Author Topic: where is everyone  (Read 24754 times)

Offline gyrogearcrunch

  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 211
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #15 on: October 17, 2010, 10:04:38 PM »
Right on about getting old, Gunny. Just had a lens replacement done, eye beginning to clear up, so I rolled the 1255 out onto the driveway to go riding, turned my back, and it promptly fell over! Damn! Lucky a neighbor went by and gave me a hand raising it back on the 'tars'. Nothing broke but the left front turn signal housing and clutch lever. Left engine cover nicely scraped also. Who makes crash bars that fit the 1255?

Any idea where I ought to look to get these parts online? I hate my local 'stealer'. He ripped me off something fierce on a carb cleaning job. Knew I should have done it myself. I know there's an IPB online (Ron Ayers?) that's good for parts numbers, but does he sell and is he reasonable for OEM parts?

At least the old 1200 now runs well after being upgraded with a set of stage one jets and an air box mod. MPG is off, though. It used to give me up to 45 mpg. Now it's down to 38. I think the carbs are in need of more tuning.

Now for the IMPORTANT QUESTION: Where is everybody? :banghead:

No need to go all political trying to figure it out, tho - We were warned by the PTB's years ago that we'd better become more co-operative or the BIG BOYS would march off stage left after stealing everything in sight, including our savings, retirement funds, homes and country. They seem to be succeeding.

Notice how many more homeless Vets there are now? You'd think the VA would re-open a closed base in each state to at least give them a place to sleep and eat. The TBI cases (Traumatic Brain Injured) could use a lot of help too. Local VA hospitals are trying, but not succeeding. They are sticking to the old saw that requires the Vet to prove what injured him/her, but they aren't even trying to do diagnostics on those who make a claim for treatment.

Yup, America is going out of business.  :rant2:



I still drive by the old Banit Alley ghost town once in a while just to see if any of the avatars have had the dust disturbed on them. Since my avatar is the same on all my BBS sites I consider myself alive and well but at-large LOL. I think the whole moto-boomer love affair is starting to finally subside as we die off, get crippled or too soft to keep up the speed-racer-easy-rider mantra. I wonder why I keep my bikes as I haven't ridden them seriously in a year. I have been riding street and dirt bikes since I was 13 and now that my joints are staring to get temperamental at age 53 and my last bike injury 3 years ago still leaves me with a fat ankle I ponder the balance between the thrill of victoriously riding with the wind in my hair or the agony of a looming crash and burn defeat finally make the decision for me. Do I keep my late model bikes that I now ride about as often as I mail holiday greening cards, letting them devalue to the point of a few hundred bucks just to say to myself "you still own them so you must be cool" or do I face facts that "the thrill is finally gone" and get some value out of them before its too late? that is the question.

I found this music video that kind of sums up how I feel after logging well over 80,000 miles on street motorcycles and 40,000 miles on dirt without a major crash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDp4kyHqbcQ

Offline LowRyter

  • Site Supporters
  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 578
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #16 on: October 18, 2010, 01:09:39 AM »
I just get a new lens as well.  It's called Crystal Lens.  It's hinged for focussing.

John L

1998 Red Suzuki GSF-1200S
1998 Red & Cream Moto Guzzi V11 EV
2001 Greenie Moto Guzzi V11 Sport

Offline wfrpalm

  • New user!
  • *
  • Posts: 7
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #17 on: October 18, 2010, 08:49:28 AM »
You could try BikeBandit for parts. I've always had good luck with them and their name is fitting for our bikes.

Offline pmackie

  • Site Supporters
  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 1149
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #18 on: October 18, 2010, 02:04:17 PM »
Quote
check out a Zenith "luggable"...not a notebook or even a laptop, but a heavy thing not much smaller than the system box

Hey Sven...you and I must be from the same vintage...back in the early 80's we also had a Zenith unit at work we could take home. It was about the size of a system unit, but looked like a  large sewing machine, but weighed more. IIRC it had a little 6" CRT screen built in, with a couple of 5-1/4" flopply drives, and a whopping 128k (not meg or gig, just k) of memory.
Paul
2002-GSF600S, Progressive Fork Springs, B12 Shock,
SS Brake lines, EBC HH pads, Leo Vince Ex & Kappa bags.
Ex Bike Mechanic (late 70's), somewhat rusty
32 years in the Fuel/lubes industry(Retired)

Offline LowRyter

  • Site Supporters
  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 578
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #19 on: October 18, 2010, 07:09:25 PM »
You could try BikeBandit for parts. I've always had good luck with them and their name is fitting for our bikes.

ahhhh parts?

 :?:
John L

1998 Red Suzuki GSF-1200S
1998 Red & Cream Moto Guzzi V11 EV
2001 Greenie Moto Guzzi V11 Sport

Offline CWO4GUNNER

  • Site Supporters
  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 1199
    • GUNNER G. CWO4 WEPS USCG Retired
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #20 on: October 19, 2010, 03:52:46 AM »
Yeah.. I cant tell you how many times Iv looked at those engine guards and put off buying them. Being raised as dirt bike rider finding myself on many a precipice and leaned early to always-always push and park a bike like it wanted to fall over all the time. So Iv crashed um (dirt bikes) but never had one fall over YET.

