Disher Family Fodder
or there about…
In about 14 days we’re off… Off to the Bad Lands, MT. Rushmore, Gillette, Wyoming, Yellowstone, Golden Colorado, Pikes Peak and other such fun places.
At a bare minimum we’re going to Gillette and Golden. I don’t have our full itinerary yet but it’s something like this:
It will be a mix of hotels and campgrounds. The bike is ready and I’m ready.
I can’t wait. I plan to update the blog as we travel if I can.
My daily commute is only 20 miles, which for me is really just a tad too short to get fully dressed for the weather. As such I tend to commute on only the nicer of days. Gas prices being what they are have made me start reconsidering that a bit.
Most people think riding in the rain on a motorcycle is uncomfortable and/or more dangerous. I suppose it can be more dangerous but it doesn’t have to be uncomfortable.
In fact, I somewhat enjoy riding in the rain if I’m properly equipped. I’ll ride in most weather conditions with the exception of snow and ice if I can avoid it.
I have heated gear, an electric jacket liner and gloves for cold weather. This also helps keep your core warm on those chilly 50 degree rainy days like yesterday. I also have a nice pair of water proof riding boots.
Preparation is key.
Yesterday when I left for work the weather forecast looked like this:
What I failed to account for was the call for rain in the latter half of the day.
I had on a jacket that’s normally water proof, and always have rain gear with me. What I didn’t have where water proof gloves or my boots on.
Merrells like these:
Aren’t the best shoes for riding to begin with, but for my short commute I usually just let it go. Let me tell you; they completely suck in the rain.
By the time I ran my errands and got home in the 50 rain, I was all but frozen from the cold hands and cold feet. Did I mention that the controls for my heated liner were in my tank bag, which was at home? It wasn’t one what I’d consider one of the fun times on the motorcycle but it was memorable.
Yeah, I think I’ll double check that forecast next time.
At the last tire change I put on a pair of Avon Storms.
I decided to try the Storms because many folks claim the are “the @#$@$”. Outstanding handling and performance as well as reasonable life.
I had to replace the first rear right at 6k, which considering I got a good 7k out of the previous Metzlers wasn’t what I had in mind. The front still looked ‘great’ although the handling was starting to deteriorate. I mounted a new rear and marched on.
We’ll 5000 miles later I was very sorry. The front went to hell at about 8000 miles total, but we were on our way to the Void Rally and didn’t have time. The tread still looked good but it had started to wear really lopsided.
After the rally I ordered up a new set of Pilot Road 2’s. Now weather and other factors meant it would be about 3 months before I’d get those mounted.
The following are photos of the Storms:
2nd Rear after 5k miles. Well into the wear bars but probably has another 2k left in it. Somewhat flat spotted in the middle but I’d venture out of those 5k miles, only 1200 are slab, so I’m not impressed.
The front:
I didn’t like the Storms and won’t buy them again.
This starts back here at “My FJR thinks it’s a Harley”, or better yet a BMW.
I received all the seals that I ordered from University Motors in Fargo, ND. (Whom I highly recommend. They saved me almost $40 in parts after shipping.)
Tonight I started tearing into it. I drained the final drive (oil was still pretty clean), then proceeded to remove the rear wheel and take the pumpkin off.
Since it was leaking from the weep hole, I really expected to see a LOT of fluid in the swing arm. I at least expected a good amount. I didn’t find that. I know for a fact it was leaking from/through there as it was dripping.
Grr….
I also expected to see the inside towards the final drive at the end of the drive shaft good and lubed. It was, but not as much as expected.
It almost looked like it was leaking between here as the bottom of the entire final drive was pretty nasty too, but I think that’s only because it ran to the bottom.
You can see the bottom half (not on the towel) is dirtier around the plastic shield but it’s not as nasty as I’d expect if it was leaking from here.
I’m a little torn at the moment as to which seals to replace. I have them all 🙂
Seal #34 is easy, #12 not so much, as I’m going to have to find that ‘special’ tool.
I’m going to post up on the FJRForum and see what the consensus is.
Update: Well, after inspecting all the parts, I can’t really see where it’s leaking from. I still think #34 or #12, others on the board thing I have an issue with O-Ring #20 but I’m not convinced.
#34 was ‘dirty’ so I cleaned everything backup and reassembled it. Did the normal maintenance for this time of year, greased the splines and changed all the fluids. We’ll see if it continues to leak.
After putting it all back together I came in to find that I’d received the ECU recall notice. So if I’m taking it in for that, might as well have them fix the seals under warranty at the same time.
We’ll see how it goes. I really haven’t had the altitude surging issue that others have noticed or had issue with.
Back in May I did the Mason-Dixon 20-20 Motorcycle Rally. Despite being run off-route and into the wilderness by Mr. Garmin, Kyle and I still scored respectably for first-timers.
The Void Rally is run in October. It’s essentially the last rally of the year for the east coast. I was looking forward to giving this rally thing a go again and hopefully scoring better.
It’s not easy to explain this rally thing in just a few words. But essentially, about a week before the rally you’re given the bonus locations and point values. By locations it’s simply something like this:
Bonus ID: 69 Latitude: 38.7928 Longitude: -77.0475 Point Value: 150
Availability and Notes: 24 hours
What you don’t know is what you actually have to do at that particular spot in order to get the points. You might have a clue, maybe you’re familiar with the area or have seen this bonus location on another rally.
Now if you’re smart you’ll at least look at a satellite photo or something:
As you can see, the photo, and probably your Garmin will stop you around the green arrow. I’ve circled the most likely target for this bonus, the light house. A mere ½ mile hike to get to it. In this case the bonus was actually the first boundary stone for the District of Columbia placed in the 1700’s.
You don’t know the details of the bonus locations until the night before when you get your rally book.
The Void has 2 formats, a 24 hour format similar to the MD-2020, with the exception that it starts in 3 different locations all ending up in Lynchburg VA. The other mode is a 10 hour rally that starts and ends in Lynchburg.
Dad traveled with us to the MD-2020 but didn’t participate. He’s done 24 hour rides but isn’t too keen on riding Virginia or West Virginia roads in the dark if he doesn’t have too. Something about your night vision going as you get older. So I elected to run the 10 hour format with him.
I mean how hard can this be? 10 hours? 500 miles tops?
Well, if it can go wrong it did. We (or I) broke a number of the cardinal rules for rallying and routing.
It started to go bad with Bonus location number one on our stop. Take a photo of a sign at a historic tavern and mill.
We got there no problem, but we couldn’t find the sign. We had suspicions that it no longer existed. I didn’t get a chance to see any of the photos that other ralliers took so I didn’t get to confirm that. We did find the wording on the building itself in a glass case, and we found a sign post that was missing it’s sign. We documented both just in case.
We screwed around at this location for far too long. What should take 5-10 minutes tops took us almost 40 minutes? Minutes we simply didn’t have. Time wasted looking for the sign, deciding to take the photo of other things, screwing around with cameras that weren’t working properly, etc.
We also needed fuel; we didn’t start with a full tank and should have. We then beet feet for a gas station and the next bonus location, only to arrive at said location at 7:45 am to realize that the bonus location wasn’t open or available until 9am. Ugh! This wasn’t all that wasteful; it didn’t really take us out of the way and was only a mere 25 point location. We made the executive decision to skip it. It wasn’t in the cards to come back.
Along the way we spotted a John Deere dealership. Since this was the Blue Collar Rally (aka the Red Neck Rally) it only made sense that we’d have bonuses like:
Find a John Deere Dealership: Get a photo of the dealership that showed the sign and a piece of equipment. For additional points get a photo of you in a piece of JD equipment.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the fine folks at Virginia Tractor. They were more than gracious about our silly request and even gave us John Deere hats!
Other bonuses included: Purchasing moon-pies and beef jerkey. Getting your photo taken in front of a laundry mat with a just married sign attached to your bike.
At the next location we found the gate to the bonus location was locked, however, the rally masters knew this was a possibility and the book instructed us that a parking permit from the visitor’s center would suffice. The only problem with that was it was another 8 miles down the road out of the way, and took a conversation with park officials to get.
After obtaining said permit we marched onward.
Our next location was the ballpark for the Potomac Nationals. We needed to get a photo of their team store sign. Simple enough right? Well, no! Prince William Parkway is 3-5 lanes wide and total chaos around 11am and goes through a shopping district. It was insane. The longest traffic lights in the world are located along this road. We also needed to hit a Famous Dave’s BBQ in this area to get a take-out menu. Of course when we realized this, it was on the other side of said 6 lane divided thru-way.
By then we pretty much figured we were sunk. Just prior to this series of stops we hit a McDonalds to check on our progress and it wasn’t good. We were going to have to bail early, we were running over an hour and a half behind and this last series didn’t help at all.
We decided to throw caution into the wind and head for D.C. anyway. Why not right? I’d never been there before. Holy smokes traffic on I-95 heading into the city, in fact 30 miles outside of the city it was getting bad. Traffic that very much reminded me of Atlanta. 12:00 on a Saturday afternoon and it was slow and congested. Trying to get to the lighthouse was an adventure.
When we finally arrived it became clear we were hosed. We had a 3/12 hour ride back to Rally HQ, but only 3 hours to do it. You can make up 10 minutes on the interstate, but not necessarily 30 but we decided to give it a go.
The Boundary Stone.
By the time we were at Fredericksburg again, we had shaved our deficit to just 15 minutes. We weren’t riding all that hard, in fact we were mostly trying not to get run over on I-95. There was still a problem though, we needed fuel again. After some stop and go traffic in Fredericksburg we decided, it’s just a game, it is what it is. We’re going to DNF, so let’s take it easy, get something to eat, all the Rally bubba’s and let them know we won’t be back in time.
We stopped at an Arby’s to make the phone call. Dad parked his bike but somehow didn’t have it just right. I was just about to dial the phone when I heard this horrendous ‘crash’ and the sound of plastic breaking, no, shattering. Dad had somehow managed to park his RT in such a way that after he dismounted and went to open a side case it just tipped over. The sound of a 600 lb motorcycle crashing down on top of his helmet pretty much marked the end of what was otherwise a great ride.
We picked up the pieces, and grabbed some grub.
It just wasn’t meant to be.
We still had a blast, saw some spectacularly beautify country and rode some great roads.
For what it’s worth:
Route 311 is in WV, is awesome. So is 611/606 Grove Hill Road. Well worth the ride if you’re in that part of the country.
Until next year!
