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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jan 4, 2020 14:23:21 GMT -5
Ahh....you've got some fine weather there, lilpinny.
I'll be taking a brief ride in a little bit. But it'll only be local since we've got snow on the ground and a temp of roughly freezing. Only slightly above that. But the humidity is down from 90% to about 70%.
I took a bicycle ride this morning before sun-up. It was snowing and very humid. I had to wipe snow off the front of my visor and condensation off the inside of my visor every few minutes. I even thought about turning back and saving the riding for another day, But I didn't want to give up. And I'm glad I stuck it out.
But the chill I got! I'm only now getting over it.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jan 4, 2020 6:13:24 GMT -5
I was fairly active here for a while. For about a year now I've been avoiding forums (fora?) because I was spending a bit too much time on the internet. I'm understating it. Far too much time puts it better.
Also I retired in the late summer of 2018 and found.......to my surprise.........that I just wasn't scootering very much. I no longer had a destination to go to. I hadn't taken that into account. I tried to ride a bit just for the sake of riding. But I've got too much else to do around the home to be riding very much for it's own sake. I'm also heavily into bicycles and need to put a bit of time into that as well.
There are four scooters in this family. A 2016 Honda Metropolitan for my wife and a 2009 Kymco People 150 for me. I also picked up two Chinese 150 cc scoots not long after buying those first two. They were mostly meant as spares. Yet I've found that I'm really fond of my Icebear 150. I've forgotten the model name. But it's one of those that was meant to look like something from Europe in the 1950s. It's a really sweet bike. Sometimes I think of selling one or the other of my bikes. I don't need two, after all. But every time I choose one or the other I'll find myself riding that one and thinking, "But I do like this bike........." and then I have second thoughts.
The fourth bike is one of those red Tao Tao VIP 150s. I've always been fond of that bike as well. It grips the road very nicely, for instance. But I've ridden it much less because I turned it over to one of my daughters pretty early in the game so that she could have some transportation. It really hasn't done so well. I don't think it's the bikes fault. I think it's my daughter.
Bless her..........but she just doesn't have the 'feel' for what a machine can and can not take. (My wife's not very good with that either, by the way.) She's beaten that poor machine very nearly into tiny little pieces. I had to take it away from her. It wasn't going to last much longer. I'll give her a ride to work during the winter. Come spring.......she's going back to a bicycle. That actually started a few months ago when I took the scooter away from her. She hasn't done badly with the bike. She'll be okay.
So now I'm working on bringing the red Tao Tao back from the near-dead. And it's enjoyable. I've got it running and took the first test ride on it in a while a few days ago. I seem to have a bit of an issue with fuel starvation under load. But I'll figure it out sooner or later. And I'm remembering what it's like to cut up my hands and forearms squeezing my hands into those tiny little spaces in the engine compartment. Meh....I can do without that. I guess I'd better think about getting some small 'blankets' of some sort to cover those sharp edges.
Once I've got it running well I'm going to need to start reinforcing those body panels with their broken plastic tabs and such. And who knows what other looseness and broken stress points I'll find in there? This project will last me into the summer, I think.
But I am fond of this bike and I'm not unhappy about working with it again. And doing this has reminded me of the fact that these really are charming little machines.
And that got me thinking, "Well......I really ought to check in on 49cc scoot again. They're good folks over that way". Hence this post.
I've got to close this up now in order to avoid spending too much time on the internet again. But I'll make it a point to come back soon and go over the new posts and see what some of you others are doing.
See ya soon!
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jul 12, 2018 11:29:45 GMT -5
I haven't done it yet, but I'm willing to go to the police after some incident and say, "I know this probably isn't actionable, but such-and-such an incident just happened and I wanted to let you know that there's a bad actor running around on your turf. Here's a description and plate".
My hope would be that if they then saw the guy running around they might be more inclined to have a close look at him. Especially if they see him doing something stupid.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 30, 2018 13:41:43 GMT -5
Sorry to hear all that. BTW- the saying is now "another day another 10 cents." Inflation you know... I am not sure how it works with Euros or Pounds I think the conversion of "another day, another 10 cents" to Euros would be 'a dime minus a slug'. But if they have metric hours, or something like that, then all bets are off.
