These old horrible dark, depressing winter air photos of Trondheim got replaced by new high resolution summer-time ones

Before:

After:

Why do I care you might ask?

Because I love maps, and I spend an unhealthy amount of time at Google maps =)

Google also finally got street view coverage to Tiller (the souther part of Trondheim where I live). I can even see my motorcycle parked outside:

It can measure almost anything from -32 to 350c at a distance using a infrared sensor.

So far I’ve made some amazing scientific discoveries for mankind:

• The surface temperature of hands and arms varies between 33-36 c
• The perfect frying pan temperature for making veggie burgers is 220 c
• 65-70c is the optimal temperature a slice of pizza
• A sleeping ferret only has a temperature of 28c, thanks to good insulating fur
• The thermometer can be used to detect sleeping ferrets (there are lots of blankets in the living room)
• The mean temperature difference between the floor and ceiling in my apartment is 2.2c
• Driving at 80 km/h on a motorcycle a cold spring night gives your legs a surface temperature of 16 c (full riding gear).
• The paint from a can of spray paint (the kind used for cars/motorcycles) is quite cold: 0-1 c
• When using quick epoxy, the chemical reaction from mixing the base and primer makes the epoxy 35 c (in a 14 c ambient temperature).

The tapwater temperature

In an effort to prevent Stacy from using to hot water while making lemonade, I measured the temperature in 100 ml increments, showing that the water will at first have the room temperature of the kitchen, followed by the room temperature of the basement before reaching the optimal 4-5 c temperature. This took around 8 liters (or 15 seconds), but will of course vary from building to building.

But now it’s gone, and it’s time to remember the good times. After all we shared 11400 km which is the equivalent of a drive from Trondheim, Norway to Kathmandu, Nepal.

After 5 years of faithful service, at least it left with a smile:

I was out having the first drive of spring, on a racing bike (I’m pretty sure these are the most uncomfortable bikes ever designed). I’ll say this for my friends Yamha YZF, the ergonomics might suck, but the front brakes are unbelievable In fact they are so good, that with a tiny amount of force they locked up the front wheel on wet asphalt and smacks me in the ground.

I was only doing around 25 km/h, so the bike is mostly fine except for a gear lever, left blinker (nobody uses blinkers in Trondheim anyway) and some plastic which will have to be fixed before it’s sold (My friend finally took to his senses and got a real bike, BMW F 800 GS, which I’m sure he’ll never let me ride)

Me personally am fine, my right hand got a little bruised but nothing serious. What I don’t get is how my right hand got hit when I lowsided to the left, especially since my head broke the fall:

Maybe I should get a new helmet, or at least a visor before spring really hits Trondheim and I get my bike from winter storage.

I have my own map, but this is on my google maps, so not really very user friendly or manageable, so today I decided to try and use the google maps API.

I’m pretty pleased with the result, a single .html file with almost only javascript. Now I can just export the paths and add a single line in the .html file and the new track will be added to the maps and menu. I’m going to add sorting of the tracks by difficulty, length and maybe based on their distance from Trondhiem sometimes later.

The page is very easy to use, and if you want to make a list of tracks (or any form of lines), just check out the page source code which has 3 simple instructions on how to get it working

I probably won’t be adding many tracks until around the start of May.

The box itself is great, and much bigger than my older boxes, however my helmet is quite large so there is no way this box would fit 2 of them. But it could probably fit two smaller full face helmets.

To attach the backrest you have to tape on a template, and drill two holes in the box, and the brake lights looked kinda complicated to install (for me at least).

The internal document holder

I’ve seen on forums and stuff that several people have had problems with this, the locking mechanism (see image above) kinda tricks you into believing that you are supposed to squeeze it someway, or even to remove the center pin.

The way you’re supposed to do this by the way is just to pull (using quite a bit of force) on the red plastic around the lock, to open it. Maybe I’ll put up a video when I get my new camera.

It’s pretty cold up here now (6-7 Celsius at the warmest) so it’s soon off to winter storage with it, I took Stacy for a ride around Jonsvannet today, and got to drive on some dirt/gravel roads, and the bike handles those very well (no surprise).

Yamaha XTZ 660 Tenere 1993

I was a bit skeptical as I had mostly before driven a sweet new 2008 BMW F650, but the transition went very smoothly, only thing I miss is a hydraulic clutch.

I got the bike quite cheap (23’000 NOK – 4000$), and I was not sure how long I was going to keep it, but now I cant see myself selling it anytime soon

Anyway, as I’m about to exit a roundabout, the rear wheel looses it’s grip and the scooter starts sliding sideways. oh, did I mention it was raining? well, it was and that roundabout was unbelievably slippery.

So there I was, sliding sideways knowing all to well what was about to happen, and as the crablike movement of the scooter slowed it down, the rear tire finally got a hold of the road again. This of course made the scooter throw me off like the angry little plastic pony it is.

“Artist” rendering of the accident.

So I flew trough the air about a meter or two, hit the road elbow first.  Luckily the Road broke my fall, and seeing that I was wearing a full motorcycle dress, I could just get up and drive on.

I actually seem to recall a tiny voice inside my head going “Wheeeee!” in mid air,

The results of this interesting experience is:

• A small scratch on the helmet
• A bruised elbow
• A little less paint and plastic on the scooter
• The deformation of the forward brake handle.

I feel a bit soar on the right elbow, hip, and upper chest, but otherwise I’m fine.. Sitting in the couch watching Macgyver like I’m supposed to, Just 2 more episodes left and I can start on season 4