First Long Ride on New Bike

First off, I sold the Honda.  Here is the new owner hauling it away: 

It's kind of a sad ending for the bike.  After all the great care I took, and which would have made it good for many more miles, he plans to chop it up and make a super mini bike out of it.  He has a Honda Grom, which is kind of a cult mini bike, and he want to take all the fairings off the cbr and put the Grom forks and wheels on it.  It's going to be a difficult job as the Grom forks and steering head are not going to transfer over without major cutting and welding.  Plus, the small wheels are going to make a ground clearance problem.  Oh well, it's his bike to do with as he pleases.  

Last week Big Mike and I did a three-day ride over to central Oregon and I rode the new bike 936 miles.  Carolyn took this pic as I was leaving.  I have my summer mesh gear on, but wore my rain pants over the mesh pants to stay warm on a cool morning: 

 It was great to be back on those super motorcycle roads over in Central Oregon as I haven't done that for quite awhile.  That's some beautiful country, too, and it was surprisingly green for late July.  I'm pretty shy on pictures for the blog.  I've taken quite a few that I've already posted and we were having so much fun neither one of us wanted to stop and take pictures.  I did go for a walk the evening we stayed in Prineville and found this old court house that makes me think Prineville must be the county seat:

 

The second night we stayed in Spray, which is about as small a town as there is what still had a motel. 

 However the only restaurant closed at 4pm.  We got there before that but didn't feel like eating that early, so we took another ride over to a road I had not been on yet and added about 60 miles to our day.  We ended up eating at Service Creek, which is a place I have stayed at several times.  

These three days got pretty warm in the afternoon but the mesh gear made it bearable.  I took my cooling vest that gets soaked with water along but never felt the need to use it.  

The bike and I are really starting to bond.  It's comfortable, handles well, and has all the power I could ask for.  I hope we have a lot of years together.  

 

Oh Oh, I did it again

 I BOUGHT ANOTHER BIKE.  This one will probably be my last (my son says he has heard that before).  My Honda cbr500r got up to 80,000 miles and was still running strong and I was pretty happy with it, but a new model came along and stole my heart.  Here it is: 

It's a new model this year.......a Kawasaki Z650RS.  I ordered it in February and I didn't get it until June 7.  I guess it was due to the supply chain problems that we have been hearing so much about.  The dealer said they had 400 units on order, mostly water craft and side-by-sides, and didn't know when they would be arriving. The new bike has pretty much the same engine as the Ninja 650 that I owned before my cbr, and I put 115,000 miles on that bike, so I know the engine is pretty reliable.  

I had been thinking about getting another bike for awhile.  Although I liked the cbr, it was just a bit down on power.  I'm definitely not a power junkie, but I still felt the need for a little more.  The cbr is rated at 47 horse  power, while the new Kawi is supposed to be 67 horsepower.  

I had criteria for a new bike that just wasn't showing up anywhere.  I wanted at least 50 horsepower, a weight of 425 pounds or less, and a seat height of less than 32 inches.  It also couldn't be ugly, which put many modern bikes in the no-go category.  There has been a style developing over the past 10 years that is getting worse, and that is the trend towards smaller and smaller rear fenders and passenger seats, along with "terminator" treatment of the front end.  Kawasaki calls it Sugomi-inspired, and most manufacturers have adopted the same style.  For example, my new bike is essentially a retro style of an existing model, and this is what it looks like: 

In the extreme case of minimizing the rear fender, several manufacturers are mounting the license plate and brake and turn signal lights on the swingarm, like this Triumph: 

 

This is a really dumb idea.  The swingarm and the wheel move a lot more than the chassis, so when following a bike with this set-up, the license plate is jiggling constantly.  Besides which, there is not much protection from spray coming up your back on wet roads.  I guess people don't ride much in the rain, but living in the Pacific Northwet, I do.  I'm probably showing my age in these preferences.  

I have my cbr up for sale, but no buyers yet.  The fact that it has 80,000 miles is a turn off I'm sure.  Most people crash or sell their bikes long before that and don't realize a modern motorcycle with proper care can easily do 100,000 miles.  I must admit, though, that the Honda has been the most trouble-free bike I have ever owned.......sort of like our Honda van and car.  

