hp2 fuel tank - update

the last word was that the larger tank for the HP2 would be available in march. its the middle of april and i haven't heard much so I thought I'd shoot an email out to HPN and see what the status was, and the reply:

the current delivery time is July for the lager tank - it gaves a lot of problems in the developement, sorry. No price, no picture at this time available.

tech talks by google

I watched part of the one FPGA's. pretty good. if you miss college lecture, dial one up and learn something.

google engedu

dirt bike <100lbs

Don't get me wrong, I love the new ride, but if i had to pick the bike up alot and didn't ever need to break 30mph an fxbike could just very well be the next ticket.

BMW market analysis

I did a little paper for my marketing class, origionaly written in word, and I did a 5minute cut-paste to openoffice for the export to PDF. its a little rough around the gills, but the content is there. It has some pictures, and a few sources that pertain to the 1200GS and how the HP2 has been entered in almost every major off road race. my conclusion is that the HP2 is being used to prove the technology of the 1200GS so that the 1200GS can be more closely associated with off road capability instead of the behemouth monstrosity that the 1150GS has turned into and people saw in long way round. I tried a free hosting site, upload2.net, so an we'll see if the link works bmw north american market analysis I have omiited my name from the file, so if anyone is going to reference it, email me and I'll give you my name. the high level page for upload2.net is here in case the first link doesn't wrok. If you want the presentation I used for my 5-min class discussion you can have it. it was just a few slides to talk to abou the history, the current market position, and what my take of the strategy was. my bike is on the last slide. (CTRL-L) is the shortcut for full screen in acrobat

snowshoe yosemite

We have headed out this weekend to hit yosemite and do a little snowshowing. We left home around 4pm, and got to where we are staying (about 45 min outside the park) at 11:30 pm. We did a nice little 2 mile snow hike yesterday, and took some pictures in the park. today we head back for one more quick round of pictures and then its back home. we plan to stop at the spagehetti factory and get the 'brown butter and mazithra' on the way back. what a great weekend.

hp2 pic

This ones mine. we went on a little trip to pyramid lake. saw some crusty brain looking rocks at the alkalai lake. On a different note, it takes a special person to race one of these monsters up a ski slope

new job!

with a title like that you'd expect my smile-ic-on to look a little diferent

=(

I have heard some new rumors that even more qualified people are applying for the new job I applied for. not just your average Jo, but people that are being moved from even higher jobs. so.... yeah... I'm not even a candidate. at this point I'll be lucky for an interview.

sick

this fall will make 5 years for me at my current employer (who shall rename nameless). in that time i've been sick a grand total of 2 days. that is until this week. missed monday and tuesday, and wasn't going to come in today but I decided unpacking boxes wasn't helping me get better so maybe looking at my employees with blood-shot eyes would perk my spirits.

sure enough, they said 'you look like hell' first thing when I walked in. they all tried to send me back home but then I found I have a meeting with the leader of our ~2500 person business at 5pm.

so..... no going home early. crap.. on top of that I have school tomarrow so I can't ditch tomarrow, and their is holiday on monday, so i'd look like a weasle for missing friday,

thus, i'm stuck at work sick.

[update]
I just re-read this and I am quite proud of the standard typos / spelling I fall prey to. =)

hp2 fuel tank!

I just heard back from HPN! I'm so happy SOMEONE is thinking about it.

From: HPN-Motorradtechnik GmbH
Date: Feb 9, 2006 12:27 AM
Subject: AW: BMW HP2 larger fuel tank?
To: k2h


Hello k2h,
thanks for your email. HPN develope a larger tank - we hope it can be available at the end of March, capacity ca. 26ltr, price is unknown at the moment.

best regards

Caroline
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: k2h [mailto:k2h.admin@gmail.com]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 2. Februar 2006 21:36
An: info@hpn.de
Betreff: BMW HP2 larger fuel tank?


Do you have a larger fuel tank for the BMW HP2? I wasn't able to find one on your web site, but I heard rumors that you may be in the process of making one. what capacity are you targeting, and how much do you think the tank will cost?

~keith

seems someone strapped a 12L on the backhere

hp2 update

Call me psycho, but I'm loving the $20k dirtbike, and that is all anyone will ever see in it. I was parked outside taco bell and some old chap walks up and says 'is that the 20k one?'. like I said.. thats all anyone will see in it.

and I am crazy. already had it off road. nothing to gnarly, but through some sand (keep above 40mph..) the thing is awesome!

fuel consumption is a bit of a concern. the specs says 4.1l/100km at 90kmph and 5.5l/100km at 120kph, (google makes it easy) and I can assure you I've been riding it much faster than 65. I'm getting around 40mpg, which is way to little on a 3 gallon gas tank to take it to alaska, so I'm going to have to address that. I really don't want a 2gal can hanging of the back, but thats the cheapest and easiest. if I could increase my metal working skills I could make some dakar style side tanks for it. that would be awesome, but a bit out of my current skill set.

