July 2010

July 27, 2010

BBG packet is here Back in May, I rode a Bun Burner Gold ride — 1530 miles in 23 hours. I submitted the required paperwork to the Iron Butt Association a few days later. The IBA packet arrived today - a nice certificate, a...

July 26, 2010

WFO-9 I left Wednesday for WFO-9 in Eureka. Justin rode with me on the 101 as far as Las Posas, and I kept going to CA-154 in Santa Barbara. Foxen Canyon was cool — as always — and I stopped at...

June 2010

June 21, 2010

Four Seasons - Summer Solstice Saddlesore 1000 Doug and I did the second of our Four Seasons rides today, a Saddlesore 1000 trip starting and ending in El Segundo, with stops in Mojave, Merced, Williams, Gilroy, and Santa Maria....

May 2010

May 21, 2010

FJR Forum Post on the BBG I've wanted to do a BBG for quite a while. Toecutter and I talked about an in-state California route many years ago, but something always came up. Maybe three years ago, I mapped out a route from Southern California, up...

May 18, 2010

Bun Burner Gold is in the books - 1,500 miles in 24 hours I was tired, riding west on the 210 through Monrovia, and looking forward to getting off the bike after 22 plus hours of riding, when another bike showed up on my six. Justin, on his ZZR, had come out to...

May 15, 2010

Oil change I did an oil and filter change this afternoon. Mileage is 57,865....

May 12, 2010

Solstice and Equinox dates and times for 2010 Here are the solstice and equinox dates and times for 2010, in the Pacific time zone: Event Date Time Vernal equinoxMarch 2009:32 Summer solsticeJune 2104:28 Autumnal equinoxSeptember 2220:09 Winter solsticeDecember 2115:38...

BBG Prep Preparations for my upcoming Bun Burner Gold ride are progressing nicely. Just before the LowCal 250, I asked Doug his opinion on the best day of the week to pass through Las Vegas late at night, and that started a...

April 2010

April 24, 2010

LowCal 250 On Saturday, April 24th, I rode in the LowCal 250 rally, an 8 hour bonus rally in San Diego County. A motorcycle bonus rally is kind of like a scavenger hunt. At the beginning of the rally, you get a...

April 9, 2010

Random fact of the day After the big RIF last year at work, I inherited responsibility for the soda machine - a vital caffeine lifeline to the software developers at my office. It doesn't take much time - about 5 minutes a week -...

April 8, 2010

Performance Vector Multi-Lens Eyewear It's not always easy to find good quality sun-glasses that fit comfortably under a full-face helmet. A few years ago, I stumbled on the Vector Multi-Lens Eyewear set at the local Performance Bike shop, and they quickly became my first...

March 2010

March 20, 2010

A California In-State SaddleSore 1000 My friend Doug has a lot of big rides this summer, including the IBR5000 in August, and I have dreams of finally doing my BBG. A few months ago, we were talking about our plans, and I told him that...

March 6, 2010

Headlights Between refereeing on weekday afternoons during the high school soccer season and SoCal's unusually heavy rainfall this winter, the FJR hasn't gotten a lot of work in the last few months. On the few times I've taken her out lately,...

February 2010

February 26, 2010

Valve check and spark plugs I finally got the bike into Pasadena Yamaha for the 52,000 mile valve check - only about 2,500 miles late. As expected, it was well within the specified tolerances. While they were in there, I had them replace the spark...

January 2010

January 16, 2010

Plans for the New Year I've got some things planned for the New Year. I'm pretty sure the situation at work won't let me repeat last year's riding, where I took two weeks off each for WFO-8 and CFR. For now, I have mostly firm...

January 1, 2010

Because I Could Long distance guru Dean Tanji puts together some of the best rides, and announced the "Because We Can" ride earlier this month: SoCal’s LD Riders Last Ride-To-Eat Of the Year Wednesday Dec 30, Guadalupe, CA It's hard to imagine why,...

November 2009

November 24, 2009

Yank the Weenie 2009 Results Jerry White posted the results of the YTW rally: Thanks to everyone to participated in the Yank The Weenie rally. It sure was a fun way to get to Dean Tanji's Bite The Weenie RTE at Pink's, Hollywood, CA. A...

November 23, 2009

Yank the Weenie 2009 For the last several years, long distance guru Dean Tanji has hosted Bite the Weenie, an informal gathering of long distance riders at Pinks, the hot dog joint on La Brea and a favorite of celebrities and the common man...

October 2009

October 12, 2009

V-1 re-install On the road, I rely on my Valentine V-1 radar detector to keep me out of (too much) trouble. In the past, I've tried various mounting solutions for the V-1, but they all had problems of some kind, and I...

October 1, 2009

Dam Tour 2009 As part of Dam Tour 2009, I visited 20 dams in Oregon, Washington, California, and Montana. Eight dam visits were made during my ride to and from CFR; eleven more were made ruing the ride to and from WFO-8. The...

September 2009

September 27, 2009

Hetch-Hetchy, and the end of the Dam Tour I signed up for the Dam Tour this year, and had visited 19 of the 20 dams on my rides to and from CFR and WFO. The last dam was the one closest to my home - O’Shaughnessy Dam in...

September 26, 2009

Oil change re-do At my last oil change, I put in a few ounces of EOS, an additive that was recommended on the Forum for use with standard Rotella. Due to my knee, I only rode a few times, but shifting was noticeably...

