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I sold the Goldwing and brought this sexy thing home. Always loved the looks of these street brawlers. I binned the stem mirrors and am expecting my CRG Blindsight to arrive tomorrow. Ordered new tires and an oil change kit. Suspension refresh happens before I can ride it. The trailer ride home cashed the fork seals. Both sides are pretty wet. Might as well have the shocks worked over while its down. I'm not even going to pretend this bike won't end up with Ohlins everywhere, but if it can wait until the car is paid for... that'd be swell. 😆 Handlebar is probably being replaced with a Renthal Street Bar sometime before the season ends.

It's official.

After looking at many motorcycles that would be appropriate for retirement age...I made the mature decision and bought myself a new MT-09. It's light and the steering is really quick

Spent all day Saturday going over all three bikes. Servicing, going over bolts and fluids and a deep detail of them. So all three are as clean and ready for the season as they could ever be. Time to log the miles. Even though I've already had a Gap trip under my belt a few weeks ago and ready to make trip #2.

It's official. I have informed the company I am retiring the end of April.

Well, I can't say I did it today, but after years lovingly wrenching on my older bikes, chucking money aside for the better part of a decade, I bit the bullet on a machine I can trust to not leave me stranded, hammer my spine on bumps or be hopeless when gravel appears. I just completed installing the major farkles I wanted on this bike and so far, I love it to death. Claims it's boring are vastly wrong. Also, hey, I haven't been on this board in a long time. The last few years have been kind of...weird.

I was supposed to stay off the bike for a month after a pair of surgeries I had. Couldn’t stand it and cut that a bit short and took a spin in the Valley yesterday. It was great to get out and the bike appreciated the attention and use. Stopped for a sandwich and beer, and then later at a great spot off Riverview to stretch and walk a bit. Then back to my Father’s.

Bike trip has officially started…

Took the wheels off the Versys. Went to IP for a pair of Roadsmarts 3 to replace the knobbies. Bought new helmet. Expensive trip over $600 for everything.

Congratulations! I plan to inform my company next Friday. Tomorrow I'm going to look at a potential retirement gift for myself.

Home. 2468 miles, 5 states one province, two countries and 5 casinos.

On our third day of five days to the Ozark. Mrs. Durk is killing it averaging close to 500 miles a day. No complaints about speed or cornering too hard. She gets a little green feeling at times so does request at times to back it down a bit. MO 125, AR 125, AR 123, AR 7 are some good roads. Peel ferry is a cool deal, can’t believe it’s free. Did take a route around Lake of the Ozarks that was a nice cruise and had a fun little loop from Camdenton down towards Devil’s Elbow and back up to Bridal falls this morning.

Got it fixed! First I planned to pull the oil pan which meant draining the oil that had less than 50 minutes on it. Then I had to remove the exhaust and the lines to the oil cooler before the pan came off. The only useful thing I could see up there was that the part I needed to access was in the clutch compartment. So now on to removing the clutch cover and clutch basket. I probably could have realigned the shift shaft gear without removing the clutch but, WTH, I'm already this far... After removing everything, it was a simple job to align the shifter end and spring. Shifting seemed like Iike it was good, so I put it all back together. New oil and a ride around the neighborhood confirmed that it's fixed!

I’ve been off grid for a while, riding the Denali Highway and camping. This is something you folks should make a bucket list item. It’s doable on a road bike if careful. Stunning scenery everywhere you look. Camp sites as far as the eye can see. I have lots of pics and video to download. Here is a cell phone photo from my tent last night Before hotels and motels Alaska had “Roadhouses”. There are some still around. Tonight I’ve got a room at Meier’s Lake Roadhouse near Paxon Alaska at the end of Rt. 8, the Denali Highway its raining hard. Relaxing and wondering what’s to come. Tomorrow it’s into Palmer Alaska and reuniting with a girlfriend I haven’t seen since 1989 !!!

Rescued this little guy from deep slumber in @bowdogs garage. so far we’ve established compression, spark and air but the fuel isn’t getting to the cylinder. ordering a carb rebuild kit, and air filter and have some snapped plastic anchor points to repair but should clean up and run good.

So lots of progress made. Removed the leaking oil mix tank, stripped the body work and cleaned 20 years of grime and goo off, and dipped the carb in pine sol. Put it back together and she fired right up. Cranked the throttle stop in and started teaching the grandson the basics. All we have done so far is work on stopping but he loves it. Little sister is all about it too. Might have to start looking for another one.