I've got to address the night light situation, and get some cheep 20$ walmart light up there. its nice to know that the HP2 shares the same H4 bulb as the F650 (jens bike). at least I think it does.

one more thing. hand warmers! mom gave me some hand warmers a while ago and I got a chance to use them (the same ones we used paint balling). my commute is about 1hour, and I've done it in sub freezing temps (28degF?) its weird beccause its the wind speed (80mph) that has the worst effect on hand warmth. I slow down to 30mph and pass a sign that says 32F and my hands actually start to warm up.. its weird. its around $400 to add heated grips. it would be nice but i'm not sure its worth the money. I've got to address the fuel situation first.

hand warmer secret: the hand warmers from mycoal grabber are carbon and iron. as the iron oxides in O2 it creates heat. they come in a sealed bag for a reason. to extend the life of your warmers, reseal them in a ziplock. they take a little bit longer to heat up the second go around, but they still work. so far I've used one twice (for 1 hr each time). in theory it should work for 3 or 4 1hr events. they say 5 or 7 hours on them but i'll be happy if I get 4 uses.

The 'cold weather' gear consists of only a few things.

Gloves, some old alpine stars that jens dad got for me when we did our FIRST motorcycle tour thorugh oregon and washington. that was way back when we were still in college. over 5 years ago. maybe 6 now? they are still very good, and well worth the origional 30$ cost.

Coat: mom got it for me for my birthday about 7 years ago. touratech short coat. was around $150. still works great and has a polysters wind proof liner which helps a ton.

Polyester pants, for under the jeans. cost $25 from sierra trading post. well wroth it.

over pants: $20 wind/semi water proof pants from walmart. they actually work quite well.

boots: not realy cold weather gear, as I wear boots no matter what the temp, but full grain water proof boots from target cost $25. I got them for wood cutting a few years ago and they have since been to alaska and back on a bike and still are reasonably water proof. the only thing to take them down to date was kevs game of paintball. I have motorcross boots as well, but not really needed for my commute jaunts. it'll be a few months before I workup the skillset to actually need the motorcross boots off road.

the neck warmer, $15 gift from jen is a MUST. impossible to ride fast in cold weather without neck/chin protection. I have augmented this with wind proof nylon. I a small bag used to keep your round sun shades in the car in. I cut a hole through t he top and it just BARELY fits over my head. put the neck warmer underneath and the wind proof over it and your good to go. oh yeah.. the sun shades were turned into sleds last year and we're still using them for that.

When I show up at work wearing all this junk I've got called quite a few weird things. my favorite so far is 'the ice man'

Crash bars are now avilable from the US distributor and are $300. I priced out the valve covers (what the crash bars protect basically) and they are 130-$150 each, so maybe I'll wait till I 'hole one' and then get the bars.

rant against home depot

I promised my brother I was going to get him a garbage disposal for christmas, but didn't get around to getting one until way after the holidays. I have a gift card to home depot, so I walked into home depot and explained I want to purchase something, but pick it up at another store (in another state) so I don't have to pay to ship it any where. that makes sense right? part of the leverage of a chain store is that they have stores in different locations that [should] work together to satisfy the customer.

The lady at customer serviced explained she couldn't do that, but there would be no problem if I called the 800 number. I thought to myself 'yeah right' but I proceeded to call when I got home. not surprisingly, the 800# went straight to india. I don't have anything against the india call centers, I really don't, its just that they [the company that contracts with india call center] doesn't sufficiently train or give sufficient power to those on the phone to actually do ANYTHING to help you. they mean well, but theres really nothing they can do.

after about 20 minutes he 3-wayed me in to the store I wanted to pick the merchandise up from (in washington) and we had a little conversation about how it wasn't possible with a gift card, but if I wanted to call and do a credit card order they could handle it no problem. something about how they actually had to SCAN the gift card.

I explained that below the barcode there was a series of numbers that I could give him over the phone, just like a CC and that should work. no-can-do. home depot won't even take their own currency!

I'm a lowes man now. unfortunatly the home depot is still closer to I am a more freqent patron of HomeDepot than lowes. it really tears me up inside when I walk in there Cuase i KNOW lowes is better.

so... kev.. did you get the card?

Gasoline faq

faqs.org has a great article on gasoline. it drives our society, so why not educate yourself. for starters, oil isn't dead dinos, its dead vegetarian dinos dinner. I thought that was a good tidbit.

For all you people that want to run your engine off of water, I suggest reading section 9.8.2, where it says it is possible. (water mixed with gas of course)

section 10.2 gives some good insite into how to turn a 1.5L honda civic engine into a 1000hp formula 1 racer. very intersting.

other good tidbist:

A complete Octane Rating engine system costs about $200,000 with all the services installed. Only one company manufactures these engines, the Waukesha Engine Division of Dresser Industries, Waukesha. WI 53186.

Also ensure that the service stationstorage tank has not been refilled recently. retailers are supposed to wait several hours before bringing a refilled tank online, to allow suspended undissolved water to settle out, but they do not always wait the full period.

The legend of mothballs as an octane enhancer arose well before WWII hennaphthalene was used as the active ingredient. Today, the majority of mothballs use para-dichlorobenzene in place of naphthalene, so choose carefully if you wish to experiment :-). There have been some concerns about the toxicity of para-dichlorobenzene, and naphthalene mothballs have againbecome popular. In the 1920s, typical gasoline octane ratings were 40-60 [11], and during the 1930s and 40s, the ratings increased by approximately 20 units as alkyl leads and improved refining processes became widespread [12]

applied for new job!

big news!

I have applied for the next level up job. they gave my bosses job to someone else and this other (lateral) job is now posted. out of about 5 or 6 people I expected to apply only myself and my friend have applied. I'm pretty sure he'll beat me out, but I've got a few things going for me. MBA student, Pro engineering certified, and I'm younger.

sounds weird huh? since when did less experience get you any where? around here they seem to be taking the 'long term' persepective on people and the last few jobs have actually been filled with the younger candidates. maybe they think younger ones are more maulable. thats probably the case, but who cares. better take advantage of it while I still can.

the new job would be leader of the machine shop. about 65 full time machinest / misc. workers report to that leader. lucky for me I know nothing about machinest so when the work gets behind I'd just get a bigger loudspeaker.

maps

its so hard to get good maps, and good data! all I want is a list of gas stations in north america and an approximate GPS coordinate, I'd even settle for a city name next to the gas station, but alas, all I can find so far is some pseudo accurate search tool demo.kivera.com. I found a reasonable article talking about digital maps on gpsinformation.org

january update

I have done a terrible job of keeping everyone informed of my activities, so here is my january update.

1) the new bike is awesome. I have not had the time or endurance for 28degF weather to get more than about 100 miles on it, but I'm very happy. the other day a person stopped next to me at the stop light and rolled down the window to admire the bike. he started in on how he had an -80GS in 80's and he made three trips from sandiego to alaska on it.. loved it..... etc.. I get the feeling I'm going to get alot of these stories.

2) I may be applying for my bosses job. she moves to california to oversee another plant and after all the pieces fall back to earth a similar job (over a sister division) will most likely be posted as open. I don't think I stand a very good chance. I will mostly likely be beat out by my best friend at work. but its all good. should I get it, I could be making 20 grand more in about 2 yrs time. its all about the money for me.

3) the new house is great! no major deffects, and the neighbors have temporarily stopped parking in front of our house as the builders have finshed repair work on many peoples driveway curbs. we'll see how long it lasts. the joy of being in a coldesac is that you have tons of curb space, the reality is that everyone thinks since you have lots of curb space your happy to share it with them. I'm thinking of posting a sign out front that says "is your driveway full? why don't you go back and check" but haven't resorted to it yet.

4) we got a new kitty door, but haven't had time to install it yet. I hope the kitty remembers how nice it is outside and starts using the sand pile out there.'

5)school starts tomarrow night. ugggg... I was able to clep out of one class, but this other one, marketing managmenet, it for sure going to suck. the teacher already assigned HW before the class started, and the lab fees are pretty high, and we have 40$ of supplimental material to purchase.... on and on........ yeah.. it'll suck.

6) people keep getting hurt at work. usually its not a big deal, if its people that work for someeone else, but I own about half of the recent incidents in an 800 person plant. the joy of overseeing hourly employees. they mean well. but they arn't all.. well.... theres no polictially correct way to say it so i won't.

and this.... this is the end of my 5 minute lunch. until the end of next month.

~keith

Human Genome

anyone remember the big human genome project? cancer still isn't cured, but i'm sure there will still be big advances made from it. I found some visuals on homosapien genome view that seemed pretty interesting. well, as interesting as biology can look to an EE.

patents

every now and again I want some inspiration. why come up with something origional when you can just borrow an idea from freepatensonline.com the US gov use to have a patent search but it sucked. this one seems to actually be usable. check it out.

paris-dakar

here is a day by day update on the 2006 paris to dakar race. it looks like this year there are a few F650GS's competing as well as a modified VW toureg II (I didn't know they had a second version) I think someone died yesterday. I havne't figured out who or why yet, but I'll keep reading.

hp2 gearing

this is so I can figure out what 5000RPM is without a Tac. I calculated it with info found in the manual. I figure its probalby wrong but with 10 miles on the bike it seems I may have got close. it passes the 'smell' test anyway.

links

nerdy tails
things i drop
Ambition Run Amok
k1h
prairie home
simple ramblings
Wanderings..
Something Epic
Kseb.net
HP2 forum

hackaday

freeware
imagefap
google videos download
Post Pics
Post files
Bt
BT-btjunkie.org
BT-TVrss.net
BT - grizzly
BT - torrentspy
CR
crackteam
logons
pushfile host files

hp2 manual
hp2 parts
bmw gear