Adventures with my TE310 - the beginning

Why not? It works for gummy bears.

Just earned yourself some positive karma, sir!

I'll add the link in a few minutes.


So you know - charity contributions go directly to the charity leaders. NOT ME!
Donated funds are NOT used for any ride support whatsoever!
As you can see from the photos - the bike is already built.
If you check Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Coloboma-Moms/223824470223?ref=ts) you will see the families thanking you for support.

For ethical reasons, I do not involve myself in their distribution of donations. I've been told they are buying eyewear for the kids and giving them out as needed. Cheap sunglasses are all they can afford so far.
Some of them need pretty risky surgeries, so I'm hoping we can do something to offset the impact.

Thank you!

Just confirmed that Sam's Club has dried mangos.

Where's the link to donate? I have signatures disabled. Too much clutter.

Doesn't show up for some reason.

I can't even find the spot where you ENTER your signature... I did find the checkbox that disables displaying them. But it didn't seem to make any difference. I'm guessing I'm not the only one having trouble finding where to enter your sig.

I'm buying an oil cooler.


























Shut up.

Yeah, yeah

Read page two. I was trying to find one before you came for the lulz.


Finally found something that wouldn't stick out for every stick, root, and pebble.
I think you guys will be interested.





Photo shoot today. Pretty psyched.
Means I can make flyers and swag soon. Anybody interested in t-shirts, stickers?

My photog friend works for a large promotions firm. She's tossing around ideas for some swag.
Embroidered keychain tags, t-shirts, whatever you guys may be interested in.

How about stickers with the BMW blue-and-white inside the Husky Logo?
A sticker set to fill in the cast Husky logo on the clutch cover with some color? Maybe reflective?
Brushed aluminum sticky-back plates with MY logo...or something.

Actually I came for the interesting topic and then stayed for the lulz. I read that part on page 2 but by the time I commented about it you had held fast to the idea of not needing/wanting one. It's a good idea, the oil cooler.

Here are some ideas about the charity and issue with current levels of donation. I know we got off on a bad foot but please read these knowing that I have good intentions. I may be here for the lulz and enjoy giving you shit, but this is feedback from someone that has taken the time to help you get more money. If you disagree that's fine, but if I have these impressions then other people do somewhere as well.

1. The donate button the first page of the website is too small - the viewer's eye doesn't go directly to it. I had to scan the page to find it. You want that button to stick out.

2. There is no Donate button the left hand navigation - would be a great place to have a link.

3. The paypal page that comes up after hitting the donate button says this: "PayPal securely processes payments for acherry66@hotmail.com" -- leads the user to believe that the funds are in fact going to you, not the charity. This is not clear and it probably dissuades a certain percentage of people from donating.

4. Before reading this one, do know that this is an observation on choice and psychology of donating, not a slight to Coloboma charity. I know your main point with the charity and donations is to help kids with Coloboma but this in itself could be a barrier that prevents people from contributing. Before this thread I didn't know what Coloboma was and I've asked a number of friends and co-workers and no one has ever heard of it. In other instances of my contributions to charity driven efforts there have always been several charities to choose from (redcross, water for developing countries, aids research, breast cancer, etc). Having the sole charity choice be one that only reaches a very limited number of potential cases might make some people think "I want my charity money to reach as many people as possible" but since there are no other choices they close the page. People want to give money to things they know about and things that (potentially) could help people in their community or social circles.

5. The font on the website is hard to read. Gray text on a colored background defies most rules of website design. Make it black and not italic. Also be consistent with your design: some pages have gray italic text, some have black italic text. Choose one.

6. There is a bit of talk about your lack of experience and the lack of proper choice in moto on the site. Generally people want to give money to help people succeed in a goal that has been prepared for properly, uses proper equipment, etc and thus has a high likelihood of success. You make yourself out to be ill-suited for this venture and that might deter people from contributing. If you are not prepared or not using the right equipment either don't say anything about it or solve the preparation/experience/equipment issue.

