Introduction to The Bandit Files

About Me

There are many blogs on political, social, technical, and ethical issues. Although I have opinions on those topics, I don't intend to write about any of them here. This is a journal about life with motorcycles.

Like many people I'm an avid motorcyclist and appreciator of two-wheeled things. Unlike most motorcyclists here in the States I had no car for 15 years. My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, and I attempted to convert vehicles marketed as lifestyle accessories into practical daily transportation. As we pressed bikes and gear designed to last a season or two into daily service, we found that what would be considered normal use for a car is considered extreme service for a lifestyle accessory. We learned to commute, grocery shop, travel, go to the gym, go out to dinner, etc. in all kinds of weather and traffic conditions on our motorcycles. A lot of what we road-tested simply fell apart under daily use.

At the same time my desire for more living space pushed us further out from work and even more miles piled up on the bikes. My original 3-mile commute across town from my tiny studio in San Francisco is now a 55-mile round trip from our house in the North Bay to Oakland, and my wife rides even further. The sheer number of miles made it expensive and inconvenient to take the bikes to shops for every recommended service and we started learning to keep them running ourselves. My wife took maintenance classes at CCSF and I stayed overnight at friends houses to learn valve adjustments and engine teardown. I found that maintaining motorcycles with upwards of 50k miles can be challenging. At that mileage the bikes no longer resembled the pristine photos in shop manuals. Bolts stuck, threads stripped, and there were unexplained problems without clearly documented disassemble/inspect/reassemble procedures. I hope to document some of those types of issues here.

Thanks to the generous donation of my Dad's old pickup our car-free lifestyle is at an end. However we still maintain a "car-light" lifestyle by commuting on two wheels--mostly still by motorcycle although I recently started cycling after a 20-year break. So while this is motorcycle blog, I may sneak in the occasional bicycle commuting entry as I get back into it.

About the Bikes
Our motorcycles:

1. 2001 Suzuki SV650, 55k miles (wife's),
2. main commuter, 2001 Suzuki Bandit 1200, 53k miles,
3. backup commuter, 2003 Yamaha FZ1, 43k miles.

We bought the Suzukis used with a few thousand miles each, and I bought the Yamaha new back in '03. There were a few cruiser-type bikes in our past as well. My bicycle is an old Bridgestone MB-5 mountain bike from the early 90s.

During the years we've used motorcycles for transportation we've learned a bit about survival techniques, gear, maintenance, and generally what works for us. While I'm by no means an expert wrench or rider, I hope my maintenance notes, road tests, and other observations will be useful for others who are attempting to do the same. Bike-only isn't always fun and it's not easy. Good luck and rubber-side down, as they say.