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world's quickest maintenance write-up.
Lance's Seca is all done and adjusted and is back with its rightful owner. As time was of the essence, I didn't take a lot of pictures or jot down everything that I worked on, but here's a rough overview:

Clutch cable adjustment. Lance had mentioned a clunking sound when he downshifted through any gear; some other people on the world wide internet seemed to have a similar problem, and adjusting the clutch cable helped. Lance had some excessive free play, so I adjusted it to spec, and this seemed to fix his problem.

Replace burned out bulbs. Three of the eight dash lights were burned out, so I replaced those (replacement bulbs are easy to come by; I found some at the local hardware store in the Automotive section). Astute reader Karl suggested also checking the battery voltage, to make sure that the bulbs weren't being done in by a defective regulator. The voltage ended up being normal (about 14v at 7000rpms), but thanks for the tip, Karl! I'll definitely remember that one. Lance's lefthand turn signal was also burned out; again, an easy swap-out for a replacement bulb from the hardware store.

Valve adjustment. The Seca II has shim-over-bucket valves, which was my first experience with shims. They were easy to check, and all the valves were within spec, so I didn't have to actually replace any of them. The most interesting thing about the valve adjustment was the minor battle that was removing the cylinder head cover. This was a big pain in the ass. Eventually Peter and I just ended up moving the carburetors out of the way in order to get to the darn thing.

Removing everything. Removing (and reinstalling) the fairing is easy. There aren't any evil hidden bolts (Peter's SuperHawk had a couple of those), and the turn signals are actually installed in such a way to make removal easy and intuitive (!!).

Removing the tank is pretty straightforward. I followed the Clymer's manual instructions, and they actually seemed to be relevant to the task at hand. If I had to disconnect a hose, I labelled both ends of it with masking tape so that I had a chance in hell of re-routing it back to the correct spot. This turned out to be A Smart Idea. I have those sometimes.

Removing the airbox is easy. Unscrew the clamps and bolt holding it in place, disconnect hose (masking tape again), pull off.

We didn't remove the carbs entirely, but rather disconnected just enough hoses to be able to move them out of the way of the cylinder head cover. More masking tape labels were made. Much gas was spilled all over god's green earth (or carolyn's grey concrete floor, as the case may be). Fortunately, nothing caught on fire, and we got a nice lesson on where the float bowls are and how they pour gas into the throttle bodies (or onto the floor, if they aren't connected to said throttle bodies). We left the throttle cables connected, and just bungeed the carbs out of the way.

Once all that crap was gone, removing the cylinder valve cover was easy. See "valve adjustment" above.

Putting everything back on. One word of advice: just replace the darn cylinder cover gasket. Lance's looked fine, so I put it back on; the Seca was back at my apartment the next day, leaking oil. One trip to GP Sports for a new gasket and an hour and a half of labor later, and the new gasket was on and the cylinder head cover wasn't leaking. Don't be cheap like me. Just replace the gasket. Oh, and I also got some silicone liquid gasket in a tube while I was at GP Sports, and it works really well for holding the gasket in place while you seat it into the cover.

And that was about it. Here are the few pictures that I did take:

some actual riding this weekend.
It's been a while since I actually rode anywhere interesting, so it was nice to go up to Alice's for breakfast yesterday. I actually went with -- gasp! -- a cager. Some of my friends were meeting to do a hike up near Alice's, so my friend/neighbor Mark and I decided to hit Alice's for breakfast before meeting up with the rest of the gang for the hike. Mark has an Audi, and is as disturbingly obsessed about things like his new brake calipers ("they're as big as my head!!") as I am with my bike mods. We had lots of coffee and good food and got to pet Alex, the resident kitty.

this is the entry that will not end....
Sorry 'bout that. This is what happens when I don't update in a while.

action shots!
I took Page Mill Road home from the hike, and since Peter was carpooling with his roommate, he took some pictures of me on the way down. Some of them turned out really well, considering he was holding the camera outside of the car window and just shooting randomly.

I can't tell if my brake lights are on in all the turns, or if it's just my running lights. I know that I was doing some naughty-carolyn late braking in some turns -- Page Mill just isn't very confidence-inspiring when you haven't ridden it in a while -- but I hadn't thought I was braking that much in all the turns. I'll have to have Peter videotape me going down Page Mill the next time, so that I can tell when the brake lights go on and off. *scratches head*

taking on the man.
I just sent my first-ever email to CalTrans; I feel all politically active and stuff. While I was putting together Peter's pictures last night, I realized that every single one in which Page Mill is clearly visible shows some sort of road hazard. I complain about the condition of that road all the time; I figured it was time to put my money where my mouth is and see if CalTrans is actually aware of the problem. I took all of the non-blurry pictures and labelled the road hazards, and sent the link off to CalTrans (in addition to a small letter), so we'll see if I get a response.

why, yes, that is my new suit.
The observant amongst us might recognize my new custom leather suit, courtesy of Helimot in the riding pictures. It's true! Aside from one defective zipper which causes the fly to come down (yes, yes, I've heard the jokes, that's very clever), they're absolutely perfect. And the zipper's getting fixed next week, after the bike show(!!! only 5 more days....).

I have more to say about the suit (and the bike show!), but no one wants this entry to go on any longer, least of all me.