Here are some of the books I have read in the past 6 or 8 months. School has been taking up a lot of my time this year. I haven't been reading like I usually do.
Elmer Gantry - Sinclair Lewis
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money From Mass Incarceration? - Herivel and Wright
What Americans Really Believe : New findings from the Baylor surveys of religion - Stark
One Man's Wilderness : An Alaskan Odyssey - Sam Keith
Babbitt - Sinclair Lewis
Chicken : The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food - Steve Striffler
HTML : A Beginner's Guide - Wendy Willard
To Dakar and Back : 21 days Across North Africa by Motorcycle - Lawrence Hacking
Bonneville : World's Fastest Motorcycles - by Horst Rösler
This is what I'm reading right now.
Build Your Own Electric Motorcycle - Carl Vogel
Hot, Flat, and Crowded - Thomas L. Friedman
Sport Rider magazine - Sept. 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The EV Plan
I want an electric motorcycle. Buying a brand new $10000 Zero, or a GPR-S, or one of the other manufactured bikes would be fun. But it's way out of my current budget. I want to build my own electric motorcycle. I'm hoping it will be the first of many. Ironically, part of the plan includes getting the Sportster (ICE - Internal Combustion Engine) running again and then selling it to help finance the first electric bike. I've already started doing research and reading a lot on the subject. The performance and range will be greatly affected by the initial platform. Voltage will likely be between 48 and 96 VDC. Batteries could be lead acid or Optima Yellowtops. Lithium would be nice but is expensive. Probably an permanent magnet DC motor like the ET-R or the ET-RT and an Alltrax programmable controller. I hope to find a bike to convert soon.
Finally! A garage!
I had a few beers a couple of nights ago with Bethany. I hadn't seen her in 4 or 5 years. She offered me the use of space in her mostly empty garage to work on the Sporty and future bike projects. The timing was perfect. With the bike currently crammed into a tiny second floor storage unit with lots of other crap, and barely enough parking space at my house, let alone a place to work on motorcycles, I basically had no idea what I was going to do. It's good to have friends. She has more or less given me free reign of coming and going and will give me a key to the garage door lock. For free! I went by today to look at it and it will be just fine. Plenty of floorspace. A cold water sink. Not much work top space. It could be closer, but at about 8 miles away it's not too bad. I need to find the best alternate route that isn't I-5 though. And I'll have to get used to working on the floor instead of on a lift. I've been spoiled for many years, being able to work on my own bikes in a pro shop environment. Access to air, special tools, cleaners, etc. Regardless of all that, I couldn't be happier to have a garage again. Thanks Bethany.
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