Clegg78

100%, I love this town, and I spend far too little time here... so ... I am going to make a day of it while the remains of a hurricane drown this area. 

36 minutes ago, 2and3cylinders said:

Only 10k in 3 years?! 😉

Bridgestone T32?

Have fun and be safe!

Rocky Mountain High!

 

Yeah!  Well, one of those years was the pandemic where I only really got out once for any longer ride and with that I blew the oil pan out    I dont get out as much as I'd like, I am stupid busy with many other things it seems. 

Yeah the T32s, I love em.  I've had Road, 2,3,4,5 on a different bike and liked them a lot, I think the T32 is on par if not better than the Roads.   I rode them in deep standing water today aggressively and they just took it.   I had to lean over hard in a corner after a dude chose to just come into my lane, and the tires stuck like glue in driving rain. 

Off to Canyonlands and Moab tomorrow.     haha weather looks like garbage tomorrow with the potential for strong thunderstorms all day and mainly mid day... so I am going to chill in Telluride for another day.   And go to Moab thurs...   this is quite a dynamic trip

22 hours ago, betoney said:

Continue across Idaho to Ontario and continue through John Day Oregon to 395, take 395 North to Pendleton, AMAZING road, you will NOT regret it.

I appreciate the recommendation, but I had a fixed number of days and was already doing all 500+mi days, and a one 600mi to get where I was going.    Because my destination in the Tri Cities is also miserable for AQI, I chose to change my plans this morning.

I woke up and saw the predictions were worse for the next week in terms of smoke and such.  So... in 15 minutes, I made a new plan.  I rode to Telluride via a nice fun route going down the 10th Mtn Hwy (24), Independence Pass, McClure Pass.    ~ 400mi  but 9 hours of riding.   
 

The air was clear, it rained a bit toward the last half the day,  but overall was a very very good ride.   I haven't been to Telluride on the bike in a while, so its good to be back.  Now to figure out a plan for tomorrow... I figure I am just going to go places randomly for the next few days.  I am thinking Mesa Verde/Durango which I havent been to for 10 years, and Canyonlands Needles / Moab.   Definitely not as much in mileage as the original plan... but god damn I love not breathing smoke. 

I threw the bike around a lot today... which happens to be my bikes 3 yr anniversary, and the day I crossed 10,000mi on it!     (Felt pretty good about the chicken strip situation... I was flying down McClure pass following a Porsche who was going for it  )

 

So Idaho hasn't go better in terms of fire this week...     The route  to Lolo is super bad, like high 200-300s for AQI.   I wont ride in that... so now I have no hotel for the 2nd night and am going to just pick a route in the morning after doing the EBR-1 tour near Arco.   Some areas on 93 going up to Lolo have almost no visibility, and Lolo pass has warnings for smoke banks .

2 hours ago, nhchris said:

Clegg, are those the pressures you normally run on a tour?

No, those are artificially low due to me rebinding the sensors this morning and having to release and rescrew them on a few times letting air out every time.   I just didn't top off the tires after.   Also the TPMS unit reads 2PSI under for both compared to my hand gauge.   It's a consistent 2PSI

Since I'm a fatty,  I run at 36/42 (cold) when touring.   All my cases are within the weight limits in the case (20# for both side, and the gear inside the top case is ~10#  I am actually leaving some stuff home this trip to lower the weight.   Then I have a dry bag that goes on the passenger seat that has extra water, shoes, and some bulky items like insulated shirt, rain jacket). 

The bike fully loaded and ready to roll in the morning. 

I leave tomorrow on my ride and the last 2 days have been chaos of me designing and printing farkles for my bike

1. I made a little shelf thingy for the rear top case (Yamaha 50L) that has 2 lugs that go into some of the depressions in the bottom and keep my photo/laptop backpack upright and as far toward the front as possible.   I put some small velcro to keep it in place, but the weight of the pack keeps it there as well.   I've been wanting to do this after getting frustrated at my snacks and such getting mangled by the pack.  Also keeping the pack toward the front as much as possible helps with the weight on the bike. 

