Another bike that I have a thing for buried deep in the gray matter. This 2003 Honda Ruckus has one day left for bidding on eBay, currently the bid is up to $710 (reserve not met). It only has 3500 miles on it and other than a dent on top of the front fender looks to be in excellent shape. This Ruckus is located about 450 miles from my home, so I easily pick it up and be home in a day, and I know it would be a lot easier to hide in the garage than a XT500.
The thing I like about the Honda Ruckus is the unlimited aftermarket customization options. Oh yeah it's got a kick start also.
I'm getting restless and a slow day at work doesn't help. I just got to keep from clicking the "Place Bid" button.
See you on the road.
GAW
UPDATE 7/2/10:
Final bid on eBay was for $830.00, a price I might have been willing to pay, but the reserve was not met so it didn't sell. The seller might have done better if he had been more careful listing the Ruckus, it was listed under Motorcycles>Honda>Other VS Powersports>Scooters>Honda. In the last month $830 is a bit high for a 2003 Ruckus on eBay, the only ones to sell have gone for around $700.
I have wanted one of these bikes since I first saw them in the 1981 James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only. The one pictured above is listed on eBay and will end in 2 days time. Do you think my wife would notice, if I parked it in the corner? Currently the price is $1200 and the reserve has not been met, so luckily if it sells it will be more than I would be willing to pay. If all the parts were there and it was just a little better condition...
Some of the evil henchmen rode XT500's of this very color scheme but they had one inch studs in the tires and the turn signals would flip around to become machine guns. You can see the XT in the upper right of the movie poster.
See you on the road.
GAW
UPDATE 7/2/10:
The final bid was for $1274. The seller lowered the reserve price on the last day. $1274 is probably not a bad price, still more than enough to put me in the dog house for the rest of the year.
I had my check up for my clavicle fracture yesterday and was given 6 more weeks for it to heal completely. If I'm really lucky it may be good in about 4 weeks, but I was told not to hold my breath. The Doc says that a clavicle typically takes about 9 weeks to heal, which puts it out to Aug 2nd for me. I guess the problem is that with a clavicle there is no way to completely immobilize it, and I can attest to that, it moves around quite a bite and can be very uncomfortable because of that movement. There is the option for a plate bolted up surgically, but because my break didn't really fit the need for surgery I'm sure my Insurance would have passed on the bill to me. So either way I would not be making a summer road trip, as it is the time just isn't there, and if I had had surgery I would probably have such a large medical bill that not only would I not be able to afford a road trip, I would probably only be able to eat stale bread and water for the next 5 years...
So for the rest of the summer I shall try to stay out of trouble and save my pennies for an even greater roadtrip in 2011.
See you on the road.
GAW
Getting some time behind the wheel of PEL-8 (Adobe Premier Elements 8), I just need to be out riding collecting raw data, but that will have to wait for now... I shot the video and photos this morning and had it edited by lunch, but when I used PEL to upload directly to YouTube only the first 18 seconds of footage would get uploaded. So I spent several hours trying to get it to work, so that I could save a step and a few minutes. In the end I had to do it the old fashion way of first creating an MPEG and then uploading it to YouTube. Next time I will just go straight to the old fashion way.
The video pretty much follows my vision. I have very complex mental visions of how I want things to look, but when I try to output those visions to bytes I seem to be all thumbs. I'm pleased how it came out, but I need to work on in-out timing and transition of the still images.
As I said in the video I'm getting bored around the house (I have run out of constructive things to do) so I decided later in the day to go for a walk and take my camera's below are a couple of images that would appear unrelated to motorcycles, but are they?
The first couple of images are what I will call poor man HDR images, one infrared (Canon G7) and one regular. I used 5 images that were shoot 2 stops apart and were merged in PSE using Photomerge-Exposure.
The last image is a single exposure made with the Lumix ZS3 in sunset mode.
