Snowulf - Motorcycles

Ride Friday: Why motorcycles don't honk (much)

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 10:00:00 -0800

I've noticed that even on the nice summer days when there are lots of bikes out, you rarely hear them honk. I asked myself, "why is this? Why don't motorcyclists honk much?" I've come up with a few reasons and I thought I'd share.

Stock motorcycle horns suck - Let's be realistic, taking one of those canned air horns that people use at sports games and duct taping it to your bike would be a LOT louder than the motorcycle horn. I'm not really sure why all makers skimp so much on this, but it is basically universally accepted. It isn't like there aren't very loud and powerful horns that are small enough for bikes, on the contrary, there are plenty of aftermarket horns you can buy.
We're generally not stuck - One of the biggest reasons cars honk is because they are stuck behind someone who is going slow or not moving or generally being stupid. It is very rare that a motorcycling is truly stuck. We can get around almost anything and lane split where necessary (and of course only when it is legal to do so).
We're too busy - Someone tried to merge into my lane the other night; I would have honked, but I was simply too busy. Think about it. I've got my right hand grabbing the front breaks, right foot hitting the rear breaks, left hand pulling the clutch in, left foot down shifting and using my body to swerve away. While I could physically have hit my horn during this, I've got too many other things I need to do. By the time I've freed up enough brain power to honk at you, it is too late.
You cagers are idiots - For those that don't know, "cager" (As in stuck in a cage) is one of many terms used to describe those in 4 wheels vehicles. I basically assume that every single one of you is out to kill me because you aren't paying attention. Most of the time I see your stupidity (and attempts to kill me) coming and GTFO before you get there.

This all being said, I do honk from time to time. Though mostly on city streets and intersections rather than the highways. All too many times when making left turns have I watched idiots think they can make that right turn before I'll get there. NO! BAD CAGER. I am faster than you think, wait your damn turn.

Ride Friday: The reverse lane split?

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 10:00:00 -0800

I've never heard of this being done before, and I've certainly never seen it before. Since I lack a better term for it, I've titled it the "reverse lane split". For those that might not know, lane splitting is: riding a motorcycle between lanes in the same direction as traffic. It is also sometimes called lane sharing, whitelining, filtering, or stripe-riding. In short, it is when motorcycles ride the white line on the freeway in slow traffic (and sometimes in not so slow traffic). It is illegal everywhere in the US except for California (thank you Cali for at least one decent law). What happened to me was the... opposite.

I was riding in the left lane behind someone who was not going as fast as I wanted to go. After a brief stretch a new lane was added on the left, and I immediately moved over into this lane to pass the slower vehicle. Right after I did this, I notice an Audi right on my tail. I'll be honest, I don't know where he came from. I'm observant and normally catch these people coming up on me, but all I can assume is that he was moving very fast previously. I was riding on the extreme left of this left lane, almost on top of the yellow lane when I noticed the Audi moving to the right side of the lane. I don't know why, but I knew exactly what he was going to do and knew that the best course of action was to stay where I was. He stomped it, and did it.

The Audi lane split me.

Continue reading "Ride Friday: The reverse lane split?"

Co-Op Ride Friday: The LONG Mt Hamilton Loop

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800

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General Area: From Livermore, out Mines Rd, along Route 130 and into San Jose
Difficulty: For the most part, easy. A few specific portions aren't so much hard as extremely tiring.
Ride Length: 4+ hours
Special Note: Make sure to fill up in Livermore if you've got a small gas tank. It is 70 miles between Livermore and San Jose, and you DON'T want to run out of gas on these back roads.
Route Points: Point A - In-N-Out & fuel. Point B - Lick Obervatory, Mt Hamilton. Point C - Sweet glorious freeway. Point D - Dinner (Ume Sushi)
Continue reading "Co-Op Ride Friday: The LONG Mt Hamilton Loop"

Ride Friday or How it can take 6 hours to get to the Bay

nospam@example.com (John) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800

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Last Friday (November 13), I decided to ride the bike down to Jon. My original plan was to ride down Saturday morning, but Jon kept pushing me to go for Friday night. Though others argued against it, I decided to cut out of work a little early, run home, pack, and head out.
It was just barely above freezing when I left. As I noted previously, I was wearing my Tourmaster jacket and pants with all liners. I was also wearing my winter gloves. At one point, I pulled out my balaclava, towel, hoodie, and pocket chemical warmers.

