The heat is back in the south. Actually went up to 102 right after this pic. Not complaining at all. Riding in the heat is much better than sitting in the cold garage

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I parked my ST and transferred the camping gear to my CB and never looked back. The 550 mile round trip took me East through farm land, then South along the Mississippi River on Wisconsin State Road 35, also called "The Great River Road". The last leg is through Wisconsin farm land and the glacial moraine of rolling hills, lakes and rivers.

I rode the CB to the first event of the year: LOCSTOC. It is held in Spring Green, Wisconsin, 250 miles from my home. The wooded farmland is many miles of state and county roads that twist and turn through the hills. it is a lovely riding area. Kevin organizes and leads group rides, should you choose to stay with the group, I like to ride off in my own direction, often visiting friends I have in the nearby area.

The ST Owners Club (STOC) holds three rally's in my local area. As the number of ST's diminish, the group of friends continue to meet to camp and ride. An ST is not required. All are welcome with whatever they are currently riding. I had just returned from 3500 miles on the ST and really was itching to ride the CB. The ride on the CB was pleasant in spite of strong gusty winds. The moderately speed limited byways made the wind less of a problem. It is clear, however, that the stock seat must go. 250 miles sitting on it is near my limit.

I received a great welcome on arrival, and the CB drew attention and questions. The weekend weather was hot and humid. Those conditions hatched swarms of mosquitoes. But, we partied on.

A few people bailed out late Saturday because of the weather and bugs. They might have known what we who stayed discovered Sunday morning: The Mosquitoes attacked with a vengeance. I think they knew there would be no fresh meat at the campground for a whole week. They had to get in a last meal.

The trip home was nice and leisurely. I will probably ride the CB to the other two events scheduled for August (MNSTOC) and September (WISTOC).

Ride On,
Jim

Not sure if this is relevant, but it seems so...

From the Iron Butt Assn. newsletter:

“As many in the long-distance community have heard, some K&N oil filters have been have been leaking oil and recently, some race tracks have issued notices that riders would be responsible for any track damage caused by running a K&N oil filter (effectively banning them as no one could afford those costs).

K&N has finally issued a SAFETY RECALL and identified which filters are subject to the defect. Here are clips from the recall letter sent to dealers:

K&N has discovered that certain KN-204/204C oil filters manufactured between March 1 and September 30, 2016, can leak oil at the area where a nut (intended for use to remove the oil filter during routine oil changes) is welded to the end of the filter. If there is such a leak, oil could come into contact with the rear tire or rear brake of the motorcycle on which the filter is installed. If this were to occur, it could lead to a loss of control or a crash. Therefore, K&N is conducting a recall under which it is offering to replace the covered oil filters at no charge, including the cost of return shipping.

A copy of the letter sent out to dealers with many more details and how to identify a recall filter is located at:

http://www.ironbutt.org/KandN/RCMN-17E044-1798.pdf

if you use K&N filters you should invest the time to make sure you are not using one of this filters or have one in your personal stock to use.

Mike”

Day trip...east along I-84 hugging the Oregon side of the Columbia River, to Hood River, to Mt. Hood and back home to Gresham.

Had enough time to do one good hike, so I pulled off 84 at Wygant state park about 5 miles before Hood River. Any trail that goes into the woods is going up, and going up is going to offer some nice views. In the parking lot area I saw a sign for Mitchell Point...sounded promising.

It was around 1130am and the temp was between 80-85--not really dressed right for a hike, but what the heck...boots, jeans, t-shirt and I'd just have to fling mc jacket over the shoulder.

Google maps area photo...


From the parking looking up...I didn't know it at the time, but those rocks up there was where I was heading:


Quick hiway 84 view from the parking lot overlook


after 45 minutes, 2.5 mile hike...about 1300 elevation gain. Looking east:


Met one guy hiking down--actually saw him while I was a good 100 hards from the top...he was scampering for cover, naked as the day he was born, frantically looking for his clothes. Oh well...

If you look close, you can see the parking lot below, center, surrounded by green


Where's my bike?!?

Looking west towards Portland


After taking in the views for half an hour, headed back down...there she is:


After lunch in Hood River, found my way on 281 through the cherry orhards, north of Mt. Hood.


Hiway 281 to Clear Creek Road, then Cooper Spur Road, then over to Hiway 35 and around to Mt. Hood at Timberline


I think that's my photo limit

This was waiting for me when I got home....



