Spring Afternoon Jaunt

[Stichill_imp]

Took a relaxed ride on my CBR, about three hours. Didn't stop much for photos today...was essentially "in the zone."

But, couldn't resist stopping for these wild dogwoods in bloom.



Took a break in the forgotten little town of New Liberty, Kentucky.

[LongRanger_imp]

Awesome! That’s such a fun little bike, and supremely capable. Are you down to just one bike now?

[Stichill_imp]

Indeed, LR, I'm now a man with one bike.

It's hard to describe how perfectly suited it is to the kind of riding I like to do, on the kinds of roads I have access to locally. I mean, look at that road in the photo above. It's almost a trace that's been paved. Kentucky is an interesting state in that almost every obscure, hilly, curvy track has been paved, and most of them are in pretty decent shape. These are not roads that require a bike with power, but they do require compactness, nimbleness, and agility. At least...if you want to have fun and not feel like you're holding back a tiger or wrestling a rhino.

It's really rare to find a public road that is still gravel here. I attribute that to the terrain & climate, which are very inhospitable to gravel. We get a lot of rainfall, sometimes coming down in buckets. It takes any gravel on a hill, and deposits it at the bottom of the hill. As a result, the only gravel roads I've found here are on level ground. Which is why, just across the river in Indiana, once you ride up and out of the Ohio Valley and onto the flatter areas west of Madison, it's pretty easy to find gravel roads.

One disappointing trend - and I sort of understand it from an automobile perspective - is that more and more important secondary roads in Kentucky are being "improved" by straightening and flattening, which usually involves hill-cutting. To see Kentucky geography as it really is / was, you need to get off these 2-lane slabs and ride...swiftly...up and then down the ridges...and then down and up the 'hollers'. Which, thankfully, you can do for longer than the sun shines, longer than your fuel range, and longer than human endurance.

The CBR250R is very capable! Young guys like to bling it, gearhead guys like to race it, but I (an old guy) made mine into a flyweight sport tourer. I put a Corbin seat on it years ago, HeliBars, Zero Gravity sport touring windscreen, accessory fuse panel & relay, heated grips, DC coax heated gear plug, luggage rack, GPS RAM mount, and the Hepco & Becker C-Bow pannier mounts. Is it ready? Yes!

Right now I have 50/50 tires on the bike and have removed the lower belly fairing, in anticipation of a June ride in Utah where we plan to hit some unpaved gravel roads like the Moki Dugway and Burr Trail Road. The bike has 26,000 miles and hasn't missed a beat. I just went through it over the winter: new chain & sprockets, valve clearance adjustment, coolant change, air filter change, oil & filter change, front fork rebuild with all new wear parts, brake bleed, and installed a [url=http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=2694&pid=294868#pid294868]Tutoro chain oiler (amazing, by the way).

Did I mention? I like this bike.

P.S. The bushy green plant in the photo above is Asian bush honeysuckle, which is an invasive species. It is absolutely devastating our wooded lands here. It sprouts leaves early and keeps them late, so it can propagate under the canopy. Formerly open woods are now clogged with this abomination.

[LongRanger_imp]

You’ll enjoy your SE Utah trip. This region, as well as the Black Hills of South Dakota, are my most favorite places in the U.S. to ride. Bring hydration!

[Cormanus]

It's good a to hear of another person with only one bike that does what they want it to.

What happened to the Triumph, Stichill?

[LongRanger_imp]

BYW, I hope you stop for gas at Hollow Mountain gas station. It’s a legendary place. The town isn’t much but you’ll want to get a photo of you and the town sign!

[Stichill_imp]

You’ll enjoy your SE Utah trip. This region, as well as the Black Hills of South Dakota, are my most favorite places in the U.S. to ride. Bring hydration!

I really enjoy riding where there's an expansive vista and geology to observe on a macro scale.

Hydration! Good reminder!

It's good a to hear of another person with only one bike that does what they want it to.

What happened to the Triumph, Stichill?

Triumph themselves lost interest in the Thunderbird 1600 and weren't really supporting the bike with OEM accessories and even some mission-critical parts like warpage-/leakage-prone throttle body tubes. Every accessory I wanted to try had to be found on the secondary market: different seats, heated grips, windscreens, etc. It was so frustrating because the bike launched with a TON of cool accessories that were nearly impossible to find six years later. It also started to remind me of my F800GT in that there were some fundamental oversights in the design, for example the factory method of jacking the bike was to literally put a piece of wood under the sump and hope you didn't crack it when lifting the bike. A guy came up with a set of retrofit brackets called the Jack-b-quick and wouldn't you know it...he had stopped making them and I had to track down a set on eBay. It was a nightmare to install them. The wheels were bare aluminum and started to have significant blemishing from corrosion. I spent a Saturday working myself to death with metal polish and ended up with a result that was "meh". I was terrified to remove the rear wheel for tire replacement, as belt tensioning and alignment were a black art. I think it was at that point that I decided to move the bike on.

Every accessory I tried and didn't like had to be re-sold to the next parts seeker. In the end, I could never find a windscreen that didn't buffet: I tried low, mid, high. I tried lower deflectors. Riding with the tall screen in the rain meant no rainwater on your visor but also no cleaning action of dirty road spray. The buffeting was probably related to my helmet as well, but I wasn't about to start trying different helmets to find the magic combo. Lesson learned: buffeting is the nemesis of the cruiser design.