I was still cold.

Continue reading "Ride Friday or How it can take 6 hours to get to the Bay"

Ride Friday: The Mount Diablo Loop

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800

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My BMW on a country road, taken near Point E

General Area: Around Mt Diablo
Difficulty: Not hard
Ride Length: 2-2.5 hours
Scenery: Nice variety of views from Mt Diablo, to inside the tree canopy, to fall colors.
Special Notes: Point D to Point E is a one lane road.

The route described: Point A/G to B is uneventful city riding. Point B to C is part of the route from "

Sitting in the hills, pulled over in one of the few turn out slots of the one lane road between Point D & E

Point D to Point E is the "really fun part"; it is all one lane road. The first half isn't the best maintained piece of road, but it is fairly wide. The best part about it is that most of the turns aren't hair pin, and have good sight lines, unlike the one lane death trap of "Ride Friday: Calaveras Reservoir". Point E to F was a little diversion I took to stop by Tri-Valley BMW. Point F to G, the first half until you get to Blackhawk is also a very enjoyable back road ride, after that it is all city riding. I could have completed my circuit faster by getting on the freeway, but I figured "Why rush the day?", which also is why my pathing was fairly circuitous.

The rolling green hills of the East Bay.

Grass fields, rolling hills, and Mt Diablo in the distance.

Comments: A little while back, I was futzing about on Google Maps looking for somewhere in the area to go that might be an interesting ride, and I stumbled upon Morgan Territory Road. It happens to spur off of Marsh Creek Road which I covered in "Ride Friday: Antioch to Clayton", the first "Ride Friday" (oddly enough it turned out to be not such a half-assed idea after all). After looking over the map a bit more, I mentally plotted a route that would take me all the way around Mt Diablo, but more importantly, I would not set tire on Freeway the entire time.

Riding West for the Winter

nospam@example.com (John) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800

Winter is upon us.
Well, us that live in the Northern Hemisphere. For those of us in higher elevations and higher latitudes that means snow is coming soon.
Snow is not so fun on a motorcycle (don't even think about chaining up).

Thus, as I did last year, I am planning to migrate my bike West for the Winter. This means that shortly Jon shall have 2 bikes at his disposal, though I doubt he will ride mine much, if at all, since he just got his own bike.
What this really means is that I might actually get to ride my bike this winter and who knows, we might actually do a Ride Friday post where both of us are riding. I have yet to actually see his bike in person, so theoretically, there is a chance he just photoshopped all the pictures of it. I'll let you know what I find out.

Anyway, the trip is likely to take place this weekend, weather permitting (Thursday apparently has a chance for snow...). Because of the season, I will be taking 80 to the bay, rather than the more scenic (and way less bumpy) route. This way, in the unlikely event of weather, I'll have somewhere to chill for a bit (no pun intended).

Of course, I will be wearing my heaviest motorcycle jacket and pants, which zip together in the back. If it starts to precipitate my gloves have a zippered pocket that pulls out a rain slicker for them, so they at least will be okay. I'll probably pack a windbreaker to put over my legs as those stay soaked for a good long while when they get wet. It should go without saying that I will of course have my towel with me.

Of course, the way the weather has been acting lately, it'll probably be 90 degrees out when I head to Jon's place, but personally, that would be fine by me.

Ride Friday: Lane Splitting - Can't we all just get along?

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:00:00 -0800

I live in California, and as such lane splitting (or lane sharing, white lining or filtering) is completely legal. Okay, to be exact, it isn't illegal. Good enough for me. I generally don't lane split except when traffic is going very slow (below 30mph). I am not the lane splitter you hate; you know the people, the crotch rocket riders going through completely stopped traffic at 60mph. No, I play nicely, I only go approximately 10mph over the speed of traffic (as recommended) and if traffic gets above 30-40mph, I filter back into a lane and ride with the traffic. Why does this matter? Because some of you car drivers have a shit poor reaction to those of us on two wheeled vehicles.

