Motorcycle Journeys Trip Logs

Category: Trip Reporting

Reports from the road

  • Not an auspicious start

    No chance to get away yesterday after being at Brad’s for over 8 hours getting the shock situation improved.

    I started out on my very tip toes. After he changed to a different spring the motorcycle dropped about 3/4 of an inch. After rebuilding the entire shock and adding shims internally it brought the height down another 1/2 inch. While the motorcycle is still taller than it was with the old shock (it should be since Brad thinks I was riding on the spring with no shock absorbing), I’m going to see if I can live with this height. After packing the motorcycle last night it seemed to settle down a little more.

    I got up very early planning to leave at first light and headed for the computer to check the forecast. I was somewhat dumbfounded when I saw the latest forecast for Amarillo was for wind 45-50 and gusts to 65 with sand storms. There was no way I was going to ride into that and after checking all options determined I would have to stop before Amarillo so no need to rush out the door. Since the forecast was better for Tuesday I considered not leaving until the next morning — but what if the forecast changed again?

    Got out of the house around 11:00 and found out how windy it was after leaving Denton on 380 headed straight west. It was a bad side wind and I wasn’t sure how long I’d hang in there. My jacket was catching enough wind that it was lifting me off the motorcycle seat even after I zipped everything up that I could.

    When I got to Decatur and headed more northwest the wind became tolerable from the direction is was blowing. The wind speed was expected to build with the heat of the day — the temperature was in the 90’s by Wichita Falls where  I stopped to get fuel and a weather update. Wind in Wichita Falls was 28, 30 in Childress, and 39 in Amarillo so I decided to see if I could make it a while longer.

    Fun things on the ride up 287 — I saw a herd of camels (no kidding) and a herd of buffalo with several babies.

    The wind was steadily building and what I initially thought might be a dark sky due to rain turned out to be a dark sky due to dirt in the air. Being a hard contact lens wearer I was less than thrilled with approaching that.

    After I rode into the blowing dirt and the wind got worse. My mouth was full of grit (lovely) but my eyes were doing okay. Even though it was in the 90’s I decided I better not drink any more water since it required opening my visor.

    Several miles outside Childress the wind had gotten so bad it felt a couple times like it was going to smack me over — I was once again headed due west so the wind was no longer angled from behind me, but straight from the side. The air was the color of mud. I called it, found a room, and will watch the evening news to see what they say about the dry line that’s causing all the wind. If I try to look up and down Main St. here in Childress I can’t see very far because there’s so much dirt in the air. I talked to Mike Truel in OKC and he said the line was moving at 60 MPH so I hope it’s gone in the morning. If it is, I’ll be on the road very early to make up some miles.

    After not getting the motorcycle back until Thursday and then changing to a shock that made the motorcycle way too tall I’ve adopted an “it is what it is” attitude. I’ll do the best I can and get out to the rally when  get out to the rally.

    Good news — the motorcycle is now low enough I don’t think I have to get the side stand lengthened (I thought  did at the end of the day yesterday) — the bike sits at an acceptable angle when parked and I am able to boost it up when it’s fully loaded. Oh – and it rides a whole heck of a lot better. I’m looking forward to a calm day of riding when I can really focus on the change in the ride rather that holding on for wind gusts.

    If the adventure doesn’t begin until the first thing goes wrong, then I’m already on an adventure 🙂 65 MPH gusts — that’s ridiculous.

  • Texas Rally

    I had not been to a rally. I think I avoided them mostly out of fear that I would do something terminally stupid like drop the motorcycle in front of everyone. But I’ve been encouraged by my friend Mike Truel in Oklahoma City to go to them since they are such a great way to meet interesting riders.

    The Texas Rally is billed as a “no frills, no cost” rally. While there were no frills provided, the cost of camping at the event was $1. What a deal.

    Campsite at Robinson City Park Llano, TX

    The rally moved to a new location this year at Robinson City Park in Llano, TX. Easy to get to just a couple miles west of town on Hwy 152. Nice park with great camping sites — only draw back seemed to be disgusting bathroom facilities. Even the guys were grossed out by the men’s rooms.

