Moto Dynamic Changed Saki's Life.

You might remember the picture to the left. I posted about a week ago, and it showed Saki in all it's glory. There was one glaring problem though, and that was that giant rear fender on the back. It serves multiple purposes, in that it holds the license plate, the turn signals and also keeps road water being picked up by the rear tire, from spraying all over my back. Even though all of those are very useful things, that fender is just ugly, and detracts from the esthetics of the bike. It is also a distraction for me, my eye is always drawn to it, because it is the one thing, that looks like it doesn't belong. It seems to be an afterthought by the designers, that put all this raw beauty in the design of the front, side, motor, and what not, to only have a fender that looks like it belongs on something from the 70's. This is where Moto Dynamic comes in. I found out about this company a few months ago. I was watching a video of a guy that had done some modifications to his Ninja 650. The Moto Dynamics Integrated Taillight was one of those things. When I looked into them, I saw that they also had fender eliminator kit as well. I could kill two birds with one stone It may have cost me a bit more than say another Fender eliminator kit, but when you added it all together, I came out at a lower cost. Other kits allow you to put your old turn signals on the side of the plate mount. Moto Dynamics had that same option, but with the new integrated taillight, I don't need those protruding taillights.


     This is what I was working with. You can see, that even from the back, it wasn't appealing. It's is just awkward from any angle. The Moto Dynamic taillight and fender eliminator kit came in earlier on Friday than I expected. which was great, because it freed me up on Saturday to go hiking with a friend, but we will get to that later. I got the box open and took everything out. I looked at the instructions for the fender eliminator kit first. I figured that I could get that put in, and then tackle the taillight. That after allow as going to be the toughest part of the job, because wires were involved. I set Saki up on the tire stand to work on it, and removed the back seat. That was were all the magic was going to happen after all. The instructions were kind of simplistic, and left me a bit baffled, that meant I need to call on Youtube for the answers, so I started looking up videos on how people did stuff.

     That was after I got the new license plate bracket on though. That was a bit of a breeze. It was taking three bolts and a screw out, and unplugging all then wires. Well, I only needed to unplug the wires for the turn signals and the license plate light, but since I was there, I unplugged the brake light as well. Once I got the new plate mounted, I tackled the taillight. This is where I began getting ahead of myself, and realized that I didn't have enough room to work. There was no way I was going to get that light out, with the rear fairing, or cowling, whatever you want to call it. I found a video on how to remove that, and ended up with this.

That was the left side removed, I ended up taking both sides off eventually, because it was just easier to work with. Things began to fall into place after that. I got the new taillight in, and started wiring it up to test it, and I got super lucky. I managed to plug the right and left turn signals in the right spot, so when I checked them out, they did exactly what they were supposed to do. This is also the spot that I was supposed to program the lights, but the default setting worked perfectly, and I had to do nothing. I got a video of it after I finished that I will show you later. Apparently, if you don't want the sequencing of the lights, that is what the programing is for. Oh, I forgot a picture. I did take a picture once I put the new plate mount on, so you can see the difference from the one above that has the fender, and this one that doesn't.

     There ya go. That was a major improvement over that big nasty fender. Anyway, back to the taillight install. I had all the wires hooked up, and was ready to button everything down. This is another one of those spots where I got ahead of myself. I thought I was being smart, by running the wires through the biggest available spot from the taillight to where everything connected. I was wrong, and I found this out, after everything was tightened down. That was an adventure in itself. It took me a little longer to get the rear fairing all together, and the small grey piece that covered the top of the taillight, was a real problem. It took some wrangling to get it all together. I was finally ready to put the seat back on, when I realized that all the wires were in the way. Yes, I put them through the area that the seat locks down to. There was an easy fix. I just unplugged all the wires, and carefully re-routed them through a smaller more difficult area. I got everything plugged back in, and realized that I didn't have a license plate light. I tried to remove the one from the old fender, but that wasn't working, so I figured I would just have to go without it, and hope that I wouldn't get pulled over. I started cleaning things up, and that's when I found one more thing that I needed to add on. you guessed it, it was the license plate light, that Moto Dynamic provided with the new plate holder.

I had to go back and remove the plate, so that I could run the wires through the plate and also attach the light. You can't see it in the picture to the left, but it's all there. I installed it on the plate mount, and ran the wires through and plugged it all in where it needed to be plugged in. I went to test it out, and it wasn't working. I switched some wires around, and bingo, it worked. Now I could finally tighten everything up, and then clean up the work area.. I was done, and it took much longer than it should have. It probably took me two hours, but now that I know what I'm doing, fi I had to do it again, I think I could get it all done in about 15 minutes. It wasn't hard, I just got ahead of myself a few times, and didn't use the full capacity of my brain. It happens sometimes.

     With all of that done, I decided to take it out for a ride, to see if everything stayed in place. I had to see if it worked and nothing shook loose, so I rode to work, to check out the new machines that went it. When I arrived at my work, I took a quick walk around the bike, and everything looked good. I succeeded in my task. The owner and his son where there, and they ride as well, so they wanted to check out how the bike looked and what the new taillight did. The were impressed and loved the new look of Saki. The son, said it looked like an entirely different bike. I had to agree, The new lines make Saki look faster and tougher. The bike simply looks fantastic. I posted a picture of it on Instagram, and one person commented that it was the best looking bike out there. I'm partial so I agreed, and thanked them for the compliment. What's that? You want to see it for yourself? You didn't think I wasn't going to share a picture with you did you? There is reason that I haven't yet, and that is because after I left work, I found this great little park that I had no idea, was just around the corner from where I work. I rode past on when I went a different way to just ride, and saw it, so I had to turn around and go back. It seemed like a great place to get a picture of Saki, and this is the result.

