I now need to work out how flat back the mirror shine because my forks are now TOO SHINY!!
Yeah, I hate it when that happens.....
Meanwhile, back at the ranch: I had a nice two day trip on the ST1300 with my riding buddies down to Cornwall Ontario and then north to the ski resort of Mont-Tremblant, Quebec. It was scenic and very hot (35C+ = 90 deg. F) on the first day followed by temps fully 40 deg. F cooler the next day. Oh well, if I didn’t have a sense of humour about the weather, I shouldn’t have been born a Canadian. After that trip, I had a little consulting gig in Niagara Falls and then rode home on Sat. afternoon having logged about 2200 km (around 1350 miles) between Tuesday and Saturday. Frankly, that is a pretty easy pace on the big ST with her on-board restroom, galley and lounge area...
.
On Sunday, I rode the much less luxuriously appointed Lucille
to London, ON to have a nice shiny new o-ring drive chain installed. I had a nice visit with Lakeview on the way and also with RobinC who gave me another piece of truck mud flap material for one of his patented anti-crack XS650-proof license plate solutions (see photos below). I even got to take daughter #3 out for dinner and then stayed with friends prior to arriving at the WolfeWorx shop this morning at 9:00 AM to have the new chain riveted on. Following that, I nipped the 185 km (115 miles) home to Windsor and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the office trying to clear the decks prior to the big ride to North Carolina. I gotta getta life...
The quick trip to get a new chain was prompted by my one bad experience with my first XS650 (a nice 1975 B-model) back around 1979 when I had a master link fail at highway speed. I still have no idea why it happened - I had been riding all that day (in fact for several days on a trip) and I had a girl on the back when suddenly, I heard a loud “bang” and the engine revved out. The chain puked out onto the road behind the bike but it cracked the LH engine case cover on its way out. Fortunately, there isn’t any oil in there and I was able to have the damage repaired by a talented welder, but I have always been leary of clip-style master links since then.
Anyhow - problem solved and Lucille is now noticeably smoother I’d say. I’m up to around 800 km (around 520 miles) since the rebuild and she is running sweet as pie now - all ready for the VYR event in NC.
Just two more sleeps....
Cheers,
Pete