Memorial Day weekend plans…

Vagabiker and I are trying to figure out what we’re going to do for the Memorial Day weekend. We’ve been riding down to Eugene, OR for the past two years for the unofficial BMW “Spring Forward” party (incidentally, that’s where we first met). This year we can either continue the tradition (which would be nice as we’ll get to see many familiar faces whom we haven’t seen in a while) or we can try something totally different.

We are toying with the idea of going dual-sporting on the Peninsula and try out a few rides from the Sound Rider Guide to Dual Sport Rides in Western Washington. This time we have the GPS files, so that we don’t get hopelessly lost and turned around. Motorcycling and camping – can’t believe it’s only a week away!

Front tire ordered…

I finally got around to ordering a new front tire for the SV – a Michelin Pilot Power Road 170/60 to match the rear that I put on in Cody, WY last August. I assumed that the tire was okay and just a bit squared off because I could see tread, but it miserably failed the Lincoln head penny test, so I’m glad I got it done sooner rather than later. I was a little amazed to find that Eastside Motorsports had the tire for a paltry $95 – the same price as MotorcycleSuperstore.com. Good job on them to match online competition! Saves me the time of ordering online and they get my business.

I’m taking the bike to Fluid Suspension Science this weekend to have Dave Alexander take a look at why it’s riding so rough. The front end is really “bouncy” so that if you push down on it, it comes back up and bounces, rather than staying up. This is greatly amplified when I ride on rough roads like oh say anywhere on Seattle backroads. Hopefully Dave can nail down what’s wrong and we can fix it soon.

A couple of friends at work are riding up to Alaska in two weeks – one of them to the Yukon and the other up to Prudhoe Bay. They pinged me to ask if I wanted to go (yay short notice!) and I had to decline for the obvious reasons – I don’t own a big dual-sport anymore and I don’t have enough vacation to do a ride like that if I want to ride for a month in Europe this summer.  Part of me can dream though… I so miss Alaska…

Bike fix/maintenance checklist

Checklist of the things I need to do on the bikes somewhat in order of priority:

SV
– Fix suspension problems ($150)
– Replace front tire ($150)
– Check brake fluids (replace stripped out screw on reservoir)
– Find nuts and bolts for Givi windscreen ($10?)
– Fix Garmin mount
– Fix ignition key issue (takes several tries to turn the key)
– Do inventory of rusting/stripped bolts and replace :(
– Fix right mirror
– Get new slip-on exhaust ($200-?)
– Fix dent in gas tank or get custom painted tank ($200-?)
– Replace rear seat with cowl ($306!)
– Fix tear in front seat (new Corbin?)
– Remove handguards and see how that feels
– Replace brake/clutch levers with ASV shorties  ($250)
– Add knee grip pads to tank ($35)
– Replace headlamp glass ($100)

XT
– Fix vibrate-y handebar with lead shot
– Fix tweaked rear left turn indicator
– Figure out side luggage options – soft/hard panniers?
– Add heated grips?
– Get centerstand?
– Find bigger tank?

I’m beginning to see why I’ve been putting this off all winter.

Some more photos from the AMA photoshoot…

Ever since I started riding four years ago, I’ve wanted some nice photos of me with my bikes, but never actually got around to getting them taken. You know how it is – you go out on solo rides and ask random people to take your picture and after you’ve thanked them and they walked away and you actually look at the picture they took, all you can do is sigh and hope you have better luck the next time. I’ve often thought of scheduling a photoshoot with one of my photographer friends and have them take some good pictures, but every weekend that the weather seemed nice enough to do this, I decided go riding instead of standing around the bike and looking pretty. :P

So I guess I was a little pleased that the AMA scheduled a real photoshoot with an excellent local photographer, Cory Parris, so they could get a picture to go with the article I wrote. (Well okay, I was a bit peeved that none of the pictures I took on my ride weren’t good enough. :P). Cory was fantastic to work with and he took some really outstanding photos. The light wasn’t very good on the day that we picked, but he worked around it and got some really good images.

I posted some of the ones I liked in this post. I wish these had been in the magazine instead of the one they went with because you can actually see my bike in them. Oh well, at least I have these to look back at and send home to mum. :)

(more…)

Holy crappy brakes, Batman!

“Someone’s got a case of the Mondays!” You’ve heard that before and it usually isn’t me. I like Monday mornings because unlike most people I like getting up and going to work and having a week of work to look forward to. Some Mondays are exempt though. Like today.

I’ve vowed to wake up early and go to work every day this week. This usually means getting out there before 7:45AM when traffic turns to shit on WA-520. I cut it too close, got geared up, got on the SV and turned on the ignition and… nothing. It wouldn’t turn over, meaning battery issues out of the blue again. This is the second time in as many months that the battery has died for no apparent reason. I last rode it on Saturday, so it really has no reason to be doing this. F***ing electrical gremlins.

This meant walking back up and getting the key to the XT and riding that to work instead. By now I had missed the window of opportunity and looked forward to getting stuck in bad Monday morning traffic. The XT started up grudgingly and I rode it out. Switching bikes that are so different is always tricky and my muscles take a little adjusting – my steel-plated arm is always the first to protest for the first ten minutes. My muscles were the least of my worries today though when I realized that the brakes on the XT are way less reponsive than the ones on the SV. I found this out when a moron car just *stopped* in front of me at a “yield” sign. Wasn’t quite expecting that and stopped with only about an inch to spare between us. Ugh… my fault though. I should have been looking ahead instead of off to the side to yeild to traffic.

The second time was worse. As I droned through stop-go traffic on 520, an asshole Subaru driver unexpectedly swerved from a gridlocked left lane into my lane with no warning and I had to stomp on the brakes again. This time the bike went all wobbly and I’m surprised that my knobby tires had enough grip to come to a stop. I’m also grateful that the driver behind me wasn’t tailgating me and didn’t collide into me. I recovered and retaliated by honking at the Subaru driver and flipping him off for the next five minutes. I’m sure he genuinely hadn’t seen me at all and he kept trying to wave an apologetic hand. I passed him in a little bit and glared through his window while he still looked apologetic. I’m not quite sure how menacing a tiny motorcyclist on a 250cc bike looks, but I put everything I had into it. :P I wasn’t really mad seeing as I had recovered and no damage done, but it was more to shame him into realizing that making lane changes without looking is Not. Cool. and maybe him and the drivers around him would remember that in the future. Really I did it all for him. :P

I made it to work unscathed. The XT is such a fantastic bike to ride, in spite of its limitations. Maybe I’ll ride it through the rest of the week.

On the miscellaneous bike news front:
1. I did an oil change on the SV on Saturday. Fresh oil, whee! I noticed that my drain plug bolt was missing a crush washer and the oil filter didn’t come with one. I need to remember to get one the next time I change the oil. And umm.. also hope that the bolt stays in place without one. It did for the last 3000 miles, so why not 3000 more?

2. I noticed that 5 out of 6 bolts on the Givi windscreen were missing. They were either taken out by the douchebag who stole more bike two weeks ago (likely) or vibrated off in one night (doubtful). This calls for a trip down to the hardware store to find substitutes. I should probably also get some OEM nuts and bolts to replace some of the more rusty ones on the SV.

3. I washed the bike! After about 6 months. This is pretty good going by my track record.