Mileage update.....

So, I was sitting thinking while updating my blog with the latest little trip. I have been back on motorcycles since December of 2006. As of this week it has been 2 1/2 years back on the bike. I was kind of curious what my open road mileage was. I know what my odometer says on the Russian, it puts me in the neighborhood of 20,000 miles. The R90 has not had a working odometer between when I got it, and May. Between may and now I have put around 1800 miles on it. guessing at 400 miles per month for commuting, I would put it in the neighborhood of 1200 miles of commuting on the R90 before the odometer fix.

What I ball-parked was about 14,000 over the road miles in 2 1/2 years by mapping out the routes to the major trips I have taken over the past couple years. My total mileage, including commuting should come up somewhere around 24,000 miles in the past 2 1/2 years. That is actually not that bad really. I think I need to do something about it though. Time for another trip.

TTFN

Dave

Back in one piece

The return trip was fun. This was just a short little run to get Angela's legs under her for what a road trip would be like. It was just a little jaunt up to Stephenville, TX and back. I think the highlight of the trip had to be when we first rolled in. After 170 or so miles, not a long day one, we pull up in front of the hotel and she slumps across the tank of her bike. It was kind of cute. In one day she had almost doubled her total mileage on the bike. When we started off she had ridden about 100 miles total around town. At the end of the first day, she had put in 170 miles in about 5 hours. To top that off, she did it on a Suzuki GZ250. That is the little cruiser that competes with the Honda Rebel. That is a decent ride on a full size bike, but on the little Suzuki it was a beating.

Here is the shot of her on her tank:



When we stopped in Hamilton for Angela to get gas on Day 1, she found the cutest thing. I was standing in front of the store and I got a text from her. It confused me a bit, because I thought I knew where she was. It just said, come look what I found. When I got inside, she was pointing at this display and giggling. I almost peed myself when I saw it. I got a quick shot with my phone so I could share....use your imagination. We wanted to bring one back, but it probably wouldn't have survived the heat.

Here is the popcorn on a cob:



I think this was my first clue that she had slipped into vibration induced psychosis.


The trip back today was fairly uneventful, except for me missing my turn to get on US281. We ended up going over to this little town called Meridian. When I figured out that we were in the wrong spot, we cut back over to 281 so we could head home. We got to stop at this little place called Hard Eights in Stephenville. It is an awesome little BBQ shop that Kel and I found on our way back from Hot Springs a couple years ago. Yes, they are still as good as I remember.

Here is us in front of Hard Eights:



While we were there, we had one of the guys running the pit take a quick shot of us together next to our bikes. It had to be done, I guess.

The little "detour" that we took on Highway 6, allowed us to go through this area called Cranfill's Gap. It is westbound on FM22 from Meridian, TX. It is not incredibly high, but it is very pretty. All in all, it was worth the 45 mile detour.

The rest of the trip back was uneventful. We pretty much ran straight through because we were kind of running from the Texas summer "cold front" that was moving south. That means it was around 85 degrees. The problem is that when the 85 degree air hits the 102 degree air, you tend to get snap thunderstorms and high erratic winds. We did manage to make it home in one piece though. It was a very nice ride. I think I want to do it again.

Here is our return route:


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Dublin on the 4th of July.

This was a shining example of "The best laid plans, and all that jazz". This little trip was originally conceived as a good excuse to get a friend of mine out on her new bike and get dome road miles under her. The original plan was to take off this morning from Austin and go to Dublin, TX to get a Dublin Dr Pepper (look it up, ya'll). We roll about 160 miles in heat ranging from 98 when we left to about 102 when we rolled into Dublin. When we get there, the significance of the date becomes very obvious to me. It is the 4th of July, everything is closed. The only thing that I noticed open as we rolled through town was a restaurant that looked abandoned except for the flashing open sign. I just decided to roll us on to Stephenville to hit the hotel. Depending on how we are feeling tomorrow when we get to Lampasass, we might come back through Lago Vista and Marble Falls. That would mean 1431. We are going to call the ball on that one in Lampasass, because I want to make sure we are not too beat from the heat, and make sure she has her confidence up for that ride. The road isn't that difficult, but it is very high stakes and doesn't give you much time to rest.

Here are a couple shots from the day. Didn't end up taking many pics, mostly a couple shots when we got into the hotel. Hopefully I will be able to get some more tomorrow on the way home.

Here are the shots:





Here was our route:


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Have fun, I will close out tomorrow night when I get home.

Dave

Lazy Saturday......

I got to go shake my brain out a bit today. While pulling the old Russian out of mothballs, I discovered that the starter relay is still kind of dodgy. I think I will replace it and clean all connections between the battery and the starter. That should give me a better feel for it. That being said, rainy days are the best days for bike-workin-on. Saturday was nice in the morning, so there was riding.

