The Long Way Around

I still don't know quite what to do with myself at home and at work.  Funny.

Meanwhile I ride my MP3 500 everywhere now.  it's a good deal faster than the GT, from all perspectives.  I also notice that I have no concept of how fast I'm going in city.  That's unfortunate, and something I need to keep an eye out for.  Quite a hassle.

Jess came in to town after trucking the GT back from Maryland.  We loaded it off, and I took a moment to inspect the GT's rear wheel situation.  It's bad.  Oh lord is it bad.  I'm surprised.  At the very least I think the hub's shot.  There may also be an issue with the brake.  I know I'm going to be taking the thing apart soon, and it'll be probably a solid month before I can get it rideable, assuming that the variator is just fine and there's nothing wrong with the crank shaft splines on either the clutch or the variator.  Gah.

I've got some more pictures I'm going to upload, along with some videos.  I just don't have the time at present to do these things.  Hopefully should get to it some time this weekend.

More later, of course.

Jess and I can't figure out what went wrong exactly, but it took me out of fourth an probably fifth place. I know I beat Bagel time-wise but I might not have beaten him because of bonus points for pulling someone off the road.

The failure came up some 70 miles or so from Ocean City. Near 50 and Queen's Ave, I come to a stop light then suddenly I hear a loud grinding noise coming out of my transmission. As I try to take off, the bike crawls forward and can't keep a top speed. The whole time, just this loud 'grrr' is coming out of the case. I pull over at the next light, with my GT's transmission case smelling like burning.

The short of it, for those who know these things, is somehow the variator nut worked it's way loose so that nearly all of the nut was off of the threads on the crank shaft. This meant that when the variator would spool up, it would immediately slide out of place and end up at the edge of the case, killing my take off and top end. Of course, the other side effect was to also have the outer pulley half of he variator rub up against my transmission case, grinding away at it.

I pulled over and called Rolf to have him help in case, and I started ripping apart the transmission case. The irony here, for you nerds, is it turned out I ended up on Highway 404. Again, in some weird fortuitous circumstance, I pulled over directly in front of an auto repair shop, which is good because I couldn't find my 19mm socket. Removing the transmission case, I discovered it - my transmission failure.

I went ahead and tightened the nut and Rolf showed up and we made sure everything else was tightened to spec. Everything was slapped back on am off I went, 40 minutes later, and well behind others, losing my placing.

Oh well. The bike otherwise ran very well and competitively, so much so that it exceeded everyone's expectations.

The real point here is that I came in under my own power in a ridiculous trip on a machine that was not intended to be ridden the way I abused it or so many days. Rolf had threatened he support truck but I said, we're getting this on the road, an we did. My crank shaft splines may be toast but I'll figure that out later. Surely had I continued without pulling over the crank would be totalled, and I would not gave made it under my own power. I did the right thing. And Grace will ride again.

As I rolled in over the final bridge to Ocean City, I stood on my floor boards and let out a very satisfied yell. This was an adventure. I beat not only everyone else's expectations of the machine and my riding, but also my own. Made it far. Made a trip with some good friends an grew closer to others and made new friends.

That's Cannonball.

A clutch spring went then fouled up his woodruf key. Patrick and Rocket are on it. We hope to see Roy doing his thing in the morning. In the mean time he did finish the leg.

Maroy's cheater bike is gettin' an oil change. ;)

This is your engine.

Joel discovered a bit of a problem - the exhaust stud got sheared off, and the threads are munged. Suck. We're trying to come up with a game plan to keep Joel in it.

Normally I would have written more at night about my thoughts and 'feelings' with respects to the days ride and what it showed me of America, bit truthbe told I got a little drunk and passed out.

The people of Fort Scott really helped us unwind a bit. We watches a bluegrass band, we hung out in a local bar, and we monkeyed around on our bikes.

Belts, variators, and tire changes were the order of the day. Everyone has squared off tires, and people are noticing that their bikes are performing worse due to flat rollers and worn belts. Many of these these things were replaced and now we should be in better shape.

Word on the street is that St. Louis Vespa is going to help us out tonight after we roll in. Our hotel tonight is apparently 3 or so blocks from the shop, though last time I was told a distance here I ended up walking a mile to a Walmart. Either way, we could use some fresh parts at this point.

I noticed somewhere in my ride that I had completely ignored or did not think about work for a few days. This rarely happens. Not just because I tend not to take vacations, but also because I have problems distancing myself when I do. While I have thought about my friends at work, I've not once considered what I should be doing, etc. I've been sufficiently obscured from reality on this trip and it's helping a bit.

