A great time was had by all. Nobody died (although there was one crash resulting in a broken leg). My bike ran fantastic but I did experience one issue that may or may not be something akin to vapor lock. Saw some old friends, made some new friends, ate a lot of good food, imbibed a few adult beverage, and just generally had a lot of fun. This will probably be the last trip for the Harley saddlebags and the orange tin, so I took a few more pictures than normal.
Here’s the plan. Leaving Wednesday morning. Arriving in Nelson Thursday afternoon or evening. Taking “the scenic route” (as if there’s a non-scenic route in the Kootenays).
I purchased the Track feature for my SPOT GPS Personal Tracker, so I don’t have to hit the ‘OK’ button to mark a waypoint on my Google Map (link in the side bar). The map above is the plan. Could change a bit. If I make good progress Wednesday I might jump over to Banff and/or Lake Louise. I’m planning on averaging 360mi per day. Easy on a super-slab. A little more taxing on two-lane twisties with lots of tourist on the road. May not make it all the way to Radium the first day. Probably take Friday ‘off’ in Nelson and do a day ride with the gang on Saturday. Home Sunday.
Excellent trip. I’m at a loss for words if you can believe that (mostly because I’m tired). Other than running with my choke partially open for most of the day Saturday, the trip was flawless. Here’s the map (Google maps threw a hissy fit when I tried to map Scott’s attempt to get us lost in Harlowton, so that’s approximate). Pictures coming soon.
Also, my SPOT personal GPS tracker page shows the points at which I pressed the “check in” button. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out how to limit the page to just this weekend’s activity, so it show last weekend as well. Figured out how to delete those couple from last weekend.
Think I’m going to do this next weekend (Friday-Monday). Visit John in Thompson Falls, MT, Del in Bonners Ferry, ID, and Keith in Trail, BC. Then swing down around Lewiston, ID, and come home up Lolo Pass. I’m sure there will be subtle differences in the actual route, but this is the basic idea.
Traveling alone. I’ll have my dual disc front wheel for the first time, as well as my SPOT GPS transceiver and the iPod Nano. If the GPS works like it should, I’ll post a link to the Google Maps page it generates. My plan is to hit the “report in” button at each gas stop or overnight stop. Probably won’t have the Kuryakyn Grips and Breakaway cruise control installed. A little too close to start making new mods.
FINALLY… All I’m lacking is brake fluid and some clips to hold the crossover line. I tried to use those metal clips from Newspeedmaster but I screwed them up trying to get them installed. Until I find a better solution I’ll just pick up some stock clips (anybody got an extra set?). BTW, this is an Avon Venom 130/70-18. Fender rides a little high. Might have to “adjust” that. This is a stock fender bracket, not the one I modified to clear the 120/90-18 I was using before. Oh, and the bike is still filthy from riding in the rain last week.
Update: Bike is back on the road. Might have to bleed the brakes one more time to get that last tiny bit of air out of the system.
I made my first itty bitty web application with JQuery (a scripting library, some would say the scripting library for Javascript). I’m mostly a designer, and while I’ve dabbled in Javascript over the decades it’s never been my strong suit. But the perfect project came up this week on BonnevilleAmerica.com. Another moderator on that forum, Pat Whitbeck (aka “Dinqua”), years ago created a custom jetting calculator for Triumph Americas and Speedmasters. When discussing a recent update he made to the calculator it came to light that, because it was written as a Windows application it couldn’t be used by Mac users, and even Vista and Windows 7 users had trouble using it.
So I decided to try and create a web-based version in Javascript. Pat sent me his data file so I could pull out his numbers for all the jetting options.
It’s not quite finished. The math seems to be working, but I’m still testing. It isn’t pretty but it works. The biggest difference between this and Pat’s original application is that you have to click the “Calculate” button to update the main jet number. When I get some time I’ll throw some graphic design mojo at it.
The best thing I could come up with is that I was selling my bike and getting out of motorcycling. Of course, that isn’t funny, just depressing. For my Triumph peeps I’d probably change it to selling my trumpet for a Harley or something equally unlikely (no offense to Harley).
The new design isn’t a joke, either. Felt like I needed to freshen things up around here, but I still can’t find the time to update my old “Dog’s Bollocks” theme. In due time, I suppose.
Just a quick note, inspired by the fact that IT’S SNOWING.
