Fall Roadtrip Wrapup and major mechanical issues

    I know it has been a long time since I got back from my trip, but it has been a very eventful few months.  I can finally close out that trip report.

    When I made the stop in Pine Bluff, MO, I noticed that I had an odd tapping in my motor at times.  I ran under the assumption that my valves were getting a bit loose (like they do).  I put it on the checklist of things to do when I get home...."Adjust my valves".  When I got home, I swapped the bikes out and rode the R90 for a couple weeks.  I just didn't have time to get to the valved with the work schedule and all.  One fateful morning I was running late, so I decided to take the 1150 because it is a much faster startup in the morning.  About halfway to work, I noticed the ticking....then it turned into a full blown rattle....then a loud clatter.  I managed to get the bike hack to the house and made the decision to send it to the shop.  They ended up pulling the left jug to see what was up, and guess what they found......





    Things did not bode well for our young hero.  2300 miles across 8 states in a little over a week.  2 miles into the first ride after the trip, the motor lets go.  Not a little lets go, but a catastrophic kablooie.  The cam chain follower on the left side let go.  It is an $11 part, but to get to it, the entire motor has to be removed from the bike and taken completely apart.  Here is my baby on the lift:



    It is a very helpless feeling seeing your bike gutted on the lift like that.  That bike held together over that entire trip, and then let go 2 miles into my commute to work.  My baby drug my silly ass back home wounded.  He could just as easily dropped that part in any state, but he held together long enough to get me home.  That is the kind of love that doesn't wash off with soap and water.  Now he is all stripped on a lift waiting for some love. 

    We decided to go with a 90% rebuild and reseal, and new clutch since he was apart, so it took some time to get him back together.  I almost died when they got him back together and handed me the baggie that held the broken part. 



    It let go at a stoplight.  If that think would have let go on the highway at speed, who knows what would have been the result.  I will definately be buying my bike a beer, I certainly owe him one.

    While he was in the shop, I figured I would ride the R90 for a while.  Unfortunately, she had other plans.  The wonky headlight switch decided it was time to short out and shut down the charging system.  I had planned on taking her offline to do some upgrades, but not just yet.  She ended up going in for upgrades and repairs about 2 weeks later.  I will get the details up on that upgrade when she gets home from the surgeon.

    Fortunately, I was not alone in my time of suffering.  The Roll the Bones rally was kind of rough on The Kel's GS.  It seems that the suspension on the sidecar was not really up to the kind of riding that she likes to do, and it kind of BENT THE HELL out of the sidecar suspension.  Now her bike is in the shop getting the sidecar frame straightened and reinforced.  The builder is confident that the new setup will be much more sturdy when it comes to jumping railroad tracks....YAY!!!!!!!

Here is a little video of some of the rally:



Here is the full playlist of Roll the Bones videos:



She should have the GS back in the next couple weeks.....I hope.

Enjoy,

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

Ok, so I am a dork

It turns out that the problems that I was having with the new transmission were just due to getting the new box broken in, and getting me used to actually having to shift the gears instead of just shuffling them randomly.

Now that I am riding the bike properly for the new gearbox, I am finding it much more responsive than the it was before. I also got ahold of one of the San Jose fork braces for the front end. It is possibly the best money ever spent on a motorcycle, other than gas of course. The purpose of the fork brace is to keep the fork legs in line during heavy braking, fast cornering, and general stupidity. I would not have believed that a simple chuck of steel between the forks would do things like......drop 10% off of my stopping distance. Now I don't get the lateral pull when I get on the front brakes as hard. It also changes the way the bike feels when I go into a corner. Before, the big corner on my way to work felt kind of mushyif I took it over about 30. It kind of had that "low tire" feel to it. Now, I have taken it up to 45 (the actual speed limit for both roads) and there is no movement at all. I am definately not inspired to engage in random acts of "squid-idity", but I certainly feel much more confident in the ability of the bike to make emergency manouvers, or sudden stops without wadding up.

Now that everything is back in working order and we are coming up on winter, it is time to start thinking about what I want to do toward the customization/frankenbiking of Athena. The original plan for this bike was to turn her into a cafe racer, with the ability to do real distance. I know the two sound mutually exclusive, but If I do it intelligently, it should not be a problem. The big things that need to be done are the clean-up of the fairing, painting the tank, getting the corbin /6 gunfighter solo seat installed, and the final touch will be upgrading the front brakes to dual disks. I don't see the brake upgrade happening in the near future, but it is worth a thought.

I will probably just break down and spray paint the fairing I have until I can get around to buying the parts and having them professionally shot.

TTFN

Dave

'Bout damn time, and all that......

My life since my last post, has been what we call in the computer industry, an MPCCF. For those people not used to acronyms, Massively Parallel Cascading Cluster F(ail). That is where a bunch of things go wrong simultaneously, and cause other things to fail in a chain reaction.

It all started with the trip that I had planned to blow the cobwebs out of my brain got sidetracked due to a mess at work that had to be handled. While getting everything sorted on that front, I noticed that the gearbox on the R90 was starting to feel a bit notchy. On the way to work one evening, 3rd gear let go on me. This called for a new gearbox. Just about the time I got ready to get the new box put in, I ended up getting sent out of town for work for a week. This culminated in 6 weeks of work without a day off. When all is finally said and done, I wind up getting everything done on the thursday before labor day weekend. I get the R90 dropped off with Mikey, and Kel and I get ready for the Labor Day Weekend escape. This time we are dragging along two of our friends.

