An Enginerds life with a 2003 Aprilia Caponord Rally-Raid ETV1000 (2008 – 2023)
Saturdays lovely sunny weather gave way to thick fog and a definite chill in the air – time then to hunker down on the PC and finish the CGI dashboard and add a couple of extra bits to make it a touch more interesting on the eye.
While some of you may find the following post trivial or questionable and others may think it as anal as colour grading belly button fluff ………. I sincerely and unreservedly, don’t give a flying duck. KarlB March 2016
“Neither the mouse nor the boy was the least bit surprised that each could understand the other. Two creatures who shared a love for motorcycles naturally spoke the same language.”
Beverly Cleary, The Mouse and the Motorcycle
I seem to recall it was back in 2007 that I read a piece in a UK bike magazine, in which the journo waxed lyrical about documenting a riding time-line ….. Laying out your bikes, accidents, countries visited, mileage etc. since you first threw a leg over a bike to the present day.
I admit the idea was intriguing. Our bookshelves held all manner of manuals*, dockets, documents and diaries from every bike I’d owned and company/despatch bike I’d worked. It took about 12 months on and off to go through everything and assemble it onto a spreadsheet. The end result was quite surprising, the only missing information seemed to be loan/courtesy bikes and training school instructor/student bikes I’d ridden when not using my own. So it’s fair to say the number twinkling on the screen was several thousand miles short, this counteracted very nicely with the fact that bike odometers are woefully inaccurate and over-read. Bottom line – I felt the overall mileage displayed reasonably reflected my riding to that date.
Each following year the spreadsheet was updated with the Capo’s mileage and each year it never really looked like it changed much – until this year. In late January I realised I only had a few miles to go, so a reminder was stuck on the Capo dashboard – When the odometer hits 90,898 – you’ve done it fella.
That day has finally arrived. On a nondescript little back road the Capo rolled to a halt, I switched off, fumbled for the camera and took a moment to look around and reflect on the years, roads and miles that led me to this point ……………. all 1,000,000 of them.
*Each bike since my first Honda SS50 has had a Haynes, Clymer or genuine workshop manual from day one – not one of them has ever been dealer serviced. Each has the mileage on purchase, mileage at upgrade or repair and final mileage when sold added in the fly-sheet. The Capo is the first bike to be totally digital – manual, parts lists the whole nine yards.
Many years back I started to carry one of these disposable cameras on the bike. Usually ratting around in the top-box with all manner of junk, it was their just in case of …… Well I’m sure you get the idea. Instead it ended up being used to take a picture of the speedo whenever it passed through an ‘interesting’ odometer reading – 12345, 22222, 33333. Sad I know, but it became a habit.
Taking a photo of these mileages has stayed with me and where possible I still take a snap of the dashboard if it’s convenient/safe to do it and of course, if I remember! This time around it was a biggie, the one that would use up all but one segment of the entire odometer – 88,888 – I wasn’t going to miss this one.
And so on a beautifully warm day with January knocking on February’s door the capo rolled to a halt just south of Penne and the picture was taken. The Capo’s running wonderfully and I’m (slowly) losing a bit of weight and feeling better for it – I have a feeling this year might just be the year we crack that 6th digit!
Sometimes a particular feature of a piece of technology can drive you nuts – that itch you can’t scratch! Here’s my particular niggle with the Capo dashboard ……
Just imagine, it’s a nice day and you’re all suited-and-booted, ready to tear up the countryside on the Capo. You’ve pushed the ‘Set’ button on the dashboard to display the trip meter and all is fine and dandy in the world, later you pull over for a break and when you restart the bike – the dashboard has switched back to odometer! I know it’s not exactly the end of the world, but it is annoying. Why couldn’t Aprilia just code the damn thing to display on start-up what it showed at shut-down, many other bikes seem to do it.
So as part of the long running Mk2 dashboard project, the feature has now been incorporated!
With a little bit more code and a couple of extra wires, the dashboard now knows what was displayed (odometer or trip) at key-off. Then it simply electronically replaces a winter-gloved podgy finger and prods the ‘Set’ line to the old microcontroller a second after the board finishes its POST (power-on-self-test) routine. It also now reads the voltage from the fuel level sensor in the fuel tank, so that if the trip meter is displayed at key-off AND the fuel level changes from less than 15% to greater than 90% (approx. <5l to >20l refuel) at the next key-on, the trip meter will be reset automatically. If you don’t want the reset to go ahead, you simply make sure the dashboard is displaying the odometer before switching the bike off, now the reset is ignored.
Of course all this is well and good on the workbench, but in real day-to-day use – will it scratch that itch? Hmm, time and a few miles under the Capo’s belt will determine that answer……. maybe I’ll just end up with a nasty little rash! 😕