{"id":18,"date":"2007-12-29T21:42:53","date_gmt":"2007-12-30T05:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/2007\/12\/29\/wrenchin-yuppie-style\/"},"modified":"2009-03-04T12:58:31","modified_gmt":"2009-03-04T20:58:31","slug":"wrenchin-yuppie-stylee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/2007\/12\/29\/wrenchin-yuppie-stylee\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrenchin&#8217; Yuppie-Stylee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I spent some time in the garage today, wrenching away on my bike.  My wife gave me a <a href=\"http:\/\/cozywinters.com\/shop\/wg-mhvl.html\" target=\"_blank\">WarmGear heated vest<\/a> for Christmas and I needed to run power from the bike&#8217;s accessory plug for it, so of course I had to make the wiring job more complicated than it needed to be.<\/p>\n<p>The vest came with coax connectors and a battery wiring harness, but that wasn&#8217;t good enough for me.  I wanted to use the accessory harness I installed a few months ago when I got my <a href=\"http:\/\/www8.garmin.com\/zumo\/\" target=\"_blank\">Zumo<\/a> GPS device.  I had &#8220;improved&#8221; it by cutting off one of the plugs and soldering on a quick-disconnect plug so I could easily take the GPS rig off the bike when necessary, and I wanted to do the same thing for the vest.  Let&#8217;s ignore the fact that the plug I had replaced was already a quick-disconnect plug &#8212; it just wasn&#8217;t the type I wanted to use on the GPS rig.  And let&#8217;s also ignore the fact that since I installed it, I have never taken the GPS mount off the bike and I probably never will.  The point here is that the accessory wiring harness had different connectors than the vest had, just like the Zumo.  Clearly, I had to do more cutting and soldering.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, I&#8217;m lazy.  As I got out the soldering iron and tin and connectors and all the other crap that goes with it, I remembered how much work (and cursing) it was wiring up the harness for the Zumo and I said <em>Screw it, I&#8217;m using the harness that came with the vest<\/em>.  That right there saved me at least a day and a half and five trips to RadioShack.  I just popped the seat off, connected the harness, and rigged the plug under one of the side covers where it&#8217;s easily accessible when needed.  In, out, done in about 15 minutes.  Nice.<\/p>\n<p>With all the time I saved, I decided to knock out a few more things I&#8217;ve been putting off:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I repositioned the Zumo on my handlebars so I can put gas in without fear of dousing it and changed the angle to eliminate the noontime glare I&#8217;ve been getting off the screen.<\/li>\n<li>I pumped up the rear shocks so my fat ass would stop bottoming them out on potholes.<\/li>\n<li>I reinstalled my left muffler <em>again <\/em>to take care of a pain-in-the-ass exhaust leak that I still haven&#8217;t been able to completely eliminate.<\/li>\n<li>And perhaps most importantly, I adjusted my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kruzerkaddy.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kruzer Kaddy<\/a> bracket so my coffee cup sits level when I&#8217;m riding.  It was tilted a bit, leading to sloshing and unfortunate waste of delicious drops of my beloved <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starbucksstore.com\/products\/shprodde.asp?SKU=312878\" target=\"_blank\">Sulawesi<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I told my buddy Dave about all these mods &#8212; heated vest, mp3-playing GPS, drink-holder, adjustable shocks&#8230;  He laughed at me.  He said I ought to just trade the bike in on a GoldWing.  He called me yuppie scum.  He said I&#8217;m not a real biker.<\/p>\n<p>I have to admit, that GoldWing comment hurt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I spent some time in the garage today, wrenching away on my bike. My wife gave me a WarmGear heated vest for Christmas and I needed to run power from the bike&#8217;s accessory plug for it, so of course I had to make the wiring job more complicated than it needed to be. The vest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}