
Squamidian Report – April 17 / 10
Issue #412
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Ok, here we go again, yapping about bike stuff. Well too bad, I have to come up with something to write about and there just isn’t all that much happening these days to choose from. I guess I could mention seeing another bear. This one was standing in the ditch along the highway just across for the Adventure Centre. It looked like he/she was trying to decide if crossing the highway could be done without conflicting with the vehicular traffic. I could probably also mention that we saw the (assumably) same bear that evening near the same place when we went out for a short ride on the bike. Or I could mention that I gave ‘the wife’ two piles of topsoil for her birthday. One pile was top dressing soil for filling in the holes and low spots on the lawn and the other pile was flowerbed soil. She has the top dressing soil wheel barrowed into place already but still has the manurelier flowerbed soil to deal with.
I guess I could mention that stuff, but I won’t. And I won’t mention how we still are not getting very much in the line of nice weather. Oh, we have had some pretty nice days, warm and sunny. But it seems by evening the clouds have rolled back in and the showers have started again. Or, on other days it has just not warmed up at all and is too cold to go for much of a ride. I also won’t mention that ‘the wife’ and I did a nice evening ride into Horseshoe Bay on the bike for fish and chips. We get a take-out order from the same place we took everyone last summer when they were out, and we go sit on a park bench and watch the ferries and the smaller boats and the seagulls watch us. But I won’t mention that either.
What I will mention however is that on the few occasions were we can go for a ride, those rides are quite comfortable. And there is a reason for that. The one and only problem I had with my new bike is the height. I knew ahead of time that these machines sat half an inch higher and were even heavier than the old ones. The only time this extra height was a problem was when stopped as that required getting the feet flat on the ground for support and stability. Even at that I was not having near as much trouble as I expected because this bike is so incredibly well balanced. However, there are solutions for getting me and by default my feet closer to the ground. One solution is what is called a Reach Seat.
Reach seats are seats that Harley sells that have been re-designed to sit the rider and passenger lower. By sitting lower you can reach the ground and get your feet braced for holding up the bike. Also by sitting lower, the centre of gravity of the rider and passenger is lower making for a more stable bike when stopped or moving slowly. Now because Harley is Harley, those seats are fairly expensive. However, Ryan found one on Craig’s List for half price. It had only been used for a short (pardon the pun) time and was in mint condition. I purchased it and installed it. We immediately found that ‘the wife’ not only sat a bit lower but she also sat a bit more comfortable as her feet could now properly reach her footboards and her back rested against her backrest at a better height. So it’s a good thing all round.
Installing a seat on a Harley if a very easy task. On all their models with the exception of the V-Rod the seats are held on with just one small bolt at the rear. The front of the seat has a slot that fits around a metal tab behind the tank, so you just push the seat down and forward and then install the small bolt. The only other thing is the grab strap and it is undone by removing one small bolt as well. So switching a seat on a Harley is a five-minute job, max. Just thought you’d like to know.
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
Well, I’m not sure what’s in it but the pharmacist from Greenbrook Pharmacy has mixed up a potion that has made my hand a lot more movable and a lot less painful. I guess I inherited another one of my mother’s traits in that I seem to have contracted arthritis in my left hand and a little in my right as well. It’s made it very painful to type over the past few weeks. I’ve been taking Tylenol Arthritis formula and they’ve been doing very little to lessen the agony of this disorder. Carole had suggested that I spend several periods per day squeezing a red heart shaped rubber ball that she gave me to try to gain more strength and movement in my hand and it really did a lot of good. However if I’m squeezing a ball it’s difficult to do anything else with that hand at the same time. In fact, it’s downright impossible. So I’ve been using the ball intermittently and applying the mixture that the pharmacist mixed up for me over the past week and the condition of the hand has greatly improved. Guess all I can do is keep up the therapy and figure what a lot of my friends have been saying is true “Getting Old is a Bitch”! Just gotta keep on fighting it and quit complaining!
