My Rules for a Fulfilling LIfe

"So what do you do when you get to that point in life where you don't have anything to live for anymore. Or you feel like you have no purpose, except to go to work?"

That's the question a friend of  mine asked on Facebook the other day, and it struck me, not because I feel that way, but because I don't. In fact, I had to think really hard to remember a time when I did feel that way. Which made me wonder why I don't feel that way, because I know its a common thing for a lot of people.

Years and years ago, when I became a single father, I decided to make being present as a father my priority, over making more money to give my child a "better" life. At the time, I was struggling to survive on $250 a week with a kid. I told my employer I would not work past 5pm or on weekends. At first is was really hard, but eventually, that choice led me to work with people who supported the decision and that turned into a work life and eventually a business that supported me as a single father. 

Fatherhood was the reason I had, but I don't believe its the cause for my having the fulfilled life I do now. I used fatherhood as a socially acceptable reason to not bow to the pressure to work more and more and to make money a priority for my existence, but one does not need to be a parent to make those choices.

I joke that I have a lousy work ethic. I want to work as little as possible to have a life I enjoy, and I don't want to work now, so I can have a good life later, I want it now. Over the years, I've developed strategies and habits that have helped me create a life I truly enjoy on a daily basis. In simple terms, here's my "rules" for a happy daily life (in no particular order):

• Get a job that inspires you. Sounds simple, but it might mean giving up your career, or not doing what you studied in college, and you might not even know what that job is! But if you're job doesn't regularly satisfy you on an emotional and intellectual level, get a new one, and keep moving until you find one that does. Some times its the job itself, other times its who you work with and for, and your ideal job might not be one your partner or friends or family think is "worthy" of you. Whatever it takes, do it, because you spend a third of your time at it, so make it rewarding.
• Don't work so much. Set boundaries with your job. What those are is up to you. Choose things outside of work that are more important to you, and make it clear to your employers that those come first. For me it was my son at first. Now its my free time, and certain events I want to attend, like Burning Man. Whatever those things are for you, set firm and reasonable expectations and stick with them. It can be hard to tell your boss "no," but if they respect you, together you can figure out how to make it work (and if they don't, then find another job).
• Get your finances in order. Many people think this means earning more money to afford things (which breaks the above rule), or cutting out fun things (which makes life pointless and dull), or both. Honestly, it depends on you and your particular situation, there's no single magic bullet for this. Having debts and worrying about your bills constantly erodes your quality of life on a daily basis. If you need help with this, seek it out, there are non-profit resources available. (I will write about my solution in another post)
• Try new things. New foods, new music, new ANYTHING. Develop the habit of saying yes, and don't be afraid to admit, after you tried it, that you didn't like it. Take pleasure in discovering something you didn't like! Take pride in saying "I tried it!" instead of being the person who sits back and shakes their head. It doesn't need to be big things, everything counts. 
• Learn new things, your way. Pick something you want to learn and start. Read books, take classes, watch online videos. Whatever, just get started. Anything counts. 
• Learn to quit. This is a big one. Our culture is big on finishing and following through and "quitters never win, and winners never quit!" Its bullshit. A wise person knows when something isn't working, and changes course. If you don't like the class you're taking, stop. If you're job isn't fulfilling, look for a new one. If you always wanted to ride motorcycles, and after a ride or two decide its not what you thought it was, then stop. There is no shame in having tried and realized its not your thing. The only shame is in not having tried. This applies to relationships, too. Don't stay in one that isn't working, no matter how long you've been in it. Not everything is meant to last forever, move on.
• Be selfish. Two of the most acceptable reasons for anything you do need to be "I want to" and "I don't want to." This doesn't mean be a self-centered person, it means not to be entirely other-people-centered. Find balance, and include yourself in your choices. You have to stop viewing your life as other people might see it. In today's world, people tend to think other people's lives are amazing because of their posts on social media, and you might want your life to seems amazing to. That's living for other people. If you love sitting on the couch reading, just do that. It won't look awe inspiring on social media, but it will make you happy.
• Take care of your health. A lot of things in life feel better when you're healthy. Just waking up is better when you're healthy, because you sleep better. You don't have to go nuts with a radical diet change or get a personal trainer. Start small and make little changes that will accumulate, but do something to improve your health, whatever it is now. 
• Reflect. "A life unexamined is not worth living." Think about your experiences, you choices, how they turned out and what you can learn from them. Again, even the little things count. You will learn about yourself, and that will guide you to a more fulfilling life. 

In a nut shell, that's it. I could expand all that into a book (maybe I should!), but in essence, that's it. None of them is that difficult on their own, and chances are you already do some of them. Together they will improve your life exponentially.

The fact is, having a fulfilling life is not a difficult thing. We are built to be in love with life. We just get caught up thinking that we are supposed to be happy doing what makes other people happy, and that's not true. How boring the world would be if we all like the same things! What would we talk about? Seek out YOUR happy life, don't try to replicate someone else's.

If you're feeling like you lack direction in your life, you don't need to make a radical change. Just commit to making a small change every day.

There's a parable about a prince, who decided he would toss a pebble, every day, into the river he walked past daily. At first is seemed like nothing, and he did it. Eventually, he thought it was pointless, and he considered stopping, but his mentor convinced him to keep it up. Over time, the pebbles accumulated, into a large pile in the river, which noticeably changed the course of the river. The tiny daily effort of the prince built into a big change. That is how you build a fulfilling life from where you are, with a small consistent effort. 

Midlife San Crisis

I spent yesterday and this morning working on my motorcycle. A month or so ago I wrapped the exhaust pipes in fiberglass, the result was a change in the tuning of the bike, it didn't run as smooth and my mileage dropped from over 50 mpg to about 40. I understood why, it had to do with trapping more heat in the pipes and increasing back pressure and blah, blah, blah.

