“You get whatever you settle for.”
That’s a line that defines my life. It was in an email an old friend sent to me. Wise words.
I’m building My daughter a PC today. I went and bought parts for it yesterday. I ordered everything online from a store called MicroCenter. I call that place Nerdvana.
I didn’t want to go in and shop. I hate shopping, but at a place like that I get distracted staring at all the gadgets and gizmos. I wanted to walk in, get my bundle of stuff and vamoosh.
I rode the motorcycle. It seems a little weird, but I’m a little weird. It’s a 40 minute drive one way. Most of the traveling I do is within 10 minutes of the house. My work is 9 minutes from here. I wanted to get Natsumi on the highway and stretch her legs a bit.
I brought a ratchet strap with me. My bike has hard cases and a luggage rack. I put the small stuff in one of the cases and the PC case: the box all the electronic guts goes into and the monitor I ratchet strapped to the sissy bar. I should have taken a picture.
On my way home I noticed that the forks were death wobbling again. The death wobble is when you take your hands off the forks and it jerks back and forth. When I picked it up from the shop that was the first thing I’d tested for. It was as stable as the day it was built.
On that long ride home I discovered oil pooling around the top of the left fork nut. That meant fork oil was escaping on that one side and the forks were no longer balanced, hence death wobble.
The fork nut is what screws into the top of the fork tube. You have to push really hard to get it started because you want pressure on the springs so the front end stands up a little. There is a bolt and collar that you tighten around the nut so it won’t pop out from the constant pressure of the spring.
When I picked up the bike from the shop the mechanic told me I should buy new fork bolts because the air connections were a little reamed out and he couldn’t get an air seal. I knew that already. I wasn’t going to worry about the added feature of ‘air-ride’. I’d given up on the dream of the old girl floating on air like a GoldWing.
I had bought the PC parts on my credit card, which I haven’t done for a long time. When I do I’m nervous until it gets paid off. I’ve been fucked over twice by partners who didn’t take credit cards seriously. So I decided to buy new fork nuts along with the PC parts for Sara’s computer.
With an ancient bike you never know what you’ll be able to find. Especially in America. For some reason Germany is where you go to find old motorcycle parts. The guy who ordered my new fork springs got them from Germany. There’s a little electrical device that I attached to the front wheel gear that goes to my new computerized speedometer that I found on a German website. The guys at the shop had never seen one before. So I ordered the new fork bolts from another German website.
I know how to fix the leaking fork nut. In fact I did it right after I got home, but the only way you can add fork oil is to remove the nut and it’s a pain in the ass to put back in.
In order to eliminate the death wobble I’m going to have to disassemble the forks again. I’ll have to drain the oil on both sides and add the same amount for both sides so they’ll be balanced. Since I have to go through all that I figured I might as well have new fork nuts. It was a little over $100.
What struck me was how much money I’ve spent trying to get this bike to ride like a GoldWing. GoldWings are famous for their floating on a cloud suspension. My motorcycle is a CB900 Custom, which was the little sister of the Gold Wing. Everything about this bike is basically a Gold Wing except for the air-cooled engine.
That’s when your words struck home: you get whatever you settle for.
Why didn’t I buy a GoldWing, when that was what I’d always wanted? I’ve been settling all my life. It’s what I’m engineered to do.
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