I've been struggling with disconnecting the fuel line for the last half-hour. I need to invest in the 2017 shop manual anyway, but I'm sensing that this is something I'll need to wrestle with even with that. Could have just had the local dealer swap it out, but where is the fun in that???

Because feet are particularly vulnerable, I saved my pennies and got a pair of Daytona CE rated armored boots. The only problem was that, as with most most boot and shifter combinations, I noticed that the steel end of the shifter and edge of the shifter rubber was rubbing against the inboard side of my boot. I caught it before the repeated rubbing abraded the leather. Most riders I have talked to are like me, in that we have a tendency to slide the foot under the shifter for up shifts, which catches the inboard side of the boot.

There are all kinds of "boot/shoe savers" out there that strap onto the boot. Most all that I have seen do not cover the inboard side of the boot, and are really not suited to walking around off the bike. Then there are shifter covers made of rubber, or a neoprene, both of which are the devil to install, and still rub the inboard side of the boot.

I started looking for a low to no friction cover for the shifter that would allow the side of the boot to slide under the shifter without abrading the boot leather, and couldn't find any such thing. I had a new pair of stretch cotton jersey work gloves found at Harbor Freight for $4 for 5 pairs. I cut the thumb off one of the gloves and stretched it over and onto the shifter. The raw end I rolled over underneath and inside itself, then put a small zip tie around it, between where the shifter rubber ended, and the shifter arm. Positioned the zip tie connection at 2 o'clock to avoid contact with my boot.

So far it works perfectly, but time will tell. I think I will cut the zip tie and pull it off for washing the bike and reinstall when the bike is dry. I am also thinking if this works long term, I may find a cheap pair of black unlined leather gloves and use the thumb to replace the cotton jersey. The pictures show the idea probably better than I can explain it.

After Arco I motored southwest towards the Craters of the Moon National Monument. A very scenic stretch of blacktop that has expansive views of lava fields on both sides of the road. It was amazing to consider how old they were and yet huge swaths of them had absolutely zero vegetation growing on/in them. Amazing!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craters_of...d_Preserve



I stopped in Richfield Utah for a late lunch at this saloon. Barmaid inside said they had lousy food consisting of frozen pizza or burritos. Said I'd be better off to go across the street to the other bar because they had a grill.



I pushed the CB across the road to this place and ordered 2 burgers with fries, woofed them down and was back on the road inside of 25 minutes. I was the only patron there.



This rather large picture hung prominently inside the establishment. I forgot to ask the barkeep the story behind it.



As I rolled into town I saw this sitting no more than 4 feet from the shoulder of the tarmac. A sad and ignoble end to a fine piece of machinery.



Back on the road and south of Richfield on Hwy 26 I missed my turn in the town of Shoshone for the 24 and proceeded south towards Twin Falls. It was here that I paid my annual Idaho road tax for the year. It didn't upset me at all. Haven't paid any states road tax since about 88/89. He was polite and professional as was I and we concluded our business transaction with no drama.



Back on the road I headed south and realized I missed my turn. no problem. At the intersection of US Interstate 84 and Twin Falls I got on the freeway and headed east towards Burley where I planned to get back on secondary roads and head south.

A few pics for our international CB owners as Twin Falls usually doesn't get much press among tourist destinations.

Shoshone Falls are located just east of the town and the Snake River drops over them. The falls have a higher vertical drop than those at Niagara but don't exceed their CFS in flow.



The golf course in town down below the falls in the canyon next to the Snake River.



Once at Burley I exited the freeway, turned south towards Albion Idaho via a section of the City of Rocks Scenic Byway. What a gem of a road!!! Albion was another pleasant surprise. It's a small, uncommercialized hamlet nestled in a thick grove of woods at the bottom of a hill in a shallow valley a few miles from the Pomerelle Ski Area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion,_Idaho

Outside and south of Albion I topped off the gas at very nice station/store and headed up the access road to the ski area. Weather at this point had cleared some and warmed up considerably. I rode up towards the ski area for 2.5 miles and took this picture looking back towards Albion.



Beyond this point I rode wide open, with little to no existent traffic on secondary roads onwards to Malta, Idaho again through some very picturesque countryside at speeds that would easily exceed the road tax benchmark I was cited for earlier. In particular the stretch of the 81 between Malta and Snowville, Utah is a very remote and isolated backroad. I was glad to have 3 32 oz MSR bottles with gas in them located inside the top box just in case.

