The Mood I'm in When I Return from a Ride

BIKE magazine had a travel piece where the writer paraphrased a French pilot talking about how flying takes him away from the minutia of life.  I've flown planes but I find riding a motorcycle much more what I thought flying would be like.  The check listed and tedious process of operating an aircraft along with the strictly regulated flight paths don't lend themselves to a sense of freedom.  You're much more likely to slip the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of god on a Hayabusa than you ever are in a Cessna.

I was reflecting on my mood when I returned from a ride with my son Max on the weekend.  It wasn't a big trip but I came home relaxed, as I always do from a ride.  Riding a bike involves you.  You can get lost in the complexity of operating it.  Even once you get familiar with the controls the subtlety of working them all together harmoniously becomes a never ending aspiration.  You can always ride better.


I started writing this in October when we went for our ride, but it's the beginning of the new year now and it's been weeks since I've ridden.  At this point I'm reduced to driving a damned car which offers nothing like the sensory thrill you get from riding a bike.  While everyone else wrings their hands about how dangerous being out in the wind is, I'm addicted to it.  Riding a bike makes even the most tedious commute an adventure.


Coming back from that ride all those weeks ago, I was blown clean by the wind.  I'd been in the world in a way that seems foreign to me now, encapsulated in winter.  About the only redeeming feature of having a long off season is the growing anticipation of getting back out there again.

I sometimes wonder how my son Max feels about riding.  I'm always worried that with his autism he finds the sensory overload overwhelming, but he loves going for rides.  Even on very long trips he's a trooper who is always ready to hop back on the bike.  He isn't generally interested in being cool, but I don't think the cool factor is lost on him.  I don't get many images of him on the bike behind me, but I love seeing him doing his wings in these images.

It's been snowing for days.  We're buried in the stuff.  The thought of jumping on the bike and going for a ride is still months away.  Sigh.

Tiger Winter Maintenance Notes

These are winter maintenance notes for me, but others might find them handy...

Rims:   Front: 36 spoke alloy rim 19 x 2.5"  Rear: 40 spoke alloy rim 17 x 4.25"
2005 Tiger:  14 spoke cast alloy: same size (is this findable?  Yes it is!  Not rears though)

Tires: Front: 110/80-19 Rear: 150/70-17

Coolant flush.  2.8l of coolant (50% distilled water 50% corrosion inhibited ethylene glycol)
- cool engine
- remove fuel tank
- remove pressure cap- 
- unscrew bleed hole bolt (thermostat housing)
- remove reservoir cap
- container under engine
- unscrew drain plug (left side of engine) & drain (keep the old washer for flushing)
- remove lower coolant hose and drain
- flush with tap water
- reinstall old washer & plug & lower coolant hose and fill with water & aluminum friendly rad flush
- reinstall drain plug (25Nm) rad cap and bleed hole bolt (7Nm)
- put fuel tank back on
- run engine to warm (10 mins) then let cool
- re-drain
- refill with plain water, repeat running, cool and redrain
- use a new drain plug washer and torque to 25Nm
- with everything but the bleed bolt installed slowly fill with coolant
- fill reservoir to MAX and cap everything and install bleed bolt (7Nm)
- run 3-4 mins, rev to 4-6k a few times to open it up, check rad and reservoir levels

Spark Plugs:  NGK DPR8EA-9   0.8 to 0.9 gap  20Nm  (under gas tank, like everything else)

Fork oil change:  Kayaba G10 or equivalent 107 mm from top of tube with fork spring removed and leg fully compressed.  Larger riders (like me!) might want 15 weight oil.
Tiger oil change intervals.  Tiger fork oil.
Fork oil viscosity  -  More Tiger fork oil info.
Capacity: 720cc/ml  oil level: 107mm (from top of tube with spring removed and compressed leg)
Removal of forks (with body work & front wheel removed)
- one at a time and with all gubbins removed from fork
- loosen fork clamp bolts
- loosen top fork bolt while it's still on the bike (hard to do when it's off)
- note alignment of fork before removing it
- loosen lower clamp bolts, it should slide loose out the bottom
top fork bolt:  30Nm
clamp bolts top yoke:  20Nm
Handlebar holder clamp bolts:  26Nm

Brake fluid flush   DOT 4

Chassis lubricant (swing arm, stearing head, levers & pedals): Mobile Grease HP 222 or lithium based multi purpose grease.

Scotland and Shetland On Two Wheels

Another piece of fantasy trip planning so I'm ready to go when I become pointlessly rich...  this time Scotland and into the North Sea!

https://goo.gl/maps/Jnmk75iLkJQ2

Two days on the mainland working our way north to the ferry port in Thurso...

TWO WEEKS:  SCOTLAND AND INTO THE NORTH SEA

Day 1:  Ediburgh to Inverbroom Lodge
Day 2: Inverbroom Lodge to Thurso
Day 3: Ferry to Orknies
Day 4: Orkneys day 2
Day 5: Ferry to Shetlands
Day 6-10: Shetlands
Day 11: Ferry back to Aberdeen
Day 12: Aberdeen to Edinburgh
Day 13: Edinburgh

FERRY INFORMATION

http://ca.directferries.com/scrabster_stromness_ferry.htm
Thurso to Orkney Islands: 90 minute crossing: £112

http://ca.directferries.com/kirkwall_lerwick_ferry.htm
Kirkwall, Orkney Islands to Shetlands: 7 hour crossing: £225

http://ca.directferries.com/lerwick_aberdeen_ferry.htm
Shetlands to Aberdeen: 12 hour crossing: £289

ORKNEY ISLANDS

https://goo.gl/maps/MPkfc31sWez

Two nights and two full days on the Orkney Islands... Scara Brae!

SHETLAND ISLANDS

https://goo.gl/maps/vrgh5sT6gDM2

The whole thing on Furkot:

Journey To The End of the Earth

Two weeks beyond John O'Groats...


Things to see:
Scotch!
Haunted Scotland
Beautiful spots

Extending the Canadian Motorcycle Riding Season: Snow Bikes!

The idea of a snowmobile conversion for a motorcycle keeps popping up everywhere this winter.  Timbersled makes just such a thing.  It's seven grand Canadian for the system plus another fifteen hundred for the fitting kit.  The Husqvarna FE501S is a road legal dual sport bike that the kit fits.  They can be found for about twelve grand.  It's a rich man's game but that doesn't stop me from dreaming about it.  For about twenty grand Canadian ($14,900 US) I'd have a year 'round off road specialist that would also get down the road when needed.  The thought of pulling up to a RIDE spotcheck in a blizzard on a plated version of one of these makes me quite happy.  Officer: 'Uh, what's that?'

The KLX250 I tried a while back was so slow with me on it that I felt unsafe on roads.  I couldn't coax it to 100km/hr which meant I had a row of traffic behind me even on country back roads.  The Husky weighs less and has almost three times more horsepower.  Keeping up with traffic on back roads would not be a problem.  Those capabilities mean it'd carry me and some camping gear deep into the countryside in the summer while also being snow-bike convertible in the winter, all for twenty five hundred bucks less than a BMW GS.

A new snowmobile costs sixteen grand or more and only works for a few months of year if you're lucky.  From that point of view a road ready enduro bike with a Timbersled system looks like a more useful and cost effective approach to riding in the snow (and everything else). 

Timbersled Snow Conversion System
http://www.timbersled.com/en-ca/snow-bike/short-track

The Husqvarna FE 501S Dual Sport Motorcycle
http://www.husqvarna-motorcycles.com/ca/off-road/four-stroke/fe-501-1/
http://www.cyclecanadaweb.com/articles/36150/
http://www.cycleworld.com/2015/03/23/beta-500-rs-vs-husqvarna-fe-501-s-vs-ktm-500-exc-dual-sport-motorcycles-comparison-test-motorcycle-review
http://www.blackfootdirect.com/p-11174-2016-husqvarna-fe-501s.aspx

In the snow!

In the desert!

On forest trails!  All on the same bike.

Busy Winter Garage & Kawasaki Industrial Art

I never intended to become hooked on Kawasakis.  The motorcycle fixation of my younger self was always Hondas, but when I finally got into motorcycling it was Kawasakis that kept appearing in the right place at the right time, and they've generally been good to me.  To date I've owned three Kawasakis, two Yamahas and a Triumph; not a Honda in sight.