But anyway, sorry to hear of your friends troubles milly.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 20, 2018 5:40:09 GMT -5
I've pushed my scooters a few times and I've walked home and then rescued my scooter in my truck a few times. But I don't recall anything remarkable about those incidents.
There was one time, though, on a motorized bicycle (2 stroke, tiny, add-on engine) when the engine stopped very abruptly. I think I suspected that the magneto had died and I think that's exactly what it turned out to be. In any case, I tried to start if back up a few times and then called a friend and asked him to come rescue me. I was on one of those 45 mph, four lane roads with a good breakdown lane. I took the bike about 20 feet or so further off the road and locked it to a sign post.
My friend would have taken me home to get my truck. But it had started snowing and the forecast was for some accumulation. So, instead, we just went to his house and drank beer the rest of the day.
The next day I drove to work and picked up the bike on the way home. When I pulled the bike out of the snow I brushed the snow off of the seat and found one of those red stickers that the cops will put on broken down cars. You know the sort of thing I'm talking about; essentially a warning to get that car out of there before they tow it themselves.
That bike could not have been there more than an hour, and probably less, for that sticker to have been under that snow. And why in the world put something like that on a bicycle, well off of the roadway, anyway?
The police in this town have always been good to me and we don't have any problem with each other. The guy who put that sticker on there probably recognized me. Most of them do. Though there is some turnover in personnel. All the same, someone was being just plain dumb that day.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 19, 2018 7:47:06 GMT -5
Well....that didn't work.
Howdid I get it so wrong? Maybe practice will fix it.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 19, 2018 7:43:57 GMT -5
This is a test.
I wonder how much use I'll have for colored letters?
I'll have to be careful not to overdo it.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 19, 2018 7:41:46 GMT -5
Those three overlapping images are astigmatism. Sometimes you can get a fair correction with eyeglasses but not always. The docs mentioned the Seldane then clamped their lips shut tight... Italics can be turned on and off using [ i ] for ON or [ - i ] to turn OFF just like any other text formatting, just leave out the spaces. There are codes for everything. That could be handy. Thanks.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 19, 2018 7:24:12 GMT -5
I tried one of those scopes many moons ago a neighbour had, looked at Saturn's rings on it bluegoatwoods I put the italics on a post on this forum don't know how as never used them before didn't know how to turn them off either 😊 Pretty cool font play in the last few posts, huh?
And for anyone who's interested, take a look at your night sky about midnight local time. Maybe closer to 1:00 AM is better. Face roughly south. Toward your right hand you'll see Jupiter. Just about straight ahead is Saturn and toward your left hand is Mars. They're spread pretty wide right now. Jupiter is not too far from where the sun had set and Mars is not too far from where it will rise again.
All three are fairly low. But not low enough for the horizon to interfere. Jupiter is pretty easy to spot because it's bright. Saturn is the dimmest of the three right now. But it's pretty easy to recognize because of it's color. It's usually described as 'yellowish', but to me it has always looked more like gold or bronze. Mars is pretty easy because of it's definite redness.
This is a naked eye view I'm talking about here. No telescope necessary. And it's pretty.
They'll move over the course of time. I suppose Jupiter will be close to the sun and hard to see by winter. Saturn too not long after that. I'm guessing Mars will stay in evening view a good deal longer. But I'm not well versed enough in planetary movements to make any good predictions on that.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 18, 2018 1:03:44 GMT -5
You may eventually find that the lenses in that 'toy' scope are quite limiting. Good lenses and mirrors are very expensive. The more expensive scopes may have better mounts and adjustments also. I have helped work on some expensive scopes and mounts in the 10-12" range but my eyes are shot due to astigmatism. I can barely see a few stars at night and nothing through a scope. The Moon looks like several cotton balls on top of each other. I used to have 20:5 (eagle eye) vision before taking Seldane. I'm sorry to hear THAT, Frankenmech. It's a shame.
If I look at the moon without eyeglasses I see three pretty blurry images. Mostly overlapping each other. I suppose that's astigmatism. My eyesight has been poor, though less than crippling, since adolescence.
But I'm still lucky enough that lenses can give me a decent image.