So what makes these photos moto related? Well after taking the photos I took a tumble down the river bank. Probably because I was protecting my left arm, the rest of me feels kind of beat-up. I guess I will try to be content with being bored around the house for a couple of more weeks, lest I pull another stunt...
I was feeling better this weekend so I ended up doing some work around the house that I had put off during the week so I didn't spend much time working on fun stuff. I did finish putting together this video I shot the week before my small get off. I was riding alone on a more difficult trail than the one that took me down. I hesitate to state where this trail is, I rode it on my way to lunch and on my way home. I didn't see any "No Trespassing" or "Private Property" signs on my way to lunch and there were no gates blocking the road, I'm just not sure if it is a public road or not. It was an enjoyable ride and I'm glad I found it.
This video is the first video I edited with Adobe Premier Elements 8. It works very nicely and I believe it will let me get out comes closer to my "Vision's". Now I just need to get better bringing the time down. I did have one problem, I wanted to record a short narration track of about 20-30 seconds, but it crashed the program at about 10 seconds into the recording. I finally recorded the track in another program and just imported the clip into PE. I have some family video that I need to put together and then I will start work (pre-production & filming) on an epic moto docudrama that has recently been banging around in my head and also do a Redux on a short riding video I did last year. When I get home today I will have a box from Filmtools.com waiting for me, that will really give me the itch...
Connections, I enjoy looking at maps on Google Analytics and the Feedjit list (lower right side of blog) to see where the people who read my blog come from and how they got here. Last week I saw a hit from Salisbury, MO which is truly just a hop, skip and a jump from where I grew up (maybe 20 miles?). When I was a kid Salisbury was home to the only motocross track I knew of and the Kawasaki dealer( a friend rode Kawasaki's, I rode Yamaha's). I believe the track is long gone, but I think the Kawasaki dealer (Doug's Cycle Shop) is still there. What really interested me was that the hit came via Wet Coast Scootin. Just makes me wonder about the path they took getting here? So Mr or Mrs Salisbury, if you visit again I'm from Higbee thanks for stopping by.
I look a bit something like the photo above, just add 30 years. Way back in the summer of 1982 I was riding Yamaha 125 and crashed it for almost no reason breaking my Left collar bone. By today's standard I would have already had surgery to repair it, but back then they just put a brace on and said good luck.
My recent fracture isn't all that bad so in the brace I am. I get check up in about 3 weeks, so I suspect they will want me in the brace for about 6 weeks total. The one good thank about the brace is that I can get both hands on the keyboard, doing this kind a thing one handed gets old quickly. Back in 1982, a couple of weeks after that photo was taken I was riding my cousins Honda 70 three wheeler. It had an automatic transmission, only a hand brake on the right side, so not having use of my left hand didn't slow me down at all. Today I no longer have access to that little Honda nor a place to ride it, so it may take me a little longer to get back on the road. I have a recumbent bicycle and I have been a little lazy about riding it lately, so I may have to get it ready so that in a couple of weeks when I get some pain-free motion in the left arm again I will have two wheels ready.
I will also have some time to go through the video I have already taken with the GoPro HD video camera. I wasn't happy with a lot of the footage due to the camera shaking and the clattering noise coming from the camera shaking in it's housing. I also shot some footage with the camera upside down only to find out my software wouldn't let me rotate the image, so I purchased a copy Adobe Premiere Elements. I need to work at becoming proficient with it. I will return to some footage I shot about a year ago and see if Premiere Elements will let me get a final edit closer to my original vision. I must still learn that basic lesson of saving your work, I had a just over ten minute video almost ready for publication, I went through each clip trimming the time slightly on each to get the total time under the 10 minute limit. As soon as I got the time down I tried to record a short narration clip and the program crashed, off course I had not saved my work, so I'm back to the 10+ minute video, not the end of the world but none the less frustrating.
Hell is probably freezing over as I write this as I found and purchased a used Lumix ZS3( it's not a Canon??), it's all Bobskoot's fault. Maybe I will shoot some HD train videos while I'm healing.
At the least look for some videos in the near future.
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