The only new news is that I have revived a 35 year old hobby of fish keeping and have restored 8 old aquariums totaling 1000 gallons. No computer news as I haven't built my own since 2004, still using my store bought AMD 4400 Dual. The only thing is I need to down size and get rid of my old stored collection of Macintosh 128K, 512K, and Lisa computers. After not touching them for 6 years surprisingly still worked. I keep waiting for that last big hoorah bubble in the economy when everyone closes their eyes tightly and start spending into debt one last time so I can sell everything off before the country slides down the rabbit hole.  Im thinking Alaska lol

Offline stormi

  • Administrator
  • Board Homesteader!
  • *****
  • Posts: 2801
  • BOFH
    • stormi's other hobbies
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #21 on: October 19, 2010, 01:59:15 PM »
So I miss the old comraderie here, and I have not felt any comraderie at FJR Forum, so I end up not posting stuff at either board.

Sorry to sort of turn this into a rant about another BBS, but I guess seeing the difference in tone between one and the other makes me miss the Bandit Alley of five years ago even more.

Ouch,.. so since I've taken it over, essentially?

I'm as guilty, if not more as anyone else of not contributing lately.  I keep the behind the scenes stuff running, but I just can't seem to keep up with the on stage stuff.   It doesn't help that I have large projects on the go at home (we just built a 24 x 30 ft garage, and we're in the cleanup and organization stage now, but I also know that I should be around more.
 
What should we do about the ghost town echo?  We might as well keep the alley going, we own it for the next 10 years.  :stickpoke:
stormi

Dita - 91 Bandit 400 - SOLD
Blue - 02 Hornet 919 - Perfect Gentleman
02 KTM 200 EXC - Sold
08 VFR800 - Lowered 1.2"
17 KTM RC390
17 Husky TC85 converted to 105

Electrosport Charging System Test - it really works

Offline stormi

  • Administrator
  • Board Homesteader!
  • *****
  • Posts: 2801
  • BOFH
    • stormi's other hobbies
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #22 on: October 19, 2010, 04:37:09 PM »
On another note...I just picked up a new "desktop replacement" lugable...A Toshiba P500, c/w I7-740QM processor, 2x500 gig hard drives, GeForce GT 330M, 4 Gig DD3, 18.4" screen.

Pretty slick for a laptop, almost silly except I use it as my primary computer at work. This will be my first Windows 7 system...so a new learning curve for MS Office.

Anybody else got something new?

New as of last winter for me
Asus G51J-A1:  i7-720QM, 4GB DDR3, 15.6" 1920 x1080 full HD LED screen, 2x320GB drives, and Win7 Premium.  I get almost a full hour out of the battery.  Really, LED screen with a Quad core?  :)
The learning curve for Win7 isn't too bad.  MS hasn't really done anything innovative since Win95.

And of course the VFR that even Paul didn't see when we went through Cranbrook this summer.  (Sorry we didn't stop back in for coffee on the way back, I was exhausted after riding back from Ainsworth in the dark on an unfamiliar road.  I was not going to be good company. )
stormi

Dita - 91 Bandit 400 - SOLD
Blue - 02 Hornet 919 - Perfect Gentleman
02 KTM 200 EXC - Sold
08 VFR800 - Lowered 1.2"
17 KTM RC390
17 Husky TC85 converted to 105

Electrosport Charging System Test - it really works

Offline pmackie

  • Site Supporters
  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 1149
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #23 on: October 19, 2010, 05:05:36 PM »
Quote
Ouch,.. so since I've taken it over, essentially?

I don't think so Stormi...IIRC the site was pretty active even a couple of years ago.

I think part of the problem is that the guys with the SACS engined Bandits have pretty much done their mods, the issues are well known, and those of us that did our updates have moved on to some other new bikes, and their related forum sites.

In addition, it seems that the new Bandit 1250/650 Water Cooled are either:
a) just so darn good, that no one needs to modify them/fix them
b) or they attract the guys that don't tweak them, and don't visit the forums.

Like many others, I have been only "visiting" the site recently, and not contributing much. I didn't ride the new Triumph ST as much as I hoped this year either, only 7000 kms, on a couple of trips. I had a plan to do at least 12,000 kms on at least 4 or 5 trips.

