From: gaijin@ale.Japan.Sun.COM (John Little - Nihon Sun Repair Depot)
Newsgroups: rec.motorcycles
Subject: It's large, it's yellow, it's -not- "Big-Bird" [LONG]
Date: 28 Dec 1992 08:49:00 GMT
Organization: Nihon Sun Microsystems - Atsugi Technical Centre - JAPAN.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: ale.japan.sun.com
Summary: Rambling tale of squealing brakes and fings...

   The 23rd of December is the Emperor's birthday (don't forget to mark it
   in your diary).   Hip-Hip-Banzai for  old Empy-san, 'coz  we all get  a
   nice, extra day's  holiday.   While several thousand  people headed  to
   Tokyo to help Empy blow out  his candles, this roundeye mounted up  old
   Yamadog and headed for the twisties.

   'Twas an interesting day.

   I was headed  for the Izu  peninsula, to a  spot close to  the town  of
   Atami, where I usually practice jumping off the side of a mountain with
   a bed-sheet tied to my shoulders (Paragliding). The ride there and back
   is pretty good  (not one  of the  world's all-time  greats, but  pretty
   good), which  is just  as well,  'coz  paragliding on  the 23rd  was  a
   wash-out.

   The route down there takes me along the seafront on R134, with a  great
   view of Mt Fuji dominating the horizon for most of the way.  R134 feeds
   into a fast dual-carriageway which, unfortunately, is also a toll  road
   (the normal  "modus operandi"  for  bikers here  is  to stop  the  bike
   exactly in line with one of  the traffic islands, dismount and walk  up
   to the window to pay, letting cars go through during the time you  need
   to un-glove, etc.; then back to the bike and ride through).

   On the other side of the town of  Odawara I have a choice.  I can  take
   another toll-road  along the  coast  to Atami  (fast but  straight  and
   boring) or hit the twisties.  Unfortunately I'm late, so I opt for  the
   toll-road.  Today they take my money and let me through (sometimes  the
   little man in  the toll  booth runs  out into  the middle  of the  road
   waving his  arms  and  shouting...   not  because  it's  the  Emperor's
   birthday [it usually isn't],  but because the  waves are breaking  over
   the road and bikes aren't  allowed through in such conditions  [they've
   got their priorities right here...  who  cares if a few cars get  swept
   into the Pacific!]).

   On the other side of Atami the  road into the mountains is...   well...
   a mountain road.  It's as straight as a Japanese politician and as flat
   as a Sumo wrestlers buttocks!   Like most roads here it's also  narrow.
   Just wide enough for a single car, with occasional passing places.  The
   curves all have convex mirrors set on poles at the apex so that you can
   see what's coming in the opposite direction.

   I crunch  my  way down  through  the gearbox  and  let Yamadog  howl  a
   little...  he  needs the exercise.   About a  third of the  way up  the
   mountain I get stuck behind a delivery truck (one of those tiny  Suzuki
   jobbies with about the same number of cc's as my bike).  The driver  is
   obviously a  scholar and  a gentleman.    He pulls  over and  waves  me
   through.  I wind Yamadog WFO again and head for the hairpins.

   The guard rail  up this road  is truly  amazing.  Even  on the  (short)
   straight bits between the curves, there can't be more than a couple  of
   metres of continuous undented, unscuffed surface.  There's more plastic
   and glass down  the side  of this road  than you'd  find at  five-years
   worth of Tupperware parties.   Unfortunately, from  the skid marks  and
   plastic fragments it's easy to see that a good number of the casualties
   were bikers.

   I didn't  enjoy this  road too  much the  first time  I rode  it.   The
   quality of the surface varies widely  over fairly short stretches.   In
   the middle  of  a  hairpin  it can  suddenly  change  from  beautifully
   maintained macadam into broken stones and ruts.  Frightening!  Nowadays
   I know what to expect  though, so I don't  try any Barry Sheene  (who's
   he, Mum?) stuff  through the  worst bits  and try  to get  into a  nice
   "flow" through the good sections.

   Today I get stuck behind another car close to the top of the  mountain,
   but I'm fairly near to the clubhouse, so it's time to let Yamadog  cool
   off a little anyway.  When I arrive it's my turn to cool off.  The wind
   has risen and swung round so that  it's coming in over the back of  the
   mountain.  There's no  chance of flying in  these conditions and I  sit
   around the clubhouse listening to (but not understanding) a lecture for
   a couple of hours, in the hope that the wind will swing round.  By  one
   in the afternoon we all know that today is a dead-loss and people start
   wandering off.  The "silver  lining" is that I  get to ride the  twisty
   route home in daylight for  a change.  I  change back into leather  and
   start off down the mountain.

   I'm braking for the second hairpin  when the back disk starts making  a
   nasty "this is -not- a stone stuck in the pads" squeal.  The rear brake
   quickly  loses  any   effective  stopping   power  (why   is  it   that
   metal-on-metal  without  lubrication  is  such  an  effective  friction
   braking system inside the engine, but  not outside, eh?!?) and a  quick
   check in one of  the passing areas confirms  that the pads are  history
   and that the rivets are getting to know the rotor fairly well.  I curse
   myself for not having  realised they were quite  so worn (I'd  replaced
   the rear pads about seven-thousand kilometers ago, the fronts have over
   twenty-thousand on them  and are  still only half  worn), and  continue
   down the mountain a little more cautiously.