It makes me sad though, as here on day 7 it makes me realize that I've but 4 more days of this, an them I go back to my otherwise very pedestrian life. I miss many aspects of it - my significant other, my child - but it would be great I somehow become some scooter traveling bon vivant ;)

The realist in me doubts we could all fit ok my Granturismo.

It's earlier than you'd think on account of us being at the edge of a time zone.

We're gearing up now for what promises to be a remarkably boring run of 360 miles in Kansas. We'll be almost to the border by night fall.

As Joel snapped a drive belt, I've decided it would behoove me to take out my transmission side air filter to allow for better air flow. Belt snapping at speed sucks.

When we get in to St. Luis tomorrow, the Vespa shop there is going to help us out. I might just get a new belt and change it there.

It's better to do his stuff before something fails than to just let it fail and deal with it on the side of the road.

With that in mind I'm still bringing the stuff I need to change my belt on the road.

Also I can't listen to music any more. It's mono, and it's slowly dulling my right ear. Sigh.

Apparently, there are 'tall giraffes' at Garden City, where we are staying. There are also some 600 hotel rooms and over 60 (61?) restaurants.

Hot.

This is the most city-like place we've been in this trip thusfar.

Side note - Rich's fuel pump is apparently shot. I have heard they're gonna cannibalize Joel's bike further, then buy a new one in Wichitaw. Or however that's spelled.

Btw a post is going to come in out of sync. I sent a picture and post that hasn't reared it's ugly head yet

Armed with a new plug cap and 6 hours of sleep, we're getting ready to start off on yet another day's riding.

Today we reach out peak height of 11800 feet, and more or less after today the rest of the route involves going down hill or at least just staying flat.

The less desert mountain climbs, the better. Dunno how much longer my bike can take that. This GT is going to need the mother of all services when it's done.

Last night, getting ready for bed, I discovered that I forgot to pit sunscreen on my neck. So my neck, especially the back and sides, is beet red. Sharp contrast to the rest of my body it's funny, kinda.

The run will be short - only a few hundred miles (332 or something).

When I go through a town at 25-30 mph, it's weird. I feel like I'm standing still.

Here's to hoping the most absurdly difficult is behind us. Nothing, no amount of riding on streets, prepares you for 40 miles of washboarded dirt road on 12" slick street performance tires.

So day 3 has been the hardest so far. It was a short day with the exception of the ridiculous 40 miles of dirt.

Maroy so kindly referred to the day as 'Cannonfall' as more people hit the ground than didn't. The dirt claimed a lot of victims.

Both the Ruckus riders (e.g, Jim T, who I believe will be trucking it to the next most convenient spot then flying home). Both Jess and Rich went down. Rocket went down. Basically, if you went on the dirt road, you crashed.

I didn't crash. But I did lay the bike down. I had a scare where I lost my rear on some washboards, and almost bit it in a ditch.

When I came to a complete stop, I put my foot down and basically didn't have good footing on the Dirt and I tipped over towards the ditch. Thankfully, he says with a hint of sarcasm, I caught the bike with my knee, an kept it from going down hard. Instead I just let it down gently. So no crash, just bad and stupid footing.

Sigh.

Anyway, more plug drama. It popped off again, same problem with stripping the threads on the aluminum head on the plug. Cap popped right off in front of the marina at the Bullfrog ferry.

Thankfully a kind security guard came by and asked me why the problem was. I mentioned the problem and be off-handedly mentioned that he restores VW's. He mentions that, on a VW, the plug cap doesn't fit over the aluminum head on the plug, but actually clips on to the threads on the plug itself. He had one in his on-site motor home, so he drove me to his place and hooked me up with the newcap, gratis. We fixed it on, and it bit and the bike started right up. Rode the rest of the ride with the new cap, no incident.

Hopefully this will keep working and I can continue to ride this route as expected.

We've rolled past the thousand mile mark at this point. Only 2.3k more to go.

My carpal tunnel is killing me, and my eating has not gotten better.

Basically, I might be at the end point of this run, but it's not clear.

The short of it is that my plug had a significant failure today. That's right, a stupid spark plug. But the thing is, now my plug might be galled in the head.

It started because the head of my plug in the bike actually had it's threads melted. So the cap basically popped off the plug. Couldn't actually fit the cap back on the plug because the head got stuck in the cap and wouldn't come out. So basically I was hosed.