Let me make it simple for you car people. You want me to lane split. Why? Because every vehicle on the road in front of you means that much more delay in every acceleration (everyone has to wait for the person in front of them to move enough) and every vehicle in front of you means that much more road taken up by buffer between vehicles. If I'm lane splitting, I'm neither slowing you down, nor taking up the road you need. In other words, my lane splitting gets you to where ever you are going, just a little bit faster.

Continue reading "Ride Friday: Lane Splitting - Can't we all just get along?"

Ride Friday: Returns with a Moto Purchase!

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0700

For those of you that don't read my twitter (and I don't blame you), this past weekend, I bought a motorcycle. The longer version of the story is that I spent the previous week (last week of September) shopping for Motorcycles and doing research. I already knew what I wanted, a 2009 BMW R1200RT. Of course I also knew I couldn't afford that, so I stuck to more realistic options, AKA used motorcycles of the same line. That meant I was shopping for R1150RT's or R1100RT's. To me, the R-RT series from about '99 on looks very nice, the harder lines of the '09 remind me of an F-22 Raptor (Yes, the 200 million dollar stealth fighter) and therefore is god damn sexy, but alas. Anyways, after seeing enough RTPs (that's P, as in Police), I thought having one would be cool. Of course I didn't limit my search to RTPs, but they seemed to be a little cheaper on average, which was very appealing to me. One of the biggest parts of this hunt was staying in a budget zone I could afford, and it was extremely hard to ignore those slightly nicer, slightly newer bikes that were "just a few grand more". I knew if I went over a certain amount, scope creep would take me right back up to that $22,000 R1200RT.

While I'd spent some time on ebay sizing up prices, and doing some small time bidding, I thought staying local might be a better idea. So at the beginning of October I started into Craigslist. I'll be totally honest, while I'd been on Craigslist, and investigated a few items here and there, I'd never really thought it was too serious of a deal. Well, I got serious about it and started calling people and checking out bikes. On Sunday, I found a nice 2000 BMW R1100RTP with very low miles and in very nice condition. After looking everything over, checking the maintenance record, taking a test ride... I took the plunge. I made an agreement with the seller, In which I gave him fair deposit and he'd take the bike off the market until payment in full is made.

That is where I am now, as of writing (Sunday the 4th - yes, I know I'm writing well in advance; it's because I know once I get the bike... I'll slack off again; plus it makes John happy). The plan is that when I get a cashier's check (this is one of the downsides to doing most of my banking through a bank that has no branches, I've got to transfer money out to get things like cashier's checks), the owner will ride the bike down to me, we'll sign some paperwork, and everyone will be happy. The (soon to be) previous owner has been a very nice guy, and very informative. I know a fair amount about BMW bikes from my research, but none from owning one.

I'm hoping that by Wednesday or Thursday (the 7/8th) I will have the bike in my possession (Editor's Note: This is indeed the case.). The first thing I'm gonna do is ride it around, then bring it to the local BMW shop to get checked out (can never be too careful). After that, it's all joy. I'm sure I'll have another post or two worth of material to follow this post up with... and probably a fair amount of motorcycle posts in the future.
Which brings us back to the title of this article, Ride Friday. It is likely to be back, hopefully at least once a month you will be treated (for certain values of "treated") to my or John's ramblings on motorcycles. Enjoy (or cringe in terror, either way)!

Carfax doesn't 'do' Motorcycles

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0700

"Carfax - Vehicle History Reports", "The most trusted provider of vehicle history information", "one-stop source for vehicle history information ... CARFAX has the most comprehensive vehicle history database".

You know what all these fragments have in common? The word vehicle (Noun) "A conveyance; a device for carrying or transporting substances, objects or individuals". What Carfax doesn't tell you, and I didn't know, is that Carfax doesn't do motorcycles. I found this somewhat surprising because motorcycle (noun) "An open-seated motor-powered vehicle with two wheels". Key point, a motorcycle is a vehicle. Now, I'm willing to accept that Carfax doesn't do motorcycles, I just wish they would make it clearer.