7. Is your site syndicated anywhere? Have you submitted it to Technorati, Google search, etc? I don't see any meta tags for search terms in the head section of the html. Looks like there has been zero SEO work done to make it easier for search engines to find your content.

8. Whatever message widget you have running on the "About the Crusader" page needs to either be fixed or removed. The dual scrolling is messed up and it's adding nothing to the content, it's distracting, and it looks like test/dev stuff. A comment page would be more appropriate. I see you're using "Starfield Technologies; WebSite Tonight v5.2.6" for the site code but you might want to look into something like Wordpress, Blogger, MovableType, or other fully mature and feature-rich website management systems.

9. On the Ride Photos page there are a bunch of pictures without photo credit. The viewer might assume you have been to those places and that you took the photos. Nothing says otherwise about the content ownership but you do have a copyright at the bottom of that page - I don't think the people that took those photos would be very pleased that someone soliciting donations is using their content without request/authorization/etc. Also the photos don't say where they are on the trail - people interested in the route you're taking would probably find the locations interesting. Context is important for photos. We all ride and know what the TAT is about but other people do not and for some people those are just pretty pictures with no explanation.

10. The charity information needs way more explanation. Reference links to the disease, the charity that is handling the funds, and so on are not available and I'd have to go research it myself if I wanted more reading info than what is on the site. Links are easy to find and paste and explain, make me want to contribute. It would also be nice to have a link to the IRS tax write-off information for charitable donations: that goes a long way to enabling the desire to donate.

You're off to a good start but the whole site needs more polish and professionalism. Look at these sites for examples:

• http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR/TourdeCure/EasternNewEnglandArea?pg=entry&fr_id=8027
• http://www.californiacoastclassic.org/
• http://www2.jdrf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ride_homepage
• and you can't get a better example of charity websites than LiveStrong: http://www.livestrong.org/Take-Action/Team-LIVESTRONG-Events/Ride

Thought it had a certain old-world charm.
Like an ugly dog on a PETA commercial.

Thanks for the feedback. My design experience is limited to SolidWorks and crayons.










Speaking of crayons, this my logo


Lol
Working on getting it digitized. I think that involves ritual incantation and goat blood.

This looks fairly decent, I think

Good pic..

Intriguing pose

I think this has been mentioned already, but be sure your brake cable doesn't hook around your GPS when your forks fully compress. I mounted mine by my right grip for that very reason.

No, it hasn't been mentioned already. Thanks, JT.
I'm waiting for TrailTech to hook me up, so it's a non-issue.

Those aux lights are getting relocated as well. I'd like to put them in front of the lower triple clamp, but I need bracketry.

Personally, from my experience, I'd suggest leaving the Aux. lights up on the bars like you have (using different mounts as mentioned before). The reason for this is to get light shining down & ahead on the road/trail in front of you from multiple angles and from well above the fender. This helps fill in shadows in whoops & holes much better and eliminates the big shadow that is often caused by the front fender. Using your current lights setup, you can play around a bit & create a nice wide & long light pattern which will give you a good view at nite on any trail or road.
Plus they're easy to reach if you need to tweak one a bit while riding..

Just some thoughts...

I am late to the party, so please forgive any ignorance/lack of thread knowledge. Is you TE's clutch piston upgraded to the 7602 piston? The stocker can give up and that would suck out in the sticks! Cheap insurance to replace.

Your bike will be fine!

I put them high and wide for traffic psychology.
I can ride with them lower.
Years on tanks taught me to respect shadows. The imaging systems and night vision are all 2 dimensional. And infrared lighting is like a beacon. So, I'm in the habit of using shadows as a frame of reference, like contour lines. Better than daylight, once you get the hang of it.
You don't get out of a tank to tweak your lighting.

I'm trying to prove to myself that I don't need a tank to survive.

Just can't find a place to put them. The things were cheap but huge.
The flimsy alloy of the clutch and brake bracketry won't take the abuse. I'll think of something.