This is obviously hard to describe but it really comes down to my plug cap would not stay on my bike.

At one point in the afternoon, I took the plug out and I tried to see if I could thread it into the cap, but the answer was a resounding no. And apparently the process of putting it back in may have either cross threaded it or the threads got galled somehow. This means I ant pull the plug out because I could hork up the threads on the head worse than they already may be. If that's the case, then I'm done with the ride. So I obviously can't do that.

I got another head for the plug that's in there an tightened it on the plug that's still in the engine. Took some needle nose pliers and tightened it and hopefully it's on for good and I'll have no other similar problems. Otherwise I have a few other plugs with caps that I can cannibalize.

That is my only hope.

Oh, and the last reason why this day sucked, which if I let out think about it a minute I'm sure you'd figure out on your own: since the plug cap was loose, it would come off regularly.

I had over 200 miles left for the day when the cap first came off. I had apparently got smog the top times (if not the top) for the first leg, an this happened literally at the start of the third.

For the last 50 miles, the cap popped off the plug once every 1.5 miles on average. Guess how many times I pulled over, took my gloves off, opened up my seat, took my under seat storage out, burned my hand on the head refitting the plug cap on, put the storage back in and put my gloves on then rode off again only to do the whole thing again in a few short minutes.

I'll give you a hint - so many times I got to the point where I could do it in under 20 seconds.

Suck.

Now you know why I say today was horrible.

By the way, I'm utterly amused that my post about eating actually caused discussion. Hah. Today I started the day with beef jerky and a cliff bar, then didn't eat till twelve hours later and of a steak.

Jess and I noticed my rear tire was covered in crap. Not sure what - looks tone some sort of oil.

We don't see any obvious leak though. Not sure what the heck is going on.

My rear brake is soft. Something was getting on it.

Cleaned it off (below) and we'll look tomorrow. All my levels (hub, engine, and brake) are good.

Rolf has no idea right now. That says something. Will be keeping an eye on this.

So yeah.  You might be curious what exactly one does in order to prepare for a cross-country scooter trip.

Some people fashion fuel cells, weld things to their bike, rework the aerodynamics, kit out engines, modify transmissions, etc.

Some people keep their bike bone stock, not changing a thing, for fear that any change will affect the bike's long term reliability. 

Me?  I did something in between.

You may remember my initial approach to the Cannonball:  Originally, I was to be running a Honda Elite 250 by the name of Starbuck.  This Elite 250 was going to have a good chunk of mods done to it - nothing too drastic but still things that would change the rideability and over-all function of the bike.  Such changes included,

• Full out suspension swap
• Reconfiguring the front end to run a 12" wheel from a Honda Helix
• With new 12" wheel, get a full hydro disc brake
• Rewire the rear brake (stock as a foot brake) to the left handle bar
• New stainless steel exhaust
• Swap out for heavier rollers
• New belt
• Mag wheels
• New seat
• Fuel cell system

You get the point. 

Very little of this actually ended up happening in time, in part due to an unfortunate series of circumstances, and then beyond that simply having to pull the trigger and no longer use the Elite given the rate of progress.  As a result, Grace was thrown back into the picture.

Grace has been a pretty much a stock bike for some time.  As mentioned before in this blog, the real big thing that's been done to it (if you even want to call it a  big thing) was swapping the exhaust for a Scorpion Titanium GT/GTS exhaust.  So we're not looking at too much a departure at this point from stock.  Getting ready for the run was more a matter of maintenance than actually looking for mods - including bypassing the fuel cell (if anything, for the purpose of keeping the bike "purdy")

So what's been done?

• Scorpion Titanium GT/GTS Exhaust has been replaced by a Leo Vince 4Road for GT
• 4 year old battery has been replaced
• Replaced all fuses
• Engine oil & oil filter changed
• 4 year old variator has been fully replaced (each piece, not just rollers)
• New belt
• GPS has been wired with a "jack" into a 12v line on the bike
• 2.5 gallon gas can fitted in step-through area with eye-screws & bungies
• Tire change with Heidenaus, rear @ 140/70x12"
• Reflective stripes have been placed across front & back of bike
• Tentatively might be running saddle bags
• Past mods include a windshield & top case

As you can see, all incremental changes, most of which are really oriented towards ensuring the bike runs as expected, with a few little tweaks. 

With less than 4 days to go, the bike can be considered as good as done.  Next up, gear.