2. I also... and I am pretty happy about this... made a mount to hold my TPMS at eye level.   I took inspiration from that other GPS mount a guy sells.   (I've never bought one, but just have seen it around and appreciated how it mounted).   I took a bunch of measurements on the mechanism, and after 3 tries had a design that fit snug and now I have my own template to make other kinds of mounts on that screen adjuster.   For now it just has a big tab off to the side holding the TPMS on with velcro.   Its clean and is a big improvement since it was down low before on the bars. 

Total time to design both of these things was ~ 3 hours.     

38 minutes ago, Wintersdark said:

So far, Lolo Pass is my favourite road in the US.  I'm sure there's better, but of what I've ridden, it's the best.  I just LOVE the scenery riding along the river valley, there's lots of high speed sweepers and tighter corners that really thrill at speed. 

My comment to that sign is in Mr Burns voice "Excellent.."

I also changed my route through Idaho, Bailed on going to Ketchum, and am now riding up to Lolo, MT and over to Lewiston -> Richland, WA the day after, side stepping some of the bigger fires and biggest smoke... hopefully.... 

Did a 4 hour close to 180mi ride today to shake down the bike before heading out on an estimated 2800mi trip over 7 days.   I loaded up the cases with bottles of water to simulate the weight I am planning on in all the cases.  Rode all day in 40-55F rain in the front range around Denver/Boulder/FoCo.     I love riding in the rain so much.    Only thing that I need to tweak is my Shoei Neotec 2 leaking a bit at the upper seal.   well... that and my bike is dirty as sin now.  Going to clean the chain, but that's it... the bike is going to get dirty on the ride in a few days anyway  

1 hour ago, betoney said:

I was looking at Google Maps this morning and they have a "Wildfires" layer you can enable. OMG, you are correct, the amount of wildfires is amazing.

A buddy and I have a "last roadtrip of the season" planned in 10 days which includes SE Washington, Western Idaho and NE Oregon, I am keeping a close eye on wildfires and road closures.  Hope you can find an alternate route and salvage most of your trip.

I'll let you know what I see, but I am canceling my night in Ketchum, and may figure out a different place to stay and still be able to do Grimes pass... its supposed to rain this weekend and cool down a bit so hopefully these fires back off a tad. 

On 8/14/2022 at 8:34 PM, betoney said:

Well Lolo Pass between Lewiston and Missoula is a legendary bucket list ride, and simply MUST be experienced if you are in the area. 

If I had only one choice, I would ride from Sun Valley to Stanley and then continue to Lolo and Lewiston...but thats me. 👍

Is there any way you could ride one route on your way to Washington and the on your return trip? 

So it seems mother nature had some other plans... The road to Stanley is closed due to wild fire, and it seems most of Idaho is on fire now... so thats fun. 

That thing looks plush!  I dig it!

2 hours ago, 2and3cylinders said:

Mine work well but I mostly rest the backstop my calves on them as leg room is tight for me

I have a set of those as well, I couldnt get them to stop rotating on the Givi bars, so I binned them.  They are nice for the price.   In the end I like the ones I picked up a while ago, but the only work on vertical bars which... isn't great for the Givi bars.   But I made it work. 

Did a mod in prep of the WA/Hanford trip next month.  I have Givi crash bars on my Tracer but didnt like where the highway pegs I bought mounted.  So ... Went into CAD and designed up a new mount that let me move them more forward, kept the look nice and clean, and made minimal modifications to the bars. 

Only modification to the bars was a 6mm hole drilled into the bottom both bars. 
 

There is a 3mm bolt through the center of the bottom cap with a lock nut on the top of it, with washers top and bottom to act as a indexing stud into the 6mm hole.  This stops the very heavy-duty CF Nylon mount blocks from rotating on the shafts.   In the end it's a nice neutral forward position for my legs and when I don't want to use them they are easily tucked away.

There are some quirks to the design that I will need to work on at some point, but it works and will work fine for the trip coming up.   

31 minutes ago, betoney said:

Well Lolo Pass between Lewiston and Missoula is a legendary bucket list ride, and simply MUST be experienced if you are in the area. 