   Coming into the town of Atami from the South-West (and in daylight, for
   the first time  I remember) I  notice that there's  a beautiful,  white
   castle on  the brow  of the  hill before  the town.   The  road  passes
   directly underneath it through a tunnel.

   On the other side of Atami I opt for the twisty route home, despite the
   lack of rear brake.  The road  is fairly wide for the first five  miles
   or so and is famous for  two things; the garish yellow stripes  painted
   on the surface in the vicinity of the (frequent) curves, and little men
   in blue uniforms pointing  their thingies at  speeding vehicles.   This
   stretch is fairly congested anyway, so  there's no knee dragging to  be
   done here.

   Up the coast a little way to Manazuru  and I take a left off the  coast
   road onto another mountain road (which  will get me to the same  place,
   but with more curves in between).  This is one of those roads where you
   sometimes wonder if there's going to  be enough time to heave the  bike
   over  from  one   peg-scraping  extreme  to   the  other  between   the
   back-to-back curves.  It seems they  only signpost a bend on this  road
   if it is greater than 180 degrees.

   After a few minutes of this I'm really starting to enjoy myself and get
   into a  rhythm.   I tool  around a  sharp left...   to  find  temporary
   traffic lights and a car halted at the  red.  Aaaargh!  I heave on  the
   stoppers, there's an ineffectual squeal  from the back, but  thankfully
   the double disks on  the front bite as  I pull the bike  up to more  or
   less vertical and squeeze the lever harder.   I stop just short of  the
   car and note  that he  has over-run  the traffic  light by  half a  car
   length.   I don't  fancy becoming  dish of  the day  road pizza,  so  I
   squeeze the bike into  the gap between  the car and  the side wall  and
   roll forward.  Now  anything that hits  me from behind  has to hit  him
   first.  A guy  on a 250 Suzuki  does an action replay  of my stop,  but
   with more blue smoke.   He looks over at me  with a "What the heck  are
   you doing -there-?"  kinda look, and  then it clicks  and he does  some
   anxious double takes to the rear as he wheels his bike round the  other
   side of the car.

   Thankfully the light turns  green before any Volvos  come along and  we
   all move off.   Mr Suzuki  disappears in a  cloud of blue  smoke and  a
   12Krpm scream.  Mr car moves off at a sedate pace, and I follow him  at
   much too sedate a pace for this road and a bike!  Today seems to be  my
   day for scholars and gentlemen though, for as we reach a short straight
   he pulls over and waves me through.  Thank you Squire!  Now, where  did
   Mr Suzuki get to?  I push  Yamadog a bit harder, but the other  feature
   of this particular road now makes it's presence felt.  This stretch has
   manhole covers  on the  apex of  every curve.   Not  your covered  with
   asphalt, sticky variety, but  your spick-and-span, shiny, bright  steel
   variety.  I concentrate  hard on setting up  a line through corners  to
   avoid these bike-traps, which  is pretty difficult  with such a  narrow
   road.  On left-handers there's a  danger of leaning into the  overhang,
   on right-handers it's oncoming traffic.  I sweep through a left-hander,
   coming too close for comfort to the side wall...  to find a big, yellow
   bulldozer driving towards me down -my- side of the road!  Heave,  pull,
   squeal.  I note with that detachment which comes in moments of  extreme
   peril that, like all  bulldozers the world over,  this one has a  fifty
   gallon oil-drum, two  shovels and  a pick riding  in the  bucket.   The
   driver also has a shiteating "Yup!  I'm definitely in the wrong...  but
   I'm a -lot- bigger than you are!" look on his face.  Finally I guess he
   decides it's going to be too much  trouble to clean the gore off'n  his
   shovels and bits of  Yamaha out of his  radiator, 'coz he swerves  into
   the side and does some major restructuring of the mountain side,  while
   I squeeze  between him  and the  oncoming traffic  on the  other  side.
   About three  kilometres further  down the  road I  finally remember  to
   start breathing again.

   S'funny, I  grew up  in the  countryside.   When I  was taking  driving
   lessons the instructor warned  me to watch out  for flocks of sheep and
   combine-harvesters on my side  of the road.   He didn't mention  bloody
   bulldozers, though!

   Yamadog and I make it to  Odawara without further incident (though  not
   necessarily without a  change of  underwear), and as I thunder down the
   toll-road back towards  Chigasaki it  slowly dawns on  me that  Yamadog
   shouldn't thunder.  He's only 400cc's and even WFO he should howl,  not
   thunder.  I slow down  and listen to the  racket.  It's fairly  obvious
   that he's blowing exhaust gases from somewhere he shouldn't be (a fault
   which her-indoors has had occasion to  accuse me of, too).  Stopped  at
   the toll-booth a quick check reveals that there's a hole where cylinder
   three's down-pipe joins the  main exhaust.   It's not life  threatening
   and I only have about  ten kilometres to go, so  I thunder on into  the
   sunset.

----

   Footnote - Concerned viewers will be  glad to know that after a  couple
   of dabs of "Firegum" and a new set of rear pads (plus assorted  knuckle
   skin), Yamadog is well on the road to recovery.

-- 
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  | John Little  - gaijin@Japan.Sun.COM  - Sun Microsystems. Atsugi, Japan | 
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