Ah well, I at least rode the little B6 220 kms this year, so it got a lttle use.
Paul
2002-GSF600S, Progressive Fork Springs, B12 Shock,
SS Brake lines, EBC HH pads, Leo Vince Ex & Kappa bags.
Ex Bike Mechanic (late 70's), somewhat rusty
32 years in the Fuel/lubes industry(Retired)

Offline wfrpalm

  • New user!
  • *
  • Posts: 7
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #24 on: October 19, 2010, 05:51:20 PM »
I love my 1250. I don't want to tweak or do anything but ride it. I think 1200's and 1250's are great bikes and Suzuki had it figured out as they usally do. :beers:

Offline Sven

  • Site Supporters
  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 1918
  • Drop the puck!
    • My site is always under renovation!
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #25 on: October 19, 2010, 08:13:23 PM »
Hey Sven...you and I must be from the same vintage...back in the early 80's we also had a Zenith unit at work we could take home.

 :beers: Too funny!  Our had a turquiose screen with dark text.  We were always ordering more and more floppies so you could keep 18 generations of every document in case something went wrong.
2003 Suzuki Bandit 1200S | el Bandido de Cerceta | the teal bandit
2010 Yamaha FJR1300A | Gin Tama | the silver bullet
2002 Honda CRV | the dirt-colored car

Offline Sven

  • Site Supporters
  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 1918
  • Drop the puck!
    • My site is always under renovation!
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #26 on: October 19, 2010, 08:21:03 PM »
Ouch,.. so since I've taken it over, essentially?

You are following the wrong rabbit trail!  Nobody appreciates your work over the past few years than I.  But the older I get, the more I am appreciating the reality that nothing stays the same.

What should we do about the ghost town echo?  We might as well keep the alley going, we own it for the next 10 years.  :stickpoke:

Huzzah!  That's the jolly old spirit! (I didn't say *how old* I am, did I?)  Maybe you could run a contest.  Can you put up the first $25K and the rest of us will chip in payday after next?  (If I ever see my money...these retirement home expenses are steep!)
2003 Suzuki Bandit 1200S | el Bandido de Cerceta | the teal bandit
2010 Yamaha FJR1300A | Gin Tama | the silver bullet
2002 Honda CRV | the dirt-colored car

Offline Sven

  • Site Supporters
  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 1918
  • Drop the puck!
    • My site is always under renovation!
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #27 on: October 19, 2010, 08:41:16 PM »
it might be a little late this year, perhaps next spring?

The "fun end" of Tennessee is a full day away from the Bluff City.  I'd vote for something in the Ozarks.  But we have time to debate that all winter long.  This Ohio board is really on a roll!
2003 Suzuki Bandit 1200S | el Bandido de Cerceta | the teal bandit
2010 Yamaha FJR1300A | Gin Tama | the silver bullet
2002 Honda CRV | the dirt-colored car

Offline LowRyter

  • Site Supporters
  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 578
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #28 on: October 19, 2010, 10:51:18 PM »
So I miss the old comraderie here, and I have not felt any comraderie at FJR Forum, so I end up not posting stuff at either board.

Sorry to sort of turn this into a rant about another BBS, but I guess seeing the difference in tone between one and the other makes me miss the Bandit Alley of five years ago even more.

Ouch,.. so since I've taken it over, essentially?

I'm as guilty, if not more as anyone else of not contributing lately.  I keep the behind the scenes stuff running, but I just can't seem to keep up with the on stage stuff.   It doesn't help that I have large projects on the go at home (we just built a 24 x 30 ft garage, and we're in the cleanup and organization stage now, but I also know that I should be around more.
 
What should we do about the ghost town echo?  We might as well keep the alley going, we own it for the next 10 years.  :stickpoke:

Strormi-  you might note that we're all on the Ohio forum, I don't think there's but only 1 OH person posting.

I think we'd have more conversation and traffic if we consolidated all new business in a single forum.  Archive all the old stuff by category and get the conversation in a General Discussion.
« Last Edit: October 20, 2010, 12:20:48 AM by LowRyter »
John L

1998 Red Suzuki GSF-1200S
1998 Red & Cream Moto Guzzi V11 EV
2001 Greenie Moto Guzzi V11 Sport

Offline Unique

  • Board Homesteader!
  • ***
  • Posts: 133
    • unique/bandit400blog
Re: where is everyone
« Reply #29 on: October 20, 2010, 12:02:45 AM »
am not from Ohio..I don't ride 1200/1250  :lol:  five years ago i didn’t even know any thing about bandit alley, so don’t know what the camaraderie was like then, but wish i knew about bandit alley back then as it would have saved me epic amount of rework to my little b4, which is still on going.

When i came  cross bandit ally, i didn’t know much about forums, since then I've been on many forums, other bikes forums cars vans etc, etc  And have come to believe bandit alley is the best set-out forum around, easier to use/post to then most and friendly.

Quote
You are following the wrong rabbit trail!  Nobody appreciates your work over the past few years than I.  But the older I get, the more I am appreciating the reality that nothing stays the same

fantastic job stormi and everyone @ Admin, & Sven i know what you mean as we get older you realize that nothing does stay the same and if i don't finish b4 soon i be drawing my pension :stickpoke:

we all great bunch of individual from around the world