Alotta miles in NJ

[mikerbiker]

Greetings from New Joisey. I read alot of the posts from time to time to check up on my riding brethren and read some mostly amusing stories. Have stayed quiet mainly 'cause i'm riding all the time - commute 61 miles each way to work in New York City - off hours so NJTPike is usually clear and i'm usually moving at 70-95mph. Probably 19,500 of the now 20,700 miles are on the same roadway! Yes, i am in the zone... no interesections, high speed every day - kinda like groundhog day. No performance awards yet (jinx). This bike is perfect for the high speed slab rider. It's not country and mountains and all pretty-to-see stuff but i have the holland tunnel, the statue of liberty, and can smell Cinnabons whizzing by the Turnpike reststops.

And trucks have a separate roadway from cars/bikes for most of the way.

Note to NYC visiters: parking a bike is free in NYC and it is legal to park on sidewalks. I work downtown in SOHO and it's more a neighborhood versus midtown hi-rises so plenty of spots. Alot of riders (scooters and bikes) park between cars at the meters but i don't like having parallel parkers taking shots at it all day. A building owner could complain and if so the traffic cops will just leave a note on your bike to move it - it's never happened to me though. BTW, a car costs about $35/day to park so do the math...

Bought the 07 cherry in mid-april last year. Hit 10,000 miles last October and hit 20,000 a few weeks ago. And here in NJ i don't ride 4 months of year due to cold: figure half-Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb and half-Mar are mostly days in the car so i guess that's hard-core or at least alot of miles. Wasn't going to post til i had something "impotent" to say but here's a few facts/observations:

* Friday, my front wheel bearings gave way. Limped it home and left it at the the dealer to have fixed - I have the YES warranty so should be all covered. I'll learn more as to what went wrong when i pick it up end of week. Hopefully it's the the only gremlin in the bike. Hate missing this week of riding!

* I safely got 10,000+ (that's right 10,000!) miles on the stock metzler z6's front and rear so who can complain??

* If you commute, use weather.com's local radar for your zipcode. You can see thunderstorms vs rain with at most a 15 minute delay. I've zipped home (that's a 61-mile zip) on the Feejer more that a few times between the doppler radar's red and yellow spots. It's good to know what's just a little rain versus a nasty lightning-laced surprise. Invaluable!

* My few months of riding home in daylight will soon be drawing to a close. When i'm at work, thinking about riding home at night doesn't make me very happy but once i'm outside it's no big deal and am as confortable at night as in the day. Again i take the same road every day, every G-damn day. Real risk is to get complacent. Probably biggest risk at speed is road debris either animal or tire tread.

Anyway that's all for now. I'm a rider not a writer. Cheers!

 

[ShawnKing]

Greetings from New Joisey.

Welcome!

Note to NYC visiters: parking a bike is free in NYC and it is legal to park on sidewalks.

I don't think that's quite true as evidenced by the three parking tickets my bike has gotten in the past year in Manhattan.

 

[yanktar]

Here in Joisey one of the best things you can put on your bike is a PathBlazer--a headlight pulser. They are legal because they aren't flashing but dimming the headlight about 4x/second...The human eye can't NOT see it--it's wired into our brain. I can't tell you how many times I've been about to be cut off by someone who didn't look just to see them stop and stay in lane. I did feel a little badly about the guy who pulled over into the shoulder thinking I was a cop, but Hey! How many of us have been told by cops that "ignorance of the Law is no excuse!"? If cagers don't bother learning about the laws covering bikes I'm not going to feel bad if they can't tell a PathBlazer from a trooper's party lights. I guess the police here are well-informed because I've never been bothered about it.

I believe other companies make competitors to Kissan's Pathblazer--I just have those because they are easy-to-install and dependable.

Drivers here can be VERY agressive but going more than 15+mph over the limit WILL get you stopped on rt 287. 3 squids in t-shirts and sockless tennies blew by me the other day--the lead went left between me and a cage just in front and to the right of me--his pals were smarter and went right instead--they were also going slower but still leaving me in the dust (I was in the window over the limit where they leave you alone) --when I got to Morristown the lead was off his ride nodding his head to the trooper lecturing him.....

In over 32 years of riding the ONLY time I've ever gone into NYC on a bike was riding two-up with a friend in 1977 and we went to Staten Island via NJ. I grew up around NYC and used to ride in DC every day for 10 years, but still, NYC scares me on a bike.

 

[JerseyEd]

I hope you are reading this Mikerbiker, I saw part of it on the news. I was turning up the sound on my sisters TV when I f---ed the system. Scarcy **** with the blue car and two(?) bikes two days ago. I lost my bike, but see some high miles on your tires. I have a set of new road smarts in my garage that I'm sending back. If you need them I'll sell to you, I am going to take a hit on restocking. I'll give you the discount if you want them. I'm between Hillsbough and Princeton.

 

[MartyO]

You're logging some miles. I ride nearly every day 63 miles one way and all over Southern California going to meetings. I did 360 miles yesterday. I rode the train today and the darn train broke down. My FJR doesn't break down and sees triple digits nearly daily.

I do a lot of night riding. One easy and cheap improvement was to install new Osram Ultrastar H4 headlamps. I little brighter and brighter white. The Feejer has great lights anyway but this did give me some improvement.

You're right you have to be on the ball all the time. The cars think I'm invisable sometimes. I bought my 06A in April 06. It now has 56,000 miles without a problem. I also like my +2 with flip Cee Baily windshield. Big improvement in protection and noise reduction. The Wild Bill highway pegs help when you ride a lot also. I am lucky to be able to ride year around.

Stay safe and have fun.