I Just Couldn't Wait.

     Saki had been sitting quietly in the garage all week. The first half of the week was too cold to ride into work, and the second half, I was dealing with my allergies. Friday came and I finally stopped sneezing long enough to take Saki out for a short ride to the bank.

     It felt good to get on and ride, even a short distance, when I got home I looked at the box with the new levers in it, and said what the heck, let's get those on. My plan was to get the clutch lever on first. I had watched several how to videos with people saying how much of a pain it was to get that one on. I knew all the booby traps that were laid out for me, and I was going to get it on in record time. I was wrong. Apparently there is something different about the 2016 model of  Ninja 650 and it has some sort of sensor on the clutch lever. That means there was a wire housing attached to it, that kept me from getting to the already difficult bolt to remove it. This of course change my plans.

     I moved over to the brake lever. One bolt out, and the new lever was ready to go on. No problem. slide it in place, but the bolt back through and tighten it down. That job was done. Now I had to go back over to that clutch lever and figure it out. I loosened the bracket for the clutch and spun it around so I could see what was going on. There were two small screws in the wire housing or maybe it was a sensor housing. I'm really not sure. I decided to remove the whole clutch assembly form the handle bars so that I would have easy access to everything. I removed the housing so that I could get to the one bolt that I needed to, so that I could remove the clutch. This really shouldn't have been this difficult. I got the bolt out finally and removed the stock clutch. There was one thing I needed from that clutch in order to make the new one work. In the whole that the bolt ran through was a brass spacer. I had to push that out, and put it in the new clutch so that it would have proper fitment. It slid out easily and slid right into the new clutch, boom that was done. I now had to replace the housing back on the clutch assembly. I had to line everything up properly before I could put the screw back in. There was a small switch that had to be put back in a specific spot in order to work. I still have no idea what it does, but it seemed important. I held it in place and hand tightened the first screw down. Once that one was in, I got the second one started. I tightened everything down, and checked that everything moved properly before putting it back on the handlebars.

     One I had the bracket back on the bars, I had to line everything up, and that meant that I had to sit on the bike in a riding position in order to find out exactly where I wanted the clutch to go. I couldn't just guess at it and tighten it down. With an allen wrench in my mouth, I lined up the clutch to were it seemed like it would feel good. I held on to it with my left hadn't and tightened it down a bit with my right. Once I felt it would stay in place, I got back in the ride position and checked it out. It needed one last slight adjustment and then it was golden.

      With everything tightened down, it was time for a quick test ride. I only needed to go around the neighborhood for this, so I grabbed my helmet and took it out for a quick one. I still needed to adjust the lever height once I was riding. That could be down from a little lever on the top of each lever to adjust how far from the actual bar it rests. The brake lever was fine right off the bat at level 3, but I had to play with the clutch lever a bit to get it where it felt right. I started at 3 with it, but ran it although way up to 5, which is the top setting, and then back down to 2. I finally rested on 2. It gave me an easy pull with enough room that I wouldn't slam my knuckles with the lever when I had to draw it in. With everything in order I pulled back into the driveway to get the after shot for you. Here is the before and after of what Saki looked like with stock levers, and then with the new ones, and I have to say, that it made quite a difference in my opinion.

The top is of course the old grey metal levers, that have no character, and the bottom is the new Ride It Forever levers with the same red as Saki, and plenty of attitude. I have to tell you, Saki is very pleased with the new levers, and so am I. Just one more step closer to being down with the mods. Are you every really down though?  I do believe that the under lighting will be next, but who knows. I might come across something else that might look good before that. I made sure that I got the after picture before I added the Ride It Forever sticker on the windshield. I wanted it to match up to the before, so I don't have that in the shot. I think my goal is to cover the entire windshield with stickers. I'm going straight up the center at first, and then we will see where it goes from there. I have this idea of once it is filled up, I would get a new windshield and then hang that one on the wall of the garage. I think it is kind of a neat idea.

     With all that excitement behind me, I decided that it was time to do some binge watching on Netflix, and I knew that Iron Fist was just released. I made some popcorn and went to it. I really like it. I'm not a fan of the opening credits. It sounds like it belongs in Tron instead of a Marvel series, but that is really my only gripe. The fighting sequences are really well done, and the story is going along really well. They are tying everything together for The Defenders series that will be released later this year with all of the Marvel heroes in this Netflix universe teaming up together. I'm excited for that, but still bummed that Jessica Jones won't be release until some time after The Defenders is released. I will wait patiently, as long as they keep putting out things that are good in the meantime.

     I had a loose plan of maybe riding to Daytona on Saturday to see what was going on with bike week, but I stayed home and watched more Iron Fist instead. I made it to episode 10, and I believe there are 13 in total. That leaves me with 4 more episodes this coming Friday night. I know, my life is far too exciting to believe. I'm going to try and wrap it up on Friday, because I am going to a Pow Wow on Saturday with a good friend of mine. We should be spending most of the day there and I won't have time to watch anything that day. I will get as many pictures as I can while I'm there to post here, and I think I might do an Instagram story that day, so if you want to watch everything as it's going on, just check out my Instagram. You will need the app in order to watch the story. You can find my Instagram right here. We are leaving my house around 10 in the morning and should arrive in Ft. Pierce where it is being held at around 11 or so. I will try to keep the story to a minimum but remember, with those stories, they are only available for 24 hours and then they are gone. I will make sure this time that I take extra pictures other than the ones for the story, so that I can post them here as well.

     One last thing before I go. I did get out and ride this morning. I had a goal when I went out, and that was to find this lake that my tattoo artist told me about. It is off a road near his house, and it has a nice spot that I could get a good sunset picture of Saki on the bank of it. I managed to find it, and I will have to time it right one evening and get the shot that I want. I'll post it here when I do get it. In the meantime, I went to one of my favorite spots afterwards, and go this shot. I think it's pretty good.

That is all that I have for you tonight. I do want to talk about the passing of Chuck Berry, but I want to get everything in order to do him justice. He was a pioneer in rock, and that deserves a little time to do it right. So look for that on Tuesday night. Peace in and goodnight.