Kindness

Kindness

What is kindness? What does it mean to be kind? There are dozens of things that I could list that could be considered kind, but we’re not talking about kind acts… we’re talking about the “ness.” A kind act could be as simple as letting someone merge in traffic in front of you, or even paying for a strangers coffee when they frantically look for their wallet after ordering their double mocha, half-caf, froo-froo, whatchacallit drink from the local coffee shop. But what is the ness of kindness and, more importantly, how do you obtain kindness? After much contemplation on the matter, I’ve come to the conclusion that kindness doesn’t exist. Not in the sense that we think, anyway. You can’t buy it, but you can get it, you can’t have it, but… you can give it.

The cost of kindness

They say that nothing in this world is free, but it costs nothing to be nice to someone. To say “good morning” to a stranger, or to hold the door for someone who has their hands full. Offering a simple “pardon me” if you accidentally bump someone on the sidewalk, or even just holding in that fart while you’re on the elevator (you know who you are). Bringing a load of gifts to a homeless shelter could be expensive and volunteering to work at a food bank takes time that not everyone has. Donating your old clothes or your kids old toys doesn’t cost anything, though and bringing a casserole to a struggling family doesn’t take much time at all. 

The traits of kindness

Perhaps, in order to figure out the “ness”, we need to identify some of the most common traits of kindness. 

• Respect- respect for others and respect for yourself;
• Courtesy- being polite and courteous;
• Friendly- being nice just for the sake of being nice;
• Chivalry- opening doors or offering your seat to a woman or an elderly person;
• Manners- saying excuse me if you burp, or pardon me if you bump into someone;
• Polite- saying good morning or have a nice day when greeting someone;
• Gratitude- being appreciative of the things you have and the things you receive from others- and acknowledging it;
• Generous- giving to others without expecting anything in return;
• Mercy- not taking advantage of someone when they are down, weak or hurting. 

These are just a few things off the top of my head that, I believe, define kindness.

Kindness is a virtue

We’ve all heard that kindness is a virtue and, according to the Oxford dictionary, a virtue is defined as “behavior showing high moral standards.” So, maybe figuring out the “ness” isn’t so complicated after all. 

All it takes to have kindness is to practice being kind, regularly. Be polite, respectful, courteous, friendly, generous, gracious, chivalrous and merciful. Have good manners and treat people (and situations) the way that you would want to be treated (or the way you’d want your favorite relative or friend to be treated). Remember that everyone you meet has something in their life that they are dealing with that you don’t know about- be it a sick relative, stress at work, financial struggle, personal injury, emotional stress or even some psychological or physical insecurity. Lots of people put on a brave face, talk loud or puff their chest out and pretend to be alright, when they are actually feeling weak, scared or afraid. 

So, my advice to you is, if kindness is a virtue- be virtuous. If an opportunity presents itself where you can be nice, polite, generous, respectful, courteous, gracious, merciful or chivalrous… then do it. Spread good in the world. Let’s change how we treat each other and let’s make this world of ours a better place to live in, for all of us.

Let’s all start working toward being kind, and spreading kindness.

Until next time, MotoFriends, 

             Ride safe, and be kind.

MotoReview- Sena 20sEVO

MotoReview- Sena 20S EVO

I know that the Sena 20S EVO is an “older” unit that has been out for a good long while, so you may be asking, why bother with reviewing this unit when Sena has released a few newer, updated comms since this one? 

Well, the answer is simple- most major motorcycle retailers are still selling the 20S EVO and, I would bet a Chic-Fil-A sammich against a Wendy’s Baconator that the 20S EVO is one of, if not the, best selling units that Sena has made, so far. Please don’t fact check this, because I’m just guessing and I don’t have either of those sammy’s to bet with. 

At a price of $269 for the single pack and $489 for the Duo Pack (as currently listed on the Sena website), it’s safe to say that Sena is still making money off of this model, so since it’s still on the market, I believe this MotoReview still has relevance for those who are looking at helmet comms. So, let’s take a look at a few of the pros and cons of this Bluetooth Communication system.

Quick disclosure and backstory

I was not, and am not, a representative, brand ambassador, paid sponsorship (or anything else cool like that) for Sena. The company didn’t send me anything to test (although they could- hint, hint) and they didn’t give me a discount to do this review- I bought and paid for them with my own dollar bills.

I picked up the 20S EVO Duo-Pack back in August 2022, in preparation for a long motorcycle trip that Mrs. MotoWriter and I were planning on taking. I wanted a simple, easy to use, reliable, and wireless, helmet communication system for our trip, since I ride Harley-Davidson’s best motorcycle, the Road King Special, which doesn’t have any on-board comms or other distractions, like some of their other Grand American Touring bikes. 