My story is fairly simple: I was looking online to buy a motorcycle.
I figured the smart thing to do would be to get an unlimited Carfax subscription for a month and check out the VINs. I tried out my newly acquired service on several of the bikes I was watching on ebay. Much to my puzzlement, many of them came back saying "Invalid VIN". I know a few could have been typo'd, or maybe even fraudulent auctions, but half or more did not work and at some point I said to myself "This is more than just a glitch". So I emailed Carfax. The next business day they told me the following:

The CARFAX Database contains over 7 billion records from over 20,000 data sources concerning cars and light trucks manufactured for the North American market since 1981. We're unable to produce reports on other vehicles at this time.

On rare occasion, we will have random records in our database for non-covered vehicles. This is only due to the fact that some of our data sources provide these records electronically and our systems will display these records because they have a valid 17-digit Vehicle Identification Number.

So there you have it, they don't do motorcycles, they only do cars & light trucks. Fine, but I still wish they would have made it clearer. So I requested a full refund. It took trading a few more emails to get them over than "canned response" crap, and they processed my refund. Took all of about 2 hours from when I received the quoted email above, to when I got the "we're processing your refund" email. So I'm happy, if I ever go to buy a used car, I'll sign up again. Until then, no more Carfax for motorcycles.

Ride Friday: Test ride BMW R1200RT

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:00:00 -0700

I've been researching and looking at touring bikes for a while now. Ever since I've had to return John's bike, I've been keeping my eye out for used bikes and doing more digging from time to time. After my first long ride, which I've talked about previously, I knew what I wanted from a touring bike. I wanted a touring bike that wasn't a luxury bike (like the Honda Gold Wing or the BMW K1200LT - even though its a nice bike), but at the same time, I wanted to avoid the sport touring bikes that were a bit heavy on the sport. Oh, and before you ask, no I didn't want a cruiser.
This is all just personal preference.
The main problem is that while I can spend weeks researching, it doesn't mean anything if the bike is too tall for me, or I don't find it comfortable. The topic of height is really what narrowed down my selections. The only motorcycles I had been on previously were cruisers (which are known for being low) and since I'm height impaired (translation: short) I wasn't sure I could even ride any of the touring bikes (all of which tend to be a bit on the higher side). So off I went.

Continue reading "Ride Friday: Test ride BMW R1200RT"

Ride Friday: Bay to Tahoe

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 29 May 2009 10:00:00 -0700

A few weeks back I needed to return John's motorcycle to him (which I had been borrowing for the winter). The easiest way to do this was for me to ride it up to him and then he'd give me a ride (in a shiny Subaru) back down. As this was my first long distance ride (much more so than just puttering around the bay), it would prove to be a good experience. Overall the ride went very well and I learned a few important things. Including that I need to pay better attention to/for the CHP when on a motorcycle - oh well. Here's the short run down of what I've learned and decided I needed (since I want to buy a touring bike):

Comfortable seat - Obviously you want a comfortable seat, but I realized how really important it is for the longer rides. The seat on John's cruiser seems to work for him, but not me. So be it.
Windshield - Preferably adjustable. John had a bolt on windshield that was ok, certainly better than nothing, but I could never seem to get it to stay how I wanted.
Bigger gas tank - Possibly the most frustrating thing about riding John's cruiser was the fact that it is limited to about 100 miles per tank (based on my riding style). Since I didn't want to get caught in the mountains without gas, I filled up more often than that. Even still, the 200 miles (+/-) from the Bay to Tahoe required 2 fuel stops.
Proper sound system - I've got a Nolan Ncom helmet which has the option to put in a headset that can be connected to things like iPods, but as I don't own a motorcycle or ride that much, I hadn't actually bought the headset. Instead I've been using my iPod and earbuds "normally". This works fine for an hour here or there but for a 4 hour ride, it killed my ears.
Cruise Control - As noted above, the CHP tagged me (Not even 20 minutes out of the gate ::sigh::). I found myself riding faster than I wanted to after that, simply because I had a tendency to creep the throttle. If I was going to be doing a lot of riding I'd want an electronic cruise control ("cheap" preventative for speeding tickets).