I knew I'd have to make changes to the carburetor,Yesterday I installed a velocity stack and re-jetted the carb (see post here if you want details), but by the end of the day, after about 30 miles of riding and tuning I still couldn't get it quite right. Carburetor tuning is a tricky thing, and I'd never done it before, every car I ever owned had fuel injection.

This morning, I pulled the carb off again, opened it up and changed one of the jets again. Once it was back in, it only took a few miles of riding to get it tuned right and the bike was riding like it hasn't in weeks. I took it out around town and put another 30 miles on it just for the pure joy of riding. Neighborhoods, city streets, highways, stop and go, cruising, throttle wide open, working smoothly up through the gears or full throttle, 1-2-3-4! Just riding my ride.

There's nothing quite like riding a motorcycle, especially one that's running perfectly, doubly so for one that you've been elbow deep inside to make it your own. Which is what brought me to where I am now, writing this.

When I was a kid, in the late seventies, Star Wars was a big deal for me, I owned dozens of the toys. But my fondest memories were of riding my bike down the street to the community college and scavenging cardboard from the dumpsters to build my own space ships and secret bases for my Star Wars figures. As cool as the manufactured ones seemed on TV, they never lived up to my expectations, but when I built something out of cardboard and glue, it never failed to be prefect -- at least in my eyes.

It was about that time I first heard the phrase "mid-life crisis." I was a pre-teen and it didn't mean that much to me, I just knew adults said it half jokingly when ever someone's father bought a sports car, or some other "toy."

Eventually, I came to recognize it as meaning a man, usually  in his late 40's or early 50's, who society believes is trying to relive his youth through flashy cars and younger women and generally "not acting his age." People said it behind some poor guy's back and giggled at him. Its a derogatory term, and one I've come to believe completely misses the truth for many men of every age.

Underlying the "juvenile" behavior of such men is an assumption about what they should be doing, how they should behave, and what should make them happy. Which is backed by the blanket assumption that everyone should be fulfilled and satisfied by a fairly limited set of ideals, usually career, wife, kids, house and a week or two of vacation every year -- The one-size-fits-all life path.

My life never followed that exact path, but then I never wanted it to. My life also didn't follow the path I wanted for a long time, either. At 20 I became a father, by 23 I was a single father. By the time I was 30, I owned my own growing business and was raising a school aged child on my own (not to dismiss the help and support of my family, just saying I didn't have a wife or girlfriend living with me to share the responsibilities or financial burden.) At 33 I bought a house. I had a career, a family, a house, I took a couple vacations, life was good.

But it was not fulfilling.

That's not to say I was miserable all the time, there is a lot of gray area between utter and complete misery, and blissful happiness, I liked my job, most of the time, I had a good set of friends, I had hobbies I enjoyed. But I didn't have the freedom I expected of my life when I was younger.

Having a child, particularly alone, limits your freedom, and freedom is what I wanted from life. Freedom to explore, to be creative, to try new things, go new places -- to walk away from whatever wasn't fulfilling me. You can't do that when you have a child. Sure, you can do some things, but if those aren't the things that fulfill you (and they mostly weren't) then you're stuck.

When my son left for college, I left all that behind. The house, the business, the Midwest, I walked away from it all and started over with a girl half my age in a new city. I stumbled around for a few years, broke, often unhappy, not sure where I was headed, but oddly fulfilled. Even in my misery I was fulfilled.

For the last few years I've pursued things that interest me for as long as they interest me. Sometimes I walk away from them because I loose interest, but at least I know that it wasn't for me, because I tired. I tend bar and sleep til noon, I have no drive to buy another house or have an expensive car (I love my beat up old Jeep!) I bought a motorcycle at 44 years old, I go out drinking with 20-somethings and party til dawn frequently. I usually work 3 or 4 days a week, and don't care about "career advancement" because I don't want the responsibilities, I'd rather have time to take day trips or tinker on a project in the middle of the week.

If I were 25 this kind of behavior would be expected. People would say I was getting it out of my system or sewing my oats before I settled down. At 45 many surely point and giggle and whisper "mid-life crisis," behind my back.They're wrong.

In fact, I think for most men hung with that label, its wrong. The simplified mold doesn't fit us all. I never wanted a wife and kids and career, my mother will tell you I said as much in kindergarten (I wanted to be like my Uncle Jimmy!), I might not have expressed it as clearly then, but I felt it.

The crisis in my life came when I had to fit at least part of that mold. I had to settle down into an existence I was told should fulfill me, and yet I was unfulfilled. For years -- more than a decade -- I believed there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't happy because there was some flaw in my psyche. If I could only let go of my foolish ideals, and "grow up," I could be happy.

I now believe that many men go through life equally as unfulfilled, but due to the emotional self-castration our culture forces on boys, they never even face the empty feelings they have. Some drink or do drugs, others are abusive, others quietly retreat into silence in front of the TV or spectator sports (believing they're too old to participate). They either wither and die inside, or they rage and seek escape in unhealthy ways.

Until the day comes when enough is enough and they leave part or all of it behind, seeking to find the happiness they once knew in their youth by doing the things they did in their youth. Where else would you start looking for happiness than where you last felt it?

At these times they no longer identify with the man they've tried to become, they seek a new identity, their authentic identity, the one they've been told is wrong for all their lives. And our culture calls them fools, and laughs at them for it. We laugh at them for trying to be happy -- for not finding happiness where we told them they must.

This is why I reject the idea of a mid-life crisis. Its not a crisis, its a self-rescue from a quiet, desperate crisis one has been living for years, perhaps decades.

Not everyone finds happiness in the same things, and that's ok. My happiness is not a threat or invalidation to yours. If what fulfills me doesn't fulfill you, then go find your own way, and I'll find mine. The sooner, and younger, you find the courage to walk away from things that don't fulfill you, and to admit to the world your path is different, the happier you'll be, even if its a difficult path. (This goes for men and women, by the way.)

As I cruise by on my motorcycle and flirt with that 20-something girl, you may giggle, but you shouldn't, because at least I'm trying. I may find these things don't fulfill me ultimately, or having satisfied the desire, I may move on to something else equally as funny to you, but at least I tried, and I know and don't wonder anymore.

I've been elbow deep in my own life (and will be many more times, I expect), tinkering and modifying it to fit my tastes and trying to getting it running perfectly. As fun as riding a motorcycle is, nothing compares to riding a life that fulfills you.

New Lungs for Phaedrus

This morning I tackled the latest modification to my motorcycle, removing the airbox and replacing it with a velocity stack.

Before and after: Left: Stock airbox.. Right: airbox removed and velocity stack.

The first task was to remove the original airbox. The process was pretty simple, Just three screws held the cover on. Behind that was the filter, and two more screws holding the box in place. Once the main box was off, the black plastic tubing that filled the space between the top of the cylinder and the frame came out easily, it was only held in place by a hose clamp and friction apparently.

Airbox with the cover and filter removed. Only the two screws top center hold it on.

With the airbox removed, no screws to hold the tube in place behind it.

With the whole airbox assembly removed, the carb is exposed. The mounting plate under the gas tank is easily removed after the tank is off. Only two bolts attach the plate to the frame.

Getting the carb off was pretty straight forward. The gas tank had to be removed, which meant taking off the seat and petcock knob, then the one bolt that holds the tank on. I'd done all that before, and its not technically difficult, just takes a few minutes.

Under the tank a lot of hoses to remove. Like a lot of motorcycles, this one has things that aren't necessary to make it run well. The white triangle is part of the crank case breather,, which is overly complicated.

Before getting to the carburetor, I removed some unnecessary hoses. TJ Brutal Customs has a great video about what can be removed safely from this bike. Mine didn't have quite as much junk parts as some, probably because it wasn't originally sold in California.

The airbox and assorted hoses which no longer reside on Phaedrus.

With all those hoses removed, you can see straight down to where the carb connects to the manifold. Those two black screws are the hose clamps that hold the carb in place. The hose, immediately above them in this photo, is a coolant line that goes to the carb, which I rerouted.

With the extra hoses removed, getting my hands and tools inside to remove the fuel lines, coolant hoses, vacuum lines and throttle cables was much easier. There was a set of wires for the throttle position sensor to disconnect, that was the only wiring to deal with. 

I disconnected everything and pulled the carb off. The biggest problem was just working some of the hoses loose. 

With carb removed and the coolant hose rerouted.

This carb had two coolant hoses attached to it. One leading out of the engine into the carb, then a second from the carb to the radiator. Apparently this is to help warm the fuel in the carb (in theory), but in reality doesn't really effect much. Both the hoses are under pressure, so simply capping the nipples would not work (Coolant spraying out of the engine is usually a bad sign.) 

One source recommends using a screw inserted in the end of the hose (cut short) and a hose clamp to hold the screw in place. I may do that eventually, but I couldn't find a small enough hose clamp. Instead I cut the longer of the two hoses and ran it straight from the radiator to the engine, simply removing the carburetor from the routing. This will keep coolant flowing through everything else.

The velocity stack itself simply slides over the open air intake of the carb, and attaches with three recessed screws. Because of the increased air flow, the carb needed to be re-jetted. Again, TJ Brutal Customs has an excellent video showing how to install the new jets, and everything went exactly as described in the video. Since he does such a good job, I won't go into details, just follow his instructions.

Once the jetting was done, I capped off a couple vacuum and coolant ports. I also added TJ's long handled adjustment screw, since accessing the pilot adjustment on this bike is a real pain in the ass, even with the airbox removed. 

Once all that was done, I put the carb back on, which was simple since several hoses didn't need to be attached anymore. 

Adjusting the throttle cables was the biggest issue for me, mainly because I'd never done it before. It took me a bit to figure out I'd switched the two cables. Once I figured out that mistake, I had too much free play, I went from having no free play in the throttle to having too much. But eventually I got it adjusted.

A few more minutes to put the tank and seat back on, then came the moment of truth... After about 20 seconds of cranking (to get fuel through the drained lines) it started right up! 

I let it warm up while I cleaned up my tools, then took it for a spin. It ran a little rough at first, but after giving it time to warm up fully, and adjusting the new long handled screw on the carb it came right into tune. It runs fine, and seems to have a bit more power. There's now lots of room under the gas tank to move electronics to when I get around to rewiring it. 

My only issue is that proper tuning has the adjustment screw all the way in (at least I think its all the way in?) Which should actually make it stall instead of increasing the RPMs. So I might need to pull the carb off and change one of the jets (the kit includes 2 main jets, and 4 pilot jets), but I'm going to ride it for a bit and see how it goes. I would like to have some play in the tuning so I can adjust for altitude in the mountains, but I'm not going that far until spring, so there's time. 

UPDATE:
I tinkered with it most of yesterday, off and on, and never quite got it running right. After some emails with TJ, I woke up today and pulled the carb back off the bike, swapped out the pilot jet for a size up and took it out.

After warming up, and a couple turns of the air/fuel mixture screw it settled in nicely. I rode it around neighborhood streets, then out onto higher speed city roads, and finally for several miles of highway. It works great in all gears, wide open acceleration, cruising, and no popping or sputtering when I close the throttle down.

Thanks again to TJ Brutal Customs for a great product, great support with both videos and email assistance!

Velocity Stack and Carburetor Jetting Plans

I just received a velocity stack form TJ Brutal Customs for my 2004 Honda VLX600. This is my last performance modification before I get into serious cosmetic work on the bike. This involves removing the airbox and air filter, and replacing them with a short funnel like tube to channel airflow into the carburetor. This should increase airflow open up a lot of space around the engine for a better visual appearance.

Making this change will require rejetting of the carb (the jet kit specific to this stack is also from TJ Brutal Customs.) During this process I'll also be removing a whole host of unnecessary hoses and emission control gadgets. These include the PAIR system, which is designed to inject air into the exhaust pipes to fool emissions tests and which also don't typically work after a year or two.

Not only will removing all this clean up the appearance of the bike, it will open up a lot of space under the fuel tank which I can later use for relocating some electronic components. I'm planning on rewiring the bike entirely with a minimal harness and using a Motogadget M-Unit, which will simplify wiring and add a lot of modern feature to the bike, including an alarm and removing the need for a fuse box. All of which will allow for further opening up space in the frame and giving the bike a lighter, more stripped down appearance.

That's the plan. Now, for the process.

Getting the airbox and various hoses out is one thing, rejetting the carb is another thing, so I'll document each separately in coming posts.

Anarchy in Relationships

About 7 years ago I began a relationship that, for the first time in my life, made me think "Happily ever after" could be a real option. What was different? Well, among other things, we decided to have an open or polyamorous relationship. A few years later that relationship ended, and I was devastated, but the path I had started down was one I could not go back on.

(To be honest, I've yet to see a couple who's first poly relationship survives more than a few years. I believe polyamory is the human default, but since our culture indoctrinates us to a different standard from birth, the transition back to poly is usually very difficult. Combined with that lack of support from most people, and the fact many poly people live closeted emotional lives as a result, it can be too traumatic a challenge for most relationships to deal with long term. That's my opinion.)

During that relationship we each had other partners, jealousy was sometimes an issue, and admittedly one I had more difficulty learning to deal with. She and I lived together and called each other boyfriend and girlfriend, but I never thought of any other partner as "secondary," the typical poly term for a less important partner. That kind of polyamory is called "hierarchical," which is basically a ranking system for partners. It never felt right to me. I find it degrading and humiliating.

Since that relationship, I've had several relationships of various kinds. On a couple occasions, I've been pressured to used the word girlfriend to describe a partner's status in my life, but for some reason I really disliked that. I honestly thought it was some inner voice telling me this relationship must not be as important as I think it is.

Over time, I began to develop a variety of intimate relationships that are healthy and mutually supportive. I dated one woman for a brief period and soon we realized we were incompatible as romantic and sexual partners, we both almost wrote the relationship off. But over time we have because intimate friends, she is now one of the closest friends I've ever had. We are not romantic or sexual, we are just us. But there is no doubt that our closeness is seen as a threat to most of the people either of us date now.

To someone with a monogamous agenda, who seeks to follow the "relationship escalator," a friendship as close as ours must seem to contain some type of intimacy that they think they should be entitled to because they are romantic and sexual with one of us. On the other hand, neither she nor I ever seem to feel threatened by any new romantic or sexual partners the other may have, we feel secure in our relationship with each other. Because we don't view relationships as competitive or hierarchical, there's no need for jealousy, we each get some needs fulfilled from each other, and other needs fulfilled by other people.

I have very close relationships now with a number of people that include a range of intimacy types -- emotional, romantic and sexual. None of them are the same, but each is in its own way mutually fulfilling. Though I have many intimate relationships, I still consider myself single, at least in terms of the accepted cultural norm.

I have all the things one would expect from a monogamous partner, romance, sex, emotional support, commitment, and, above all, love, in fact I have more of those things, because I get them from multiple people. Yet the term "polygamous" still didn't seem to accurately describe me, because I'm not seeking a girlfriend or wife, I'm simply open to new, fulfilling, intimate relationships, in whatever form they may take, whenever they come along.

Recently, my former girlfriend, the one I talked about in the beginning, introduced me to the term "Relationship Anarchy." Its a relatively new term in the social/romantic/sexual lexicon. It is a form of non-hierarchical polyamory, and it turns out, it much more accurately describes my relationship style.

This may seem like a small thing to some people, but to me its not. For the first twenty-three years of my dating life, I struggled to find happiness with a partner. I would meet someone, fall in love, everything would seem great. But inside I thought there was something wrong with me. Despite being totally enamored with my partner, I would meet other people I was interested in romantically or sexually. I wouldn't act on those feelings, but it felt like I was cheating myself and them. In my heart and mind it seemed arbitrary that I was supposed to not feel these feelings for one person simply because I already had them for another. Why not?

For a long time, I thought I was broken. Then I began to recognize a pattern in my life. I would meet someone, date them monogamously, and over time I would slowly become less and less fulfilled. There would be nothing wrong with the relationship, only it wasn't fulfilling me anymore. We would break up and I would be happy again, I would begin dating different people, supposedly looking for the one person I would "commit to," and the cycle would begin again. I was only happiest when I was "single" but had intimate relationships without the normal restraints monogamy puts on outside relationships.

Understanding this about myself is what eventually lead me to agree to a poly relationship (she brought it up first.) I figured it would give me the ability to develop those other intimate relationships, as I found them, with freedom, and to some extent it did (being poly, despite what most people thing, actually limits dating options dramatically, as most people are only interested in eventually having a monogamous relationship.)

Functionally, the outside world saw me as a normal guy with a girlfriend. A few people knew I had a second partner "on the side," and they assumed that my girlfriend was more important to me than my secondary partner. But they were wrong. When the second relationship ended, I was was devastated. In fact, the way in ended still bothers me now, years later. I have regrets as much about that relationship as I do with my former girlfriend.

Since then, I enter any potentially intimate relationship with a declaration that I am not monogamous, and that if the potential new partner seeks that from me, we had best remain only "friends." For a monogamous person, the status of "friend," usually has specific limitations, primarily sex, but not always, or only under specific circumstances. This is just fine for me, because I can respect other peoples boundaries, and still allow a relationship to develop organically.

By no longer identifying as poly, I also remove the idea of the potential for someone to gain the status as my "primary." That isn't how I work. All my relationships are important to me for different reasons, and none supersedes the others in all instances. Of course, since this "new" term requires some explaining to virtually everyone, it also means I have to do so with anyone who seeks to get involved with me, but in a way, I've been having that conversation for years.

All that aside, it feels pretty refreshing to know I'm not alone in my relationship style, I'm not broken or whatever. I'm just being my authentic self, finally, after many years of trying to force myself into a mold that didn't fit. Happily ever after is a reality now for me, not because I found "the one," but because I am the one, I am able to be truly myself now, and that is what makes me happy.

The Daily Scare - Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Fear

"Do something every day that scares you."

 -- Mary Schmich

 (not Eleanor Roosevelt) 

This is a lesson I've tried to apply in my life for years, but its so general, that it can be difficult to understand exactly how to employ it. For me, it took learning to ride a motorcycle to finally crystallize in my mind the best way to really do this.

When I first heard this years ago, I thought it meant doing something NEW that scared me everyday. The problem with that, is that I tended to look for big, new things I hadn't done before and that becomes difficult to keep up. Often time, big things, like skydiving for example, take a lot of time and effort to set up and follow through on. Its impossible to do something like that every day. 

This spring, I decided it was time I learned to ride a motorcycle, which is a big thing, not an every day level activity. It was something I'd long wanted to do, and had made various excuses to put it off for years. That time was over, the time to do it had come. So I signed up for an MSF class. I bought a riding jacket, complete with armor pads to protect myself, and ridding gloves. I had ankle height hiking boots, to protect my feet, so I was good to go. The class provided the helmets and motorcycles. 

The day of the class I was a little nervous, but mostly excited, and I expected to do well. I'd studied all my materials, read the course book cover to cover. I'm in good shape, generally athletic, and I got a good night's sleep. I was ready. 

The class consisted of classroom and practical riding on a closed parking lot. The classroom work was easy for me, I'd read the whole book, I knew the materials. The riding seemed easy at first, too. We started with starting the bike.

That sounds simple, but its a little more complicated than starting a car. Everything on a motorcycle comes with a higher price of failure. You're not protected by a metal cocoon with airbags and safety belts. You DO have several hundred pounds of metal and plastic between your legs capable of moving very quickly. Pop the clutch in a car and the car jumps and lurches and stalls and its embarrassing. Pop the clutch on a motorcycle and it could go rocketing off, possibly with you on it, out of control until it falls over, possible with you still on it. You could not only break the bike, bending the handle bars, scratching the paint, etc., you could hurt yourself or someone else very seriously. So you take extra steps with everything.

By the time we broke for lunch we were cruising around the lot in first gear, everything was fine. 

After lunch, things were getting more and more complicated, each skill building on the last. As we started up the bikes and moved out to line up for the next skill, I accidentally throttled the bike hard. I began to panic, but followed my instructor's first lesson, "The clutch is your friend." So I pulled the clutch. With the throttle open, the engine revved up high, screaming loudly and terrified me. The bike was still rolling, and I was panicked. I didn't think the clutch was working, so I let it out to try it again. 

Letting the clutch out with the engine racing on a 300cc sport bike is the perfect recipe for a wheelie, which is exactly what the bike did. The front wheel popped up, straight up into the air, throwing me off like a bucking bronco, and sending the bike careening forward into a fence. Fortunately, no one else was hurt. 

The incident scared the living shit out of me. My instructors nearly bounced me from the class, rightfully so. I was boarder-line, I was becoming a danger to myself and others. Nervously, I finished the day, having lost confidence in myself, I was re-thinking the entire motorcycle idea. Maybe this wasn't for me? Maybe I should stick to cars?

I showed up the next day and finished the class. Still anxious about the power of the bike, I was cautious about everything I did. I passed the written exam with a perfect score and got the lowest possible score on the practical riding exam to pass. Literally, one point lower and I would have failed. 

Humbled, I headed home. I stopped on the way home and bought a helmet. Leaving the class I wasn't sure I was going to continue riding, but spending a couple hundred dollars on a good helmet would force me to keep going. I made the decision that when I learned to ride safely and confidently, then I could quit. Buying the helmet was a commitment to that. I would prove I COULD do it, then not doing it would be a choice rather than a default.

A week or so later, new license in hand, I went to buy my first motorcycle, a used cruiser. Less powerful than the sport bike I'd learned on, but bigger. When I took it for a test ride around the owner's neighborhood, I did a similar thing to the accident in class. I lost control and ditched it in someone's front yard. No one saw me, the bike was fine, so I rode it back and bought it. 

I had a buddy drive it home a few days later. I was not ready for the 45 minutes on the highway. I'd never been out of 2nd gear before. 

Now I had a motorcycle. I'd been reading books about riding skills and safety for two weeks. I'd been listening to pod casts on the same subjects, and watching videos online.Now I had to put it into practice.

My first day out, I carefully rode it to a near by parking lot and began drilling the basic skills. Breaking, low speed cornering, clutching... Over and over and over. 

The next day, I woke up, had breakfast and headed out to do the same thing. The only road time the bike saw that first week was the mile and a half to the parking lot and back, at no more than 25 miles an hour. Then I began riding it to work and back, 2 miles each way. Then touring around town, even getting up into third gear. Every day I pushed a little harder. Every couple days I was back in a parking lot drilling skills. 

40 mph was the the next big scare. There seemed to be a big change in the amount of wind between 35 and 40. It was pushing me harder, buffeting me and bike, trying to turn me and push me off the bike. It was loud and scary. But I got used to it. 

Then I took it out on a little stretch of highway, up to 65 miles an hour! What was slow driving speed for me in my car, was terrifying on a motorcycle. I made it to my exit 3 miles down, turned off, and limped home on surface roads, too scared to go back the way I came. 

But the next day I did it again. Then again. Then again. Reaching out further and further every time, 5 miles then 10. Then came the day I was comfortable at 65, so I took it out for day trip. 220 miles round trip on highways and state roads.  By the end of the day I was exhausted from tension, but I'd also had those moments of bliss just cruising with my machine, the moments every biker rides for.

Over the course of the summer I made a point to ride every single day. My bike is 2004 model, and had 24,600 miles on it when I bought. The previous owners had put about 2000 miles a year on it. By the time I left for my end of August vacation, I had ridden all but two day since buying it and logged over 3,500 miles. More miles in a three months than that bike usually saw a year, and more than many riders ride in a year. 

I made a point to push myself every day. Not to the point of utter terror. I learned to sense my own tension, and to just touch on it a bit every ride. Maybe go a little faster, or further, maybe find a curvy road and practice riding curves. I learned to recognize when a specific skill made me nervous and increased my tension level, like entering a tight turn, the I'd head to a parking lot drill that skill over and over.

I learned to see situations that made me uncomfortable, like fast traffic, and spend a part of each ride in that situation until I got more comfortable. I learned to look for trouble, and spot potential problems and look for escape routes just in case, and practice specific skills that would help in those situations, like swerving and emergency stopping. 

Then the day came when I was riding to a friend's house. I headed up the on-ramp to the highway, twisted the throttle open, shifted up through the gears, merged into traffic, slide over a lane, then another, then another, until I was in the HOV lane, sliding past cars. Only then did I look down and see I was up to 80 mph, buffeted by wind, cruising in heavy traffic, around bends in the highway, and feeling fine. I was alert, aware, but not worried, not tense.

I had done something every day that scared me. It was the same thing, riding a motorcycle, but it was also always a different thing, a new challenge, a little faster, a little further, ride the highway, ride the curves, brake harder, turn tighter. I learned to sense my fear, and to use it as a guide. I learned to read it, to know when it was telling me "this is what you need to practice," and when it was saying, "back off, take a break."

Looking back, I've applied this approach to a lot of things in my life, but I didn't realize it. Now that I do, I can continue to apply it, in a conscious way, from now on -- Doing something every day that scares me. But I learned something else when I learned to acknowledge my fears and to be guided by them.

I learned that the feeling I got that guided me to work on my turning skills, is the same feeling I get in other situations in life, like when I need to apologize to someone when I'm mad. Well, not exactly the same, but similar. That's a fear, too, fear of being vulnerable, of admitting wrong, of setting myself up to be yelled at and shamed. Doing those things also falls under the category of "things that scare me."

Doing something that scares me everyday turns out to be easier than I thought, because every day I find things that scare me, maybe even the same thing that scared me yesterday. It doesn't have to be a big thing, or something I planned. I just need to acknowledge that I am feeling fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and then understand that feeling and figure out if its telling me to move forward and grow, or to slow down and not push too hard. 

Everyone can see the use of using fear to learn a new skill. Now I can ride a motorcycle with confidence, and I have the sense to know when I should take it easy, and when I need to practice, but the end result is easy for everyone to see. Its measurable, demonstrable. 

The other kinds of things, the little daily fears that I use to guide me now, are not so easy for others to see, but the changes following them has made in me are no less an improvement in my life and in my character. I'm more open, more forgiving, more loving, I'm friendlier. 

So I have learned to embrace my fears, to feel them, to question them, and to follow them. Every day I do something that scares me, and that is changing who I am for the better. 

My Ride - Midlife Sans Crisis.

When I was 19 I had my whole life to look forward to. I was studying photography, I was going to travel the world taking pictures. The world was mine to explore and that was the purpose of life, to explore.

On my 20th birthday I found out I was going to be a father, my ex-girlfriend was pregnant. I remember sitting alone watching all my dreams and hopes come crashing down. No more traveling the world, no more adventures. Now I had a child to care for. It suddenly become very, very real to me that I had no real marketable skills, no experience, and no prospects.

What I did have was years of needing a lot more money than I needed just to feed and house myself in whatever shitty apartment was good enough for me. My standard of living wasn't good enough for a child. I was stuck.

Things didn't work out with my ex, and not long after that she decided being a single mother was too hard, so she bailed. I was 23, broke, alone and stuck with a toddler. Just when I was beginning to see a life for myself after becoming a parent, it all crashed down again.

I left the only place that ever felt like home to me. I left a job where I was making progress toward a career. I left behind my friends. I moved to the Midwest, to move in with my parents and start over again, with their help raising my child.

I built a life. Started a new job, which slowly grew into a career, and then into my own business. I moved out of my parent's house for the second time, into a one bedroom apartment where I slept on the couch. Then into a bigger apartment a few years later where I had my own bedroom. Then I bought a house and expanded my business.

I had a life. A good life many people would envy. A house, growing, healthy child, a business, friends, a string of beautiful and talented girl friends. I told myself I was happy, I was living the American Dream. I had no real right to complain and I didn't.

Inside, deep down, I wasn't happy, because this was not the life I wanted. I was doing the right thing, taking care of my son, making sure he had a good home, that he felt loved, and safe. People told me they admired me, that I was an example to others. But I wasn't happy, not on that deepest level where no one else can see.

When my son was 16, all that I'd build began to come apart. The Great Recession began, and my business, custom woodworking and cabinetry, was an early casualty. I struggled. I lost my girl friend, the house went into foreclosure, I had to borrow money from my family to pay bills.

After two years of fighting off the bank, my son graduate high school and left for college. My sentence was done. I had no business any more. I had no home anymore. I had sold off most of my possession. A week after my son lift, a month before my house was auctioned off, I packed up what I had left and headed off into the unknown.

I went back to the only place I'd ever felt at home, with no job, and only the cash I'd raised by selling everything at my yard sale.

Broke, jobless, homeless, with 15 years of experience in an industry that would not be hiring for years, I was in as good a position as I had been 19 years earlier, the day before I found out I was going to be a parent. I had come full circle. I was 38.

In the 80's the term "mid-life crisis" was used to describe people, mostly men, who suddenly began behaving like younger men, dating younger women, buying sports cars, wearing more stylish clothes, etc. It was term meant to describe a problem, to imply these men were broken in some way.

I think that idea was wrong. We live in a culture where we are indoctrinated from birth that there is a specific path we should take, and that that is the only acceptable way to happiness. The path is to make money at a "respectable" job, get married, have a family. That path was very rigid decades ago, but is becoming less so, which is a good thing.

That path is not the path to fulfillment for everyone. We all have our own dreams and goals and desires, and that path and its various subtle incarnations, is not ideal for everyone. It wasn't for me.

So when someone who has lived that life suddenly stops and decides they want to do things the things they did, or wanted to do, years ago, its not a crisis. Its an awakening. They have been unfulfilled and they are looking for a way to fulfill themselves. They have chosen to stop beating their head against the wall and try something different.

I knew I was not happy. I knew I was not fulfilled. The whole time, I knew the life I was living was not for me, and I took the first opportunity to leave it behind. I didn't have luxury of cashing out with a ton of money like some we read about. I started over at zero. But it didn't matter, all that mattered was that for the first time in nearly two decades, I was able to put my happiness, my dreams, my desires first, and I had the freedom to figure out what those were.

That's what this blog is about. Perhaps it will entertain, maybe it will instruct, who knows, it might even amuse. Its my story, my thoughts, my dreams and desires. Its my journey -- My ride.

Clutch Springs and Timing Mod

I've had my bike for several months now, and have been planning on extensive changes to it once winter comes and cold weather forces me to stop riding daily. Since this is my first bike, and I'm new to riding, the whole process has been a learning curve. I'm not inexperienced in auto mechanics, so motorcycle mechanics don't scare me, they're simpler. 

As I got more comfortable on the bike, and began riding faster, and further, I began to notice a problem with the clutch. Two things, in fact. The first was when shifting up from 1st gear to 2nd, I often get stuck in neutral. At first, I assumed it was just my inexperience as a rider, but then I began noticing that it only happened after I'd been riding for awhile and the bike was warm, it never happened when the bike was cold. 

The second and more obvious issue was that when accelerating hard on the highway and shifting up through the gear, sometimes 4th gear would slip for a second. I've driven stick shift cars for decades, I know what a slipping clutch is, but my bike only has 28,000 miles on it, so that seems pretty early to have a worn out clutch.

Some research helped me discover that this is a common problem with my particular bike, the Honda Shadow VLX600. It seems the OEM clutch springs are a bit weak for this bike, and a simple swap is all that was needed. So I had the first reason to open up the guts of the bike.

Another popular modification to this bike is to advance the ignition  timing a few degrees. Since that's inside the same housing, I figured I'd do both at the same time. I found a really good tutorial here. Its a bit old, and the photos were small, and my bike is newer so there was a minor difference, so I decided to take pics and write it all up. I followed the tutorial exactly and it was easy. 

So here we go: 

Getting In

Step 1: Drain the oil. 

Follow the basic procedure for an oil change. Drain the oil, replace the drain plug, but do not add oil back to the engine.

Step 2: Remove the exhaust

My bike has after market pipes, so I only had to remove the lower one. It would be very difficult, if not impossible to remover the engine cover with the exhaust in place. The only difficult part was reaching the lower nut where the pipe meets the cylinder. Its a 12mm nut, behind and slightly to the right of the pipe. The easiest way I found to access it was with a box wrench slid between the frame and the radiator to the right of the pipe. It was still a pain, but I managed. 

The engine cover. The exhaust has been removed and the foot peg mounting plate has been rotated down out of the way. 

I found that removing the upper mounting bolt on the foot peg plate, and rotating the plate out of the way helped when pulling the pipe out.

Step 3: Remover the engine cover.

There are fourteen 8mm bolts, one of which also anchors the clutch cable. Start by unhooking the cable. The easiest way to do this is to rotate the level forward (I used a pair of pliers to grip it) to release tension, and the end of the cable will easily pop out. 

I placed a pan under the engine to catch any extra oil that might still be in the bike. Nothing came out, but I wasn't interested in an oil stain on my driveway.

Then remove all the bolts. Once all the bolts are out, the engine cover will stick in place because of the gasket. There are two tabs on the cover (pics below) that you can slide a screwdriver behind to pry it. Once the seal is broken it comes straight off. There are two locator pins, one on each side, that help align the cover, so it must be pulled straight out from the bike. 

The lower right most bolt hole also has a tab what will make it easier to pop the seal and remove the cover.

There is another tab to help remove the cover on the left side of the cover, below the oil fill cap.

Inside the engine. The clutch is the big ring with the square plate in its center. The Timing magnet is the small plastic box in the upper right corner.

Its worth noting that I put a few ounces of Sea Foam engine additive in the oil about a week before doing this, to help clean out any accumulated gunk. I bought the bike with 24,000 miles on it, and though I think it was well maintained, I had no way of knowing. 

Clutch springs

Step 1:

The 4 springs are located behind the square plate in the middle of the clutch. Simply loosen all four bolts. Loosen each a little at a time and keep working around the circle until they all come out. You need to loosen them all together so the springs don't force the plate out unevenly and bind up some the bolts. 

The bolts are longer than the springs, so don't worry about the plate popping off. 

The springs exposed.

Step 2: Swap the springs

Once the plate is off, simply slide out the old springs and slide on the new ones. 

Put the square plate back on and tighten down the bolts a little at a time, working around the circle just like you did to remove it. 

That's it. The clutch springs are done! If that's all your doing, then you're ready to put the cover back on.

Timing Mod

The ignition timing is controlled by the sprockets on that smaller wheel rotating past the magnet in that black plastic box. Its designed not to be adjustable, so to change it, we need to get a little creative. 

