Just some more riding

Western Cape has probably the best motorcycle roads in the entire country, and fortunately it's all very close to Stellenbosch.

This sunday had beautiful weather, nice temperature and little traffic so we figured that a sunday ride would be in order (also called a "breakfast run" among riders).

I went out riding with Rudi (a friend I know from my motorcycle dealership) and some others. We went through Helshoogte (long sweeps), Franschhoek pass (tight bends and kneesliding, although watch out for the baboons!).







This one BP petrol station we stopped at had so many surveillance cameras that it was ridiculous. The ones in this photo are just a few of them, I think there's at least 30 cameras there. Too much money? ;-)





Here's Rudi with his 2007 ZX6R:




I rode that bike from Franschhoek back to Stellenbosch. It's quite a powerful bike (599cc fuel-injected inline-4 producing 131 horsepower...) The brakes have an incredible bite and only two fingers are necessary. Suspension is very stiff but very effective.

My only objection is that it feels less comfortable than the previous models of ZX6R and also the lack of torque. I'm not sure how long you can be on this bike before your wrists and back starts to ache. Nonetheless, it's a true sportsbike with great potential. Rudi's friend Tinny (left in first pic) rides an older ZX7R, it's heavier but I think that'd be a more suitable bike for me since I'm quite tall.

Building a pan flute

I woke up one morning and thought building a pan flute would be a neat thing. I have no idea why! It just made sense at the time. ;-) So I went to the hardware store (called Oranjeblanjeblou) and bought 2 meters of PVC pipe. I also bought some other stuff like sanding paper, a little saw, some rubber things for a plug, some wood and some super glue and black paint.

I found that the mathematical equation to calculate the length of the tube is:

TL = (S/F) / 4

Where TL is Tube Length, S is speed of sound (344m/sec), F is desired frequency.

I decided to make 13 pipes so I could have the western musical scale of A, A#, B, C, C#, D and so on. The frequency of A (actually A4) is 440Hz, and the frequency of C# is 554Hz, and so on.

To calculate the length I needed for C#, I would then do:

(34400/554) / 4 = 15.52 cm

Since I had some rubber things that I used to plug up the pipe, I found that I have to add their height (about 0.6cm) despite them not being hollow. I didn't know this at first so I spent quite some time sawing it down properly after realizing my mistake.

I also spray-painted it black, with the exception of the piece of wood I put on the back (not visible in the pictures).

The sound is good but it's very loud.. Maybe I should build a smaller one next time, and maybe one out of bamboo!

So.. there you go, a pan flute made out of materials costing less than 60NOK !