September 25, 2009

Trip viewer The Spot Trip Manager is a great site, but I wanted a little more control over the layout and operation of my SPOT maps, and especially wanted to store my own SPOT data. I started working with Google Maps during...

September 10, 2009

IBR 2009 Bonus Maps The IBA posted the bonus listings for all three legs, so I converted them into Google Maps views — one for each leg, and one with all three legs on the same map. The combined map uses different colored markers...

September 6, 2009

Life Never trade the thrills of living for the security of existence....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

WFO-8 Day 9 Winnemucca, NV to home. 592 miles. SPOT map - full size Embedding failed because inline frames are not supported by your browser....

August 3, 2009

WFO-8 Day 8 Clarkston, WA to Winnemucca, NV. Oxbow Dam; Owyhee Dam. Rain about 20 miles southwest of Jordan Valley, OR. 545 miles+. Oxbow Dam powerhouse Owyhee Dam SPOT map - full size Embedding failed because inline frames are not supported by your...

August 2, 2009

WFO-8 Day 7 Moscow, ID to Coeur d'Alene, then to Clarkston, WA via the Spiral Highway. 205 miles. SPOT map - full size Embedding failed because inline frames are not supported by your browser....

August 1, 2009

WFO-8 Day 6 Moscow, ID to Spokane, WA and back. Little Falls Dam; Upriver Dam. 275 miles. Little Falls Dam Upriver Dam SPOT map - full size Embedding failed because inline frames are not supported by your browser....

July 2009

July 31, 2009

WFO-8 Day 5 R&R day in Moscow, ID....

July 30, 2009

WFO-8 Day 4 Tumwater, WA to Moscow, ID. Mud Mountain Dam; Rock Island Dam; Wapato Dam; North Scootenay Dike Dam. 488 miles. Click on map for larger view. Mud Mountain Dam. My bike really wasn't supposed to be on this observation platform, so...

July 29, 2009

WFO-8 Day 3 Redmond, OR to Tumwater, WA. Rock Creek Dam; Fishhawk Lake Dam; Deschutes Dam. 364 miles. It took me a couple of tries to find the turn-out for Rock Creek Dam — here's the STV map with the GPS track in...

July 28, 2009

WFO-8 Day 2 I left Red Bluff around 9am, heading up I-5 into the mountains by Mount Shasta. The bike turned over to 50,000 miles near Lakehead - I took a couple of pictures. I stopped for gas and a couple of t-shirts...

July 27, 2009

WFO-8 Day 1 I had packed up last night, checked the tire pressure, and filled the gas tank, so all I had to do was put on my gear, hop on the bike and hit the road. I left the driveway at 6:25am,...

July 25, 2009

Oil change I did my first ever FJR oil change today, before heading out to WFO. Hal's tips were even better in practice than in theory. I had a problem with the drain pan. I thought the central plug on the top...

July 18, 2009

New front tire Back in September of last year, I bought a set of Michelin Pilot Road 2 tires from Derby Cycles in Kentucky. At the time, the front tire was doing okay, so I took the rear tire out to a place...

Front stand After putting on a new front tire by jacking the bike up on the headers, I'd really like to get this front fork lift stand from NewEnough....

July 14, 2009

WFO-8 This year's WFO is being held in Moscow, ID, site of the very first WFO. WFO is a rally held for owners of Yamaha FJR1300 motorcycles who live in the Western United States. I've got a route planned out that...

July 13, 2009

SPOT maps, and now wider... I have a couple of changes to the site to report. First, there's an updated SPOT page. Originally, I used rewrites to redirect tcfjr.goption.com/spot to my findmespot.com page — which isn't the best idea, privacy-wise. Next, I redirected to my...

July 12, 2009

Big Bear for brunch Pat and Harvey had been asking Carole to come up to Big Bear for a visit. The traffic up there on July 4th is crazy — in the past we've sat in traffic for over two hours getting from the...

July 11, 2009

New headlights On the way back from CFR, I noticed that the high beam was out on the right headlight. I picked up a pair of Sylvania Silver Star 9003/HB2 headlights at Pep Boys, and installed them this afternoon. Odometer is 49197....

FJR Owners Manual in PDF While trying to figure out how to remove the headlight bulbs, I decided I needed to rtfm. Here's the online version of the owner's manual from the Yamaha site: Yamaha FJR1300A Owners Manual, Model Year 2005...

Beadrider bead seat My biggest problem recently on long rides has been seat soreness, especially when it gets hot, and even with my Bill Meyer seat. Doug, Iggy, and many others swear by bead seats - beaded overlays for your seat that keep...

July 10, 2009

Parts and supplies Since I decided to do most of my own routine maintenance, I ordered a bunch of supplies from Gary McCoy at MonDak Motorsports:A couple of half-liter bottles of final drive gear oilSix crush washers, for both the engine oil and...

New Features section When I get back from trips, the trip reports wind up hidden, even though they're more important than the average post. I added a Features block to the top of the side-bar, to make it easier to find these important...

July 7, 2009

Challenger-M custom earphones My Shure e2c's work really well to isolate wind noise under my helmet when I ride, but I've noticed buzzing after long rides. I ordered a set of Challenger-M custom earphones on June 28. This morning, I visited an audiologist...

Mira-cool A Mira-Cool cooling vest is on it's way. My old Joe Rocket Sahara vest only stays hydrated for about 45 minutes, making it a pain to use. The Mira-Cool comes recommended by a bunch of riders on the Forum, including...