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This past weekend Adam and I installed a new water heater in the house. The old one was only a 1996 model but it was leaking from the bottom of the tank and of course there’s no way to repair such an animal. Thank goodness I still have some contacts in the Heating/Plumbing and Air Conditioning wholesale business and was able to pick up a good water heater at a cost considerably less than paying retail. While I was in Home Depot picking up some “pipe dope” for the gas piping I met a young guy that is in the mechanical trades business and he mentioned that Mid efficiency furnaces are no longer being manufactured and as of the end of this year will no longer be sold. The government is aiming at having all new installations from that point on be High Efficiency furnaces only! I guess it’s part of their “Going Green” project for the future. I was going to leave replacing our 34 year old Lennox furnace until it finally gasped it’s last breath in a couple of years before replacing it but when I found out about the Mid Efficiency furnaces demise at the end of this year, I decided to replace the old blister now. The problem with going High Efficiency is that these units require a set of twin plastic pipes to be run horizontally across your basement ceiling to an outside wall and then cut through that wall to exhaust the fumes from the furnace out and bring in fresh combustion air to feed the furnace. In our case, our furnace is located directly in the middle of the basement and the utility room is completely surrounded by other rooms all with finished ceilings. So in order to run the HE pipes to an outside wall, I’d have to tear through one of those ceilings and more to install the vent piping. I’m not about to do all that for the sake of 10% more efficiency in my home fuel consumption. Besides, a High Efficiency unit would cost me more than twice that of a Mid Efficiency furnace.
It takes a lot of years of running trouble free to get that expenditure back in natural gas savings. A Mid Efficiency unit will give you 80 to 85% efficiency while burning natural gas. While a High Efficiency unit will give you as much as 95% (some manufacturers claim up to 98%) but I’ve been in the business for many years and installed my share of these Mid and High efficiency units and have my doubts as to having any of the HE units produce that high an efficiency burn. I feel very confident that the Mid Efficiency units are quite satisfactory when it comes to saving money over the old “standard” furnaces. The mid efficiency units can be vented up the same “B-vent” chimney that a standard furnace uses and therefore you cut down the cost of special venting. I guess the government is trying to standardize the gas industry and in doing so they figure they might as well go with the most efficient furnaces available. I still say there are applications that are very difficult and therefore very expensive to do if you are forced to go with High efficiency furnaces. It only makes sense to have a couple of choices when it comes to a new furnace in your home. However,I guess the government stands to make a lot more in sales taxes if they make every home owner buy a more expensive furnace for their home when needed. Again, when it comes to governments it’s all about money isn’t it!
Well, I’m just happy that I still have a choice in this matter and also that I have the know how to do the installation of such items myself. With a bum hand in the offing, I’m sure I won’t be doing much of this type of work in the future so it’s best to get this one finished now while I still can! Hopefully I’ll last as long as our new furnace and vice versa so this’ll be the last time I’ll have to worry about such an installation. At least I can take my time and get to the installation over the next few months before next winter sets in! Don’t want to leave it to the last minute though and have to rush it when the snow starts to fall. I’m sure that over the next month or so it’ll get done.
When Adam and I had finished installing the new water heater we lugged the old brute out of the house and placed it on the boulevard out front. It was Saturday so I figured it might get vandalized or at least knocked over during the night. We put it out around 8pm Saturday evening and I looked out Sunday morning to see if it was still ok. It was and that was at 9am. Carole and I went out for a couple of hours Sunday morning and when we returned home, the heater was gone. I guess someone needed it more than the garbage man! LOL! I doubt there’s much scrap value to a leaky water heater but like I’ve always said “One man’s junk……”! Oh well!
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With the sun shining and the warmest of temps to hit the area so far this spring, I took the bike out for a spin this afternoon. I guess I could have ridden with just a tee shirt on (and pants etc of course) but I decided to wear my riding jacket just in case it got cooler by the time I was heading for home. I took a ride out through Elmira to Arthur and then decided to take a few side roads just to see where they went. Well, I haven’t gotten lost in many years but I managed to confuse myself today. I got twisted around and thought I was heading over in the direction of Elora but when I finally motored into civilization, I was in Palmerston of all places! I still can’t figure how I wound up west of Arthur when I thought I was heading southeast all that while. Oh well, even the best orienteering driver can get mixed up occasionally I guess. Funny how when I was perfectly willing to stop and ask directions, there was NOBODY around to ask! That’s ok, at least now I know a different way to go from Arthur to Palmerston! Although I doubt I’ll ever feel the need to do so again. It was a lovely ride and a lovely way to spend a Thursday afternoon so I’m not complaining! Merely commenting on a new adventure! I’ll tell you though, for a Thursday afternoon there certainly were a lot of motorcycles on the main roads if not on the side roads. Where are the other bikers when you need them anyway? Guess I’ll just have to get that GPS mounted on the bike sooner rather than later! LOL!
That’s about it for this weeks folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now… GREG.
PS: Something To Think About>
Life is too short to waste time hating anyone!
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Have a good one..
the doug
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