I’ve had the bike out twice already this year. Probably haven’t put much more than 50 miles on it. Last Sunday the weather was gorgeous so I got out in the garage and finished drilling out a couple baffles in my stock pipes. Naturally I was required after that to go for a ride and test them out. I’ve been running factory short Triumph “off road” (“short TORs”) mufflers for nearly 8 years, but I’ve always wanted to see what the stock pipes sounded like gutted, or at least partially gutted. I left in the third baffle and the reducer cone at the front. The results were amazing. The exhaust note, while not sounding tuned, sounded incredibly deep. I should have done this 8 years ago rather than buying the short TORs at around $385.
So now that I have these drilled pipes, I still have to mount up and try out the set of short slash-cut mufflers by Specialty Spares that I picked up used recently. Zdenko put a set on his girlfriend’s bike and says they sound nearly identical to his Specialty Spares long cannons, which I love. So if these SS shorties are that good, I’ll probably sell the drilled stock pipes.
Not 100% sure on the makeover happening this year. Events conspire to derail. But it’s no sweat; I’ve waited this long I can wait a little longer. Besides, I’ve got plenty of other things to do on the bike. Next up I’m going to install the Speedmaster drag bars, aftermarket pull-back risers with stepped bolts and finally, finally, finally, the dual disc front wheel. If I have the time and the will I will try and do the new turn signals and headlight, the latter requiring some rearranging of the wiring at the front of the bike.
[Update: This will probably be updated frequently. People keep asking me for more pictures. Stuff is going fast. The sissybar is going to Taiwan! Damn, I haven't even STARTED with ebay yet...]
On the heels of my last post about selling the D&Ds, I just listed several items on BonnevilleAmerica.com in the classifieds. Here is the gallery of images, but I don’t have the prices listed in the gallery, only on BA.com.
Current Item list:
The aforementioned D&D mufflers–need stripping and coating SOLD
Triumph tall sissybar and luggage rack–usually a very popular item SOLD
Stock tail light housing–good for blacking out while still saving your original chrome piece
Triumph chrome rear brake reservoir cover–chromosexual approved SOLD
Stock dash–again, good for color-coordinating with your tank or just blacking it out SOLD
Optronics fog lights–cheap, lots of light SOLD
Triumph chrome front brake reservoir cover with British flag sticker–also chromosexual approved SOLD
George Foreman Grill (stock sprocket cover)–good for hacking up and customizing
Aftermarket horn–meh
Triumph chrome control levers–again, chromosexual approved SOLD
Phantom Pad–weird, but if that’s your thing, okay–WON’T FIT A TRIUMPH
Thunderbird Sport front rim, 17×3.5″, with spokes–good for you fat front tire fans, 1″ shorter than stock, 1″ wider than stock–laces right on to the stock America hub SOLD
Triumph tachometer–could be fried, need someone to test it for me and only pay me if it works (which means my bike is still screwed up) SOLD
Triumph rear fender luggage rack–still chromosexual approved SOLD
I’ve been meaning to sell some stuff. I’m not ready to list everything but I do have a thing or two with which to kick this pig.
Now that I have some Specialty Spares slashcuts, I’m going to dump the D&Ds I have. Nothing against D&Ds, I just love the sound of Specialty Spares. I picked the D&Ds up off ebay a couple years ago and they’ve been sitting on a shelf in my garage since. They have some surface rust. My plan was to have them media-blasted and ceramic-coated black (keeping the heat shields chrome and the exhaust tips polished). Since I bought these with the plan to black them out, NewSpeedmaster started selling black D&Ds but they cost some bank. I got an estimate from Jet-Hot of $115 for the ceramic-coating. If I remember correctly Wolfe will do it for less. Even with shipping you’ll have Black D&Ds for less than half the cost of new pipes. Even less if you go low-tech with some BBQ paint like some have done.
I paid $75 plus shipping for these pipes and that’s all I want out of them. Here’s a picture from the original ebay ad. I’ll take some fresh shots of my own this weekend. The Specialty Spares were shipped from Iowa to Montana for less than $20 so I can’t imagine it costing much more than that for these (though they are longer). So let’s call it an even $100 shipped.
Next I’ll be listing a tall Triumph Sissybar with Luggage Rack and my HD Hard Bags. Gotta take some pictures first, though.
is still perfectly happy with his 5th gen iPod Nano and scroll wheel. The hype monster failed. 2010/09/01
Never thought I'd say this, "No, I don't want a new work laptop." Not if it's still just 32bit WinXP. Don't wanna reload all my software. 2010/09/01
@susanandrus Yeah, as I said over on FB, if someone can come get them, great. If not, bye-bye. I don't have time to be that nice about it... 2010/09/01