The trip was to be an epic one- a ride to the motorcycle motherland of Milwaukee, WI to attend the 120th Anniversary Celebration of the MoCo’s establishment. As these things often happen, though- we missed out on the anniversary festivities (which was for the best, since neither of us are fans of big crowds anyway), and we ended up traveling to the home of H-D by plane, on a work trip, instead. Of all the extra gear that I picked up in preparation for the motorcycle trip that never was, though, the one we used, and still use, the most is our Senas. 

Chatterbox

A long, long, long time ago, before Mrs. MotoWriter had my last name, she bought me a Chatterbox wired communication system for the bike I had back then (way back before I was cool, she was). She bought it for me so that we could talk to each other through our full face helmets when we were riding. It was cool, and it worked well, but we were tethered together, which I didn’t mind until we got off the bike and would get tangled in the wires. Needless to say, motorcycle communication systems have come a long way since then, so before I set out on dropping a few hundred of my hard-earned dollars, I did some research. 

I learned, pretty quickly, that I didn’t know anything about these “new” Bluetooth systems, so I reached out to my brother-from-another-mother (who you all know as the owner of the Bike of the Month for January 2021), Lee, who is a tech guru by trade. He had been using the 20S EVO for quite a while before I decided to buy one, so I asked him for his thoughts and he recommended it, wholeheartedly. 

Initial thoughts

I got the units on sale from my favorite online retailer, Revzilla (whom I don’t have any affiliation with, but if they wanted me to be a contributing writer, I absolutely would- hint, hint, Revzilla Execs). I don’t remember the exact price I paid, but it was close to $400 for the pair (on sale). They arrived soon after, and to my delight, they included several different mounting options. I chose the internal, wired boom microphone option for my HJC modular and for the Missus, I chose the direct boom since her helmet is a 5/8 with a removable chin bar. Installation was quick and easy for both and all we needed to do was download the Sena app to our phones to ease in the setup and Bluetooth connectivity. 

Pairing the units to our phones was quick and easy. Pairing them together was a little trickier, since we’re not really tech savvy people, but we got it done pretty quickly and, mostly, painlessly. From there, we decided to try them out, so we set out on a ride to nowhere in particular. The missus was able to sit back and relax against the backrest on the “King” instead of leaning forward to talk in my ear, and I was able to ride with my head on a swivel, instead of keeping my head turned slightly to the side so I could hear what she was saying. The volume knobs were easy to manipulate while wearing gloves and the voice sound was incredibly clear. The best part (compared to that old wired Chatterbox device) is, obviously, the lack of wires, but a close second to that is the full duplex communication- it’s just like talking on the phone. 

They worked well for all of the relatively short trips that Mrs. M and I usually take on the weekends, and the batteries seem to last a long time when not in use. I used mine on a solo trip to the Appalachians in September of the same year, mainly for listening to music, and I don’t remember needing to charge the battery until the last night of the 3 day trip, which I thought was pretty impressive. The real test, however, came in June of 2023, when Lee and I took a trip to the mountains so he could see what the Tail of the Dragon and the Cherohala Skyway were all about. We met in South Alabama, and rode to north Georgia, which turned out to be over 6 hours due to weather and traffic. Since we hadn’t ridden together in several years, we talked and caught up via our Senas for just about the entire trip. The batteries lasted the entire time- which was pretty much all continuous talk time. That’s pretty damn good, in my opinion. 

Pros 

The obvious standout pro on this unit is the talk time and battery life. I can tell you that, for me anyway, there are few things as frustrating as a dead or dying battery. Not to mention, on our bikes, we’re limited on what, and how, we can charge devices. Another pro is the ease of use. I especially love that the 20S EVO is easy to manipulate with gloves. The range between units is good, maybe not great, but definitely good as long as you and your riding buddies are within a reasonable distance of each other. If you get out of range, you can simply make a phone call to tell them to catch up. Finally, the sound quality of the voice comms is excellent. The voice comes through clear and loud, and there has been no noticeable wind noise in my experiences so far. The music audio is good, but I was really hoping for a little better performance here, which will be the segue to the cons.