If I had only one choice, I would ride from Sun Valley to Stanley and then continue to Lolo and Lewiston...but thats me. 👍

Is there any way you could ride one route on your way to Washington and the on your return trip? 

After Hanford, I need to go down to Boise, that day, and then SLC after (I have a new job and limited vacation or I would take a few more days in WA.  I'll likely be back!)  So I only get one of those routes to do. 

On 8/13/2022 at 2:13 PM, betoney said:

If I could offer a few suggestions on Idaho routing from Sun Valley, either heading to or returning from SE Washington. If you have the time do both, they are fantastic. 

Sun Valley, Stanley, Lolo, Lewiston

Sun Valley, Stanley, Grimes Pass, Lewiston

 

Thanks!  and yeah Grimes Pass is high on my list for the ride!    The other route looks fun as well!  I really only have time for one of them.  Its a long ride to Richland/Kennewick, which would you recommend more?

I didn't do anything to the bike today, but I did just plan a week long ride up to WA from Denver.    Should be around 2600mi round trip.  The trip is a check box on a bunch of places I wanted to see in ID and WA.   Going to see some sights around Idaho Falls (EBR-1 Tour, INL),  Then the Lava fields outside that area,  Going to stay at Sun Valley/Ketchum ID.  Then Ride up to the Tri Cities area in WA, and go to the Hanford B-Reactor tour.   Then head back to Boise, then SLC through Nevada/Wendover/Bonneville, then home. 

The bike is in fine condition but I need to go through it a bit just to be sure.   I am trying to figure out a better highway peg setup, the setup I used last year worked, but presented some danger to hitting my left shin...   

Great to know! Thanks Maverick! 

Great review,  I have been curious myself about the 6 vs 2, initially I heard people liking the 6 more.  I've been pondering dropping the 6+2 sku just to simplify things. 

and could you clarify "Loosened all the mounting bolts"?  (as I keep trying to troubleshoot for this one customer), like the 4 bottom bracket bolts or are there others you loosened? 

Thanks Ned!

Thanks folks, I appreciate it!   Given the close to 200 of these kits I've sold all over the world, I assume there isn't a big issue I missed  

Not to bump this thread too much from the past - But I have a customer who is saying they cant raise the rear of the tank the 3-4mm needed to get into the offset bushings for the seat slope mod I sell for the 2021+ Tracer. 

Since I don't own a 2021, I wanted to ask anyone in here who installed the kit, is there anything different or holding down the tank so it cant be lifted up much once the rear bolts are removed?  Trying to figure out why this one customer is having issues?  From the service manual and such I cant see anything holding it back. 

So... I replaced the front brake switch because the recall switch was broken and wouldn't let me use cruise control.   And I got tired of waiting on the dealer so I just ordered the switch from PartZilla and it worked...

BUT...   I somehow knocked the cruise control button off the left-hand controls... the button to activate cruse is gone.   Mother F&*(!er ...    So since I doubt Yamaha would sell just that part... I now need to source a replacement left hand control cluster just to get the button for the cruise control.   I could potentially 3D print a replacement, but I don't have the source one to pattern it after and I don't want to risk breaking the mounting tabs for the button. 

Huh, so this just started on my 900GT...  I haven't tried using cruise since having the recall on the front switch done... and now it has issues.    Not great... 

I did multiple 2000mi trips on the stock seat, and one 1800mi on the comfort seat on my 900GT before working to adjust some comfort issues that were minor I thought.  Once I corrected the slope the stock seat may be better than the comfort seat!    I think the bike works either way, and depending on your arms, riding position, leg length on the pegs, etc... can all alter this.   

For me it went from me having some arm pains and junk pains at the end of the day, every day... to really no issues to speak of 10 hours into a ride!  its all YMMV, that's the perk of a $20-30 part to try  

2 hours ago, vancuy said:

Ordered mine last night, it costs a lot to have it shipped to Australia. Hopefully this will give me the answer I was looking for. 

Hope so!  And yeah shipping has been jumping in price the last 2 months unfortunately.  I’ve been able to keep my costs relatively in check, so my parts haven’t jumped.   But USPS is getting more expensive, I wish there were reliable alternatives to get to Aus!