Past Snowville I was back on the interstate except for a short stretch from Howell to Tremonton along the ATK Thikol industrial corridor border.

I stopped in Tremonton for gas and proceeded past the Borgstrom Brothers Memorial to Hwy 89.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgstrom_brothers

By now the miles and strong winds for most of the day were wearing me down. The bike performed admirably over the 589 miles for the day. After the remaining 35 miles or so I was glad to push it into the garage.

I had this past Friday off from work and got on the Road at 7 AM and headed out for the Lost River Cemetery just north of Arco, Idaho. Plan was to visit the grave of a US Army Medic who earned the Medal of Honor in Korea almost 68 years ago to the day. No particular reason for it. Just paying my respects. First part of the ride would be about 240 miles with a little over half of that heading north on I-15. Since time was of the essence I didn't stop to take as many pictures as I normally would. This trip report is a composite of pictures taken by myself and from the public domain of the internet.

Quick stop at the 'border' of Idaho for a pic. Rain was on the horizon and I would be subjected to strong winds for prolonged periods throughout the day.



At Blackfoot, Idaho I would turn north west and take a less traveled blacktop through sparsely populated high sage brush plains to Arco. This area of Idaho figured prominently in the US development of nuclear power.

More on that history here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_National_Laboratory

I bypassed Atomic City having seen it before. It's on the downhill slope of it's former glory days but for history buffs it may be of interest.

Link to the towns history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_City,_Idaho

Atomic Bar



Passing this area there was a stiff, straight on wind and light rain was coming down. Luckily there was no traffic to speak of.

I rolled into Arco around 11ish and passed through it pretty quickly after tanking up on the center stand. I had planned to stop in town after I visited the cemetery. A few miles north I found the left hand turn I was looking for and after a couple miles of pastoral countryside with a house or two I arrived at my destination.





More on that day and Mr. Bleak here. Bleak exemplified the citizen soldier. Came home and blended in, got a job, raised a family, and lived a humble live until he gave up the ghost. SSgt Bleaks medal citation is one of the more compelling ones you will ever read. That's saying a lot considering the company he's in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_B._Bleak

I walked around a little and read the histories of some of the families inscribed on the monuments with the sprinklers softly pinging in the background. Seeing all the WW2 vets interred here it became apparent this little burg had done it's part for our collective freedoms. I sipped some Jamison Black Barrel as a toast of respect to those vets out of a flask my wife bought for me at Blarney Castle and slowly walked back towards the CB to saddle up. The low overcast clouds, the light drizzle and the cooing of a few mourning doves all added a somewhat appropriate melancholy aura considering the reason for this trip.

I straddled the CB , started the motor up and rode back the way I came towards Arco. It was at this point that I realized the huge difference that dropping the adjustable pegs made in comfort. Normally at this distance I'd have some cramping on the outside of my thighs after getting back on but that didn't happen.

Arco is located close to a number of scenic areas and I imagine it does see it's fair share of tourist traffic during the summer months. The town has a few notable tourist features.

Numbers Hill is a tradition that started with the graduating High School Class of 1920 and has been carried on ever since.



Arco has long been associated with the US Navy. This is located right downtown. The actual conn of the "Devil Ship".









I stopped at the local Honda dealer 'JUST IN CASE' they had a 2014 CB1100DLX in a crate sitting around. With the exception of a couple of very small dirt bikes there were no motorcycles on the limited showroom floor.



See part 2 for the remainder of the ride.

Hi Guys,
I've been browsing the forum and came across Chip Beck's seat thread. My Question to Chip and other owners is how is the leather holding up? Did it stretch and get wavy? I'm thinking of seeing if I can order the smooth leather on the original Corbin Seat shape, I like the little back rest hump.

Self Cancel Turn signal or noise buzzer installation for a 2017 CB1100.
Just curious, I am in process of adding a buzzer unit to my flasher unit. I was wondering whether someone had ever done the modification.

Reason being, got a near miss on the weekend, forgot to cancel the signal flasher after a turn, then at the next intersection a truck pulled in front of me thinking that I was turning due to the turn signal left on.
I studied the schematic and concluded that the turn flasher relay is different from conventional.
1st, it is electronic therefore noiseless.
2nd, not a regular type - will attach a schematic soon.

My idea is to install a noise buzzer which should buzz at the same pace to the flasher therefore reminding me that the turn signal is left on.
Any idea before I start my modification?
Note; same flasher unit used on 2013 models.