Marvelicious

It's not as dense, so it wouldn't deflect the gas in a torch to that degree, but combined with a thin piece of tin to deflect the flame, it will keep up until the tin melts. Depending on your application, the carbon felt might be much easier to work with. For example, fitting it to the back side of all the existing vfr heat shields: drill rivets, trim to fit felt with scissors, spray glue in place, re-rivet.

That's an interesting machine... On the off chance anyone is looking for a good high-temp heat shield material and not just looking at the cool bike, I've found carbon felt to be really amazing stuff. Good to 400C in oxygen and much higher without, it feels like a soft wooly blanket and weighs almost nothing. It isn't the cheapest thing out there, but it's impressive stuff.

Were the counter people trying to convince you to wait for the OEM parts? I don't know about interchange with 8th gen, but my experience has been that it's a super easy job on both the bikes I own. A non-mechanical friend has done Pazzo and Puig levers on a couple of his bikes and had the same experience. His only complaint was that Puig took forever to ship the levers, but this was mid 2020, so Covid was a factor. Basically, if the company that makes the levers says they'll fit your bike, they probably will, or they wouldn't stay in business long (ebay mystery sellers excepted). Sorry to hear about the side-stand failure. Hell of a way to start a ride.

I definitely like the Pazzo shorties on my VFR. At the other extreme I recently tried a set of no-name ebay shorties on my 690 Duke, just out of curiosity, and they aren't quite as nice, but they're like 90% quality at 20% of the price. Fitment was easy in both cases. EASY. Like, pull the package out of the mailbox, walk into the garage and fit them in a matter of minutes...

My personal technique that seems to work well for me is a sparing application of oxguard on the terminals themselves. I also use some dielectric grease on the plastic bodies of the connector, but this is all a "little dab'll do ya," kind of job. I've also noticed something that looks suspiciously like oxguard in use on some of the higher current connectors in Toyotas I've owned. Take it for what its worth...

I had a scare a few years back with my car and a kid on a skateboard. Full dark, foggy, there were some of those super bright LED flood lights but they were pointed to blind rather than illuminate. Smallish teen skater kid, dressed in black, moving fast down the sidewalk. I never even saw him, but suddenly heard a loud thump under my car. Turned out to just be his skateboard... he jumped back off the deck, landed on his ass and the board went under my wheels. Talk about relief. I talked to him for a couple of minutes to make sure he was okay, but I think he was just terrified I'd find something wrong with my car to blame on him and obviously wanted to get out of there. I'll call it a win... I didn't kill anyone that day!

Yeah, the cops have really backed off on traffic enforcement, especially in cities like Portland... where there is more than Covid to consider (not to open that political can of worms - you can find enough ugly behavior on all sides of that fight to justify whatever opinion appeals to you). I generally don't commute on the bike (I often need to carry gear and associating my leisure activity with work just spoils it for me) so I don't ride much on major highways. Still, I've noticed it when driving the cage. I've got a longstanding tendency to set the cruise control at about 10 mph over. It seems to be the consistent limit where cops won't bother to pull you over. Lately, I'm getting passed like crazy. I drove past an Audi the other day that had decided to shorten their following distance to about 3 feet less than the Audi standard... i.e. 2 feet deep into the SUV they were following. Dead center too, no attempt to swerve. Looked like it had spoiled everyone's weekend, but it didn't appear that anyone was badly hurt.

It's part of the startup diagnostic. I'm betting you're right... It is probably a holdover from the aviation industry. They have all the cool gauges first.

This is the Pipercross... Snagged one off ebay while the dollar to pound ratio was fairly friendly.

Not sure I can help with the engagement point... I don't have small hands, and I have Pazzo levers, but I agree that the engagement point wasn't ideal. What improved it for me was swapping to a 5th gen slave cylinder. I'm not sure it changed the engagement point, but the feel is so smooth you won't care... Longish thread, but worth the read.

Maybe the previous owner was blind? 🤣

I bought one of these for my VFR a while back... https://www.guglatech.com/en/prodotto/honda-fuel-filter-m12006-arm-00/ Either it works well, or I've had good fuel... Peace of mind anyway.

I don't think the international border is quite as friendly as normal to tourism, but I could be wrong. I just assumed it was out of the question.

Possibly helpful... https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap This weather site has a coronavirus map at certain zoom levels. Not that your odds are high of contracting or spreading it on a bike, but it's a lot easier to find open businesses in areas less affected. Also, it's a really good weather map... I've been trying for 3 years now to make a 2 week loop through western Canada, but it doesn't look like 2020 is going to happen either.

This is like finding out someone you know is a furry... I don't have a problem with it, but don't expect me to understand!