All the ladies of the house are bailing for the beach for the August 27-28 weekend. I'd like to organize a ride to somewhere for either a day or multiple days. Could be separate single day rides or overnight...even multiple nights.

I'm thinking mountains but I'm flexible.

I know it's a long shot with everybody's busy schedules but if anyone is interested...

Suppose I should mention that this will be a D.C. based ride. However, if you are in Oregon, feel free to swing on over

Depending on what's happening with work I'll be up for it. Motorcycle camping in the mountains sounds just about right.

West and South for a change?

Ian could fly out and join us.

I have to get a few things sorted out on the 'K by then.

Was that August 2012? I've got my nose to the grindstone until at least the end of the year.



I hope nothing's wrong. I thought it was in good shape.

I, myself, have an annoying electrical problem with my bike. I've replaced the fuel pump, fuel filter, and in-tank fuel lines, but am still experiencing the same problem I had before - bike starts normally, CAN run okay, but if you pull away from a stop quickly it dies suddenly. Sometimes when stopping, too. Must be a loose wire or connection. Unfortunately, I've been too busy to spend the time tracking it down.

The camping idea is very appealing. Hence the tent thread. So obviously I was already thinking along those lines.

However, if it's ridiculously hot I will rough it in a Holiday Inn.

I'm tied up on the 27th, but might could meet you guys (already in progress?) on the 28th, please keep me in the loop.

In other news, the K13 is in the shop for intermittend popping/misfiring that started on our last ride 2 weekends ago. It had sat for nearly 8 weeks since the trip because of my being injured in a fall.

Strangely, it didn't do this on the old gas in the tank but waited until after fresh tank #2 or #3, weird.

Hopefully, they'll call me and tell me it's my imagination, not the bike, or it'll be a simple fix if it isn't my imagination...

New plugs?

Personally I hate it when I get the "we couldn't find anything wrong" like what happened with my Spyder and it ended up in the shop for MONTHS.

Anyhoo, yeah, we could do a long Sunday ride if we don't do the overnight thing or you could meet us on Sunday. That would be awesome.

Cool, sounds good. I talked to Bob's last night, and they said that they had reset (I assume reflashed) the computer back to base settings and were going to test run it today.

If that works out, they'll upgrade the OS to where it should be again and see the problem stays solved, at which point I'll get my bike back

OS problems on a bike--sheesh!

I hope it's not Windows!

Unfortunately it looks like I'm not going to be able to make the 27th either so it's looking like a day trip for me as well.

Duncan and I could ride out early and meet you somewhere. Might be nice to do a long day ride.

Ok, let's do a ride on the 28th. Will be a good almost birthday present for me!

Ok, 26k valve check completed and only one valve out of spec...not bad. Wierd thing was it was tight...needed a larger shim. Hard to see how that can happen on it's own unless getting carbon build up so it was most likely out of spec from the factory.

So I'm ready for this ride. So far we have Yermo, Me, Duncan, Rob, and Jay. That's Japanese bikes outnumbering the BMW's! Assuming of course that we don't get the usual 50% attrition over the next 13 days ...

FYI:

As the valve face & seat wears the valve will move up into the head.

this will make the lash tighter.

I knew I would confuse somebody...the measured gap was outside the high end, meaning the valve was not opening for the specified duration. This is referred to as a "tight" valve. The lash is not tight, actually loose. This confused me until I actually opened the thing up and looked at what was going on. Usually the lash will get tighter, not looser. Mine got looser or (more likely) was out of spec from the factory.

Was it ever modified? If not, why would it need to be reset? I hope it's not a case of the bike equivalent of bad RAM or the like.

A good question. Apparently, this is the standard first fix for weird running issues--reloading the OS.

Actualy, twice--there are two CPU/controllers, so they reloaded both the engine control OS and the Chasis control OS.

One minor goof though--they forgot to turn my ESA II (Electronic Supspension Adjustment v. 2) back on when they reloaded, so I have to go back to Bob's to get that straightened out. Supposedly, it should only take a few minutes...

Wow, is that a Windows OS on that bike Duncan?

I certainly hope not

So in an attempt to un-hijack this thread...where shall we ride next Sunday? Yermo mentioned south and west as a potential general direction. Maybe we can get a little more specific.

One suggestion that has been made to me is to get to old route 55 through Seneca Rocks...I've not looked at a map yet so I don't know how far out that is.

Ok, took a look at Google...Seneca Rocks is about a buck fifty from my house. Not sure that is doable in a day but we can discuss. We could also take the BRP from 66 down to Charlottesville...nice food in the 'ville and we can visit my buddy's BMW repair shop.

yea, we'll need to tack on an hour travel time from here to you ... we could do more direct west instead heading out 66 and tooling around in the mountains there. Would not be as far and would doable in a day ride.

Could meet somewhere on 66 ...

I so need to get the damn maps code working in the forum ... too much code to write too little time.

So I'm still thinking about Seneca Rocks.

Early start... Any takers?

room for one more?

It's going to a /long/ 300+ mile day with a lot of fast highway miles and moderately aggressive mountain riding. That bike of yours is going to have a really hard time keeping up and even then it's going to beat you to hell. Highway speeds and no fairing is a bad combination for long fast days.

My concern is that Josh likes to ride pretty fast and sometimes complains that I ride slower than he likes. Since he's putting this ride together I'd be loathe to turn it into a slowish training ride and you're not yet at the stage where I think a ride like the one we're taking would be appropriate.

What we can do is schedule a ride maybe for the next weekend with you me and Duncan where we click off a couple hundred miles of back roads.

To go on a ride like the one on Sunday you would really need much more experience and a better bike. An unfaired R80RT just isn't the right bike. Eventually, once you're ready, we'll get you checked out on the R1100S and you'll see what I mean.

"My concern is that Josh likes to ride pretty fast and sometimes complains that I ride slower than he likes."

That just hurts Yermo, it HURTS!

Throw me under the bus why don't ya. LOL

OK, maybe I go slightly faster but only on the slab. On the twisties, you leave my sorry ass sucking copious amounts of your oil laden smoke. So it probably evens out. This ride, if everybody shows, we will not be going more than 10 over the limit on the slab. These are not speed demons by any stretch.
However, this ride is what I would characterize as an "experienced" sport/tour ride...full gear required, etc. Having said that, I don't have anywhere near as much experience as Yermo, Duncan, Rob, or Jay but for some strange reason they ride with me anyway...must be my magnetic personality!

Well, you know how much I love throwing you under a bus.

One of these days I'll have to get one of you to ride ahead of me so I can get a sense for how bad the oil smoke is ... chasing Bruce through the gap on the 'S while he was on the K100RS I didn't really notice anything.

For the fact that he's got less than 400 miles of experience, Yun's riding has come along very well. He already rides better than most who have ridden for over a year, IMHO. And of course, as is a requirement for anyone I train, Yun has a full set of gear. He'd fit in, style wise, with you guys just fine. For the money the Tourmaster gear really can't be beat.

I don't mean to be exclusionary and I would very much like for Yun to join us but I wonder, given his experience and more importantly the bike he's riding, whether it would be a good fit this time around.

Later on, after he has gotten his first thousand completed and has a more capable bike, maybe checked out on the R1100S, I'd be much less concerned.