It was supremely comfortable and smooth to ride on "big roads", though. If I lived out where Long Ranger does I would probably put up with its maintenance idiosyncrasies and still have it. In my area around here, in many ways it is out of its proper element. There are few if any cruisers out there that can touch it for handling prowess and smooth shifting with that six-speed gearbox and its quiet helical-cut gears.

BYW, I hope you stop for gas at Hollow Mountain gas station. It’s a legendary place. The town isn’t much but you’ll want to get a photo of you and the town sign!

Ha, I love roadside Americana!

We're staying a night in that town! There's not much else in the vicinity.

[GoldOxide_imp]

You’ll enjoy your SE Utah trip. This region, as well as the Black Hills of South Dakota, are my most favorite places in the U.S. to ride. Bring hydration!

I really enjoy riding where there's an expansive vista and geology to observe on a macro scale.

Hydration! Good reminder!

It's good a to hear of another person with only one bike that does what they want it to.

What happened to the Triumph, Stichill?

Triumph themselves lost interest in the Thunderbird 1600 and weren't really supporting the bike with OEM accessories and even some mission-critical parts like warpage-/leakage-prone throttle body tubes. Every accessory I wanted to try had to be found on the secondary market: different seats, heated grips, windscreens, etc. It was so frustrating because the bike launched with a TON of cool accessories that were nearly impossible to find six years later. It also started to remind me of my F800GT in that there were some fundamental oversights in the design, for example the factory method of jacking the bike was to literally put a piece of wood under the sump and hope you didn't crack it when lifting the bike. A guy came up with a set of retrofit brackets called the Jack-b-quick and wouldn't you know it...he had stopped making them and I had to track down a set on eBay. It was a nightmare to install them. The wheels were bare aluminum and started to have significant blemishing from corrosion. I spent a Saturday working myself to death with metal polish and ended up with a result that was "meh". I was terrified to remove the rear wheel for tire replacement, as belt tensioning and alignment were a black art. I think it was at that point that I decided to move the bike on.

Every accessory I tried and didn't like had to be re-sold to the next parts seeker. In the end, I could never find a windscreen that didn't buffet: I tried low, mid, high. I tried lower deflectors. Riding with the tall screen in the rain meant no rainwater on your visor but also no cleaning action of dirty road spray. The buffeting was probably related to my helmet as well, but I wasn't about to start trying different helmets to find the magic combo. Lesson learned: buffeting is the nemesis of the cruiser design.

It was supremely comfortable and smooth to ride on "big roads", though. If I lived out where Long Ranger does I would probably put up with its maintenance idiosyncrasies and still have it. In my area around here, in many ways it is out of its proper element. There are few if any cruisers out there that can touch it for handling prowess and smooth shifting with that six-speed gearbox and its quiet helical-cut gears.

BYW, I hope you stop for gas at Hollow Mountain gas station. It’s a legendary place. The town isn’t much but you’ll want to get a photo of you and the town sign!

Ha, I love roadside Americana!

We're staying a night in that town! There's not much else in the vicinity.

Triumph themselves lost interest in the Thunderbird 1600 and weren't really supporting the bike with OEM accessories and even some mission-critical parts like warpage-/leakage-prone throttle body tubes. Every accessory I wanted to try had to be found on the secondary market: different seats, heated grips, windscreens, etc. It was so frustrating because the bike launched with a TON of cool accessories that were nearly impossible to find six years later. It also started to remind me of my F800GT in that there were some fundamental oversights in the design, for example the factory method of jacking the bike was to literally put a piece of wood under the sump and hope you didn't crack it when lifting the bike. A guy came up with a set of retrofit brackets called the Jack-b-quick and wouldn't you know it...he had stopped making them and I had to track down a set on eBay. It was a nightmare to install them. The wheels were bare aluminum and started to have significant blemishing from corrosion. I spent a Saturday working myself to death with metal polish and ended up with a result that was "meh". I was terrified to remove the rear wheel for tire replacement, as belt tensioning and alignment were a black art. I think it was at that point that I decided to move the bike on.

Every accessory I tried and didn't like had to be re-sold to the next parts seeker. In the end, I could never find a windscreen that didn't buffet: I tried low, mid, high. I tried lower deflectors. Riding with the tall screen in the rain meant no rainwater on your visor but also no cleaning action of dirty road spray. The buffeting was probably related to my helmet as well, but I wasn't about to start trying different helmets to find the magic combo. Lesson learned: buffeting is the nemesis of the cruiser design.

It was supremely comfortable and smooth to ride on "big roads", though. If I lived out where Long Ranger does I would probably put up with its maintenance idiosyncrasies and still have it. In my area around here, in many ways it is out of its proper element. There are few if any cruisers out there that can touch it for handling prowess and smooth shifting with that six-speed gearbox and its quiet helical-cut gears.


...
Dang. That is too bad. I really liked the looks of that ride you had.

[Cormanus]

Too bad, Stichill. It’s a good looking ride.

[E11even_Hunnit]

Took a relaxed ride on my CBR, about three hours. Didn't stop much for photos today...was essentially "in the zone."

But, couldn't resist stopping for these wild dogwoods in bloom.



Took a break in the forgotten little town of New Liberty, Kentucky.

I presume you also like to floss the S124 on these roads?