After taking possession of the new bike I immediately started making it fit me the way I wanted.  I adjusted the shift lever and transferred the GPS and heated jacket wiring from the Honda to the Kawai and installed a windscreen.  I also softened the rear shock and raised the fork legs in the triple clamps to lower the seat a little.  It was about a half-inch higher than the Honda, and I could feel the difference.  

So far, after over 700 miles, I am loving the extra power, the great mirrors, and the more upright riding position.  I'm a little disappointed in the lack of storage space under the seat, so in order to carry some tools I have started keeping the soft side cases that I had bought earlier on the bike all the time.   

Finally Back On A Long Ride

 Big Mike and I have been trying to get a ride going for a couple of years.  Between Covid, forest fires, heat waves, running out of summer, and Mike taking on a new job and having to move, it just hasn't happened.  This Spring, we vowed to try again.  We set aside the last week in April or the first week in May as the potential ride times.  I have learned that pre-planning to the extent of getting motel reservations weeks in advance can result in getting locked in to riding in some bad weather.  This often has to be done when riding with people still working and needing to schedule their vacations ahead of time.  Mike has more flexibility with his new job, so we left two weeks open.  Still, this was not good enough as April turned out to be the wettest in Portland history and the first week in May was no better.  We moved the ride to the second week in May, which was the last week I could go, as I was scheduled for skin cancer surgery on the 19th.  Still there was rain in the forecast, so we just resigned ourselves to a rain ride.  

The plan was for me to meet Mike at his house near Corvallis, Oregon, stay the night, and then proceed south with the intention of riding some of our favorite roads around Weaverville, California.  The day I was to leave I knew there was going to be rain, so I suited up in my garage with full rain gear plus rain covers on my tank bag and tail pack: 

Sure enough, I hit some pretty intense showers on the way down to Mike's, but by keeping to back roads I avoided the spray from trucks on the freeway.  Over the years I've narrowed down my selection of rain gear until I've got some that really works and I can stay perfectly dry, but it's still not my favorite type of riding.  

The week prior to this ride our neighbors had invited Carolyn and I to come to their beach house in Ocean Shores, Washington to go clamming.  This was a new experience for us and it was fun.  We were taught how to get them, clean them, and cook  them.  Below is a pic of us with our clam "guns" and collection bags. 

The clams are razor clams, and the disturbed sand behind us is where we have stuffed the guns into the sand after observing a slight dimple that indicated a clam below.  You put your thumb over a hole in the top of the gun so that a vacuum is formed that draws up the sand and the clam with it.  The four of us got our limit of 20 clams each within about an hour, which was the most success I've ever had "fishing".   

The reason I mention this is because when Mike found out we had got some razor clams he got all excited as that was one of his favorite seafoods.  He has not been able to get any for a least a year due to his move and then an injury to his knee.  So Carolyn agreed that I could take some down to them and Mike prepared them for our evening meal.  

Here is Mike making fried razor clams: 

His recipe was slightly different from our neighbors mainly in that he used ground Ritz crackers for the breading, but they were yummy.  Here's Mike and wife Annie chowing down with salad and corn on the cob side dishes: 

Before we left the next morning I asked Annie to take a picture of Big Mike and I.  I'm not a very big guy, but you can see that Big Mike is big in every way and makes me look like a dwarf.  

 One of the things I like and admire about Mike is that he is such a talented maker and fixer of things mechanical.   I have a post here from a couple of years ago where he made me a motorcycle trailer, and this time he showed me a remote control lawnmower he has been working on.  A basic rotary push lawnmower is mounted in a steel frame he constructed with battery power to wheels steered by a remote control joystick: 

This is more than just a toy for Mike, as his knee injury prevents him from easily walking behind the mower.  

The first day of our ride together our destination was Grants Pass, which was not too far away via freeway, but we never go by freeway if we can help it, so we chose a route that looked pretty curvy.  The problem was that our route planning software doesn't easily provide elevation data, and the route ended up going over 5,000 feet.  With the cold, rainy Spring we have been having this meant we got into snow and cold temps.  The picture below was taken when we first started getting into some snow, not realizing this was just the beginning and later on we would be riding in temps as low as 36 degrees with solid snow on both sides of the road and snow still in the trees.  By then we were too cold to stop and take pictures.  

