Harrison Idaho

So early this spring Lisa bought her first road legal motorcycle. I made a quick post about her new purchase which is a 2006 Honda Rebel 250. It is black with some chrome and saddlebags bags and a windscreen. It had about 6000 miles on her and looked brand new. She has been riding as much as possible this year weather permitting as being a new rider is still a bit daunted by bad weather and quite simply just wants to ride when it is fairly nice out. She commutes to work quite often and has gotten well over 70mpg on the bike. This translates into almost two weeks of commutes on 2.2 gallons.

Last weekend Lisa was bound and determined to take a bit of a day trip since we were to have a nice day in October. She left the location up to me and I decided on going to Harrison Idaho. This town is about a mile square but is on the southeast tip of Lake Coeur D Alene where the sunsets are some of the most beautiful I have seen. They were having a small Octoberfest and thought it would be a fun ride to the little town. We headed out and rode the first 30 miles to the Coeur D Alene Casino and grabbed a quick drink and walked around the casino a bit. There were a lot of Harleys there as usual and I still find it funny the looks we get when she pulls up on that Honda and me on my KLR. We departed the casino and headed east into Heyburn State Park where the roads are windy and smooth. The speeds are reasonable and Lisa really showed how much better of a rider she has become over the summer. Smooth transitions between corners and nice throttle roll on coming out. The little Honda tops out around 70 or so and if there is a long hill maybe 65 so a few times it was interesting trying to get around some slow moving vehicles but she did really well. She has great vision while riding. I see her cover her brake when a car approaches an intersection and she always watches her mirrors closely when stopped.

So making our way to Harrison we stopped a few more times just to chat and enjoy north Idaho. When we got to Harrison it turned out to be a 80 mile jaunt and obviously 160 round trip. We had a nice meal in a local pub and soaked up the atmosphere of the day. I really can't remember a more beautiful day in October to share with a absolutely gorgeous woman on a motorcycle ride.

This was the longest ride to date for her and we plan many more. She is thinking maybe next year about moving up to a bigger bike and really piling on the miles or smiles as I like to say.

-Charlie-

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-