I'm in the transition right now from middle age to senior citizen. And you've just made me realize that I'd darned well better get a decent scope soon if I want to spend some time looking at the sky. It would be just awful if I dawdled and then suffered further deterioration of my eyesight.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 17, 2018 2:36:07 GMT -5
Today I was at work wrenching on air conditioning systems that had given up the ghost in this upper 90s weather. It's good and bad. When it gets this hot I can count on working on A/C. It can be intimidating because failure gets a lot of people frantic. But it's good because I can just ignore the stupid calls. They come every day regardless of the weather. I got one that I didn't ignore toward the end of my shift, as a matter of fact. But that's another story.
But yesterday I worked on a telescope. And it's been a learning experience.
You see, I'm the sort who could have lived a life sleeping mostly during the day and looking at the sky overnight. I hate the Sun, anyway. And the night sky is much more marvelous. But you just can't do it when you've gotta make a living. If you work third shift, then you're not going to be able to. If you work third shift, then you gotta be sleeping during that time. Second shift? Maybe. But in all three cases there are other things in your life that need looking after. You just can't make the time.
So I just never did it. Though if you go back a few decades I did buy a couple of those beginner refractor telescopes with an objective lens of 2 1/2 inches. I remember one getting trashed by a young nephew when I wasn't looking. He seemed proud of doing it, too. One of the few times I had to use an awful lot of self-control when dealing with a young child. (Don't worry. He grew up to be a pretty cool young man and we're on good terms.) I don't remember what happened to the other one. But they're long gone and I didn't replace them simply because I didn't use them all that much.
But about 30 years ago now I did track down the Andromeda galaxy using a borrowed 4 inch Newtonian reflector. And there's a feeling of accomplishment in deliberately taking a look right on through and out of your own galaxy at an object, in this case a neighboring galaxy, on the outside. In that little reflector it was only a white oval. But it's 2 million light years away. And our own galaxy holds all sorts of objects, visible from Earth, that are worth taking a gander at. Star clusters, actual nebulae and such.
They've always called to me. And now I've moved into semi-retirement. And I plan on lightening my work load, away from home anyway, more in the pretty near future. So I'm gonna answer that call.
And as it happens, a few months ago my daughter showed up with a 4 inch reflector that she'd bought at a garage sale for $10. She just had a feeling that I'd like it. And she was right. I could tell by touching it and looking at it that it wasn't a high end model. That it was a beginners scope. But maybe it's in the 'okay' range?
Turns out it wasn't. The mount was just awful. That didn't worry me because I knew I could work out something better. And I did. Along the way, while taking the old mount apart, I came across the "Toys R Us" logo. "Uh-oh....This ain't gonna be good......". But I've got it on a much better tripod and mount now. It's easy to control and aim.
The real trouble is that on the one night I took it out I found that I just couldn't bring anything into focus. Not on any of the eye-pieces that came with it. So I suspected that there was something wrong with the optics and I started googling.
What I found is that Newtonian reflectors have a weakness I'd been unaware of. Their mirrors must be aligned with each other and with the eye-piece to quite an exacting degree to get a really sharp image. what's more is that those optics must be mounted pretty gently. This means that if the telescope is jarred, like maybe driving in a car, then those optics might be mis-aligned. This 'alignment', by the way, is called "collimation". I'm not too sure why it needs its own word. But....oh, well.
The consensus is that a reflector ought to be checked for collimation, and adjusted as needed, each and every time it's used. This cheap telescope, built in a factory you-know-where might never have been collimated properly. And the folks who owned it before me might not have had any idea that this is needed. It's possible the no one has ever seen a good image through this telescope.
The primers and tutorials I found teaching collimation were a bit frightening because what they were describing was confusing. It was hard to wrap my head around it. But some of these lessons acknowledged this and told us, in effect, "Don't worry. It's not as hard as it sounds. You gotta practice. But once you get it, it'll be easy".
So I said, "I can do that" and got started. And....yes....with a little practice I did get better. I'm still clumsy at it. But I can 'see' or 'feel' what I'm trying to do better than right at first. There are tough spots. There's one adjustment of the 45 degree mirror that simply can't be done without both hands, crammed into the mouth of the telescope with no room at all to spare. That would be okay, but that also means that no light is getting in there. So now you're blind while trying to adjust an image in a mirror. How in the world do you do that? But I'm sure I'll find a way with more trial and error.
