The Miah run with the TW200

Sorry I ghosted from blogging. Vlogging took over the internet and that's not me. 

Skyline Drive Colorado

Just got back from a Colorado trip with my dad and my oldest kid. Poor dad was freaking out of the heights. sorry it wasn't on the bike but I'll take what I can get.

The Game

     Yeah it's a new post and I still have my motorcycles. Life has switched a gear these last two years for one reason I have never mentioned. It all comes down to my Daughter and the fury of softball games that has slowed my adventures to a halt. Anyone who has a kid on a travel ball team knows that you are either driving, eating or sitting at a field all weekend every weekend and that called summer. This season I have been lucky and the coach let me help keep the practices running smooth and also to get on the field and help with first base. My daughter is not fond of me coaching first base and actually today I ticked her off. Teenage girl not hustling to first base and letting her know in front of everyone nearby. I wont go any further than half-assing  is something I don't appreciate. In the end win or lose, you have to make it fun and sometime it's weird and something else.

Hotel room boredom......

KLR Trans Tak Bag

 

Here is my issue and it's with the disappointment I had with the KLR Trans Tank Bag. Right out of the box the tank bra portion of it was stitched too tight to the point that i was worried about it breaking. The gas cap hole was not round anymore but a huge oval shape that I could fit two gas caps in the spot.

On the first try zipping the bag to the bra the zipper tape failed. Another KLR rider put almost the same exact picture up on Amazon for his review of the bag.

 Look how the end of the zipper is going away into the corner of the bag.

 Then the zipper on the bag side was such low quality that when I pulled it across to close it, the starting point opened up and came undone to the end point. It completely failed on the first try. As a safety issue this could be really bad on a ride with the zipper failing and the bag falling off to the side and interfering with the steering.

 I returned this and let Kawasaki know my issues with this and I have zero expectations of them caring at all.

Britten

 It's been about fifteen years since I worked the Art of the Motorcycle show at the Field museum and the Britten is one of two bikes that I never quit staring at and standing next to when I had the chance. A lot of people would look at it and thought it was all just for looks and never really made a mark in racing or even really ran.

The Units

Over the years I realized that besides loving everything on two wheels, that I have a small obsession with GPS units.

The GPS 3 was my first and I don't remember what store I picked it up from or what I paid for it. It was also mounted with a touratech system that I bought from cycoactive back in 1995. Looking back now it was so primitive and only showed interstate and had zero routing options. surprisingly the old girl still works and is on my buddys bike.  

The original Streetpilot mounted to a RAM system. Big clunky and orange. I also had a touratech mount for this one but I can find the picture.

 

Next was my bargain Ebay special, the 2610 and my first unit that auto-routed. Love or hate it, auto-route at the least gave you some kind of idea when you might get to the hotel.

Then I had the a supernatural digitizer death that made me have to bail out of my trans-wisconsin trail trip. It actually in a weird way gave me the idea to buy broken 2610 units with good digitizers and swap them into the 2820 units that had bad digitizers. Buy a 2610 for 10 bucks and a 2820 for 35 bucks and flip out the screen and sell it for 150 bucks or more. I made some good money doing this till people stopped wanting them.

The 2820 was a really good unit and was just big like the 2610 and was my first with the NT map format. It had XM radio but people complained on how well it worked and would also need a bluetooth dongle to transmit in stereo to my motorcycle headset. 

 

The Zumo 550 and mount was also a Ebay special because it had a bad LCD screen. I put a screen and digitizer in it and it worked well. The XM was good but also need a dongle to transmit to the helmet. The bad part was the phone would not operate with dongle on. The day the unit came in the mail I happened to drop in a pawn shop and bought a zumo 550 for 9.99 and it worked great and found out the unit was never registered and Garmin gave me a free map update. I resold it for $290 and it made up the money. :)  

This is my current bargain, the Harley zumo 665 that I found on Craigslist. The ad was stating the guy only wanted $250 and I was trying to find what the scam was. With a few emails later and it seemed good so I rode up the Kenosha WI. on the fourth of july.  The owner just got it back from Garmin from a refurbish because the on/off button fell out somewhere between Montana and Wisconsin. He was selling it because he just bought a new HD that has navigation built into the bike. 

The XM works great and the weather and traffic is useful for living around Chicago.  

How Cool is this dog!!

     

What an idea......

WHAT IF THE ROMANS HAD GASOLINE AND MOTORCYCLES??????

Oh Paul………..