    I left around 9:00 Saturday morning and took my time wandering down there. To many trips to Mexico, Big Bend, and San Antonio have left me bored with the standard routes so I followed obscure county roads and figured if I kept heading southwest I’d get there eventually.

    I was surprised that the trees were behind the trees in the Dallas area. The oaks in my yard are in full leaf already, but as I neared the Llano area the trees were just starting to leaf out. I didn’t really see a lot of wildflowers until I got past San Saba, but from that point on the road side and the surrounding fields were carpeted in brilliant color.

    I stopped in Llano and got a late lunch (4:00) at Stillwater’s and headed toward the park. Since it was still early I road past the park entrance and down 152 where the flowers were much heavier than they were along route 16.

    I was back at the park by 5:00 and ran into folks I know from BMWDFW. The rally wasn’t what I expected, but the guys warned me it’s not how rallies typically are. There was a man giving a presentation on his ride to Tierra del Fuego. The covered pavilion was huge so we sat in the back where we could chat quietly and not bother the people huddled up around the speaker. After

    Route 152 west out of Llano

    about 3o minutes a man walked around the room ordering people to stop talking. I was shocked. I wanted to ask him if we were in second grade.

    A group of us went out to the picnic table nearest our tents. It was 9:15 but people were in their tents and complained about us talking. I gave up an went to bed.

    There were people up at 4:30 and 5:00 the next morning talking loudly and making a lot of noise — was I supposed to yell at them to be quiet? I think not. Like I said — not what I expected from a rally. Not the early risers. I think that’s totally normal for camping. I mean the people telling others to be quiet.

    Sunday dawned with complete cloud cover and rain threatening so I wandered back northeast on county roads. The highlight was stopping for lunch in Meredian. I figured I’d be lucky if I could find a decent hamburger, but when I stopped at the Cactus Grill on 144 just after turning left from 22 I ended having pecan encrusted pork with cinnamon sweet potatoes. Who would have figured? I would strongly recommend other riders stop and check the place out. The food was wonderful, the service was great from a waitress who very sweet and a lot of fun.

    You can find info about them here: http://www.meridian-chamber.com/Information_Pages/Cactus%20Grill%20Page%202.pdf

    And I rode 600 miles and got back in the garage without having to tear my motorcycle apart one time. Big improvement over the three times I had to do it on the Big Bend trip.

  • My weekend with Murphy’s Law

    If anyone is wondering where Murphy’s Law went since their luck has suddenly returned — not to worry. Murphy’s Law is staying with me for a while. I’m going to stick with equipment problems — this would be an extremely long post if I included people problems too.

    It started with a ride that just didn’t feel right from the start (previous post) and continued from there.

    On Wednesday we stopped in Granbury to get lunch and after I get off the motorcycle I realize the zipper pull on the right leg of my Aerostich suit has self-destructed into pieces. That should make it interesting to get in and out of my suit for the remainder of the trip.

    90 miles later I’m in Brownwood, Texas and my motorcycle hesitates, dies, and won’t restart. Perfect. But not to worry — it took a little while but I found the faulty fuse and I was back on the road. I am just really concerned about what short or other problem caused the blown fuse. Okay I’m also concerned my riding buddy stood by and did nothing while four other guys showed up and actually helped.

    Thursday I get from Brownwood to Alpine without any events — other than riding into a 35-40 MPH headwind behind a riding buddy who thought 88 was an appropriate speed for those conditions. I felt like I was about to be lifted off my motorcycle and started to experience muscle fatigue across my collar bones from holding on so hard. At least my new Ztechnik windshield didn’t rip off…

    On Friday I’m headed down to Santa Elena Canyon and am watching the temperature rise on my thermometer. On the last 2-3 miles before the canyon I get stuck behind an extremely slow moving truck and as I’m crawling along in near 1o0 degree heat the overheating warning light comes on. I have ridden in 106 degree heat at painfully slow speeds in deep gravel and I have never seen that light come on. Again, perfect.

    I tell my riding buddy to go look at the canyon and I remove the plastic from my F650 and check the coolant level. I add may be less than 1/2 a cup of water and it dumps onto the pavement. It is NOT a low coolant problem despite the fact that my water pump was replaced improperly and I’m dripping coolant every time I stop.

