Air-Cooled Engine vs. Summer

I own a 2021 Ducati Desert X Scrambler Fasthaus edition. This particular motorcycle has an air-cooled engine. When temperatures average in the high 80s to low 90s daily, the air that’s supposedly cooling my engine isn’t all that cool. On this Saturday we had pleasant low 80s for our ride, a real treat at the end of July, but it still wasn’t enough to keep my thighs cool.

As we set off on our ride, I actually was chilled by the wind blowing against me through my partially zipped gear. I took that as an encouraging sign that I wouldn’t get as overheated on this ride as I did last week. We cruised along our twisties and I was wishing for another sight of the bald eagle—no luck. I had an odd sense as we rode our slow circles in the first court. The whole ride my circles felt off for some reason that I still don’t understand. I could do them, but I felt like I was working at them harder.

I did get to see a falcon zipping along the tops of the pine trees as we headed over to the fancy neighborhood. And I was happy when we cruised straight down the long road to the end. The end is a small court, and I again had that off sensation as we circled about. I almost felt as though I was riding too slowly, but I did not have the fear of dropping the bike. I wonder if I am getting a better feel for the speed of the motorcycle and that is why our slow circles felt slow.

We continued our ride amongst the crepe myrtles, brown-eyed susans, and begonias. The dragonflies flitted about, and I was very lucky to spot a Monarch butterfly dancing close to the tarmac. We rode through a gaggle of Canadian geese crossing the church parking lot. As we practiced our standing stops, a Japanese beetle found itself on a collision course with me and veered off at the last second.

All through our ride, I would have been completely cool and comfortable if it weren’t for the air-cooled engine. When I see riders in shorts, I think they must be riding water or oil cooled engines because they would have burn marks on their thighs from the heat. I find myself pushing my knees outward to try and get cool air flow over my hot legs. Every week it becomes clearer to me that the air-cooled Ducati is a cold weather bike.

Because we had strong storms the night before, I had resigned myself to no ride on the R Nine T. So it was a pleasant surprise when Bill headed over to the field. I asked about the ride on still wet grass, and he suggested I just circle the two trees nearby. It was another mixed week. The start was great, and the circles on the bike felt good; I was more worried about the spongy ground. I was determined to get the feel for the dry clutch, not having had much luck with my research. I thought if I let the clutch out most of the way and then rolled on the throttle, I would have it. But I kept stalling. As I worked at it, I thought maybe my problem was as I let out the clutch and rolled on the throttle and started moving, I pulled the clutch back in. Doing this would cut power to the rear wheel and, you guessed it, cause stalling. Bill suggested my difficulty may also have been due to the wetter terrain. In any case I’m due for a good ride next week, and I have a plan to work with for that dry clutch.

Now the BMW R Nine T is an air/oil-cooled engine. Plus, the cylinder heads are down low, so there’s no thigh roasting when I get the chance to ride it. I need to improve on that dry clutch; maybe there’ll be an R Nine T for me down the road.

Ducati Desert X Scrambler Fasthaus engine — The Ducat’s air-cooled engine.

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Keeping Cool

How do I ride a hot motorcycle in July on a 95+ degrees day? And how do I do it wearing three layers of safety gear? By following some simple strategies to keep cool.

For one thing it’s all about the zippers. The way to keep cool is air flow, letting the wind cool me down. So I don’t zip my Alpinestars armored shirt but halfway, and I do the same with my Klim jacket. By keeping the zippers lowered, more air reaches to my core. We tend to think of the core temperature in the cold, but it also works in the heat. Enough air flows through the gear to keep me cool while the motorcycle is moving.

With my helmet I open the air vents, built in to allow for air flow, and I only shut the visor part way. The downside to this is pollen and leaf bits can fly into my eyes. Today in fact a bug pinged off my cheek. But I don’t mind as it does cool me down.

A final cooling strategy is to get out early before the full heat of the day, which we did. Despite our early start, the sun was already burning down. My Mom gave us a fan to put in the garage to help the air circulate as we geared up.

Now many riders can be seen out in short sleeves and some even ride in their shorts. Yes, they are way more comfortable on a hot day, but they are also way less protected. As Motojitsu said, “Better to sweat than bleed.” So our gear is more important than our discomfort.

And I did get uncomfortable. As we cruised the roads, I was fine, but I didn’t do the straightening up from a curve to stop. This drill is towards the end of our ride, so I was really feeling the heat by then. I kept riding in S-turns just to keep moving.