One thing close to home I for some reason I had a hard time getting around to visit was poor Paul. He was beautiful with detail, even from the distance that I parked from. Compared to Marilyn Monroe that was in Chicago two years ago, Paul wins. I don’t know if he is tired from a hard days work or his blue Ox went missing.
Here is the roadside link for info

Winter mods

        Well the custom domain name is gone and I’m back to the name I originally created years ago, so II f you found me again just make sure to reset your bookmark.

  I decided to ditch my Garmin 2820 over the winter and I picked up a broken zumo 550 on E-bay. It had a bad screen and it was a simple swap out with Chinese replacement also off of E-bay. It worked out very well so I  set-up the bike for the works. Locking high isolation touratech mount, XM antenna and a Bluetooth transmitter. The reason for the transmitter is because the zumo will not broadcast the XM to my helmet headset.  The few test rides have been flawless and the zumo is a load faster with processing than the old 2820.


Next up was ditching the old 35 watt PIAA light the were warping and the lenses kept falling off. The Totron LEDs are brighter than the old girls and leave me some wattage to keep the seat and grip heat on  without my voltage monitor yelling at me. The one thing I did do was Loctite all 7 bolts in the front of the lamp. You cant really see it but the number 7 bolt is in the dead center of the reflector. This should help with the large amount of vibration that the KLR make.

MR50 where are you?

My first bike was a 1974 MR50 that I bought from my cousin Steve. I can very much blame him for this addiction to motorcycles. It was a bike he picked up from a neighbor that was well used and just needed the points cleaned up and the plug cleaned to keep it running. 

I remember begging him to let me ride it in his front lawn and he was reluctant since my Mom hated motorcycles. Steve gave in and also called out my other cousins (Steve's daughters) from the house to learn how to use a clutch and ride the bike. Both of the girls did a good job getting the clutch out, while I had hard time getting it going but when I did, man was I hooked. It was like the worlds biggest adrenalin rush. I remember not wanting to get off and when I did I was just shaking. The deal was for me to not mention the riding lesson to my Mom but that was impossible and we bought it a week later. We had trails about a mile away, illegal trails but the cops drove suburbans and I guess not much of a threat. So that's what I did on the weekend and on the weekdays it was a million wheelies and doughnuts in the driveway.
BTW: this is not a pic of my personal bike.

Oh Chicago..........

The Chicago reality check is in full swing this winter as we are being plastered with the most snow I can remember since being a kid in the early 80's. I haven't been on the bike for about three months and right now I'm missing my old beater. She was a 1974 KS125 Kawasaki and very fun in the snow. It was not so great for wheelies but it was the queen of the power slide. Hope the old girl is still running and the owner is keeping her happy. Do you ever wonder what happened to your old bikes???

RD400 Caliper Rebuild

 

Time for the RD to get a little upgrade. The front brake has been needing a complete freshening up since I bought the smoky old girl 16 years ago. Back then finding parts was hard to do but now with the magic of E-bay and specialist bike sites with reproduction parts the brakes are deemed done. Why did it take me so long to get it done?? Maybe I was just waiting for my son to grow up and help. That sounds like a good excuse!  

    The piston seal groves were really bad and were worse than when I rebuilt the rear caliper.      

 

Pretty rough stuff getting the pistons out after 38 years of yuck. It took high air pressure from a blow gun to eject them from their home. I told my kid to expect it to be loud and BTW hold this piece of wood over it. When they did break away it left nice round marks in the wood.

Nice little glob of  rust and brake fluid sitting on that left piston. These were tossed for a fresh reproduction pair from HVC Cycle.

Garrett picking the seals out of the other half of the caliper.

I have to say the sandblaster is my favorite tool in the garage. The caliper is completely blasted and with a fresh coat of high temperature paint. I also cleaned up the dust cap for the front wheel bearing.

 

 

 

The new  to me but used master is a E-bay master off of a (can you guess) Klr650.

The original master was very crusty with some seeping out of the reservoir where it sealed to the master and also had a horrible feel.  I was never trusting it and worried one day it would pull to the bar. LOOK MA, NO BRAKES!!

Fit was perfect and the new master is so much smaller in size.

I shortened the original steel pipe that was stock. I kept it because if I did the braided line that goes straight to the master it may have been hard to keep the line off the tire when turned full lock. Yes I did a little booboo and put the sticker on before I was 100% done and rubbed some of the Y off. My next order to HVC and I’ll get another one.

I did have a chance to ride it down the street and back with a really good result. Lever is firm and pull seems correct.