TCFJR

Monthly Archives: August 2009

August 28, 2009

IBR 2009

The 2009 edition of the Iron Butt Rally started earlier this week. For reasons not completely known yet, the IBA put a general lock-down on blog postings and SPOT tracks from the participants. This FJR Forum post has been the central location for up-to-date info. Warchild is the chief tech inspector for the IBR, and has been making regular updates to the post every hour or two since the rally began.

I've been contributing to the post by providing some on-line tools:

http://tcfjr.goptin.com/ibr/index.xml - an RSS feed for the official IBR Daily Reports. I wrote a script that checks the IBR index page every 20 minutes, and rebuilds the RSS feed if a new entry has been posted.
Leg 1 Bonus Locations - a Zip file containing CSV, XLS, and ODS versions of the 124 bonus locations for leg 1.
Google Map of Leg 1 Bonuses - an interactive map showing each of the leg 1 bonus locations. Hover on a marker for the bonus name and point value; click on a marker for complete details, including the background information provided to the riders.

For the last two items, I grabbed the Leg 1 Bonus Locations PDF off the IBR web site, converted it to text, then wrote a Perl script to scrape out the necessary data, and format it (as CSV for the spreadsheets, and in Google's Map API format).

I hope people find these things useful.

Posted in Rides at 12.00 PM

August 25, 2009

My buddy Doug stopped by...

My friend Doug stopped by tonight after work. He wanted a second set of eyes on a nail he found in the rear tire of his VFR.

Luckily, when we pulled it out we found that it was to top of a rounded brad, and it was embedded only in the tread layer. It was at a weird angle, and it looked like a bad one, but it was short and mostly on its side, so it hadn't penetrated the belts.

Since we had all the roadside tire repair gear out, we practiced plugging a hole with string, on an old tire I had around.

Afterwards, we got in out of the heat and talked for a while. I'm going to take his advice and go to Yamaha of Rancho Cucamonga for my 52,000 mile valve check.

I had a great time!

Posted in Odds and ends at 10.36 PM

August 24, 2009

Under Armour for riding

I'm going to try one or more of these for my next long ride. Normally I just wear a long-sleeve cotton t-shirt, but I'm thinking these will be better in really hot weather, and can be rinsed out in a motel sink and still be dry in the morning.

Under Armour 1086 Team Longsleeve Tee - all PolyArmour
Under Armour 0407 Tech Longsleeve Mock - 95% 4.6oz PolyArmour/5% Elastane
Under Armour 0377 Tech Longsleeve Tee - 95% 6.0oz PolyArmour/5% Elastane

Posted in Riding gear at 11.42 AM

August 17, 2009

Decisions, decisions...

I have a couple of possibilities for rides in October. I can do one, but not both.

The Land of Enchantment (LOE) rally is in Albuquerque on October 2-4. I've been wanting to do a rally of some sort for a few years, and everyone says this is a great first rally. My friend Doug will be there, and has been encouraging me to go.

Before I do the LOE, I'd have to install my auxiliary lights. Now, this should be a 2-3 hour project, but the wiring under my fairing panels is too messy to take more stuff, so I'd have to clean it up before I could add the lights. I figure a couple of four hour days one weekend should do it.

If I do the LOE, I'd ride to Albuquerque on Thursday, October 1st - it's just not practical for me to ride there on Friday, then start the rally the next morning. A man's got to know his limitations, right?

My other possible October ride is the Dam Tour Awards, up in Portland. I've got 19 of the 20 dams so far, and have plans to ride up to Yosemite in the next week or two. Once I finish, I think I'll be the rider based the furthest from PDX to complete the whole set.

I've had a bunch of fun doing the Dam Tour this year. I've ridden on a lot of fantastic roads that I probably never would have found or considered otherwise, and I've met up with a bunch of great riders along the way.

PDX is about 1000 miles from home, so I could get away with two nights total in motels, making it pretty cost effective.

There's also the option of doing neither, but what fun is that?

I'm meeting up with Doug and Hal at IBR checkpoint 2. I think I'll get their input, and talk it over some more with Carole, and then decide. If I decide on the LOE, I need to get registered asap, but it can wait until after ckpt 2.

Posted in Ride planning at 10.32 AM

August 16, 2009

Oil change

I changed the oil and filter today. Mileage was 52.916. Rotella T dino, 15W-40. I'll add 4 oz. of EOS on Monday.

I changed out the stock drain bolt for a magnetic one. One of Hal's tips was that the magnetic drain bolt used in the rear end is the same size as the engine oil drain bolt. I ordered one from Gary McCoy of MonDak Motorsports in my last set of supplies.

I think I need to get a better filter wrench. The cheap one I got at Wal-Mart just isn't up to snuff.

Posted in Maintenance at 10.49 AM

August 11, 2009

DMP S-Spec Steel Track Stand

Jason surprised me today with a fantastic birthday present - a DMP S-Spec steel track stand. I tried it out on the FJR, and it works perfectly.

The FJR's center stand makes working on the rear end easy, but getting the front wheel off is a problem. When I replaced the front tire last time, I jacked the bike up under the headers, using Jeremy's floor jack and a 6"x6" square of one-inch pine. On top of my reluctance to jack the bike up that way, it turned out to be pretty unstable. To top it all off, it took me a long time to get everything in order.

The jack stand changes all that. With the bike on the center stand, it now takes about 15 seconds to lift the front wheel off the ground using the DMP stand. You roll it in from the front, align the rollers, and push down. Wa-la. (The stand goes under the bottoms of the forks, so you have full access to the axle and pinch bolts.)

Very cool. Thanks, Jas!

Posted in Farkles/Accessories at 11.03 AM

August 4, 2009

WFO-8

In July and August, 2009, I rode my FJR to Moscow, ID for the WFO-8 rally.

Day 1 - Home to Red Bluff, CA
Day 2 - Red Bluff, CA to Redmond, OR, with a stop at the Thompson Reservoir Dam in southcentral Oregon.
Day 3 - Redmond, OR to Tumwater, WA, with stops at the Rock Creek Dam, the Fishhawk Lake Dam, and the Deschutes Dam.
Day 4 - Tumwater, WA to Moscow, ID, with stops at the Mud Mountain Dam, the Wapato Dam, the Rock Island Dam, and a second stop at the North Scootenay Dike Dam.
Day 5 - R&R in Moscow
Day 6 - Moscow to Spokane, WA and back, with stops at the Little Falls Dam and the Upriver Dam.
Day 7 - Moscow to Coeur d'Alene for brunch with Carole, Cindy, and Mandy, then to Clarkston, WA via the Spiral Highway.
Day 8 - Clarkston, WA to Winnemucca, NV through Hells Canyon, with stops at the Oxbow Dam and the Owyhee Dam.
Day 9 - Winnemucca, NV to home.