No speedo

Hah, not specifically THAT kind of speedo, though I don't wear those either :). No, the speedometer cable on my bike sheared during my commute to school last Friday. Very little as surreal as riding about 70mph on the interstate and looking down to see the speedometer resting at 0mph. I reached over and tapped the case... nothin. I got to a straight away and stood up some to reach over and wiggle the cable. Nothin. Then I looked again and realized that the Odometer wasn't moving either. Doh!!

When I got to school, I pulled the cable off the from axle to investigate. After a little move this and spin that, I realized that the last 5 inches or so of the cable has sheared. I pulled it right out - that's not supposed to happen from that end. Yikes.

I called around all the Honda places and no one had a replacement that I could get before tomorrow (Thursday), so I put out the feelers on the VF500F yahoo group and someone said they had an extra. Unfortunately, it's coming from Toronto and won't likely be here until Monday, so I guess I should have just gone with the shops, but oh well, too late. Perhaps I'll be lucky and Canada Post will be early... hahahahahahahahaha... um, yeah, never. If I ever got annoyed with USPS taking a while, it's nothing compared to the snail pace of Canada Post.

Make note, this was the Friday before the Memorial Day weekend. Uh, yeah. I think you can figure out why that sucks... and if you know me already, why that makes perfect sense.

Of course, I could still ride the bike, but I feel unsafe not knowing better how fast I'm moving and I believe it might be illegal to be riding without the Odometer attached. So, better safe than sorry and I'll just hope for some rain to lessen the blow of needing to be on 4 wheels until the replacement comes.

On a similar note, another friend is planning on buying a bike soon (he does the MSF training in about week). I hope he gets a sport bike, but our other friend is hoping for him to get a cruiser. Whatever. I didn't, however, expect it to become a mean spirited discussion from him spouting stereotypes about who would want to get a sport bike. But I suppose I shouldn't expect much with respect to a reasonable discussion between a Japanese sport bike rider and a Hardly Davidson rider. I understand some of the thinking of the HD crowd, but it doesn't make it make sense. I remember whenI did my intermediate MSF training and a woman there was a HD owner (who wasn't licensed) being all friendly with me the whole day. Another guy there had his license and HD and was there for the same reason as me... to get some more guided experience. He ate lunch with me and we spent lots of the free time together chatting about stuff. She wasn't much different, jsut had her car during lunch so did he own thing. At the end of the day, he was shaking my hand saying how he hoped to see me out on the road with a big wave hello. She on the other hand as we were leaving the area and were stopped at the red light, rolled her window down so she could look over to me and shout something about my "lame rice rocket". I didn't get it then, I don't get it now... but I have a friend who I only went riding to Plattsburgh with last month kinda doing the same type of thing.

I'll get over it. Especially if the first friend ends up with a crotch rocket... muahahahaaaaaa.