The Long Way Around

'cept it's not quite.

Well, actually, it could be worse.  It could be much worse.  So I tore apart the Cannonball bike today.

The rear wheel was wiggly and that put me on edge.  Realistically though, it wasn't just the movement but the fact that the hub could have been wearing away at the spline shaft which freaked me out, so I tore into it with Aaron.  That was an interesting experiment if only because neither of us had done that on the bike before, so there was a bit of a figuring-out-as-you-go deal.

So after we got the exhaust off, then the backing plate off, then the backing plate / swing arm, what we noticed immediately was that the nut that keeps tension on the hub and keeps it in place was...  uh...  let's just say it came off with just a little wiggle with two fingers.  It had basically broken free and left the cotter pin safety to keep the frickin' wheel in place.  Scary as hell.  I don't know how long it had been that way but it certainly explained why I had problems braking, too. 

So we looked at the splines on the shaft and everything looked "right", and not particularly worn.  Hub seemed fine too.  We replaced the rear wheel with a 130/ 70x12" Heidenau H61, and buttoned it up.

For the proverbial "shits and giggles", we took apart the transmission to check out the variator and clutch splines.  Those were potentially the most worrisome, as damage to those splines could mean a whole new engine.  The spline shaft coming into the variator is basically the crank shaft, so...  damage = broken.  Done.

After ripping it apart, though, it seems the splines were in pretty decent condition.  The spline grooves on the variator, on the other hand - and I mean both halves - were toast.  Utterly done.  Chewed up, ground down, and useless.  It was actually a bit of a pain to get the back half of the variator off. 

When it came down to it, though, the ramp on the variator was also pretty bad.  Even though it was a new one I had put on just at the start of Cannonball, it was definitely worn worse than a variator that I had put some 11,500 miles on previously.  Think about that for a minute.

So I put the old variator with perfectly good spline grooves back on, put a fresh set of rollers on, replaced the Cannonball belt with a reasonably decent-but-used belt, and then put the bike back together (after forgetting a washer once) and fired it up.  Seemed to be good.

It runs pretty decently.  Has run better but has also run worse.

I still worry about the plug.  I think what's going to need to happen is that I'm going to buy a head, then convince someone who knows how to not screw these things up help me un-do the plug that's in there.  If the threads are stripped on the head, we'll put the new one in and put in the new plug there.  

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

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.

Grace, you will likely never see this beach again so enjoy the weather.

It is actually quite beautiful around here. Warm, nice sky. A bit touristy. Could be worse though. It's like Fisherman's Warf in SF, with a twentieth of the people wandering around.

They have everything you need here - mini-golf, laser tag, karaoke. It's all good.

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.

Especially when you literally ride from one half of it to the other.

I'm done. Standings and tale later. Let's just say. Leg 4 involved a field repair.

Or so they say. You have no idea how fast I took this picture. I was in a rush. ;)

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.

So the obvious question of course, is, "why".

It's also "what", actually.  That's actually easier to explain than the "why".  For those unawares of the situation, the "what" of "Cannonball", or the "Cannonball Run" nee "Scooter Cannonball Run", is essentially a cross-country rally-style race, starting from Ocean Beach, San Francisco, CA and ending at Ocean City, Maryland.  Yes, that's a good long way.  In the order of 3000 miles (mayhap a bit more).  

And yes, it's to be done on scooters.

The trip mirrors Highway 50, somewhat, which means it's a central route, that covers some of the highest mountains in the US (we reach a top elevation of ~14.5k feet), and vast open stretches of desert and winding roads.  It spans 10 days, each day providing a "leg", with people attempting to complete the day for timed ranking.  There are checkpoints that must be visited to consider a day "complete".

There are several classes, most of which surround the displacement of the bike in question, and whether the bike is manual or automatic.  My bike, the Vespa Granturismo 200L, is a 198cc automatic bike, putting me in what's considered the "up to 250cc" auto class.  The class contains many of my good friends and fellow riders (including my clubmate, Jess).

That, in a nutshell, is the "what".  The "why", on the other hand, is much more challenging.

Things that complicate the matter:

• the relatively recent birth of my daughter, who has just turned 4 months
• the hectic break-neck pace of my workplace
• my general familial obligations
• the fact that I am not particularly rich

Ultimately, there are a million reasons to not, and there's no need to enumerate them.  Rather, I'd rather highlight the reasons I am doing this particular challenge:

• there's no time like the present to do things that might otherwise be untenable several years down the road
• I've managed to not do anything profoundly idiotic in quite some time
• I've been fascinated since its inception about whether or not, I as a rider of two-wheeled vehicles, have the fortitude to complete a journey - the test of my limits is important to me
• it's an experience that will not only bring me closer to the friends of mine who are on the journey with me, but will be something I can speak to for years on end

At the end of the day, I'd rather be able to say 20 years down the line that I did something remarkable like crossing the country on a vehicle not particularly well designed for such a task, than to say that I heard about some people who did it and considered it an interesting feat.  It's not the type of thing one gains notoriety for, but it's the type of thing that helps define someone's experience, and it's a commitment I made to myself several years down the line that I intend to keep.

Saddle up, I suppose.  I'll be updating from the road as best as I can, starting September 11th.

Next up:  what I did to a bike called Grace, and why I think that for whatever reason it'll stop me from dying a horrible death.