Cars

Happy Anniversary (Early)

A couple of years after we moved to Aiken we joined the local bicycle club, oddly enough, named the Aiken Bicycle Club. We were quite active for about ten years and then when health issues curtailed our cycling we slowly drifted out of the Club.

When we first joined the club we were riding our 10 year old 12-speed touring bicycles. Mountain biking was just starting to really blossom in popularity and some of the Club members starting buying these bikes and heading off to the local trails. We soon joined the fray, bringing our bike total to four, two touring road bikes and two mountain bikes.

As we improved our cycling, we went on longer and faster rides with the club. We now needed some newer, lighter road bikes to keep pace. One of the fellows who was a regular speedster on the twice weekly bike store rides was upgrading to a high dollar carbon fiber Kestrel and offered to sell me his CF/Aluminum combo Giant bike, I jumped. After some shopping we bought Donna a nice new Bridgestone road bike. Our Stable of 2-wheeled vehicles was now six in number.

Towards the end of 1994 our bicycling madness peaked, we spent nearly $3,000 on a Santana Sovereign aluminum tandem (the price has gone up a bit in the last 12 years.) Part of the reason we went into tandeming was peer pressure, two other couples in the club had these bicycles built for two. One were long time duo riders, but when the second couple bought a Burley Rock ‘n Roll and told us how much they enjoyed it, we took the plunge. We got a credit card application in the mail with some super low interest or something and for our wedding anniversary present to ourselves we made a trip to Atlanta, test drove one for all of a couple hundred yards and bought the thing. Donna loved the tandem. She just had to pedal and enjoy the scenery, none of that pesky shifting or braking to worry about. We did have a blast with it, on club rides with regular folks it was like driving an 18-wheeler amongst cars. Downhill we blasted at speeds unrivaled, but uphill we were hauled right back in.

While I enjoyed the tandem I really missed the single bike. As the captain of a tandem it is your job to let the stoker know about bumps, when you were shifting, when you wanted to coast, brake, etc, and I had a hard time with all that. I was so used to riding on a bike by myself, I would just do without thinking, which would draw the ire of the stoker. About that time my prostate problems arose where it was uncomfortable to ride for long or I would feel bad for days afterward, so riding slowed to a trickle. I convinced Donna to sell the tandem, we got about 2/3rds of what we paid for it after riding it for a year and a half. She was more sorry to see it go than I.

About 4 years ago we ran into the couple from the Club and asked them if they still rode their Burley. They said no not really, so Donna asked if they would sell it to us. “No,” they replied, “we are going to get back into it.” We understood perfectly, from a high of riding about 3,000 miles a year we had fallen to 300 miles if we were lucky and still had 6 bikes between the two of us.

Fast forward two more years and we had at least sold off the least used of the 6, the mountain bikes. We asked our selves, should we sell the commuting bikes as they were just collecting dust in the garage, but said, “No, we are going to get back into it.”

Fast forward two more years to last last Friday, I get an email from the Burley owner, did I still want to buy it? Sure, what do you want for it? He said he’d take the $400 I offered him 4 years ago. Today our anniversary present to ourselves for this year showed up in the driveway:
Burley Rock 'n Roll

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291

It’s 1973 All Over Again

I filled up with gas last Thursday and the price was $2.63 a gallon. (The Emperor uses premium, so those are the prices I’m quoting.) This morning on the way to work, at one of the stations we pass, I noticed that the price had jumped to $2.89. Twenty-six cents in 6 days. Yikes. On the way home, the price was now $3.04 and there were short lines at the pumps.

After I got home I put on my Rollerblades for for my bi-nightly skate. On the 3 mile loop I pass somewhat near 2 gas stations. At one the price was the same $3.04 and the cars were 8 to 10 deep along the shoulder waiting to fill up. At the other gas station I couldn’t see if there were lines, but they had pulled the prices off their sign. Probably didn’t have enough threes.

I still have a half a tank in the Miata, so I can go another week before I *have to* get gas. This is a two edged sword though, by next week there shouldn’t be any lines, but the price will probably be $3.50 a gallon.

