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The 600 Mile Service

Ok after much internal debate I decided what the hell. Since it’s basically illegal for manufacturers to require you to get your service done at a dealership to keep your warranty intact, I’m going to do the 600 mile service myself.

Chances are better that I’ll get it done right anyway.

I ordered up a service manual and it arrived last week. The only surprise in it was that for 06, they do recommend a throttle body sync at the 600 mile interval. Something the dealer that I purchase the bike from said wasn’t necessary.

When I picked up the bike I bought two oil filters. Last week I picked up the required crush washers, and Yamalube. Both 20-40 engine oil and shaft drive lube (which is just 80/90 weight gear lube).

Continue reading “The 600 Mile Service”

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Ben “I’m an Idiot” Roethlisberger

Just so we’re clear on this:

Out on the AP newswire today this was published:

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said he doesn’t plan on doing public safety announcements for motorcycle or helmet safety following his motorcycle accident last month.

“I don’t think that’s my place,” Roethlisberger said in a taped interview aired Friday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“Some people feel that, you know, I probably should be doing that and being a big advocate for that,” Roethlisberger said from Los Angeles. “But for me, I’m going to let people make their own decisions … So I don’t think you’ll see me doing any kind of billboards or advertisements.”

I too support people’s right to make their own decisions, but let me get this straight.

You just had an accident by which you smashed your head into a car, and were with in ‘seconds’ of losing your life because you didn’t wear a helmet.

Imagine if you had been on a rural road, or somewhere where paramedics wouldn’t have gotten to you so fast. You’d be dead.

Now I’m know that helmets don’t save everyone and as I’ve posted in the past, neither do seat belts. In your accident however, it would have been huge!

Ben, you’re an influential person, no matter how stupid you may be.

Here’s to hoping that the judge forces you to do community service announcements as part of your punishment. Since you didn’t even have a valid motorcycle license (maybe you had temps) and if you did, you were required by LAW to wear a helmet.

There’s no deciding there, you didn’t have a choice to make. You hadn’t yet earned that choice.

Perhaps you should be advocating that NFL players should have the ‘right’ to choose not to wear a helmet during games?

 

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Vista Cruise and 06 FJR 1300

I added my first ‘farkle’ to the FJR today. Well that’s not entirely true. I added my first ‘new’ farkle.

I transferred some things from Zed already. Namely the Battery tender cord and the permanent wire for my Gerbing heated gear but up to this point that’s it.

My Throttlemeister won’t fit and since I’m headed out on a lengthy trip next week not having a cruise control won’t do. I stopped by a local dealer to see if I could get some duplicate key’s made. Of course they can’t do that, stupid of me to think they could.

But while standing around I found the Universal Vista Cruise for $35.00 While not my proffered method, I’d really rather have a Throttlemeister, I’m not going to drop $150 plus expedited shipping to get it here in time. This should do.

I searched a couple boards and didn’t see that anyone had put this on yet so if you’re considering one it was really easy.

I guess there is a Yamaha specific version and a universal version. The specific version grabs the throttle collar instead of the grip, but requires you to drill a hole. I didn’t want to drill said hole. Because like I said I’ll probably put a TM on it later.

There’s plenty of room for this too, I saw where someone cut down the main support with a dremmel. On the 06, I just slid the plastic collar off the handlebars between the brake mount, loosened the one screw for the controls and slid them closer to the right.

I maybe had to move my front brake perch 2 millimeters.

The results are in the photo below:

06FJRVistaCruise

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Hay! Baby!

Yeah you read that right, no I didn’t misspell it.

We go our share of the second cutting of the hay today from our field. Now we’ve lived here 7 years and it’s been farmed all this time by Mr. Baker the farmer down the road the whole time. Though he’s rented the land because we didn’t have a use for it, or rather, we didn’t have a means to farm it ourselves or the tools to keep it mowed. So we let him farm it and it’s paid the taxes, etc, etc.

Now that we have Cisco, and potentially a horse to be named later. We changed the rules this year. We’re share cropping the field, meaning we get half the hay in lieu of pay. This is good and this is bad. We also share the risk, if it’s a bad year for hay we get half of that bad hay. If it’s a good year, we get half the good hay too.

Our field was planted a couple years ago and is a very rich crop of alfalfa orchard mix. What ever that means. All I know is it has lots of alfalfa in it.

Well the 2nd cutting is the best cutting for horses. It’s the most tender and delicious.

We figure our current loft can hold somewhere between 300 and 400 square bales.

Today they came and baled so we got to stock our loft. Yippee! What fun.

Lucky for us Mr. Baker loaned us a conveyer to get the bales up to the loft so we didn’t have to climb ladders.

Even so, lifting 250 bales onto a conveyor, off of a conveyer and stacking them is no picnic. I had no idea how un-fun this was.

We built our barn big enough for a hay truck to drive in, but the openings weren’t quite big enough for the hay-picker-upper-stacker thing to drop the hay off inside. So that got dropped off at the door. So it was lug the bales to the conveyer, pick them up set them on. Then someone up top grabbed them and stacked them. All the while bits of hay are flying everywhere. Joy.

It was a good work out though. At least I can say that. 🙂

Next year I think I’ll find some immigrants though.

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06 FJR, and it’s mine all mine.

OK, so I’ve wanted one of these for a while, and today was that day.

Yamaha has two bikes that dealers don’t stock and this is one of them. You’re supposed to pre-order them. But some dealers have figured it out. You order one in a sales persons name and it doesn’t sit there very long.

As much as I have loved the ZX-11, its has some issues recently that have made it un-safe. I can continue to throw money at it and maybe get it fixed. But it’s frustration was getting old. The bike itself is almost 10 years old. Now there’s nothing wrong with 10 year old bikes, don’t get me wrong. Zed has lots of life left in him. But dog on it. It was time.

Enter the FJR. Pic’s in it’s own little Gallery here.

It is yet un-named but aint it pretty? 🙂 I’m a happy pup right now, yes sir.