    Oh, did I mention that? I had told the guys who helped install the water pump that there should be a gap between the seals, but they installed them hammered together. So now I have dripping coolant all the time and will need to drain the coolant and oil and redo the water pump installation. I’ve got that to look forward to, but that is not the cause of the over heating. You want to know how irritating it is to see coolant dripping every time you stop your motorcycle?

    Saturday was a low mile day due to high winds so no motorcycle problems (only people problems).

    Sunday is the long ride day to get back to the Dallas area from Big Bend. About 4 hours out from Dallas I notice my battery gauge isn’t working. Shortly after that thought I realize my heated clothing isn’t heating. Right after that it dawns on me that my music is missing in action too. Peachy. That means my accessory fuse block has completely cut out.  That means two shorts in one weekend — not a good sign.

    Okay — I said I would leave people problems out. I lied.

    I stop and tell him I’ve stopped because I’ve lost my heated clothing and I start taking the bike apart to get to fuses to see if I can solve the problem. He folds his hands, leans back against his back rest and settles in for a nap. I’m struggling to pull fuses with no fuse puller and he sits. I can’t get the fuse out that protects the Centech AP-1 and ask for help. He reluctantly and slowly dismounts his motorcycle and a pulls the fuse.

    I get a snotty “You’re not going to figure it out until your remove the plastic” (lengthy check) and he gets back on his motorcycle. Screw it. I make the ride home in high wind with no heated clothing.

    My next post is what I consider a good riding buddy.

  • Having an “off” day

    I don’t like having an off day under most circumstances, but I really don’t like having one when I’m going to be riding my motorcycle. Whether I liked it or not, today was one of those days — when it just doesn’t seem quite right from the time you get on the motorcycle.

    To start we were undecided as to whether we should leave today or wait until tomorrow to get to Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas. A front with a very strong line of thunderstorms was due to pass over the route we were going to travel and they were forecasting hail, possible tornadic activity, and a lot of lightening. If we waited until the next day they were forecasting high winds which aren’t a lot of fun on a motorcycle. Hence the indecision. We decided to go and hoped to be stopped before the front went through.

    I headed out to meet Dave and  couldn’t even get out of my little town. They were trimming trees and had the road closed for the work. I got past that only that only to get on the frontage road and find the entrance to the highway closed for  construction. Okay.

    I ended up running short of time and showed up with no gas – which I found a little embarrassing since I try to show up for rides ready to roll. Made a quick fuel stop and we got on our way.  We barely got on the highway and Dave comes to a screaming stop on the left shoulder – he got on the brakes so hard I thought I was going to hit him attempting to stop behind him and ended up having to stop next to him with traffic hurtling by too close for comfort. He’d forgotten to fasten his helmet strap. Like I said – nothing felt quite right and not what I would call an auspicious beginning.

    On the way through the mid cities and Fort Worth there was more debris on the road than I have ever seen before, but traffic was good and we got on 377 to head toward Brady.

    We made a quick lunch stop in Granbury where I attempted to do a reset and get my day going in a better way. This was greatly assisted by the sun coming out.

    I thought I had successfully made an attitude adjustment right up to the moment in Brownwood when my motorcycle did a slight hesitation and then completely died and would not restart. Fortunately I was able to pull off into small parking area so I didn’t have to push the motorcycle off the road.

    Part of my off day had been forgetting to reset my trip odometer when I got gas. I knew the fuel light had come on a few miles before it died and on the chance the fuel sensor was bad Dave walked down and bought some gas. While he did that I called the BMW dealer where I had purchased my motorcycle to see if there were any problems with restarting a fuel injected motorcycle after running out of gas. They said no and to call back if it didn’t restart.

    It didn’t restart.

    I called back and asked for what to check to diagnose the problem. This request was met with prompt and complete rejection. They insisted I call to have the motorcycle towed. So when faced with the choice of helping a customer solve the problem and be able to continue on with their trip, their choice was to protect the BMW income stream and get the motorcycle towed.

    I had three responses to that. I didn’t want to ruin my riding buddy’s day. I didn’t want to ruin my riding buddy’s trip. And I definitely didn’t want admit to defeat and give up. I kept my responses to myself and hung up on the guy.