Since the weather was kind of nasty all directions from Austin, I decided to just run around the back roads. My initial plan was to make a lap around the lake. That was when muscle memory took over and I just let the bike go where it felt like going. I took our old loop down around dripping springs and wimbery. I ended up in San Marcos. Since I was there, I decided to get pizza at my old college hangout. Valentino's Pizza is still the worst pizza around, but it is nostalgia. What the hell. After some Pizza, I went over to the Humidor to hang out and have a cigar. Rob got in a couple boxes of the Auturo Fuente Reverves so I picked up a few. After that I went out to Mikey's shop and hung out for a while. I needed to drop some stuff off with him, and I happened to be in the area. While I was there, I picked up a set of anti-dive springs for Kel's bike too. The trip back was where things got interesting. I made it almost 5 miles back before the flying midget with a firehose found me. Little bastard followed me all the way home. This was the first time I have had the R90 out in heavy rain, so I am at least glad I know how it is going to handle now. I also learned that those new brakes are really good. In the wet, I get a lot better feel out of them so I don't have to guess where lockup is. After this little ride I think those brakes are the best money I have thrown at the bike.

One thing I do want to find out is who left the cage open.....all of the idiots got out and they were on the road. I had my rainsuit on, the one that is all reflective, and all of the reflective stickers on my bike. Reflective materials only work if the other vehicles have their lights turned on. I saw more cars running in driving rain with their wipers on high and their headlights turned off. No scares, no close calls....just a front row seat for the parade of stupidity. I know there are sobriety checkpoints, there are discussions of insurance checkpoints, I have even heard rumors that there might be insurance checkpoints in the future. When are there going to be roadside IQ tests. I am sorry sir, you are too stupid to be allowed to live....pop...pop...

Oh well, off to work on the russian. Have fun.

Dave

More upgrades on the R90

I did the final upgrade on the R90 before the summer road trip today. I got the brakes upgraded from a single sided disc to a dual disc. Basically, I gained 30% more stopping power and dropped about 60% of the hand pressure required for stopping. While we had the front end apart, we went ahead and put a set of anti-dive springs in the forks. These help control the way the forks compress during heavy braking. While we had everything torn apart, we also put in stainless steel braided brake lines and new fork seals.

I can tell a big difference with the new setup. Before, I had a whole lot of "go fast" but very little stop. Now, I can reel in the speed much more comfortably. I don't feel like I am breaking walnuts just squeezing the brake lever. Since there is a disc on each side of the wheel now, I don't get any lateral torque when I grab a handful of brake. It is very even and tends to run straight, instead of drifting left. The brakes also feel like they recover faster than they did before. The new suspension setup in front is also very nice. I can grab some front brake to start my weight transfer going into a corner, and it feels much smoother.

Now it is time to finish off the suspension update on Kel's bike. We got her heavy duty progressive shocks on the back, and the new progressive fork springs for her forks have come in. Now it is just a matter of installing them.

TTFN

Dave

Weekend Trip to Scarborough Faire

This was an interesting little trip. It was kind of a spur of the moment attempt, that turned into a pretty normal little road trip. When I say pretty normal, I mean there were a lot of little things that all went kind of funky, but we all made it back alive, and it was fun.

The idea for this trip came from the fact that Diz got herself a new bike, and wanted to try it out on the highway. Here is a pic of the new bike:



This was our first long ride as a full line. 6 bikes. It was definately a challenge keeping the whole thing together. The trip up to Waxahachie went fairly smooth. We formed up in temple and followed I35 all the way up. The only real excitement, other than getting split up by traffic fairly often, was when my right side carb float stuck open. It wasn't that bad on the highway, but when we hit the first stoplight in town, it started dumping gas on my right boot. I had to pull the bowl and clean it out to get it to stop leaking. After that, it was all gravy....and a boot that stunk of gasoline.

Here is a shot of the line in front of Logan's on the trip back:



This was the funniest looking line I have ever seen. We ended up with a Yamaha, a Honda, a Harley, a Kawasaki, and 2 vintage BMWs. It was actually kind of humorous.

Faire was fun, we each got to do pretty much what we set out to do. I got to ride, Slap got his turkey leg, Diz got to try out her new bike, Glenn got a Steak on a Stake, Kel got to see Queen Anne's Lace on opening weekend. Here is a shot of the girls:



Not a great shot, but you get the idea. If you happen to get out there, go see them. They are great.

The trip back was where the real excitement was. It was decided to come back the long way through Stephenville so we could get BBQ at Hard Eights. To do this we were headed out 287 to 67, then have BBQ. Then we would just follow 281 back south to Austin. The only hitch in this plan was that once we got onto 67 headed for Stephenville, we discovered the 40mph crosswind. All it took was a couple of the bridges to convince us that we should turn south and head for Waco. Once we got to Waco, we had lunch at logans road house and sat around for a while just happy to be alive.

As far as the shakedown run on the new setup for the R90 goes, it was pretty good. One stuck float, but that is actually fairly normal right now. I still need to do some work on that thing. I have a few rattles on the tins that I need to sort out, but other than that, it is looking good.

Here is the route we took for this little trip:


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TTFN

Dave

Shakedown weekend

We are doing a small shakedown trip on the R90 rebuild this weekend. Just a little run up to Scarborough Faire. Me, Kel, Vern, Glenn, Gary, and Laura. This should be fun. A 6 bike line. This will be Laura's first trip on her new bike. I think it will be much easier on her. This one is a bit heavier, has a bit more power, and is a lot more stable than the old one. I have a feeling she will see the difference quickly.

TTFN,

Dave