9:30PM Update: Went out for ice cream and made a quick gas station tour. Passed 8 stations and 6 had premium for $3.19. Two still had $3.04, both were Shell stations, one of which was the 8-10 car line before, now with no line at all. The station with no price earlier now said $3.19.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291

I Wanted So Much To Like This Knob

Several years back the MMC visited a local manufacturer that was making aluminum bits for the Miata. I bought their shift knob, hand brake lever handle and a cigarette lighter that was engraved to read “EJECT.” Their shift knob was shaped sort of like a toy top or tornado and had a nice rubber grip in the middle.

MGW Gripper Knob

I liked the rubber grip as it stayed cool in summer and warm in winter. Plus the combo of black and silver was a nice touch in the black interior. I just couldn’t get used to the flat top, so I bought the much beloved in the Miata.net community Voodoo shift knob.

Voodoo

I’d like to say I’ve never looked back, but I have. After a summer of cooking my palm on the solid ball of aluminum I wanted to incorporate the rubber piece from the MGW knob into the Voodoo. So I machined a horizontal groove into the voodoo that was the same size as the MGW gripper knob and melded to the two together. It came out just as I envisioned it, but I didn’t like the feel. Never got used to it and ordered a new Voodoo knob to replace the one I ruined. While I was at it I ordered the matching ebrake handle too. So now the only remaining item from the first trio of items is the EJECT lighter.

Last week while cleaning out a drawer at work and found the MGW gripper knob sans the grip. MGW is out of the Miata parts business, but still makes stuff for other cars, so I emailed them and asked if I could get a rubber gripper still. $5 and a replacement is yours they replied. While I waited for the postman, I decided to paint the aluminum Garnet Red. Three coats of red and two of clear and it looked pretty good. Yesterday a box came in the mail with not one, but two gripper rings. They had changed the mold so that there was now a key in the rubber to match a groove that must have gone in later knobs to prevent the ring from turning, so I had to dremel that out before I could put it on. Only taking out one little chip mounting the gripper I installed the knob in the car. I knew right away I had created another failed mod. I left it on for the day, but tonight it came back out and the Voodoo went back on. Still didn’t like the flat top and the red looked out of place in the interior because there was no other red to balance it out. It’ll make a nice looking paperweight…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 285

Miatas at the Gap

What started as one woman’s off-the-cuff invitation to Miataphiles in the general area has morphed into a pilgrimage of sorts to worship the great road of the sports car.

Nine years ago 44 cars came to the Lodge. Word of mouth (and internet mailing lists) caused a jump in attendance to 144 the next year by year five the estimates of attending cars grew to over 500. The first year we all stayed at the same place, year 2 it expanded to some of the local hotels in the nearest town, Robbinsville, NC. By the fifth, people had to find accomodations as far as 75 miles away and if you wanted to stay at the meeting place, the Tapoco Lodge, you had get on a waiting list that was pages long.

The 5th was the last Donna and I attended, it had gotten too big, too unruly and too not about what it once was. but we still missed it and every year we would say to ourselves, let’s go up, even just for Saturday. But the trip is 5 hours in each direction and walk up motel rooms are non existent, so we never go. This year we found a way and went.

We only saw a few Miatas in downtown Robbinsville where we had lunch. We passed a couple on our way north to “Miata Central.” The parking lot at the Tapoco Lodge was packed as always. The driveway in was lined on both sides by Miatas leaving just enough room for one lane of traffic. We just parked at the end and walked in avoiding the hassle. We saw met up with the one couple from the Master’s Miata Club that still goes every year and chatted with them a bit.

While we were standing there all of a sudden in shows up a new can’t be bought yet, 2006 MX-5. Like flies on cow poop, soon you couldn’t even see the car for the crowd of people it attracted. After we left and way too late to do anything about it I thought I should have taken a picture of the crowd to post here with the caption “New Miata!”

After the crowd thinned around the new car I wandered over and had a sit in the driver’s seat for a minute or two. Here is my incomplete 100 word or less review:”The seats have a lot more bolstering than the older cars. While the door sills are probably only an 1″ or so higher it felt more Boxster-like than Miata-ish at first. Parked next to a lowered red NA it looked like a lot bigger car too. When I went from an NA to NB it was seamless, everything was slightly more modern looking, but it was pretty much the same car. This, on initial impression, seems a very different car, but I’ll have to drive it to know for sure.”