There are, of course, other things I could think of that would be nice to have. Though I think the above ones are the most important, and what sticks out in my mind the most. I am shopping for bikes, but it may take a while before I buy one (unless we get bonuses at work or something). Right now I'm lusting after a few nice touring bikes like the BMW R1200RT. My major problem is that I'm shorter, so there aren't that many touring bikes I can actually ride (without looking like a little kid trying to steal his big brother's huffy bike).

Ride Friday: Calaveras Reservoir

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 08 May 2009 10:00:00 -0700

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General Area: Past the Calaveras Reservoir - Sunol to Milpitas
Difficulty: Advanced Riders
Ride Length: 15 Miles (Up to 1 Hour)
Scenery: Up on a hill side overlooking the Reservoir or strolling through some farm lands.
Special Notes: I don't recommend this ride to anyone just starting riding (or just getting back to riding). I'm by no means an expert on the motorcycle and I know that I wouldn't want to do this ride again with out several thousand more miles under my belt. On top of that this ride is extremely dangerous. Most of it is hair pin turns, 10 mph speed limit, single lane wide (With both directions of traffic) and dirty (rock/etc covered) roads.
Comments: I had taken this drive (via automobile) once before, and apparently forgotten how unfriendly the road was. The view is really fantastic, but I was busy trying to keep myself alive on the motorcycle. I scraped the pegs at least once on the cruiser and I was riding EXTREMELY conservatively, so I think the ride might be better suited to sport bikes. Additionally I did nearly end up as the hood ornament for a car, at no fault of anyone in particular. We were both approaching (at a reasonable speed) a blind corner on a road that is just slightly more than a single lane wide - bad luck on the timing. So in summary.... if you want a very challenging ride, go for it, but don't even think about it in inclement weather (unless your significant other is the beneficiary of a rather large life insurance policy).

Ride Friday: Antioch to Clayton

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 01 May 2009 10:00:00 -0700

I'd like to introduce yet another of my half ass'd concepts of "regular programming". This one is motorcycle related (::small cheer::). Basically in my random wanderings around wherever the hell it is I'm wandering, I've found a few nice/interesting/challenging/etc rides. Generally they aren't too long, just short trips that I think are worth while that you may want to incorporate, should you also be riding in the same area we will be discussing. I'll explain briefly the ride and any interesting points. Unfortunately, as I'm returning John's bike to him (he loaned it to me for the winter, for which I'm extremely grateful) here shortly (for certain values of shortly as the fates continue to conspire against him), I won't have too many to post until later this year when I buy my own bike.

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General Area: Antioch to Clayton.
Difficulty: Piece of cake.
Ride Length: 20 miles (30mn+ depending on slow ass drivers)
Scenery: Some nice rolling farmland & the north side of Mt Diablo State Park.
Special Notes: I highly recommend going from Antioch to Clayton rather than the reverse because you get a much more enjoyable view.
Comments: I've taken this ride a couple of times (both directions) and I really do enjoy it... when there isn't heavy traffic. It is really nice to come off of Highway 4 in what is standard Bay Area sprawl, and then suddenly be out in the country farm lands. In the "twisty" section many of the turns are labeled for 30-35mph, but that really means 50-60mph (assuming you have a moderate riding proficiency). Generally there are very long sight lines so you don't get too many surprises (which I personally appreciate). The only major downer is if you get a slow poke in front of you, there aren't many (safe) places to pass or for them to pull over. On the Clayton/Walnut Creek side I prefer taking Ygnacio Valley Road out to the freeway. It passes through the Lime Ridge Open Space giving you one last glimpse of pristine rolling hills before you dive back into the sprawl.

Rode a real Motorcycle

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:59:00 -0700

The other day I left the Bay and headed up to Tahoe. Only here very briefly, but I had begged and pleaded with John to let me try out his motorcycle, and eventually he agreed. Yes, I've ridden a motorcycle before, in the safety class... but you never get out of third gear, and you are limited to a few hundred feet run at the max. I've really wanted to give a real bike a try, more specifically, ride on real roads for more than a few minutes at a time. So, today I got my chance.