 Since the pavement was wet, there was a degree of pucker factor in not knowing if we would be going even higher to the point where there could be ice.  It didn't happen, though, and eventually we got back to lower elevations and relatively warm (mid to high 40's) temps.  I had my grip heaters and heated jacket liner turned up to near max in that 36 degree section.......thank god for those.  

As we were approaching Weaverville it was time to get gas.  Now we were in California and paying California gas prices.  Nice time to be on a motorcycle getting 70+ miles per gallon. 

 Our third day of the ride was to be a big loop east and west of Weaverville, including a stretch of hwy 101 through Eureka.  The chances for rain were pretty high towards the coast, so we modified the route to stay more to the east towards Redding.  This had us going over one particularly curvy road twice, and it went through the town with two names.  This was a bit confusing the first time through, but by the second time we realized it really had two names.....Igo and Ono.  These may have originally been separate towns, but they are so close together with such small population (103) that they were combined.  We took a break the second time through at the local market: 

This picture of my gps shows why we chose this road: 

We took another break to admire the scenery.  Note the lack of rain gear.  It was supposed to be a real washout, and that's why I still had on my rain pants, but turned out to be a completely dry ride.  We really lucked out, and it was the best day of the trip and made it all worth while.  We ended up riding over 260 miles of really curvy Northern California roads with little traffic.  

The next day we headed for Klamath Falls and part of our route was over the old Applegate Trail.  This was a route the pioneers used to get to Oregon from the south, unlike the Oregon Trail which brought emigrants in from the east, into the Columbia Gorge.  This sign explains the origin of the Applegate Trail: 

 This is Tub Springs today: 

The last day of our ride was to be a slog for home with no exciting roads.  At first I was going to go up hwy 97 through Bend and then catch hwy 14 across from either Hood River or the Dalles.  The shortest route, though was to cross over the Cascades back to Interstate 5 at Eugene and head north.  Carolyn happened to be visiting a friend who lived in Eugene so I decided to go that way and see if I could meet up with her.  I did and we rode back home together with her following me in the car.  

It was great to take a long ride again.  Some of the friends I used to take trips with are either dead, no longer riding, or not up to multiple days in a row.  Jenny and Big Mike are about all that are left.  

 The weather wasn't great, but it was a lot better than predicted, so I feel fortunate for that.   I ended up with 1,644 miles on the ride and was just shy of 80,000 on the bike.  

Strange Company

 On Friday I had a nice ride with some strange companions.......strange in terms of the vehicles, not the riders.  There was the huge Honda Goldwing, ridden two-up by my friend Bill and his wife Karen, and the CanAm three-wheeler ridden by Bill's friend Dave.  And then there was me on my little underpowered Honda CBR 500.   

Dave lives near Eureka California and was up here to get some work done on his CanAm.  Bill asked me to show Dave some of the good roads in the area.  

It was a pretty mellow ride due in part to the post-rain condition of the roads, which made for some damp and leafy corners in shaded areas.  It was also a long day, partly because we had no intercoms so that all conversation was during lunch or rest stops.  I have to also admit that quite a bit of time was wasted due to me getting lost in Hood River and in trying to get around Stevenson, so, it ended up being about an eight hour ride for me despite going only 270 miles.  

I had never even sat on a CanAm, much less ridden one, so I asked Dave at one of our rest stops if I could ride it around the parking lot.  A lot of older guys switch to three-wheelers when they get too old or injured to ride a two-wheeler, and this was the case with Dave.  He was a long time motorcyclist who had a bad crash that left him with an ankle that no longer worked very well.  I've often said that when I can no longer ride a two-wheeler, I'm done, and will not switch to three wheels, so I was interested in at least trying one out.  

It's a strange beast.  It has only a foot brake to operate front and rear brakes, no clutch, and shifting by buttons on the left handlebar.  There is also a park position in the trans and a reverse.  

I think I will stick to my thoughts about not transitioning to three wheels after I quit motorcycles.  The CanAm seems to have most of the disadvantages of a car........big and heavy and takes up a lot of space in the garage......with none of the advantages of a car such as heat and A/C, and protection from the rain.  If you want to be out in the wind, buy a convertible like the Miata I had, and get the wind, but also the roof and heater when you need it.  But the main objection with the three-wheeler is......IT DOESN'T LEAN.   On the other hand, it doesn't fall down.  Those damp and leafy corners didn't bother Dave at all.  