After that we hooked up with Ernest and Cheryl again. We drove over to the nearby Fontana Village wondering if that was were a lot more Miatas were because they agreed with us, it didn’t seem as heavily attended as in previous years. On the 15 mile drive over, we past several small groups of Miatas, but not the usual gaggle. At Fontana we found maybe a half dozen Miatas scattered over the big complex. There we split up, they headed back to the Tapoco and we headed south back to Anderson.

We drove all the way up and didn’t even drive the fabled road. That is very OK for 2 reasons: 1) We are going back in September with the Master’s Club and 2) getting a great big ol’ heaping dose of driving the surrounding roads is just as much fun. Just don’t get stuck behind an old man in a big Lincoln with Florida plates.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 246

Raindrop Roulette

The last couple weeks there has been a 40% chance of afternoon thundershowers nearly every day. For the longest time my rule of thumb has been, 40% chance of rain and higher, the top goes up while at work. After not having it rain during the day for the last couple of weeks with those kinds of numbers, I got tired of burning my hands on interior bits for the drive home, so on Thursday and today we left the top down and used the cockpit cover.

Seeing as I’m still a little gun-shy from the dousing received a month ago, I have kept the Weather Channel‘s local radar running in a browser in the background. I check it about every 15 minutes. Both afternoons there have been numerous thundershowers pop up around Aiken county, but thankfully none have blossomed right over ASCO. Today with just 15 minutes left in the workday a small spot of green appeared over where I think we are on the map, so I went to the nearest window to take a peek outside. Mmmm, looks sunny. Not wanting to take any chances that green would grow to yellow/orange/red, signifying massive water from the sky, I hustled Donna out the door as fast as possible. As we left, the parking lot was dry, but the cars near the front of the lot had water on the horizontal surfaces. Sure enough it had rained, not hard enough to breach the protection of the cockpit cover though.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 237

25,000 Peaches

And about 10 Shriners on Go-Karts. The Emperor passed the 25,000 mile mark on the way to the Ridge Peach Parade this morning. It was organized chaos, both in the manner of go-kart driving in front of us and at the start when the “float” markers weren’t out on time, so we just kind of lined up where we thought we should be. Coincidentally there were 10 Miatas in the parade following right behind the Shriners. Although we would have liked to have done some of the maneuvers that the go-karts were doing, and Miatas are small cars, our turning radius is not that tight.

Shriners

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 191

Ready, Set, Tops Up!

There was no chance of rain in the forecast for today, which made the dark clouds to the west a big surprise on our afternoon walk. Donna asked if we should put the top up as we strolled past the car. I poo-pooed the idea as they didn’t really look that bad and the cockpit cover was firmly in place.

About 45 minutes later my manager came over and asked if I was going to put my top up as it was looking rather dark out (he, naturally, has a window.) I said no, but when he said he was going to put his up, I changed my mind. How could I explain myself if it did happen to pour down and his car stayed dry and my interior got soaked?

Russ used to have a Miata, but ever since he traded to the Boxster he has taken to parking out in the north forty along with me. He leaves a spot between us, just like two guys going to the movies together would leave an empty seat in between them. He used a cockpit cover with his Miata and now he also uses one for the Porsche. It would be a fair race to see who got their top up first.

We got to our cars at the same and started removing the covers. His uses velcro straps at both windshield wipers and both doors to go with the tabs in the back trunk. Mine has one velcro strap on the driver’s wiper, 2 elastic hooks under the door sills and two hooks in the rear wheel well to go with the three tabs in the truck. He held a slight lead in storing the cockpit covers in our trunks, as I unsnapped the boot and folded it, he was already inside holding the button down to start the mechanical ballet. His back hard boot piece was up and the z-fold rising as I opened the two latches and lifted the Miata roof into place. As I latched my top, his was electrically locking in. Our power windows raised almost in total unison. Our drivers doors shut as one.

Dead heat.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 129