Today’s ride brought a new experience. Last week we brought the gas cans but forgot to fill them up. Today we forgot the cans entirely, distracted by the construction crews arriving on our street. My fuel light has been on for three weeks. When I checked the range on the remaining fuel, the bike told me thirteen miles. Of course, the computer is trying to figure out the range based on how I’m riding. Since I go back and forth between cruising at 25 mph to slow speed (6-9 mph) maneuvering, the gauge got confused. It quickly dropped to 8 miles left where it stayed for a good 10 minutes. Then it quickly dropped down to 4 miles left. At that point, I signaled Bill as we were stopped. He led us from the gravel lot to another church lot to work on S-turns before we headed down the road to the gas station.

We pumped 2.5 gallons in each bike which enabled us to extend our ride as I no longer had to fret about running out of gas and having to push a 400+ pound bike home in the heat. I did much better on my stops, remembering to check the mirrors on almost all of them. The curves were great, but I didn’t enjoy them fully as I was worried about running out of gas. I added swerving the bike with my legs as in an emergency, the arms and legs may be needed to get out of the way. My turns went very well too. I figured out that if I turned the wheel in the direction of the turn (from the stop), and looked in the opposite direction as I first began moving then quickly brought my head around, I was able to make tighter turns without sacrificing my traffic check.

I did get to ride the R Nine T. Bill asked me what kind of day I would have since I didn’t get to ride last week. Last week should’ve been an “on” week making this week an “off” one. As I set off, it looked to be an “on” day after all. I got the bike moving with no stall and drove down the field. On my way back, I remembered I was supposed to stop and restart to practice with the dry clutch. Now I started to have the “off” day. I stalled on most of the stops, but I avoided getting frustrated. Instead, I tried to focus on the feel between the clutch and the throttle. Because it is a dry clutch, it acts like the clutch in a manual transmission car. So I stretched my memory back to driving manual transmissions, and it seemed to me I let up on the clutch some before giving it the gas. I tried this method with the R Nine T and began to see some improvement. This week I’ll look for tips on riding motorcycles with dry clutches, though it really is about the feel on the bike itself.

The bright sun highlighted the crepe myrtles, brown-eyed susans, vincas, and the begonias which have all benefited from the good rain we’ve had lately. I even saw some blooms still on some magnolias. No butterflies about though there were some dragonflies lazily zipping about in the heat. I found it ironic to note a whole gaggle of Canadian geese scampering about in someone’s yard. These birds are flying south for the winter even as we are deep into the heat of summer.

As for keeping cool, when we peeled ourselves out of our safety gear (Bill had to help me out of the Alpinestars shirt as the sleeves were stuck), we compared our large sweat spots on our t-shirts. Bill’s taken to bringing a spare shirt to change into; after this week, I’ll start doing the same. Though looking ahead, next Saturday’s highs are only in the 80s–yay!

Hot July Ride and Another Turtle Rescue

Trapped! That’s the best way to describe our situation yesterday morning when we had planned to ride. Looking out my window, I saw a heavy-duty pickup truck pulling a large trailer with a backhoe atop it. Soon, that heavy equipment was joined by a second pickup pulling a Ditch Witch, Then there was the work truck that kept stopping in the middle of the road right behind my driveway. There’s some kind of sewer work going on in the neighborhood, so we’ve been navigating around heavy equipment all week. But Saturday morning they boxed us in until mid-afternoon.

Our luck was not on the good side that night as heavy thunderstorms rolled through and dumped quite a bit of rain on our roads. The flowers and trees are loving all this moisture, especially the crepe myrtles, brown-eyed Susans, and magnolias (still blooming!), but we had to hope the roads would dry out overnight. But we did finally get a break and dry roads on Sunday morning. No work trucks in sight meant our only concern would be the heat; it was already in the mid-80s and heading up to 90 for a high with loads of bright sunshine.

As we drove over to get the bikes, we averted a small tragedy. Stopping at an intersection, we spotted another small box turtle trying to cross the road. Bill jumped out of the car and dodged traffic to pick up the little guy who managed to duck his head just in time to avoid an oncoming car (the turtle, not Bill). He placed the turtle on the floor of the car where the little ingrate proceeded to attack Bill’s motorcycle boots as we drove over to the woods to set him free. Mission accomplished, we arrived at the garage, geared up, and headed out.