The real crying shame of it all turned out to be the crappy mirror mounts on that Toys R Us telescope. They're so bad! I ended up giving up on the factory mounts for the objective lens and fabricated my own. They're a bit clumsy. But I think I can make it work. I might have to grind a wrench down. In order to make it thinner so that I can turn the adjustment nuts without disturbing others nuts. (Does anyone know if an 11/32 in cone wrench is available?)
And now there's a gap of about a half inch between the objective lens and the bottom of the tube. No doubt this means that light from outside could get in and spoil the image. But I'm not too worried. A dark colored ditty sack wrapped around the bottom end of the telescope ought to fix that. And that can be removed for collimation, and cleaning for that matter, very easily.
So....anyway......I managed to get all this done yesterday by sunset. And I could see that the collimation wasn't perfect. But it looked like it was better than when I started. So I took it out and gave it a try. Results seemed to indicate that I was on the right track. I got images that were at least a bit better than before.
There was a very thin crescent Moon out there in the glow from the Sun. And the image I got wasn't too bad. I could at least see the roughness of mountains and craters. But the image certainly would have been better if the telescope were adjusted properly.
I moved on to Venus, which was quite nearby. I expected to find it in a gibbous phase. And at one point while trying to focus on it I thought I saw exactly that shape. But I could get it back. And even if that were not just wishful thinking, that image ought to have been better.
So I packed it up feeling not too bad about it all. I'd made progress and seemed to be on the right track. But I spent today wondering if I ought to try to go further with it. I do have other things to do, after all. And some of them are more important than this. Maybe I shouldn't invest a bunch of time in a project that might not ever amount to anything? What if this telescope can't be saved? And that's a particularly good question when you consider that a beginner's scope that'll meet the basic approval of folks like 'Sky and Telescope' magazine for $150. If you go to $250, then you'll find scopes that definitely get their approval. Should I keep on trying to put lipstick on a pig?
I spent most of the day thinking, "No". But right now I'm leaning a bit more toward "Yes" because it would be another accomplishment to take this worthless Toys R Us piece of junk and craft it into a fairly respectable instrument.
And that possibility seems tantalizingly within my possible grasp. As long as that's not just an illusion.
Let me tell you, folks, a Newtonian reflector telescope is a beautiful little piece of machinery. But they're finicky!
Edit: And I suppose I'd better quit trying to use italics for emphasis. It would be fine except that too many times I neglect to shut that off at some point and end up with half of my long-winded posts in italics.
I might have to try capitalizing words that need emphasis. Using all caps is considered bad form. But maybe it's not too bad when it's just a word or two at a time.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 12, 2018 1:09:06 GMT -5
No.....I don't think it's possible to spend too much time on a scoot. That's a very strange concept. It's got me puzzled.
But it sure sounds like your scooter habits are imprinting themselves on your mind. But what harm can possibly come of that?
I think you're A-okay!
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 12, 2018 1:02:33 GMT -5
I think they're both really cool, but the price tags ruin them for me. For $3,600 and $4,000, it's a good chunk of bikes like the..... It's true. The price does ruin it.
If they could get it down to, say, $2400 then I wouldn't be able to resist. But at $3600, it's about 3/5 of the way to a Royal-Enfield Classic 500.
Granted the Honda would likely be a better bike in terms of quality control. But the Enfield would be close enough for me. I don't particularly want a motorcycle anymore since I don't want to balance the thing at one red light after another. But that 500 looks like it's a pretty light bike.
One other thing about the Super Cub; it'd be too small for me. I wouldn't be able to ride it comfortably.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 9, 2018 12:19:30 GMT -5
I don't care about the crazy range, but it was nice to see the picture above for the drive train. New Dutch-built electric scooter claims 400 km range with modular batteries - Jun. 8th 2018
One drawback for having all that torque available resulted in the back wheel slipping out from under me while turning........ This is something that needs to be considered. A machine with genuine torque might be clumsy at low speed.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Jun 9, 2018 9:05:10 GMT -5
That's nice.
ultimatemotorcycling.com/2018/06/07/2019-honda-super-cub-c125-abs-first-look-9-fast-facts/
I'm now trying to decide just how much I want one. There's certainly some temptation.
But I'm a bit tall for the bike as equipped. And even though there's an available passenger seat for me to scoot back onto, I'd also be reluctant to give up that cargo rack.
And target MSRP is just about $3600. That's a lot.
But we can guess that it'll be something living up to Honda's quality reputation.
I probably won't. But I'd like to.
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