👍 Fuck work

Went ahead and ordered a new converter because I was convinced that was the issue.... Hard launch might have worked the inside somehow. And what a difference between the stock 12" and the new 10" But as soon as I pulled the pan I was unpleasantly surprised with this mess. A whole lot of bushing material in the fluid....like.... A WHOLE LOT so I went ahead and with no previous experience I ripped the transmission apart. Initial inspection hard parks all looked good except the rear planetary, clutches are toast and every bushing is trashed. Ordered an overhaul kit, all three painless accumulators and a rear planetary rebuild kit. I really have no idea how the transmission was functioning properly outside of just noise and vibration. With the way the clutches look I would have expected this thing to be slip city. But then again I've only ever worked on dirtbike clutches before this 🤣

Finally it stopped raining long enough to get outside and change Sunny’s oil. Im leaving on the 21st for a week long trip down to Appomattox Virginia to attend the Horizons Unlimited Traveler’s meeting. There in addition to camping and hanging out with like-minded vagabonds, I’ll also be giving my first solo public presentation about my travels, and will also be doing a reading from my chapter in Sam Manicom’s travel anthology “the Moment Collectors”. Then the next day I’ll be doing a seminar on modifying and maintaining DR650 for extended international travel! nervous as hell but I’m sure it’ll be fun. And yeah Tony, this spring has sucked bad. Very few nice days. Really looking forward to the ride down. Staying at Mark Swepston’s in Kingston Ohio the first night out. Second night will be at the Koolwink!! hope everyone is doing ok

Worst spring ever!

I informed my company on Friday that I am leaving effective 3/14. I did give them an option to pay to retain me as a (very) part time consultant for 90 days to ease the transition. 50/50 if I want to stay on as a consultant or just be done. Wheels are in motion.

Bought this 2013 Kawasaki Versys. I am the 2 nd owner. 34,000 miles. Loaded with S & W moto extras. He had it set up for dirt. It has big block knobbies on it. Going to turn into a good street bike that can do back roads, but no off road. It’s 200 pounds less than my FJR.

Rode it to work Thursday and found this when I got home. Saturday I patched it.

Got New rubbers at wheelers

Yesterday I took Mystery for a ride up Hatcher Pass not far from their home in Palmer where I’ve been staying while resolving issues on the bike. With all systems go now, it’s time to explore a bit. As we ascended and descended the pass, I handed the Nikon to Mystery and she was the trip photographer. Summit Lake at the top of Hatcher Pass AK watching hang gliders descend afterwards, live music at the Palmer Alehouse

Made it to Seward Alaska and the best crab I’ve ever had!

I made it to Tuktoyaktuk NWT today. It was by far the most difficult road I’ve ridden to date. Now I’ve been as far north and south as you can ride in the Americas!

Took my Kawi Versys on a 260 mile ride down to Beverly, Ohio and back Tuesday. Hit 555 to 676. 83 and 284 heading home. Really enjoying this smaller and lighter bike.

Wasn't today, but "recent enough"

Well so far seems the transmission if fine! I didn't see anything online about doing it but, I pulled the fuel pump fuse and cranked the truck over to prime the transmission pump and cooler before I started it, sucked up 8 quarts REAL quick. Taking a total (including what I dumped in the TC) of 12.5-13 quarts. New transmission mount is way overkill. Attached some beefy scrap angle iron to the core support with stainless rivnuts and put some rivnuts in the angle iron to mount the cooler directly to it. Forgot to take a picture behind the bumper, but here's what it looks like from the front. Next up I'll work on getting a scoop for it to mimic the aftermarket ones for the typhoon and Syclone heat exchanger, since it's mounted in roughly the same spot. Took a pretty rowdy spina round the neighborhood after running it through all the gears on jackstands and saw 132°F so I think it's going to need more airflow or a bigger cooler (this is the B&M 20,000btu cooler) The ONLY issues are... The 1-2 shift is a little soft for my liking but, I'm sure that's because I went from the trans go 1-2 spring setup to the sonnax OEM replacement spring and the converter probably doesn't help that. 2-3 and 3-4 felt very solid on the jackstands, only hit the 2-3 once in the neighborhood and I still have some pretty aggressive torque management on that one. The second issue is... I messed up the shifter cable yesterday trying to adjust it... Now I can only hit reverse and neutral from park. Only thing it hits from drive it park, ordered a new one since there is only one place in Florida to get the stupid extra long C4 shift cable for these trucks 🤣 And of course I had to check and make sure the rattles and clunks were gone on hard acceleration https://youtu.be/std3CxQgZS4?si=VfYN3kPvYn_wiiUK