The heat of the day, already approaching oppressive, was immediately dispelled by the cooling breeze that hit me as our ride began. I knew as long as we were moving, I’d be able to enjoy the ride. And it was an enjoyable ride right from the start. We headed onto the curved road where I could practice my counter steering. As I pushed on the handlebars to move through the curves, I began to really understand why motorcyclists love curvy roads. It’s like playing on the bike as I swerve and lean from one side to another.

We got to do S-turns on the small gravel lot before heading out to the larger neighborhood. At this early point of the ride, I remembered to look in my mirrors as I came to a stop, and I had a much better day continuing to practice this skill. Another skill I practiced was turning my head fully right as I turned right. This is more than just looking to the right; it is a full head turn. This allowed me to turn the bike tightly so I did not swing into the other lane of traffic. The head turn also meant the bike didn’t try and straighten from the turned wheel as much. Of course, I need to also look back left as I turn as an extra precaution against traffic, so I need to work on more quickly locking my head to the right and turning after a final glance left.

Another technique I picked up from watching police motorcycle competitions was to push my legs out as I try to come to a no foot stop. I was able to get the speedometer down to 1 mph with my legs out, so clearly this does help me balance. As for the police motorcycle competitions, I highly recommend watching some. The skills on display are amazing especially as they perform them on 700–800-pound large motorcycles. A fun video to watch is the Common Tread video where they enter a police competition (https://youtu.be/qf1j1shZi20).

There was no rain threatening us on our ride, so we were able to do our standing and stopping practice. It went very well as I could bring the Desert Sled to nearly a complete stop while standing. But not everything went well. While we were in the parking lot, I tried to do a figure 8 between 4 parking spaces, focusing on the center spot to help keep me between the lines. As I was making my second attempt, the bike lurched toward the left, so I straightened it quickly. But my right glove stuck on the throttle and I revved that way more than I should have, causing me to lunge across the parking lot. After that, Bill got off his R Nine T and measured the spaces, determining that they were 2 feet short of what they should be. That made me feel better about not succeeding with the figure 8, but I need to figure out why I lapse on throttle control.

We finished up our ride by practicing straightening and stopping drills and speeding to a stop. There would be no ride on the R Nine T for me this week as last night’s rain left the field swampy. I’ll have to hope my “on week” holds through to next weekend.

Luckily, I did spot a Black Swallowtail amongst some flowers, and the dragonflies clearly are living large off the mosquitoes as there were plenty about. I even spotted three Canadian geese chilling in the shade, and we startled a baby bunny as we rode into a court. We also made some young boys’ day as we zoomed by them as they congregated on the side of the road waving to us. We rewarded their interest with some horn beeps.

When we parked the bikes and got out of our gear, we were soaked in sweat but happy, and I spotted a cabbage white dancing along on this hot but lovely day.

Racing the Rain

At 6:00 AM the roads were wet and it seemed our ride wouldn’t happen. But three hours later, the roads were drying off and the sun was peeking here and there through the large storm clouds. We decided to race the rain and work our ride in before the storm arrived.

The temperatures were in the mid 80s but, with the gathering storm, the humidity was way up making for a sticky ride. Some of the neighborhood construction had been completed, so we headed off into a small neighborhood that we hadn’t ridden in for over a month. The road was newly paved and nice and twisty. One of the skills I was working on this week was counter steering or, as Jerry Palladino of Ride Like a Pro calls it, pushing.

With counter steering the concept is more confusing than the action. Counter steering is how a rider leans the bike into curves on the road. In a car the driver turns the steering wheel along the path of the curve. On a motorcycle the rider counter steers the bike into a lean because turning the handlebars at speed would cause the bike to fall (and, most likely, the rider too). The reason it is called counter steering is because as I push forward on either the left or right side of the handlebars, the front wheel seems to steer (just slightly) to the opposite side. This counter steer guides the motorcycle into a lean to follow the curve of the road. As I said, the application is easier than the concept because counter steering and leaning the bike, to a non-rider, might seem likely to lead to a crash. But in reality, the counter steering allows the rider to follow the curves of the road and is quite enjoyable.

So I had success and fun with that skill practice. Another skill we were working on this week is turning from a stop. In the case of turning right or left from a complete stop, the rider should turn the handlebars. By turning the handlebars first and then heading into the turn, I can maximize the available roadway for the turn and avoid going into the opposite lane (right turns especially). The challenge here is once the motorcycle starts moving, the front wheel tries to straighten out. I was better able to keep the handlebars turned when going to the right and found myself straightening the handlebars on left turns. It wasn’t until the second to last left turn that I was able to keep the handlebars turned.

