Tech Day 2010

May 15th was this years tech day held at a local riders (Rick) house in the Spokane Valley. We had about 13 KLRs show up and many of them took a turn in the garage for anything from minor repairs to valve checks and Doohickey replacements. The KLR has pretty much been the same motorcycle since 1987 and has only had one fairly major re-work beginning in 2008. The only real issue that the KLR has is what is called the Balancer Chain Adjuster or in the KLR world a "Doohickey" We had two of our riders crack open the case this year to replace the weak part from Kawasaki with the proven parts from Eagle Mike. When we got the side covers off of Kent's 2005 and removed the flywheel we noticed that the tensioner spring was completely gone. Sadly a common issue with this bike but we now had to try and find the spring before it ended up like this one from my bike.

We ended up completely removing the water pump and clutch side cover and digging the spring out of the oil passage screen where it was lodged in. This is a bit of work but seems to be a common place to find things lost in the engine. Obviously much better to do more work than have a trashed motor. Kent was a busy boy for most of the day as he also lubed his steering head bearings, and put bigger spacers above his fork springs to pre-load the springs more.

Norris made some really cool little kickstand pads that made the footprint of our kickstands a touch larger so when we park the heavy bikes on soft dirt or hot asphalt it spreads the weights out some so the kickstand won't sink and cause the behemoth to fall over. It may just look like a big dirt bike but mine weighs in at 430 pounds. For just a small disc under the kickstand it was a good improvement.

After many more wrenches turned we all decided it was time to go for a little bit of a ride. I mean what good is it to work on on your motorcycle all day and then just park it. We decided to head into Idaho a little ways and fuel up then head towards Mt. Spokane and ride the back roads and see if we could get to the top and drop out on a different road. We cruised all around and came upon some dead ends and typical kelly humps blocking the roads. We stirred up lots of dirt and had a really good time. It is so interesting riding with people of all different skill levels and set-ups on their bikes. Dual sport motorcycles offer a range of tires then can really effect how they perform on and off road. I have fairly aggressive knobbies on mine but it does surprisingly well on the street.

A beautiful day for a ride with good people and looking forward to the next one. These are a great group of guys with a whole bunch on knowledge to pass on to keep these great machines on the move and running for a long time to come.

Ride Safe

-Charlie-

Ahhh.....memories

I am like a lot of people nowadays and have some sort of social networking. I can't stand Myspace and seem to not mind Facebook. I find I am able to hide some things I don't want to see and have a little fun with it here and there with silly quizzes. Anyway a few months ago an old friend of mine messaged me reminding me of high school days when we stayed up all night and drove to a city and listened to music by the lake. I mean to most people this may sound boring or mundane but at the time I/we had no idea what we were creating.


So I came across this message from my buddy again and decided to look up the one of the songs he mentioned that we were listening to at the time. I found it on I-tunes and just had to download it for the heck of it. When I played this song on the computer I found myself grinning from ear to ear so hard it almost hurt. Amazingly I knew the words from start to finish and as I listened to the song part of my grin was from the visions of memories jumping in my mind. The song for this story really makes no difference as it makes it more relatable to people. I have been a music nut since being a young child as my Dad listened to all sorts of genres and we never went anywhere without tunes. Once again....another memory. I have found now that I am in my late 30s that no matter what happens in your life, be it good, bad, or indifferent, you are always creating a memory. I mean always. I, like many people, love to sit around with friends and reminisce about times past. Sometimes we laugh so hard my face hurts the next day and am now realizing that the laughing will like all other events turn into another great memory.

Memories are more powerful than we realize. They can bring back emotions from the day of an event almost exactly as they happened. I have experienced some things in my 36 years that I would not wish upon my greatest enemy but they are what have made me what I am today. I have also had some of the greatest experiences that when I think of them, I smile, laugh and even sometimes cry. In my short lifetime I have been around the world. I have crab fished in Alaska and been on every major island in the Aleutian Chain. I have been in the Air Force and launched the bad ass A-10 Thunderbolt against a dug in enemy. Almost died in a C-130 crash in Kuwait seeing many injured and dead changed me forever. I have worked for the Montana Fish and Game and compared fish counts with co-workers so we could race back to the good holes. Snowmobiling with friends in the winter and riding motorcycles on the same trails in the summer. I am proud of my 9 years work in law enforcement and the help I gave to many, many people in my community to get them on the good road. I may have only impacted a few out of the thousands but that is ok. Latest and greatest of course is my little family. They have become my center and my life revolves around them. I sure hope I am providing good memories for them as we move through life. My noggin is so full of memories with all the things I have seen and done and to be honest would not change a thing at all.

My most recent memory was just last weekend. This is actually what has prompted this “memories” posting. The family has recently acquired a little boat for fishing and my Dad, Mom and I went to a local lake to fish together for the first time in probably 20 years. The wind was blowing and it was a little cool but dang we had a good time. Catching fish was just a bonus as I know now and seeing my Mom bring in a really nice Rainbow Trout is absolutely priceless. She was grinning and so excited to get it in the boat while my Dad and I were trying to tell her all our little tips for landing it in about two seconds. Fishing is one of my best memories as a kid and it has now spanned almost 4 decades. I now have a little 11 year old buddy to fish with and now I know how my Dad felt all those years.

Older people always told me growing up to stop and think before I acted and it would keep me out of trouble. Sometimes thinking about it made me want to do it more. Looking back some of those dumb decisions have turned into the best memories of my life. So here’s to more memories…….



-Charlie-