July 23 ride and new tire

July 23 2006

It's supposed to get to 100 degrees today; what better time to put on a black leather coat and be in the sun all day?

Here is the album

I bought a new rear tire for my ex500 from Jimmy G's in Moscow. The tire and mounting fee were a good price ($78 for everything), so I went for it. I was extra pleased that they were going to be able to do the work that same day.

The first item of concern I saw after getting the ninja back was that there were no weights on the rear tire. I suppose it is possible that the tire is perfectly balanced, and I really have not noticed any vibration from it. The bigger concern was that every once in a while my rear break would pop. On Saturday, while running an errand, I found out why this was – the slave cylinder of my rear brake was not tightened enough where the hose connects and brake fluid was leaking out. Usually when fluid leaks out, air leaks in so I knew I was in for more than just tightening the hose.

I got home and set the bike on the center stand. When I went to tighten the hose two things looked wrong: the bolt was slightly stripped and you could not get a wrench around it because the rear wheel alignment bolt was in the way. Looks like the mechanic at Jimmy G's put the read brake assembly on too low and decided to leave it there, stipping my brake fluid hose bolt trying to tighten it at an angle rather than undoing the mess and putting the brake assembly back where it should go.

To put the brake assembly where it need to go and to tighten the hose bolt, I had to loosen my rear wheel. In doing this I noticed that the mechanic had scratched a mark in the alignment lines. This would be fine, except it was a whole notch from where it should be, so the rear tire was way out of alignment.

In any case, was was able to tighten the hose, bleed the brake, and get the brake assembly back to where it should go. I was very happy with Jimmy G's when I picked up the bike because of the price and speed of service. It's too bad I had to deal with all the rest of this crap. I'll be ordering a tire mounting tool kit as soon as I can afford it.

Another trial I went through on Saturday was all my fault. I had read on the ex500riders.com forum that you can put bb's (for an airgun) into the handlebars to reduce vibration. My hands get real buzzy after a few minutes of riding so I thought this would be a great way to fix that. I filled both handlebars and proceeded to try things out. My starter switch would not go in. I immediately knew that a BB had found it's way into the right switch assembly. It turns out that there is a slightly larger than BB sized hole in each handlebar under the switch assemblies. Getting the BBs out was much harder than getting them in because I had to disassssemble the switch assemblies, including the throttle cable housing (never fun on any bike I have worked on). So now I'm back to buzzy handlebars.

Today's ride has been going great though. My first stop was in St Mary's to enjoy a rootbeer float at 11am. I left Moscow at 9:30am and the temperautre was already 88 degrees. The most pleasant part of the ride so far had been my ride through White Pine road. I was not paying attention to my speed, just watching the road and keeping myself comfortable through the twistys. I noticed that the first part of the road went by a bit faster than I had expected, so on the next 25 MPH turn I looked down at my speedometer: 50 MPH. So my new tires may have caused some initial problem (well, the mechanic who mounted them did anyway), but they perform wonderfully! With the stock excedera's I never felt comfortable doing more than 40 in a 25 mph corner, usually sticking to 35.

I made it to the end of the paved road that goes past Avery, ID up towards the Montana boarder. On my way back to St. Mary's I spoted a moose eating water vegitation in a creek at the side of the road. I pulled over to take some pictures, and noticed a funny thing: a sign stating the name of the creek is “Moose Creek”.

The day was hot, the road was rough, and my muscles are SORE! The ride has been beautiful though. The St. Joe river is shallow and slow most of the way. I saw hundreds of people riding small rafts and inner tubes. I also passed a cruiser on the side of the road. A man was at the engine working on something and a woman, clad in a leather bra and leather short shorts under a pair of chaps was waving traffic past. I gave them the “ok?” signal and she signaled back they were fine.

As I pulled into the drive-in to get some dinner, my rear brake popped like it was yesterday. I couldn't detect any leaking, so maybe it was a heat thing. I figured out a few days later that the mechanic actually failed to line the notch in the rear brake assembly with the matching groove in the swing arm, leaving the whole assembly to freelyrotate about 10 degrees.

Total Miles: 315
Total Hours: 9
Total Cost: $22.53 for gas + $9.98 for food = $32.51