All the way south

Much has happened since I last updated.

After thinking it over a bit, I think I’m going to try fairly quickly through Mexico until the Yucan.  I’d still like to goto Zacatecas and Aguascalientes, but everything else north and central in Mexico is going to be for another trip later.  When planning, I think six months is a massive amount of time, but I have the feeling that when I get on the road, time is going to fly.  Mexico is very close to Texas and I’ll be able to visit it as a long weekend trip, as opposed to say, Ecuador

Through the HUBB, I met Wayne who is in temporarily in Houston with his wife.  Wayne is my new hero.  He and his wife are  obviously into long distance motorcycle travel AND they fly a Cessna 180 (it is a tail dragger) all around the continent.  Pretty cool.  Anyway, he gave me lots of information about the countries he visited and forwarded some contact information along.  Thanks Wayne!!

Last Saturday, I was going to Gulf Coast BMW to get some spare parts and saw a fully loaded big GS in the parking lot with a HUGE gas tank.  I inquired who owned the bike and serendipitously I met Michael, a Danish Canadian who is on his way back from Tierra del Fuego.  Pretty amazing coincidence.  He’s currently staying at my house until he gets to have a technical behind-the-scenes tour of NASA.  Sounds like it’ll be great fun.  After Houston, he’s going to ride to Flordia and watch a shuttle launch.  Awesome.

Back to the bike…. So spare parts.  I have lots and I’m going to make a page about what spares I’m bringing later.  I now have my front TKC 80 mounted and am going to wait to do the rear until just before I leave. Also, with the help of Michael, we were able to get my damaged pannier back on the bike.  I don’t think I’m going to take it off again.  I’m not 100% that it’ll make it on.  There was some pretty serious convincing that we had to do to get it remounted.

I’ve been pretty busy at work these days so I haven’t had much time to update the blog.  I’ll summarize:

I finally got the valves back in order — I did it at Motorcycle Exchange, which is located within running distance from my house.  This is fortunate because I didn’t have a ride back home after dropping off the bike, so I jogged the 3 miles =].

Shots!  I’m done with my shots and just need to get my malaria medicine lined up.  I got my second round of Hep A/B (twinrx) and should be good to go even though I haven’t had my third round.  Let the previous sentence not be the one that I regret.

I’ve started working on a route for Mexico.  I’m open to suggestions you know anyone who’s traveled around Mexico.  Thanks to Kevin I have a good idea of places to check out in the Yucatan area.

On the bike front, I’m busy pricing spares and trying to figure out what I’m doing to do tire wise.  TKC 80s or Distanzias????  Also I realized that I can’t fit my right pannier on the bike after the drop I had on water crossing in the Hill Country.  I bent the mounting rack just enough where the pannier barely doesn’t fit.  I tried “convincing” the rail with a rubber mallet with no luck.  I’m going to try to add some heat and give it some more love with my neighbor KTM Carl.

The one thing I don’t like about the F650 is the position of the footpegs for extended highway use.  They’re pretty good when you’re standing on the pegs in the rough stuff, but after a couple of hours on I-10, I get serious knee pain.

I finally found some nice highway pegs that aren’t covered in chrome but I couldn’t find a suitable mount that would fit on the F650 GSs OEM engine gaurds.

The guys over at MPH Cycles in Park Ten did some “custom” work for me and welded a gromet at a 90 degree angle on the engine gaurds.  I’m very happy with the position, I just wish the bead was a little cleaner.

I certainly don’t have a very strong mechanical background, but there are a couple of things that I need to know how to do on my own bike:

• Change the oil
• Fix a flat

The other week when I wanted to go riding, I discovered that I had a flat front tire.  This was a perfect opportunity to test my tire changing skills.

The first thing I noticed was that I did not have the right tools in my road kit to actually change a tire.  Oops.  This is why I needed to change my own tire BEFORE hitting the road.   Not only that, but my roadtools had actually vibrated into many pieces.  So much for Autozone’s finest.

I went to Sears and bought a set of appropriate tools that hopefully will hold up better to the vibrations.

Now to changing the tire:

First attempt — As fast as I was putting air, it was coming out.  Crap.  I had somewhere between 6 and 7 holes and no more spare tubes.

Second: I’m getting good at taking off the tire.   Instead of screaming profanity trying to remove the tire from the rim, it just took a couple of minutes and I was just sweating a little bit.  I was very deliberate and careful when putting on the tire.  I started filling the tire with air and all looked good.  That was until I got to about 20 PSI when I went to check tire pressure, I could hear a highpitched hissing noise.  ARHg.  2nd failed

3rd attempt:  SUCCESS!!!  No comment other than success.