This week I again had trouble remembering to watch my mirrors when stopping. Not until we were halfway through the ride did I begin to incorporate the mirror checks. I did better at checking them as I approached the stop rather than as I stopped, but I need to development my stop awareness at the get go. Then all of my stopping skills will be going well.

I had a few moments riding the Ducati where the heat nearly overwhelmed me. I think the bike’s heat coupled with the humidity makes for a challenging ride. This unpleasant warmth made our slow circles and S-turn practices a challenge. I found myself almost target fixating in the gravel lot and narrowly avoided the wooden beams laid down to form the parking lot. But I managed to squeak by and opened up my visor fully to allow more cool air inside.

Not too many animals about as they were probably already sheltering from the impending storm. I did have a dragonfly zoom into my path flying straight at me before lifting himself up and over my helmet.

When we went to our stand up and stop practice lot, we felt the first drops of rain. I could hear the rain hitting my helmet and saw the drops on the gas tank. It was an early warning as the skies did not open up, but we proceeded to the school field so I could practice on the R Nine T some. I seem to be in an on/off pattern with the R Nine T. Last week went smoothly, so this week I stalled constantly. And this week was when I added coming to a stop and restarting. I did not have one successful restart from the stop. On the bright side, next week’s practice should be another on week.

We returned the motorcycles to my parents’ garage and headed home. The storm began just as we pulled into the driveway, so the motorcycles let us outride the rain. Next Saturday is showing clear skies, so let’s hope it stays that way.

Storm clouds — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Ride, White, and Blue

We had a lovely day for a ride having made the effort to get up and out of the house a little earlier. This early start was to take advantage of the cooler temps before the day hit its high of 93. The 85 degrees was preferable, especially since there was a strong wind to keep a cooling breeze blowing.

Today’s lesson was to work on using my mirrors at stops. On a motorcycle this extra awareness of what’s coming up behind is necessary as I may have to get out of the way. A fender bender for a car is annoying; getting hit from behind on a motorcycle can be tragic.

I had started practicing checking my mirrors at stops when I’m in the car. But I found it was not as easy on the motorcycle. Stops take a lot of mental gymnastics on a motorcycle. As we all know, when we arrive at the stop, we check both ways for cross traffic to safely cross or turn onto the roadway. On a motorcycle I am also focused on how I am stopping, getting my left foot down, making sure the motorcycle doesn’t fall, switching from the rear brake to the front brake, and checking my mirrors for unaware drivers from behind. I have the additional mental check of paying attention to which direction Bill is going and when he takes off and keeping up. So I was well into the ride before I remembered I was supposed to be checking my mirrors as I stopped. Part of my delayed thinking was that I had some hair blow into my left eye and needed to find a stop to get it out. Bill, being in the lead, takes off, and we don’t have a communications system in the helmets. I rode along patiently until we got to the court at the end of the long road. There I stopped and brushed the remaining hairs out of my left eye.

This being the 4^th of July weekend, we rode past many houses flying Old Glory. I also saw a cute stars and stripes pinwheel, and we passed one large white house with red, white, and blue bunting under two upstairs windows—very impressive. It was fun and refreshing to see so many people getting into this holiday’s spirit.

The heat did get to me a bit. As we were doing S-turns in the second church lot, my mind drifted a bit to wishing I was cruising in a long straight line for the cooling breeze. But I quickly refocused on my riding and shrugged off the sweat.

The dragonflies were back, not in as large a number as a few weeks ago, but I enjoyed watching several fly beside me as I rode. No butterflies in sight. I had hoped our earlier start would allow me a glimpse of a few but no luck. My luck was back on the R Nine T as I was able to start it up, find first gear, and take right off. This week I did shift into second and back into first as I cruised along in the shade of the woodland trees. My next challenge for the R Nine T is to stop the bike and restart as I cruise the little field.

As we left the school grounds and arrived at the stop sign, my wish was to see Bill’s left indicator come on not his right. And I got my wish, extending our ride. We cruised the arch twice as there were patches of gravel in the roadway due to construction we could ride across. All in all, a lovely Independence Day weekend ride; I can’t wait for the next one. Happy Fourth of July!