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Avon Storms

February 3, 2008 in 06 FJR 1300, Motorcycling by MAD | No comments

At the last tire change I put on a pair of Avon Storms.

I decided to try the Storms because many folks claim the are “the @#$@$”. Outstanding handling and performance as well as reasonable life.

I had to replace the first rear right at 6k, which considering I got a good 7k out of the previous Metzlers wasn’t what I had in mind. The front still looked ‘great’ although the handling was starting to deteriorate. I mounted a new rear and marched on.

We’ll 5000 miles later I was very sorry. The front went to hell at about 8000 miles total, but we were on our way to the Void Rally and didn’t have time. The tread still looked good but it had started to wear really lopsided.

After the rally I ordered up a new set of Pilot Road 2′s. Now weather and other factors meant it would be about 3 months before I’d get those mounted.

The following are photos of the Storms:

2nd Rear after 5k miles. Well into the wear bars but probably has another 2k left in it. Somewhat flat spotted in the middle but I’d venture out of those 5k miles, only 1200 are slab, so I’m not impressed.

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The front:

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I didn’t like the Storms and won’t buy them again.

  1. They took a crap load of weight to balance.
  2. I didn’t like them on tar snakes and painted lines. Very, very slippery.
  3. I felt their wet weather performance was only mediocre, not outstanding.
  4. Life is poor in my opinion. To me there were a step backwards from the Metz Z6′s

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Let the fun begin [FJR 1300 Final Drive Seals]

October 29, 2007 in 06 FJR 1300, Motorcycling by MAD | No comments

This starts back here at “My FJR thinks it’s a Harley”, or better yet a BMW.

I received all the seals that I ordered from University Motors in Fargo, ND. (Whom I highly recommend. They saved me almost $40 in parts after shipping.)

Tonight I started tearing into it. I drained the final drive (oil was still pretty clean), then proceeded to remove the rear wheel and take the pumpkin off.

Since it was leaking from the weep hole, I really expected to see a LOT of fluid in the swing arm. I at least expected a good amount. I didn’t find that. I know for a fact it was leaking from/through there as it was dripping.

Grr….

I also expected to see the inside towards the final drive at the end of the drive shaft good and lubed. It was, but not as much as expected.

It almost looked like it was leaking between here as the bottom of the entire final drive was pretty nasty too, but I think that’s only because it ran to the bottom.

You can see the bottom half (not on the towel) is dirtier around the plastic shield but it’s not as nasty as I’d expect if it was leaking from here.

I’m a little torn at the moment as to which seals to replace. I have them all :)

Seal #34 is easy, #12 not so much, as I’m going to have to find that ‘special’ tool.

I’m going to post up on the FJRForum and see what the consensus is.

Update: Well, after inspecting all the parts, I can’t really see where it’s leaking from.  I still think #34 or #12, others on the board thing I have an issue with O-Ring #20 but I’m not convinced.

#34 was ‘dirty’ so I cleaned everything backup and reassembled it.  Did the normal maintenance for this time of year, greased the splines and changed all the fluids.  We’ll see if it continues to leak.

After putting it all back together I came in to find that I’d received the ECU recall notice.  So if I’m taking it in for that, might as well have them fix the seals under warranty at the same time.

We’ll see how it goes.  I really haven’t had the altitude surging issue that others have noticed or had issue with.

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Run for the hills…

October 7, 2007 in 06 FJR 1300, Motorcycling by MAD | No comments

This morning I had to run down to La Grange, KY to meet a fellow FJR rider. He recently put in a bulk order for oil filters, crush washers and spark plugs. I needed to meet with him and pickup the stuff that I ordered.

$11 for a Yamaha oil filter is obscene, $6 from University motors is much closer to reality.

I left at 0-dark thirty and hit the slab. Riding through a sunrise is still one of those simply awesome things you have to experience to understand.

After the I-75/I71 split I got off the highway and hit some of the more fun roads on the way down.

We met for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel, then proceeded to wear out some of Southwestern/western Kentucky’s better roads.

380 miles later and I’m home, with parts in hand.

Twas a good day.

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EOM Days 1 & 2

September 17, 2007 in 06 FJR 1300, Motorcycling, Motorcycling & Ride Reports by MAD | No comments

The 2007 EOM trip is well underway…

We all met up Thursday at 7:15am at Bob Evans, had a great breakfast than hit the road. Participants in this ride were Dad, myself, Joe, Adrian, and Nate from Indiana.

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4 FJR’s and a BMW. We headed out on the calculated route, hitting twisties where ever possible.

We made good time and stopped in Gauley for lunch at the Glen Ferris Hotel. It was interesting to say the least. Lunch was OK, and they were sssllloooowww. It was a quaint little place, a lot like the golden lamb in Lebanon, but without the class. After lunch Adrian split form the pack to get his tires changed at a dealer in Princeton.

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From there we stopped at the New River Bridge… We started to ride down to the bottom but Mr. Garmin kept routing us in circles over gravel roads so we bagged that idea and headed for the Briar Inn.

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We got to the hotel around 4:30pm or so, checked in, relaxed a little bit, BS’d with a few folks then headed out to dinner at the Ruby Tuesdays.

After dinner, there was plenty of bench racing and chit chat. We turned in with a plan to hit the short route on Friday because the weather showed rain moving in. :(

We hit the parking lot at 8am and rolled out around 8:15, heading west and north hoping to hold off the rain as long as possible.

We ended up running up 220 north to Hot Springs then back down the mountain.

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220 was awesome!. On the way back down the hill just as we started heading towards 311 it started to rain, just a sprinkle but it was coming.