Got the rear planetary rebuilt with the Sonnax kit on Friday morning, spent most of the day waiting on last minute tool orders to show up so I could start rebuilding the rest of the transmission. then struggled with the springs in the valve body since I just kinda....plopped everything out for cleaning, the manual and rebuild guide definitely showed different parts and the trans go instructions helped but most of the color on the springs had worn off....So HOPEFULLY I got that all put back together properly, Then I struggled with the thrust bearing on the rear planetary the rebuild guide looked like it was showing a smaller diameter bearing so I was using on that the rear planetary spline stub was riding on, and that prevented the low/reverse snap ring from going in.... I pulled it all apart SEVERAL times, measured everything several times, checked it against the stock clutch pack and then finally realized I was using the wrong bearing..... After that though it all went together rather quickly and without much fuss. I got rid of the "truck" yoke oil seal? since the S10 yoke is sealed it was just and extra part. ended up using no shims on the servo, test fit with one had the band locked up tight and even with no shim it's still pretty tight to turn the output shaft. I did test fit the new converter and spin the pump over, felt smooth but did have some resistance on the input shaft. just gonna chalk the resistance up to the high energy frictions, they were really grippy during installation after soaking for 2-3 days in DEX VI, turns in reverse with very little resistance like before, and I did check the movement on all the apply pistons during assembly and they all actuated properly and no leaks. Waiting on a sonnax 1-2 accumulator spring since I forgot the trans go springs don't work with the pinless pistons.. but its all ready to go in the truck tomorrow and HOPEFULLY it works....

Oil/filter change on the RT. It's ready. Goldwing alternator gave out last fall. I replaced it with 90amp unit. 13+ VDC at idle. Way better than OEM 40amp. Oil/filter change will be wrapped up this weekend.

For its 25th season, I finally gave it a name.

I bet you hear that a lot.

The 650 Versys model is a great mid-size for doing many things. I rode my 650LT on a long 2 1/2 week trip from OH to the CA border--out to TX, across AZ/NM NV, headed north to southern UT/CO and home. Comfortable riding position and great handling with maybe average wind management. DId everything from hooning the twisties in the passes to superslabbing in 108* temps through western TX to some moderate off-roading on Kolob Terrace Rd (north of Virgin UT) to the Shafer Switchbacks and part of the White Rim trail heading back to Moab.

Maybe I'll jump in this conversation. So I'm at the point where I "could" retire early. Way different circumstances from most of you all. My situation is I am debt free, have almost five times my annual salary in my 401k, almost 29 years of pension build up, and I have a sugar mama that is about to get promoted. That last one is the key for me. I've worked my entire life at a bullshit corporate industrial job to raise my family and put food on the table. Many you probably remember me posting in the past about working all weekends and barely be able to get away and do things. Years ago my wife wanted to go back to school and so I worked so much overtime and weekends to make that happen. The agreement was that I could retire early and she would take care of me in the future. So then last year she went back to school again to get her master's degree in healthcare administration. And in the very near future the manager of her office is retiring and my wife should be a shoe end to take her place which also comes with a substantial pay increase and benefits. And while the thought of retiring early is enticing I'm just happy that I'm at a point to where I could just walk away and say fuck it at any time. I mean that peace of mind is paying dividends as we My work is so slow right now and they're actually talks of layoffs. and it doesn't bother me in the least a little bit. I'll stick around as long as I can or as long as I feel like. I mean let's face it, every year I work is more pension dollars and 401K savings(which I'm currently stashing 30% of my paychecks into my 401k) At this point my income is the play money, and we like to play. So that's where I'm at, debt free, a nice nest egg, empty nesters and a spouse that loves what she does and doesn't mind doing it. Now when I actually do pull the trigger and retire, I don't think I would retire completely either. Would absolutely want to pick up a gig that I like or love. Maybe bounce around different jobs like motorcycle shop or parts counter or even just turn wrenches in my own garage.

Hell, yeah, I'm gonna sniff it!

No, there is a law against them being close to casinos. Uber to Planet 13, it isn't far from the Bellagio. It's huge and cool as hell. It's like a Walmart for weed.

Nothing like a first thing in the morning blast across the Skyway. No one is down here, it's empty.

End to end clean run on the good part of 16 this morning. Dry, clean and great pavement. Lunch then 353, 209 and 208 and all that.

Less flamboyant relative of the Boom Chachalaca

Following Tonik's theme: