Cable Oiling

I noticed the other day that I was getting a whine in either the speedometer or odometer cable. Today I took a minute and put the bike on the center stand. I disconnected both cables and started the bike. I slowly dripped a multi-purpose oil down the odometer cable while the engine spun it. As I was waiting for the oil to go down, I would put a few drops at a time in the speedometer cable as well. It is connected to the front wheel so it was not spinning but the oil drains down that cable quite well.

After several minutes of this I decided that would hold it over until spring when I'll oil them again. I know that without using a cable oilier that it is close to impossible to get the oil to the bottom of the cable, but if I oil them often, I'm convinced that it will help. Insendently the cable stopped making the whining noise.

N-com Success

The Basic kits came this week and were surprisingly easy to install. The author of the instillation page made it sound more difficult then it was. It might have taken me 20 minutes to take the helmets apart, install the headsets and battery then reassemble them. The helmets linked right up to each other and we were talking immediately.

I then added the bluetooth link to my phone. That is a cool feature. I can dial using voice commands and take or end calls by touching the button on the side of the helmet. The first call that I made was in the house to my 2 year old daughter so it was difficult to say how well the system worked. Shortly after my brother called me on while I was wearing the helmet. I took the call and we gave the N-com a road test.

Brant reported that the call quality was really clear and aside from starting the bike he was not able to hear the bike during the call. I rode with my visor open and even stood above the windshield with no wind noise. I haven't tried yet to ride above the windshield with the face completely open. I suspect that even with the wind sock on the microphone there would be noticeable noise.

I made two more calls through the helmet today and both reported the same good call quality and no bike noise.

Rachel and I rode across town with them linked up and had plenty of volume and good clarity helmet to helmet. After the ride we walked to see how far away we could be before loosing the link. At about 30 ft(line of sight) we got static on the line and lost signal at about 50ft. It may be close enough to have communications from one bike to the next.



I really like how the helmet looked finished. Because the N-com is a factory part for Nolan helmets everything fits really well. All the polystyrene is formed to take the N-com components. Everything is self contained and looks as if the helmet was purchased that way from Nolan. If not for the microphone and the battery charging cable one would never know the difference between a N-com equipped helmet and one that was not.

Two big thumbs up for Nolan and the N-Com.

Nolan N-Com Bluetooth

We received the first half of our N-coms this week. The bluetooth and control kit came. With these we can talk from helmet to helmet without wires. It also allows us to make and receive phone calls through the helmet as well as listen to music. The voice and music will cut out when you take a phone call. The basic kit should be here soon. It has the headphones . I'll have to gut the helmets to install the N-com but Rachel found a good step by step that someone did.

http://news.motorbiker.org/blogs.nsf/dx/review-nolan-n103-motorcycle-helmet-with-n-com.htm

I am excited to try these out.

How's your gas mileage? Prius? Volt?

To heck with these battery operated piles-o-trash. I just filled the Wing today and was pleasantly surprised. I pumped 4.066 gallons of premium Chevron fuel. I had rode 230.7 miles since my last fill up in Lyman.

"Oh gee Mr. Wizard! What kind of gas mileage are you getting then?"

"Well it's simple Timmy. We want to find out how many miles per gallon the bike uses. Right?"

"Yes Sir!"

"Then lets divide the number of miles by the number of gallons like this."

(scratching on a black board)

230.7 / 4.066 = 56.738

"Geepers Mister! Does that mean that the bike got almost 57 miles/gallon?!"

"That's right Timmy. One more reason that all boys should ride motorcycles."

(spoken in a calm fatherly voice and smiling at the camera)

Well you heard it here folks, the Goldwing averaged 56.7 mpg with a mix of highway and city driving. Join us next time when we disclose how cheap it is to insure one of these beauties.