keithu

You are welcome! This forum is a great resource, I appreciate having access to it.

Nice ride. Next time you're in the Grants Pass area, I strongly recommend OR-227 from Canyonville to Trail. You can then loop south on OR-62 towards Medford and back to Grants Pass. OR-227 is probably my second favorite road in Oregon right now. Chilliwack is lovely BTW! I've been there a few times on business.

Also, don't make assumptions about fit based on past experience. I always used to wear Shoei RF-series full face helmets, but their modulars don't fit me at all. I can't wear Shuberth, either. I currently have a Scorpion Exo GT3000. It fits very well and has excellent airflow. But it is a tad loud.

Don't forget OR-218 between Shaniko and Fossil! I don't think you can pick a bad road in central/eastern Oregon.

I drove the Alcan in a car about 15 years ago. It was a beautiful drive, I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more without my father in law in the car.

I'm in Albany. Unfortunately I travel a lot for work currently and all the cool riding events always seem to conflict with my travel schedule.

Nice, glad you had fun in spite of the rain. Sadly the 12th is no bueno for me.

I have a friend who rode last summer up Cassiar and then around and back south on the Alaska Highway. He and his son rode a pair of V-Strom 650s. They said they enjoyed Cassiar much more and they wished they had just backtracked back down it to return south. I look forward to your report and pics!

No radiator guard. I'm thinking about getting one though.

I did a loop up into the Oregon Cascades Saturday morning. I found a bit of snow near Tombstone Summit, but the mountains are ready for riding.

They've been all over. I've done OR250s that went east through the Gorge, various loops around the Willamette Valley, some coast runs. They do a nice job of picking interesting routes. Did you ride it? Where did you go?

I'm definitely interested, but that'll be my first day home after a two week business trip. I've ridden many OR250s and they're fun, but I probably need to skip it this time around.

I hate to be a buzzkill but windscreens usually have plastic bolts for safety. The idea is if you hit something and your body goes forward into the windscreen, the screws break instead of the screen. You probably don't want the windscreen to fracture into pointy shards while you're passing through it.

Yes, I suppose that's true. I've been averse to hydraulic clutches ever since the clutch master cylinder failed on my VF700 Interceptor way back in 1991. I was riding in to work wearing my US Navy dress whites, and they looked a little less dressy after being doused in hydraulic fluid. That was the first and last bike I ever owned with a hydraulic clutch. It's a personal hangup, I know. I've definitely experienced a few clutch cable failures over the years, but none of them ever ruined my pants.

That's true, but now you need to flush clutch fluid on the same interval as brake fluid. You've traded one kind of maintenance for another.

I visit Nashville frequently on business but never have my bike, sadly. It looks like there is some great riding around there. The weather is usually nice, too, although I just escaped the snow and ice there yesterday.

At the risk of being scolded for off topic discussion, I advise against this. Lubricant residue in the cable is probably toxic to your cat.

I suppose the joke resonates better with Americans. The baseball cap is our nation's second greatest invention after the Saturn V rocket, and we needed help from some Germans for that.

Just making light of the sideways direction this thread has taken. No offense intended.

Good info, thanks Piotrek. It's critical to use a compatible grease any time you lubricate a bearing. Incompatible lubricants - for example, lithium and petroleum grease - will break each other down and destroy the bearing.

Charlatan! You don't even own a Tracer, do you? Here is a photo of the person who designed the Tracer/FJ windscreen:

Is lithium what Yamaha used in manufacturing?

I went with the stock sizes, 16T front and 45T rear. I can't remember the brand, it's whatever my local shop ordered for me. Chain is DID 525 in steel finish. I thought about a gold finish but it didn't seem worth the extra cost and work (steel was available with 110 links, gold had to be cut to length.

Oops, right. For some reason I was thinking you were in Oregon.

Piotrek, is the February show in Portland?