His bike is an 800cc, which is a lot more powerful than the 250cc'rs we rode in class. That is no big deal, as being up in altitude some power is lost. The biggest difference I noticed was how much heavier the bike was. The safety class bike could really be thrown around from side to side quickly, John's took a bit more work. It is not a major deal, but being new to bikes and all, it was one of the first things I noticed.

I started out my ride just going through a small area of the local residential roads, getting a hang of the bike. I wanted to get a feel for things before I wandered off too far, especially if I was unsure of myself. The only thing I have to say, windy, hilly roads are not the easiest places to learn how to ride on. The one thing I should have practiced a bit before I "ventured off" onto real roads, was stops and starts. Again, the heavier bike was a bit slower to stop (can't do a "Flintstones stop" like you can the 250cc). More importantly, his clutch is very loose and rather touchy (fully disengaged at 4.5, fully engaged at 5). The first time I came to a stop sign was on a hill, which made for a tricky launch. I've driven manuals enough to do it, but I rev'd the engine a lot more than I needed to do.

I spent a good amount of time (at least 30 minutes) wandering about residential roads. For a good portion of it, I was practicing the basics and things I had learned. Luckily, it was a very quiet day so there weren't a lot of cars on the roads. This was very nice because the first few times cars drove past me, I flinched away from them. I've never been scared of driving before, but a car gives you "immunity". On a bike, knowing that it is just you, and two wheels protecting you from other idiots gives the world a very different view. I did make sure to practice swerves a good bit. Also, I spent a good deal of time doing "cones" down the road because A) It is damn fun and B) It is damn fun. Oh, and it gave me a better feel for getting the bike from one side to another for turns.

After much piddling around, I ventured onto the local highway. Luckily for me traffic was light my direction, so for most of my jaunt, there was no one behind or in front of me. This was much more pleasant as I was busy worrying about what I was doing and the last thing I needed was idiots tailgating me to add to my ordeal. Of course in the last few minutes of the trip "up" someone did start tailgating me... Fantastic. I got to the top of the hill, turned around and came back down. In the end it really was no big deal. I returned back to HQ no worse for wear.

The one thing I do have to mention is that my riding instructor at the safety class told us numerous times:

If you aren't scraping the pegs, you can lean more

Well, to be honest, in my "cone" swerves, I did scrape one peg. I was EXTREMELY surprised. I didn't think I was leaning that much. Hell, when the instructor told me that I thought "I'll never do that". Ha, first ride and that is already out the window. Additionally, I scraped the OTHER peg making a U-Turn in a Cul-De-Sac. Since that was done a little slower, and it was the second time, it was less startling. The one thing that I do like is knowing that I'm getting the hang of making the really tight turns without the urge to put my foot down. Then again, there was a lot less pressure this time around.

So am I getting a bike? Maybe. It is still a toy for me, one that I would like to have, but one that I really can't afford right now. Ok, I could afford it, but that would cut into my electronic toy fund.

Walnut Creek Harley

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:28:13 -0700

As I previously mentioned, last weekend I was taking the "practical" portion of my Motorcycle class. I had gotten all the gear I needed for class, including proper gloves and helmet. I was concerned that my gloves would not be acceptable, though (website stated I needed "leather-like gloves"). So on Saturday morning before class, I stopped off at Walnut Creek Harley (closest bike shop I know of) and got a pair of leather gloves. I made sure I kept the gloves in the packaging and everything, in case I didn't need them. In the end, the gloves I had bought previously (that weren't leather, and I liked them a bit more) were sufficient, so I didn't need what I bought at Harley.

I tried to return them today and all they'd give me is store credit. I did not read their receipt until today, but on the back it says "All returns will be for merchandise exchange or in store credit only". I don't know if this is a Harley policy, or just the Walnut Creek store, but this is stupid. If the merchandise was sold more than 30 days ago, or the tags have been removed, or it has obviously been used - SURE - go for store credit only. But for items that are brand new, never used? What. The. Fuck.

I'm sorry, I'm not really that big of a Harley fan. I only went there because they were close and available. But if I buy something that doesn't work for me (which as it turns out, the gloves really didn't), I expect to be able to return it and get a proper refund. I will probably wander into that Harley store and find something else to buy that is exactly how much credit I have - then never step foot in there again. Store credit does not encourage repeat business, it discourages it.