Even Dave admitted when I asked him, that it wasn't as much fun as a motorcycle, but it still felt like he was riding, and he fit in pretty well with Bill and I on our bikes.  

All in all, it was a really nice ride.  It was good to see Bill get a ride in with Karen, who was in the midst of Chemo therapy.  It was perfect autumn weather with some spectacular colors up in the mountains near Mt Hood. And I got a chance to meet a new rider and try out the three wheeled option.  

Saved by the internet......again!

 There have been a couple of occasions lately where a YouTube video has allowed me to do some work on our van and car that I would not have been able to do without the video.  On the van, the fan controls quit working and the YouTube video showed me how to remove the panel which looked like there was no way to do it, but which turned out to be really simple.  Then I bought a used part from Ebay that was way cheaper then a new Honda part. 

Then I got a low tire pressure warning on the car and when I took it in to my local tire dealer they discovered the tire was worn almost to the treads on the inside due to mis-alignment (driver's side rear).  And they said there was no adjustability in the rear wheel alignment.  The tire guy said there were adjustable control arms available but the parts alone cost about $400.  I found a YouTube video with good instructions for how to change the control arms, and where to buy them.  The set for both rear wheels was about $250.  For now I only put a set on the left rear as the right rear seems to be OK as far as tire wear.  

Now the internet has saved me on motorcycle work.  I found out after a ride with my friends that my headlights were out.  I assumed it was probably a blown fuse, but replacing the fuse with a new one made no difference.  I have two headlights, so it didn't seem likely that both bulbs would burn out at the same time, but I checked them anyway and they were OK.  Now I had to start disassembly of the bike to get to wiring and connectors.  This is the way things got to looking: 

 

By hooking the headlight harness up to a battery I saw that the lights worked, so the problem had to be behind the headlights.  I checked the headlight solenoid, and found that it was good, so I started inspecting the wiring diagram.  What a nightmare!

The CBR 500 that I have is not a feature-loaded motorcycle (no abs, no ride modes, no traction control), but you can see how complex it still is.   I went to the CBR 500 forum, which is pretty dead due to everybody moving over to facebook, but there are still some knowledgeable guys who post on it, so I described my tale of woe and asked for help.  A guy answered back and told me how to verify I had power to the solenoid, which I did.  He then determined by looking at the wiring diagram that the only remaining "gate" that power had to go through to get to the headlights was the starter switch on the right handlebar, of all things.  When you turn the key on, the headlights come on, but when you push the starter button, the headlights temporarily go out so that the full power of the battery goes to the starter motor.  So the headlight power has to pass through the starter switch.  He told me the two wires I had to check for continuity in the starter switch, and sure enough, the power wasn't passing through their connection.   I made a jumper wire to bypass the connector and I HAD HEADLIGHTS!  I could have kissed the guy (actually, I don't know for sure it is a guy).  So I ordered a new starter switch and will have to wait a few days for it to arrive, but it will probably take me that long to get the bike back together.  

I hate electrical problems because I am such a dumbass about electrical stuff, and this one sort of reminded me of the Mustang wiring problems that weighed on my mind with no known way to find a solution.  But, thanks to the internet, I found the way.  

Looking at Property with Brian

 This past weekend Brian and I rode down to Sunriver, Oregon to look at some property he was interested in.  Sunriver is about 20 miles south of Bend.  It was predicted to be about 98 degrees in Bend by the time we got there, so we wore vented gear, but since it was relatively cool when we started out, we had some wind blocking stuff under our jackets.  We took the usual curvy roads up to the Zig Zag ranger station where we shucked some of that: 

From then on it was a straight shot to Bend.  I used to drive much of this route when we were riding dirt bikes at East Fort Rock, but it is changing fast.  There is freeway replacing much of the old two-lane on hwy 97 between Madras and Bend, and a lot of development.  We even got in a traffic jam going into Bend and it was getting hot.  