My bike has one magnet. Some models have two. If yours has two, just repeat the procedure with each magnet.

Step 1: Determine the proper location of the magnet

After modifying the mounting, you'll have to put the magnet back in. To make sure you have it the right distance from the sprockets, use a feeler gauge to determine how big a gap there should be between one sprocket and the little magnet in the center of the underside of the black plastic box. 

If you need to rotate the gear, just grab the clutch firmly, and rotate it until one of the sprockets is lined up with the magnet. Then measure the gap.

Line up one of the sprockets with the magnet, it should look like this. Then measure the gap with feeler gauge so you can put it back with the same gap.

Step 2: Remove the timing magnet

Remover the two bolts holding the magnet in place. Follow the wires coming out of the magnet to where they enter the engine housing. You'll see that there are two set of grommets where the wire runs through the housing wall. Carefully slide these out, and the magnet is free of the engine. 

You probably don't need to unhook any wiring if you're using a handheld tool to grind the plates.

Cover the exposed engine housing with a large rag or something to keep contaminants, like metal filings, from getting in while you work. 

The raised extrusions on the back of the mounting plates will need to be removed. (On some bikes there are just little tabs to grind off.)

Step 3: Grind off the extrusions

This is where my bike differed from the one in the tutorial, instead of tabs, mine had extrusions around the bolt holes. Regardless, the procedure is the same, grind them off with a metal grinder. I used a Dermel. 

BE SURE the engine housing is covered to keep the metal filings out! 

After grinding off the extrusions. The black marker shows which way I want to extend the bolt holes.

Step 4: Enlarge the bolt holes

You want to move the magnet counter clockwise from its original position. So make sure you're grinding the holes in the right direction. 

This is not an exact science. I've read you can move the timing as much as 6°, but it isn't really necessary to know exactly how far you're moving it. 3° or 4° seems to be what most people assume they've moved it, and that seems to produce a improvement in performance. But no one seems to obsess about exactly how much they move it.

The mounting bolts left circular impressions on the face of the mounting plates, so I used those as my guide. I elongated the bolt holes until they reached those circles. This left me enough surface to ensure a secure mounting, and helped me keep both holes the same size. 

Both bolt holes elongated to the rings left by the mounting bolts. 

After grinding out the holes and checking the fit of the mounting bolts, thoroughly clean the filings from the magnet. Metal filings will cling to the mounting plates, collect in the corners of the piece and on the magnet on the underside, because the whole thing is magnetized. Clean it VERY thoroughly to make sure no bits of metal end up inside your engine.

Step 5: Remount the timing magnet

Loosely install the bolts, and slide the magnet as far counter clockwise as the enlarged bolt holes will allow. Then finger tighten the bolts.

Using a feeler gauge, position the magnet the same distance from the sprocket it was originally. Then snug the bolts down. 

Finally, slide the wire grommets back into their slots in the engine housing wall. Make sure they seat all the way in.

The modified magnet reinstalled. Notice how it no longer lines up with the sprocket, 

That's it. The timing has been changed. Time to close it all up!

Closing Up

Step 1: The gasket

Closing up is pretty much the reverse of opening up. My bike does not use a paper gasket, instead I used a silicone gasket maker designed for high temp engine components. I ran a bead all the way around the housing cover, encircling all the bolt holes. Its easier to work with the cover than the engine, but it doesn't technically matter which of the two surfaces you put the silicone on.

Silicone gasket maker encircling all bolt holes on the engine cover.

Next, carefully slide the cover into place. The guide pins will align everything and hold it on while you install bolts. Don't forget to attach the clutch cable mount when you're putting your bolts in.

Tight the bolts just until the silicone begins to ooze out. Then stop and let it set for an hour (or whatever your directions tell you).

After its set, finish tightening the bolts. DO NOT over tighten. I managed to break off one bolt. With 13 others and the gasket, I'm sure I won't have any leaks, but eventually, I'm going to have to extract it or re-tap the whole. But I'll leave that until the next time I need to get into the engine unless I notice it leaking.

Connect the clutch cable.

Step 2: Oil

Now you can finish your oil change. Fill it up like you normally would.

Since I was grinding metal near the open engine. I plan to change the oil again in a thousand miles, to help get out any filings that might have gotten past all my cleaning efforts. 

Testing It All Out!

The Clutch

The first ride immediately proved the new springs an improvement. I had not really noticed anything wrong with shifting besides the issues I mentioned above, but the clean, fast engagement I feel now is a definite improvement, in all gears. 

I'm not sure how much stiffer the Barnett springs I bought are over the OEMs, but the clutch is a bit stiffer to pull, but no too hard, and the slipping has stopped. 

Out on the highway, accelerating into traffic, each gear just snaps into place and the bike goes. No hesitation or slipping. It feels more confident, if that's a word I can apply to an motorcycle. Definitely worth doing. 

The Timing

The first thing I noticed is the sound of the engine. Its subtle, and no one who doesn't ride this particular bike every day would notice it, but its just a little different, a little quicker sounding.

Driving in my neighborhood, where I never get out of second gear, I immediately noticed it no longer sputtered when I cut the throttle to coast to a stop sign going down hill (before I pull in the clutch). The sputtering is something I'd noticed from the beginning, and assumed it had to do with the air/fuel mix, but I had not gotten around to adjusting it. Changing the timing seems to have fixed that. 

Out on the road, throttle response is better. When I crack it open, it ramps up quicker. Its not a huge change, again, something only noticeable to someone very familiar with this particular bike, but its very nice. 

On the highway, in traffic, where this bike lacks the power and quickness

of a sport bike, its nice to feel that when I rip the throttle, I have a little more pep in the response. This was also a mod well worth doing. 

The whole process took about 2 hours (not counting waiting for the silicone to cure) and the springs only cost $15. Add in the oil, and gasket maker, and the whole thing costs about $50. Well worth it, as the bike is now more fun to ride.