18 was a good road but with the wetness it wasn’t in our interest to ride hard so we took it easy. The longer we road the more it rained. We got to 311 and decided to press on up and over the mountain. Towards the top of the mountain we ran into some pretty intense fog. Down the other side in New Castle, we decided we needed a break from the rain and decided to get lunch. We asked a few locals where we should eat and they directed us to Pine Top restaurant. We all had the buffet which wasn’t too bad all in all.

The ride back to the Briar Inn was horrible, constant rain. The Frog Toggs worked great, the only part of me that got wet was my hands. Both set of ‘water proof’ gloves turned out to be not so water proof. Time to order some Aerostitch triple digits.

More later…

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A Day at Kil-Kare

July 8, 2007 in Motorcycling by MAD | No comments

A buddy of mine that I’ve known for 30+ years is a die hard motorcycle drag racer. A privateer on a budget, runs what he’s got and gets the job done.

I hadn’t seen him race but one time before and something broke or it rained, I can’t remember but I didn’t get to see him make more than one pass. I talked to him earlier in the week and found out that he no longer races at Edgewater. In fact very few bikes do anymore because the owner is an asshat and doesn’t much care for his customers so they’ve moved to Kil-Kare in Xenia Ohio.

I rode up, on the FJR and planned to take some pics. I got there in time for his second practice run, around 2pm. I was able to snap pics of that run, and his dial-in run before the camera battery died. It would have lasted all day had I charged it the night before but I wasn’t sure I was going to go.

In any event, it was a long, blistering hot day and stupid me wore jeans so I was mostly uncomfortable all day. (I wouldn’t ride in shorts but was too dumb to wear shorts and toss some riding pants on over them just to get there. Man I wasn’t thinking straight today.)

If you haven’t been to Kil-Kare, it’s a good time. There is absolutely no way to get out of the sun though unless you bring an awning or something. Did I mention it was hot?

After his second test run he had to replace his clutch. 2 of the plates shattered into about 2 dozen pieces each. That took about 40 minutes.

Butch was on today, hitting his dial in numbers, making good lights and slaying folks left and right.

He took down quite a few high dollar bikes and made the finals before his clutch came apart again in the final run of the day.

He was hitting 9.69, 9.68, 967 all day long like clockwork. His luck or rather his clutch didn’t hold together in the final run, or I think he would have taken that too. He was spot-on all night.

Photos in the Gallery here.

 

From Kil-Kare_070707

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Sciatic nerve, what a pain in the butt…

June 4, 2007 in Miscellaneous, Motorcycling by MAD | No comments

During my MD2020 ride, towards then end of our 1300 mile ride, I was in agony.

Now in the past, I’ve ridden more miles than we did. I’ve done a couple saddle sore rides, all of which took some riding to get to to get started and to get home. More miles in the same amount of time.

My past experience with longer rides normally goes like this:

About 300 miles or 6 hours in, my buns get tired and sore.
About 400 miles or 8 hours in, my buns kinda hurt.
At about 500 miles, my buns are just numb, but not painful, either that or I just don’t care anymore.

I’ve done a lot of miles on the ZX11 on the stock seat, then on a much better Corbin saddle. On the FJR, I’ve done a couple long trips, one to NH, and a bunch of miles to the EOM meet, riding during the meet, and back home, all of them on the stock seat. I have an Air Hawk to get a little comfort now and then but it was more for a change of pace, it’s not the end all – be all answer for me. But it made things a little tolerable.

Now back to the agony part.

During our last 200 miles, I was hating life. I have (3) leg positions on the bike. The standard pegs, the passenger pegs (which I use from time to time), and the newly installed highway pegs just for this trip cause I knew there’d be some time my legs would get tired.

During that last 200 miles I was constantly switching looking for some relief. I’d change pegs then in less than 5 minutes the agony and pain would be back. I could feel it down my leg, and in the end my feet were throbbing. This wasn’t good. I described it to Kyle and he said, my sciatic nerve(s) ware being irritated. He gets that sometimes from sitting in a car too long.

Man that sucked.

We made it back but I could not have ridden another 100 miles, no way, no how. All other aspects of my body were fine. I wasn’t that tired, and my back, neck and shoulders were good, which usually they cause me some pain.

The ride home was long, but we stopped about every 100 miles for either gas, or a bathroom break and that helped break it up. Even so, when I got home my rear was in bad bad shape. It’s hard to describe this pain, it wasn’t a saddle sore type of pain, no, it wasn’t plain soreness. This was agony from the inside out. I could feel it down the back of my legs, but at least my feet didn’t hurt.

After some digging on the net, and talking to a guy at work I decided to go for some massage therapy.

The lady worked on my gluts and thighs. She said I was unbelievably tight. But I think I got some relief. Actually, I was very sore the next day. But I felt like her poking, pushing and prodding did me some good, I think.

Sunday I went on the BMW ride, not a lot of miles about 250 round trip, but towards the end it was all I could do to ride home. I’m still aching as I write this.

Don’t know what the solution is, more than likely a new/better seat. Something that provides more support.

I even took some ibuprofen last night, which in the past has broke me out in hives, but I needed some relief.

I go back to the massage therapist tomorrow and I’ll have her work the area again. But I’m weary about riding for a while. The bike is calling me, but I’m scared :(

If you have any sure fire relief for sciatic pain, please post a comment cause at this point I’m willing to try just about anything. It’s not sciatica, because it doesn’t start at the base of my spine, it starts in the middle of my buttocks, and runs down the back of my legs. I have no back pain, none, only a burning stabbing pain in my gluts down my legs. Or maybe it is back related and I just don’t know it or can’t relate my pain to my back? In any event some time off the bike is in order until I get this figured out.

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