Cons

As I said, the music audio is good, but it’s not really that good. I’ll admit that, in my advancing age, my hearing could be declining somewhat- blame it on too many power tools, too much heavy metal music and too many motorcycle rides in half helmets. On slower roads, the volume does a better than fair job of keeping your head bobbing, but when you enter the freeway, the sound quality declines in direct correlation with your speed. The faster you go, the more the sound quality suffers. Little nuances in songs start to get lost, and, if you don’t know the song… you might not be able to discern whats even playing. It should be noted, however, that I got the 20 S EVO with the standard speakers, instead of the HD speakers. Another big drawback with mine, is I’ve had an annoying weird powering issue that I can’t quite figure out. I get a high-pitched beep, every few minutes, and then, without any other warnings, the headset powers off. Now, I know what you might be thinking- the battery is dead or going dead. Nope. This issue happens randomly and almost always happens with a fresh off the charger unit. I’ve tried searching the interweb, but I haven’t found anything that has been helpful, so far. The frustrating part is that there is no rhyme or reason for when it does it…and it doesn’t do it all the time, so most of the time, I just turn it back on and keep going. Finally, the price could be a little better. Since the 20, Sena has released a few different models, the 30, the 50 and even a 60, just to name a few off the top of my noggin. So, with all these newer, more updated units being offered, why can’t Sena drop the price on the 20 by a few hundred bucks? Well the answer to that question is simple, my friends… because they don’t need to. 

Riders like us know what we like and we know what we want. Most of us are less interested in the “newest, latest” thing and more interested in high quality parts and accessories that work the way we expect them to, and that’s exactly what the 20 S EVO does. It’s a solid, functional and reliable piece of equipment that is still a money making product for Sena. Why would they drop the price on a device that is still very desirable in the current market? With that said, $269 for a solid, well built Bluetooth communication headset may be a bit pricey, but you do get what you pay for and, like I’ve said so many times in the past- quality items aren’t cheap, and cheap items aren’t quality. I’m not suggesting that other, less expensive, Buetooth headsets aren’t well made, I’m only saying that I don’t have any experience with them to form an opinion on the matter.

Final thoughts

I’ll wrap up this MotoReview by saying this- motorcycles can be as expensive, or inexpensive, as you want them to be. You don’t have to buy a Bluetooth headset comm system- you could sneak your earbuds up and into your helmet and they would work just fine- trust me, that’s what I used to do. You also don’t have to have a leather riding jacket, good, high quality riding boots, gloves or even a decent helmet… I’ve seen plenty of people that don’t. I think that one of the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen is a guy on a CVO Street Glide with every factory option that H-D sells, riding in cheap cargo shorts, an Amazon beanie helmet and, the worst part- Crocs. This guy was riding a motorcycle that he likely dropped over $45k on, and his entire riding attire cost less than a weeks worth of coffee at Starbucks.

So, if you know what you want, and you don’t mind spending a few extra dollars for a high quality, well made, easy to use Bluetooth headset with a battery that will outlast your iPhone, then you can’t go wrong with the Sena 20S EVO. If you ride with, literally, anyone else… whether they are sharing a seat on your bike or if they’re riding their own, a comm system is an invaluable tool to improve your overall riding experience. Having a way to listen to your music inside your helmet, with the full controls and the full functionality of your phone for making calls, and being able to tell your buddies when you need to make a pit stop, is a helluva nice creature comfort to have.

If you’re on the fence, watch the online retailers and sign up for their mailing lists. Revzilla, for example, is always having sales and with each purchase, you earn (what they call) Zilla  Bucks, which takes a little money off your next order. Even if you have to pay full price, I think you’ll find that the Sena 20 S EVO will last you a long time and the cost will be mitigated over time.

Until next time, ride safe and make good choices!

Jack Of All Trades

Jack of all trades…

…but a master of none. 

That’s a phrase I’ve heard, pretty much all my life. When I was a young boy, I asked my dad what that meant and he explained it to me like this- it’s when someone can do a lot of things, but can’t do any of them really well. With such a simple explanation of the phrase, to my adolescent ears, it sounded like an insult. As I grew older though, my thoughts on the matter changed. As I entered adulthood, got married and had kids, I realized that I had to learn how to do a lot of different things over the years. Things that a blue-collar, working class guy supporting a family on a single income didn’t have the option to call, and pay, an “expert” to do. Things like, maintaining and repairing my own car, doing plumbing work, doing basic electrical repairs, repairing sheetrock, doing small engine repair, fixing appliances, and basically everything else that comes along in order to keep the “family machine” going. 

Necessity 

If necessity is the mother of invention, then adversity is the mother of innovation and poverty is the father of inspiration. We do what we must to keep moving forward. For example, when your washing machine takes a dump at 6 pm on a Sunday night, but you have to be at work at 7 am on Monday morning and your clothes are dirty, then not fixing that worn out Maytag becomes a top priority. When you only have $68 in your bank account to last until payday, then calling the Maytag repairman, who charges a minimum fee of $100 for a house call  simply isn’t an option. It’s easy to become motivated to repair something when you are your own last hope. It’s also very easy to get inspired to do it, when your too broke to pay someone to do it for you.