After selling the Yamaha XS1100 custom project bike last summer I decided to double down on the wounded Concours which, in spite of a lot of work and money spent, wasn't sellable.  When I can ride I ride but when the snow flies I tend to get busy in the garage, and this winter is no different.

The winter garage is a busy garage.  The Tiger's having a rest while I work on the Concours custom.  Before the spring season begins the Tiger'll have new fork oil, spark plugs and a coolant flush.

The Concours is in an unprecedented state of undress.  With the rear end removed and the plastics off it looks like a completely different machine.  Yesterday I removed the coolant reservoir located under the oil cooler behind the front wheel.  It's going to get relocated to the back of the battery box so it's out of the way of rocks being kicked up from the road.  There are a lot of after market options for a coolant reservoir, so finding an alternative that fits well in the new location shouldn't be hard.

The 7 inch round headlight with built in LED indicators showed up from Amazon but I'm still waiting on the tail light.  I'd initially thought of doing some kind of front fairing but now I'm going bare bones with only metal framing to mount the light and minimal instruments.  

I purchased some stainless steel framing and I've been cutting it into muffler mounts and the rear light fairing bracket.  That rear fairing piece is going to be as minimal as possible as well.  Perhaps even a box for the rear light in bare frame.  Visible girder frame pieces are going to become a part of what this will look like when it's finished.

I took the instrument cluster apart to see if any of it was salvageable (it wasn't), but the insides look like something out of the DaVinci Code!

Some 90° brackets on the upper fork clamps has me ready to try some headlight mounting ideas.

Pigeon Forge Motorcycle Base Camp Trip Planning

The Smokey Mountains are a motorcycle Mecca for a reason.

Using a combination of motorcycleroads.com and Furkot.com I've been planning day trips from Pigeon Forge, which seems a sensible place to explore the Smokey Mountains from.  The process can serve as escapism on a foggy, freezing drizzle Boxing Day, or it could be  pre-planning for an inevitable trip.

I've variously daydreamed about driving the Tiger down in a van over the Christmas break to New Orleans and Key West, as well as riding down to The Tail of the Dragon next August for a complete solar eclipse.  There are a lot of good reasons to figure out possible rides for when I'm eventually in the area.

Pigeon Forge is located just south east of Knoxville and offers a great launching point into the Smokey Mountains.  The area around there is covered in desirable roads:



The only trick with a winter trip is changeable weather.  It looks like next week in Pigeon Forge would have been a bit challenging:



It's a roll of the dice going south in the winter but the summer's a sure thing.  Maybe I'll find myself in the Smokey Mountains next summer when the moon hides the sun.

200 KM East Loop

230KM Pigeon Forge low land loop

Pigeon Forge 300km South Smokey Mtn loop

240 KM loopback Dragon's Tail

Stripping a BMW Airhead

On the shortest day of the year, as the sun set in the middle of the afternoon, I found myself driving into the country to help Jeff the motorcycle Jedi lift the engine out of his BMW airhead cafe racer project.

Since it came out of the shed it had been hibernating in for over a decade, the old R100 has been stripped down to its bits and pieces.  Jeff is going to get the frame powder coated which was why I was there to help get that big air cooled lump out.

A BMW R100RT stripped down to its component parts emphasizes just what a simple and elegant machine this is.  We were both able to easily lift the boxer engine out of the frame.  I doubt it weighed much more than a hundred pounds.  Even with all the pieces laid out on tables, the BMW seems to be made of less parts than you'd need to put together a working motorcycle, let alone a touring model.

So far the only new piece purchased is the cafe racer seat in the photo.  Jeff intends to take a sawzall to the frame over the holiday break and then industrially clean all of the components before reassembling the cafe resurrected R100RT.

With the parts laid out it doesn't look like there's enough there to build a motorbike.  The R100 is an elegantly simple machine.

The home-made motorcycle stand is doing a fine job on its first big project.

That air cooled boxer engine is a piece of industrial art!

A naked R100RT frame prior to some modification.