    I immediately jumped on the self doubt band wagon since I had done some pretty serious maintenance to the motorcycle myself a week and a half earlier. On top of that a parting comment when I left the tech day was that I may have been sold the wrong spark plugs (which I had installed) and that I may need to add some caps to make the posts that seat into the coils a little larger.

    So my first impulse is the spark plugs were failing because I had not checked the spark plugs — the bike had been running great and all the plastic, the snorkel, airbox, and maybe even the battery have to come out just to get to the tops of the spark plugs. So instead of doing this in the comfort of my garage I end up tearing the bike apart to check them in a parking lot along 377.

    While I’m working on this several guys stop to see if we need help. I had gotten down the spark plugs by that point and they pitched in by checking to see if they sparked. Nothing. So why no spark. We started checking fuses and the 15 amp fuse was blown. One of the gentlemen had fuses in his stuck (so I didn’t have to dig those out) and gave me a replacement and 2 spares.

    The bike fired right up.

    So I’m excited — then I look ahead and see serious storm clouds moving in and I realize the temperature is dropping. I reassemble the motorcycle in record time with assistance from the guys who stopped, give them quick hugs of gratitude, and suit up just as the rain starts.

    We bailed on making it to Brady and rode a short distance to motel in Brownwood. We got under the drive through cover for the office just as it started raining in earnest.

    So what did I learn from this experience?

    1. If someone tells me something may be screwed up check it out in my garage before leaving a on trip since this is a heck of a lot better than doing it on the side of the road.
    2. Don’t call the dealer. They just want you to give up and go home. Call knowledgeable friends who can give you suggestions, but don’t even bother to call the dealer until you truly have given up.
    3. I have now had my motorcycle quit running two times while on the road and both times I have been blown away but the warmth, kindness, and helpfulness of people who stop. We get too many lessons that people aren’t great. How wonderful it is to get one about how truly great people can be.
    4. When I get home I’m going to post on the F650 forum asking what to check when you have a stopped motorcycle. I know when it won’t start it’s either spark, air, or fuel — how do you check for failures with all three? I’m going to type that list up and store it somewhere on the motorcycle.
    5. Having an “off” day is okay as long as everything turns out fine — which it most definitely did.
    6. Last, but not least — ALWAYS start with the simplest solution first. I can’t believe I tore my motorcycle apart when all it needed was a new fuse.

  • Headed to Big Bend for Christmas

    I rode down to the Big Bend area on December 21 to meet a friend for riding. It was 29 degrees the Saturday morning I left. It was a little nippy and I always enjoy sharing the road with people who don’t scrape their windows and leave me wondering if they can see anything much less me on a motorcycle…

    I don’t know what you should expect from riding 70-75 mph at that temperature, but I was bundled up with my Gerbing jacket liner and pants liner, my heaviest winter gloves, toe warmers in my boots, my windproof fleece gaitor on my neck, and my heated grips cranked up to high – and I was still cold. It was a strange sensation since I could feel the heat the Gerbing stuff was putting out, but I could also feel the cold coming in from the wind on the front of my Aerostich. Maybe guys that are more protected by fairings would have been more comfortable. The only things to get really cold were my nose, finger tips, and toes. I was confident it would warm up and it did. It took me a long time after the temperature came up into the 40’s and then 50’s for my body to warm up though.

    I was a little nervous getting started this morning since I wasn’t riding with my usual buddy. I guess I was a little scared to be riding alone again, but settled down once I was on the road and got over it. Thank god – it would have worn me out to be that jumpy all day.

    Even with the cold it was a wonderful day to be on the road. I left before the sun came up since we have about 10 hours of daylight these days and it can run ten hours to get to Big Bend. No traffic getting through Dallas and Fort Worth, just a little annoyance with side wind on the way out to Abilene, and then pretty perfect the rest of the way. Riding just makes me happy for some reason and I was motoring along with a big smile.

    When I headed down 277 to pick up 67 it was a beautiful sunny day in the 60’s. Saw the wind farms along 277, cotton fields along 67, and then finally the buttes and mountains heading into Alpine. I was unloaded and settled in my room by 4:30.