audiomick

"Knock off five and stay alive".

Hello. Yes, the audio is truly abysmal. Not just the wind noise, it also just sounds really weird.

Yes, and that is where I grew up and lived until I came here in 1996, and where I spend a good part of my time any time I get back over. As I have already indicated, I like the German Autobahn. In a lot of ways a lot more relaxing than the Hume Freeway, even if you have to contend with impatient bastards coming up from behind 80 km/h faster than you are doing, and you are already doing 170 km/h. Or you are doing that sort of speed, and some whacko doing 110 km/h pulls out in front of you to pass a truck (they are only allowed to do 80 km/h, even on the unlimited sections) because he can't wait 30 seconds to let you pass. So you are very, very concentrated on the Autobahn, but it is still better than constantly watching the speedo and looking for the bacon behind the next bush. On the unlimitied sections, apart from taking account of what the traffic is doing, you can just drive at whatever speed you and the vehicle are most happy with.

Well, it is simple on the one hand, but not so simple on the other. There is only one type of decibel, but... as I mentioned further up, it is a relative unit, i.e. x dB is not an absolute value, but rather always a "more than" or "less than" value. The "difffernt types of decibel" are in fact not different decibels, but rather different specified reference values. For instance dBV states a value relative to 1 Volt. There is a listing of the suffixes here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel#List_of_suffixes A dB figure regarding the loudness of something is almost always dBA. That is included in the linked list of suffixes.

My "best" infancy failure: I was working for an Outside Broadcast company at a motor race (cars) event at the Phillip Island track, the same one that the bikes run on. A colleague and I were sent out to change the 9V block battery in the microphone pre-amp on a mic around the other side of the circuit. Maybe 1.5 or 2 km from the O.B. truck. We drove around to the mic, changed the battery, confirmed via Walky-Talky with the truck that it was working, and headed back. We hadn't driven more than about 500 metres on the way back when the truck called us up and sent us back to change the battery again. It was dead, less than 5 minutes after we took it out of the packaging.

That'd be it. Never exclude the possibility that a new part, particularly electronics, might be broken out of the box. It is not all that common, but it can happen.

Apart from watching out for the pork.... The German Autobahn has its good points.

But only when everything else is definitely sorted. There is no point dicking around with the map if a sensor is not working, or something "simple" is mechanically not working as it should.

Well, how about that. Great that you have got her back up and running. Enjoy!

PS, as far as loudspeakers go, I quite like these https://www.dbaudio.com/global/en/products/series/sl-series/ksl8/ At home, I have a pair of these https://www.genelec.com/previous-models/1031a but I must say, I'm more interested in how they sound than how loud they can be.

I think you mean Klipschhorn, don't you? These, for instance. https://www.sg-akustik.de/shop/klipsch-klipschorn-ak6-stueck Yes, right off topic. Glad you had a good day.

Quite appropriate, I reckon.

I beg to differ. Decibels are a relative unit, and logarithmic. That means that 2 dB does mean a significant difference in sound energy. Whoever can be bothered can look here, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decibel https://www.quora.com/How-many-dB-decibels-represent-a-doubling-or-halving-of-the-sound-volume 2 dB difference is a difference that the untrained ear registers as "that is louder". As far as exposure to noise goes, it can be quite relevant, depending on how loud the environment is and how long the exposure is. 97 dB, probably dBA, is quite loud. 99 dB is very loud. To get it into perspective, look here. I don't know how reliable the publisher of the site is, but the numbers more or less correspond to that which I have seen elsewhere https://www.asha.org/public/hearing/loud-noise-dangers/#dangerous Any wonder. According to the information on their site, they dampen by 30 dB at 2 kHz. That is really a lot, and 2 kHz is a frequency that is really important for the transmission of information (speech, awareness of the surroundings, whatever...). So an ear plug that dampens that much will indeed provide good protection, but will also isolate you from your surroundings. By the way, this is nothing more than marketing bullshit. I believe I wrote in another thread that wind noise is not a single frequency, but rather very broad band, i.e the entire range of audible frequencies is involved. You simply can't filter out "the wind noise frequency". All you can do is dampen everything. How isolated you feel then depends on the "frequnecy response" of the filters. If they are neutral (flat), you will still feel like you are in touch with the surroundings to an extent. The Moto Safe ones are anything but flat. Their figures show that they dampen significantly more in the high frequencies than in the mids and lows. Particularly the difference between the damping at 500 Hz and 2 kHz is extreme. They must sound like shit.

I've experienced two in that size range. The previous car, an Opel Corsa, had one and a can of "instant repair" instead of a spare tyre, as does the current Opel Astra. They are both of a size that one could take them on bike with capacious luggage, but big enough that I wouldn't like to unless I really had to. I can say much about longevity, as I have only used them a total of 4 or 5 times. They do work. They are both surprisingly loud, annoyingly so, and slow. Because they are so small, I guess, the pumped volume cannot be very much, so they take a long time to deliver an appreciable amount of air.

Thanks for the tip Pete. I wasn't aware that Guzzi had ever made a sensible dipstick. I still might buy one or three from Meinolf, though (no, not him, the other Meinolf...) because his work is really quite pretty, and he's a nice bloke into the bargain. And he also makes them to fit the small blocks, i.e. suitable for my Breva 750 and my V35 Imola. Incidentally, he (the Meinolf in question) has a V65 track bike modified to a mono-shock rear suspension. It looks a bit "utilitarian", but the longer you look at it, the more stuff you discover that he has modified. Cool bike. Here are a couple of pictures of his dipstick.

For that one you have to log in to facebook. Not going to happen...

There's a bloke on the German forum that makes pull-out dipsticks for Guzzis. A screw in plug for the filler hole with a dip-stick through the middle secured by a locking pin. Made of metal, and flat in the relevant measuring area. I reckon I will get one of those (likely one each for all three Guzzis), and the suggestion to make a mark on it just under the Roper Plate in the case of the V11 is very likely to be used.

That link leads to a Yamaha for about 17 and a half thou. . Who wants a bloody Yamahahaha?

Looks a lot like an 80's TV show to me. Great song.

As I understand it, the first wind tunnel used by a motorcycle manufacturer. Correct me if I am wrong, anyone who knows better. Indeed. You never know when it might be too late.

Google can be avoided. There are Wiki articles that mention them. For instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertson_screw They are uncommon here and in Australia, in fact I don't recall ever having seen one, but the idea sounds good. What was that thing with having to leave town?

I like Torx. 10 or 15 years ago they were a bit of a pain in the arse, because one didn't necessarily have the appropriate bit on hand. In the meantime, they have become so common here that the bit is available more or less as a matter of course. The adavantage over a Phillips screw is that the driver is less likely to jump out of the screw head if you don't put enough pressure on it to stay in. When using a battery drill to screw in the screws, this is a major advantage. On the stages in theatres here, where set pieces are commonly screwed to the stage floor, and generally where things made of wood are screwed together, you nearly always see Torx here. As I said, I like them.

Legs all the way up to her arse.

Answering that is going to take a while, but maybe I will rise to it...

Nitpicking time (again...). The chin strap on the helmet seems to be not done up, and the helmet seems to be too big for her, i.e. not her helmet, i.e. the photo is staged. Yes, I know they all are, but one can make an effort.... On top of that, when I sit on a bike, the right hand is on the brake lever, and the left foot is down. Left hand on the clutch and right foot down is only just before riding off, and then the right hand is mostly on the brake lever right up until I start releasing the clutch. Still, the bike is on the centre stand, so the photo is obviously really a set-up. So why is she pulling in the clutch? As I said, one can make an effort when setting up a photo...