The trip starts falling apart with one of the participants running into family problems the wednesday before we leave. One bike down, three to go. We end up with a trio of airheads heading for Fredricksburg. Two R90's and a Ural. We make it almost 30 miles before we discover that the other friend's R90 is not charging the battery. This can't be good. We end up writing off Saturday getting the battery replaced. Now there is a good battery, but it is still not charging to the highest capacity. It will only charge to maintenance levels if the headlight is off. Sunday is spend tearing through the charging system with a voltmeter checking all of the outputs, cleaning all contacts, and making sure all ground connections are good. At the end of sunday, we are getting 13.8v out of the charging system and all is good.

This brings us to the ride. Finally, I get to put more than 5 consecutive miles on the bike. We end up taking Hamilton Pool Road to 281, and then to Marble Falls. Have Lunch at the Bluebonnet Cafe, and then come home down 1431. We only pushed about 125 miles, but it was better than a beating (just barely). In the end it was a nice ride. I had lots of fun.

Here is the route. Sorry, no pictures.



View Larger Map

Time to start planning a trip for sometime around my b-day.

TTFN,

Dave

Dodging Oklahoma..............Day 5, Made it home alive.

I made it back to Austin alive at around 5:30 Thursday evening. I left Lubbock at 9:30 in the morning. 400 miles in about 8 hours. My butt still hurts. I can honestly say that 400 miles in a day is the max on that bike. The riding position is not as conducive to super long rides, but the suspension and the seat are a lot more comfortable than the Ural. Here is the route back:


View Larger Map


I actually had quite a nice ride. The new bike is definitely a different beast than the Ural. The handling is much lighter, more acceleration, and a lot less in the way of braking. It takes a very strong hand to reel in that thing from 40 mph or more. I also need to look into decreasing the vibration from the pegs and bars. When I stopped for gas, I would also pick up 2 small bottles of water, and hold one in each hand until I could feel the bottle. That helped the swelling go down so I could get the gloves back on. The vibration plays hell with my arthritis over time. If I can kill the vibration in the feet and hands, I think I will be up to 600-800 miles a day on that bike with no problem.

The ride back was very barren, since it was in the middle of a weekday, there was very little traffic. That plus the fact that I was spending a lot of time out on back roads in the middle of nowhere, it had that very isolating feeling that I love about riding. When I am doing the long distance solo runs like this, it is very comforting to be all alone with that quiet hum of the bike. Being all wrapped up in the gear, and then being wrapped around the bike is very comforting. Then you add in how the bike moves in response to your body movements, you start to get a very connected feeling with the bike. It sounds odd, but in some of the gentle sweepers, it almost feels like the bike is just another piece of gear that you put on, and you are flying down the road lust dipping a shoulder slightly when you see a curve coming up. It is very......liberating.

I think the trip back was a good bit of brain Drain-o after the excitement of the past couple days. Once I get a bit of rest, I will throw a recap of the trip up here. There is a lot of stuff to digest.

Vern and Glenn decided to continue the adventure on their own to Hot Springs. I am proud of them for pushing on. I am looking forward to seeing the pictures and hearing the storis from the rest of the ride.

Tomorrow we drop Kel's bike off with Mikey to get the tranny done.

Ya'll have fun now, Ya'hear......

Dave

Dodging Oklahoma..............Day 4, End of the Line

Day 4 started out quite nicely, it was a nice leisurely ride across the desert to Clovis, NM. That is when we noticed that Kel was hanging back a bit further than normal. Come to find out that her bike won't go into 5th gear. No grinding or whining, just won't stay in 5th. We decide at Clovis, to limp her bike back to Austin to get the transmission rebuild under way. We stopped at Muleshoe, TX at a McDonald's for lunch, and then continued the long limp home. In the small town of Anton, TX (and I mean small), the tranny finally let go. It started to whine. We managed to coast to a little burned out convenience store.

See picture here:




We ended up getting a tow into Lubbock and got a room at the Raddison. As of today....Day 5, we found a towing company in Austin that was willing to come and pick up the bike and Kel to take them home, and I will be taking off in the morning to head for the house.

Vern and Glenn are going to continue the trip to Hot Springs, AR. They are taking the camera so we can at least look at some pretty pictures. I guess this is where it ends.......I will toss another quick update when I get into Austin tomorrow, but Dodging Oklahoma has died with the rattle-grind of vintage BMW transmission bearings. Oh well.......

Dave

Double super-duper poopie.......

My final shakedown ride before the trip was a bit more interesting than I had bargained for. I felt an odd pop under the seat as I was headed home. When I got there and started mounting my bags, I noticed that the rear sub-frame had snapped. The rear sub-frame is the section that holds up the rear fender, the top shock mounts, and the seat. No handling problem, but certainly needs to be fixed. Fortunately, this is a problem that is fairly common on old airheads. That means Mikey had a spare rear sub-frame sitting at his shop waiting for me. After work, I head down to pick up the part and swap it out. On the way down, my jeep is starting to act funny. I pull off the highway to check it out, and the right front brake seizes up. Smoke puring out from under the wheel well and all......on I-35. I have had this problem fixed by "Just Brakes" 3 times now. This time, they could not get a tow truck because it was 5:00 on a wed, so they did the next best thing. They sent a guy out with a jack, tools, a new rotor, caliper, and pads.....and he fixed it on the side of the highway. And the craziest thing was that he was actually cheerful about getting me moving again.

Now the bad part about this is that I would not be able to get down to pick up the frame section. I just want to say up front that I have the best wife ever. Kel went down to see Mikey and pick up the new sub-frame and brought it back while I was getting the jeep roadworthy. Now, here I am with my bike but back together, and the best wife ever sitting on the couch getting her music together for the trip. Who could ask for anything more.......

TTFN,

Dave