     What do you think? Looks really different right? I took the picture right in front of the opening into a walk way. It turned out to be the perfect location. I knew that this small change was going to make a difference in the way I looked at Saki, but I couldn't imagine how drastic a change it would be. I'm more in love with that bike than I was before. I'm going to do a few smaller things, like tank grip and maybe change out the mirrors, but the only other real big thing that I'm going to do, is get a new exhaust system for it. I love the look of that one, but it is just too quite on the road, and cars don't hear me, and when they don't hear me, they don't see me. Right now though, I am happy with it, and can go quite some time before I get that exhaust.

     With all of that done, I decided to put Saki up for the night, and celebrate my accomplishment at my favorite watering hole. You know the place? It's the one with the bartender that I want to ask out. While I was there my favorite person in the world began texting me, and asking me if I had asked out my bartender. I hadn't. She was telling me why I should, and that I shouldn't worry about it, and basically giving me the pep talk that I needed, but just wasn't getting that rally feeling going. I just did something I didn't think I could do, and was pretty sure that I was going to screw it up somehow but managed not to, and I still couldn't ask out my bartender. I mentioned that I needed liquid encouragement to get the job done, but that by the time I had enough to do it, I had had too much to do it. It's a double edged sword. The truth of the matter, is that I just don't have the confidence yet, and drinking more or less, isn't the answer to the problem that I have. I need to get over me being me. There was one thing that happened that night though, that made me feel like, well, it made me feel like I want to experience that particular thing again. I had made some throw away comment, in an attempt to be funny, and she laughed like I had never seen or heard her laugh before. I want to make her laugh like that again, and again. It was such a beautiful sound. I think it had to do with everyone that was working that night, being in costume for Halloween. I really don't remember what I said, but that isn't the important part. Her laugh, that was the most important part of it. Now I took a picture of everyone in their costumes that night, and I've debated whether or not to share it here, so that you can get a look at her. The reason I'm against it is, that there are people that know her that possibly read this, and that could turn out bad for me. I don't know, this is where I become pessimistic about myself. Screw it, I'll just post the picture anyway. This was always about being honest about myself so here goes.

     Everyone was dressed up as characters from the Wizard of Oz. I'll give you a moment to look it over, and take a guess at which one she is. You get a good look yet? Any favorites in your eyes at which one is the one that I want to make laugh in that way that I had never heard before? Alright, She is the one dressed as Dorthy. If you don't know which one Dorthy is, we need to have a serious discussion about one of the greatest movies of all time. I guess you could say, that I have let the genie out of the bottle, because it is now out there for everyone to see. So depending on who reads this, and what they may or may not do, will decide whether or not I have to hang my head in shame for the rest of my life, or just when I go in that place. Who am I kidding, I'm not that proud of a person that it would make me hang my head. It could get awkward for a little while though.

     Let's do a quick recap of Saturday before I get that video up for you, and I head off to bed. I got to go hiking in Gainseville at a place called Payne's Prairie. It is apparently the first wildlife preserve in Florida, and home of a ton of alligators. Yes, it is more than likely the reason that the University of Florida's mascot is a gator. It was an old horse farm, they even have one of the original stables up and intact for you to walk through, on your way to the trail that takes you out to an observation deck. it's only a 1.5 mile walk from the car to the deck, but it is jam packed full of wildlife. Beside the gators, there are all kinds of birds, horses, bisons, snakes, and what not. I did see the horses out in the wetlands, but from time to time, they will run up the path where you are, My friends was lucky enough to have that happen to her when she went out there before. The bison weren't out as far as we could tell. The preserve is acres and acres of land, so they could have been anywhere.

     I took this one picture while I was out there, and it is just a small portion of one of the banks with alligators lounging in the sun. I you look close you can see that there are at the very least 10 big gators laying out there soaking up the sun. It was a pretty miraculous day. I saw new born hatchlings that were about 6 inches long, to big old bull gators that were somewhere around 15 feet long. Oh yeah, they also come up on the trail from time to time. There was none of that while I was out there, but that would have been fun to see.

     That's the quick wrap up of the weekend. I'm going to post the video of my new taillight below. It's a bit bounce, because I had to start on one side of the bike to hit the brake, and then walk around to the other side to hit the turn signals. I did all of this while stretching back to keep the camera on the light. The first thing you will see, is the light lit up simply because the light is always on because motorcycles need to be seen. When I het the brake, you will see three quick flashes and then the light holds a bit brighter. Than I walk around to the other side of the bike and hit the left signal, right signal, and then the hazard lights. I think it looks really cool, let me know what you think.

     Well, there it is. Once again, let me know what you think of my handy work. Oh yeah, before I leave, I'm going to have a surprise for you on Tuesday. You are never going to guess what it is. Peace in and goodnight.