Can-do, is more than an attitude

Having a “can-do” attitude is a great start, but the reality is that you do need to have a little more than just some confidence to make the repair. You also have to know, at least a little, about what it is you’re trying to do. If it’s repairing a washing machine, you should have a basic understanding of what makes it work, first. If you see that machine as a magic box that uses some otherworldly powers to get your clothes clean, then you’re probably going to struggle with grasping the concept of relays, switches, belts, drains and pumps. But, if you have a basic understanding of how it works and you can turn a wrench, then you’re probably going to be okay.

I’ve always had a good understanding of basic mechanical concepts, so it’s never been too complicated for me to open the “hood” and figure out what does what, and what isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing. Engines, for example, are my favorite to work on. They are simple- they only need compression, fuel and spark in order to run. Computers, by contrast, are basically the aforementioned magic boxes that use otherworldly powers to do what they do. I’ve never really grasped the concept of how they work. For example, why is it that the iPad I’m using to type this, seems to load, run and process significantly faster than the PC I used to use and, how is the “computer” in my iPhone so much more powerful than the Dell computer I had 20+ years ago? It’s not that I actually think it’s magic, but I don’t really understand how the components work together, so it’s basically a mystery to me. 

Motorcycles

Motorcycles are intimate machines. For most of us that ride, we take personal pride in customizing our machines to suit our individual tastes. Some of us, take it even further, by doing most (if not all) of the work ourselves. When I bought my first Harley-Davidson motorcycle, I paid the dealership to do the first service on it and, to my shock, it was over $300! That was 15 years ago. After that, at the recommendation of a good friend and co-worker, I bought a service manual for my bike and never looked back. I still had to bring it in, a couple of times, for things that were outside of my ability (at the time), but for the most part, I did everything else myself. 

Doing things like adding grips, mirrors, pegs and seats were simple enough, but doing things like brake jobs, tire changes and oil changes by myself were regarded as outlandish, by my more affluent friends. Going into more in-depth repairs like replacing clutches, fuel-injector replacements, stator replacements and wiring diagnostics and repair all seem to elicit responses like wide eyes and gasps of disbelief. 

When I crashed the MotoWriter Dyna, I was faced with a decision- settle out with the insurance company and let them take the bike in return for a couple thousand dollars more, or take a lower settlement amount and keep the bike. Looking over my busted bike, I just couldn’t stand the thought of giving it up for a couple of thousand dollars, so I decided to take a chance and try to repair it myself. Initially, I had my doubts and was prepared to get a donor bike, just in case I needed it. While I was tearing it down, though… I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was in a lot better condition than I had initially thought. After a year on the lift, collecting parts and pieces that were damaged in the crash, and working on it a little at a time, I was finally able to get it back, better than before. 

Master of none

While I’m no master mechanic and I’m no master paint and body guy, I’ve surprised myself at how well this thing has turned out. For full disclosure- the engine and drivetrain were not damaged in the crash, but to be fair… those are the two things that I would have been the most comfortable (and confident) in working on. 

The paint turned out really nice, especially for a garage paint job using rattle-can color and clear coats. Now, I doubt that I would ever take on painting someone else’s bike (not without their full understanding that they would not get perfection in a free paint job), but I definitely wouldn’t shy away from doing another one for myself. 

Just for fun, I had some packing materials from a new kitchen appliance laying around in my garage, that I thought might one day be useful for something, so I decided to take a chance and build a backrest pad for Mrs. MotoWriter, in case she decides to saddle up on the Street Bob with me. Once again, I surprised myself with how well it turned out (especially for the total cost of $2.74).

The Moral of this story

It’s simple- the moral of this story is that every expert in any field, was once an uneducated, inexperienced, layman. 

We all start out as blank canvases, ready to learn and gain confidence in what we do by doing it, failing, and doing it again and again until we get it right. That isn’t how you get experience, that is experience. 

So my message to you is this- get out there and, at the very least, try. If your washing machine, lawnmower, motorcycle, or, whatever, is broken… then do some research, get the tools, get the right parts and take your time to try to fix it yourself. The worst thing that can happen is that it’s still broken when you’re done… but the best thing that can happen is that you will gain the confidence, and feel the pride, of knowing that you did it… you fixed the mower, you painted the gas tank, you built a backrest out of, what was essentially, trash. Heck, you never know, you might just even get inspired to do more, or maybe even find that you like doing something else and want to follow that passion into your next career, or adventure, in life… and how frickin’ cool would that be?

Until next time, MotoReaders… 

Ride safe and try to fix what you break!

Here’s a few photos of my latest little “try” projects: