A big pile of blog

OK. So I'm in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do tonight. So this is going to be a ramble.

I got in about 250 miles today. I would have loved to get in another 100 or so of good twisty roads in, but was not riding well. I was cloudy headed and dehydrated. Making stupid moves and picking poor lines. I'm sure none of it had anything to do with being out all night with Kate and the girls from Tryst making sure all the employees at the Dewars distillery will get annual bonuses. Fun stuff.

I also forgot to eat anything all day. Which normally wouldn't be a problem, but I also forgot to eat dinner last night. So I learned that I can go about 32 hours consuming no calories, other than those found in scotch or soda, before I have a major blood sugar crash.

Throw in the fact that there were deer everywhere and I was on unfamiliar backroads in the dark, and it was time to be done.

The bike is near perfect, and is totally ready to tour. This was the first chance I had with the new tires on the backroads, and they are amazing. I'm taking turns about 10-15 mph faster, holding much better lines, getting a lot more lean out of the bike. And I'm vastly more confident. The outer limits of my bike's handling expanded by 25%. I can't even imagine what it will be like when the new shocks show up. For the first time in my life, I have a bike with no chicken strips. None. Not even a trace.

The only problem I could come up with to fret over is that there's a little more vibration in the grips and pegs than usual. Hands got a little numb today. Also idling a little low. Not uncommon and not cause for alarm. But it was smoother before my last throttle body sync, so maybe I'll check that and see how off they are.

Oh. And my high beam seems to be shooting straight into the sky. Granted, that's helpful for finding the deer hiding overhead in the trees, but less helpful at spotting the ones right in front of you. Minor adjustment should get it back to its normal crappy state instead of its current useless state.

Which leads nicely into things I'd change about this bike if I could. It's pretty close to being my dream bike right now. And the shocks will only help that. But there are a few things I'd change.

1) The headlights suck. They are terrible. BMW has taken a lot of abuse for them, but they never offered a fix. Basically, the only thing to do to improve them would be to install an HID headlight. Call it 100$ and invasive surgery on the bike.

2) The speedometer sucks. At 0-30 mph it's maybe a few miles per hour high. At 30-80 it's about 5mph high. From 80 on up, you'd be better off replacing it with a random number generator. At one point tonight, I looked at the speedometer and it was at 110. That seemed odd since the bike tops out at 120, and there was plenty more power available. So I checked the GPS and it was in the mid-90s. Reading 15 mph high is ridiculous.

3) It overheats easily in this weather. Now this is the case with all BMWs with a boxer engine. And I'm still not convinced they couldn't put a fan on the oil cooler. But we're talking about things that keep it from being perfect.

All in all, pretty minor complaints. So I'm happy.