Eventually we got to the property, which was pretty far out in the boonies.  It is at around 4,000 ft elevation so there are some trees.  It's about 1.5 acres with a 25 gpm well and electricity on site.  Brian is looking ahead to retirement and building a house with a detached shop.  It's behind the bikes in this picture: 

One of the nice features of the location is that it is only a couple hundred feet from public access to the Deschutes river where I took these photos: 

 

On our walk to the river we saw this guy working on an entry arch to a nice house and stopped to talk to him.  Turns out he doesn't live at that house but the one across the street, which was a complete trash pile.  It looked sort of like a high-end homeless camp, with trailers, RV's and cars up on jacks plus a lot of other junk.  He let me take this picture of him talking to Brian but he might not have been happy for me to take one of his "residence": 

He said he was planning on selling his place because his neighbor (not the house in the picture) was always trying to get him in trouble with the county for code violations.  I can understand why as he was not helping property values in the neighborhood.  We asked him the price, thinking it was valuable river front property that could have been cleared of all the junk and made a great homesite, but his price was ridiculous ($400K).

Next came a bit of frustration on my part.  While Brian was working on getting his drone ready to fly over the area, I thought I would try to get us a room for the night.  All the reasonable priced places in Bend were booked, so I thought of looking in Madras which is a much smaller town about 20 miles north of Bend.  By doing a Google search I got in touch with a booking website that actually got me in touch with a human who would search for available motels.  I told her we were looking for a motel in Madras, but when she checked a couple they were all booked, so she asked if we would be OK with a nearby place.  I said that would be fine and she found one in a place I didn't recognize called Richmond.  I asked how far that was from Madras and she said three tenths of a mile.  I figured it must be the name of a neighborhood or something.  So after the booking was made I thought I better enter the address into my GPS as they had sent me a confirmation email.  The motel was in Richmond Indiana!!  It took me a couple of frustrating hours working on it off and on to get the booking cancelled and a refund promised.  Meanwhile, Brian had somehow found a reasonable place in Bend.  By the time we checked in it was about 7pm and we were tired, hot, and hungry.  Two beers with my Carne Asada dinner tasted really good.  

I have to post this picture because after a bit of persuasion I actually got Brian to do a little maintenance on his motorcycle by lubing the chain (lube provided by me).  

The next day was just a push for both of us to get home.  We did get one small shot of twisty bits by riding from Antelope to Shaniko.  I've done enough raving about this road in earlier blogs.  I just wish it was longer.  

Brian elected to go back via hwy 97 on the east side of the mountains and cross over near Mt. Rainier to try a beat the Sunday afternoon traffic back into Tacoma and Seattle.  My total miles was 546 and his had to be quite a bit more.  Although the roads were not that thrilling, at least I got a ride with my son.  

And by the way,  he did not love the property.  

Good Weather, Bad Traffic

 Before I get started on the past two days, let me show parts of the Lick Observatory ride.  These are screen snips from my route planning program called MyRoute: 

This is the part of the ride up to the Observatory

And this is only a small part of the road past the observatory.  The first time Jenny rode it was with her neighbor who rides a big BMW road bike and he hated it and swore he would never do it again.  A smaller, agile bike is a real advantage.  

So on to the two day ride up hwy 1:  Probably because the weather was so good, which is kind of rare on the north coast, there was a LOT of traffic in the first half of the ride.  After that it got much better.  I suspect a lot of people were doing a day drive from San Francisco, and once we got to the point where they had to turn around to get back home, traffic thinned out.  By the time we got to the super curvy part from the coast up to Leggett, it was all good.  This is the first time I rode it up and then turned around and rode it back, so it was about 44 miles of the good road.  We stayed overnight in Fort Bragg after a long day in the saddle, but only 280 miles.  The next day was back to Jenny's house and traffic again as we got close to SF.  California has some great motorcycle roads, but the price you have to pay in dealing with the traffic can make me have second thoughts about coming back.

I didn't take many pictures, but I have some of the standard ocean views: 

We took a side trip to Point Arena lighthouse. 

It was 200 miles from Ft Bragg back to Jen's, and I was pretty tired.  It was definitely the right choice to cancel the planned ride down south. I don't think I would have lasted very long in those 100+ degree temps.  In fact, the three days that we did ride was enough for me.  Maybe I'm getting old......well I know I am; I just had my 80th birthday.  But I want to Never Stop Riding. 

One last thing: We took the dog for a walk and saw this automatous car driving around the neighborhood.  It did have a person in it but I don't think he was doing any of the driving.  Sensors were spinning on the top and all kinds of other places.  A look at the future?