Bubba

Fun place to stop. Got's real character! Be sure to ask for "The Home Wrecker"….

There are SO MANY ROADS in the NKY area bounded by the area from Maysville to Louisville and north to the OH river that you could spend two weeks riding hundreds of miles a day and not do all of them! As good as 22 is from Willow to Williamstown, it gets less remarkable the further west you go. Another option--since we're freely adding mega-miles to Bandit13's ride--would be to head south from Owenton on 227 (LEGENDARY!) all the way to Stamping Ground, then wiggle your way over to Frankfort and pick up I-64W into L-ville. In the eastern part of your ride, you can't go wrong with 875, 165 (freshly paved!), 62, 356, 607, and US421 (more traffic, tho).

;o) I can't take credit for finding any of those. I was introduced to all of those by Rob Giles (Dice32 on OR) and the hard core riders from the LocalRiders site. I have hooned thousands of miles of sweet twisties with that crew and never had an issue with anyone in the group being irresponsible….well, OK, except for the speeding part.

Some of the lesser known roads are WAY better than the Dragon. To note: 281-Canada Rd from Tuckasegee to Lake Toxaway 276 from Waynesville to 64 (crosses the BRP) and very easy to make fun loop with 215... 215 from Waynesville to 64 (crosses the BRP) 107 from Cullowee to 1001/Tilley Creek/Elijay Rd to 64 (near Highlands) out of Hiawassee, GA, the loop of 76/197/356 into Helen, then 17 to return, or... if you have the time (since you're already down there) include 348, 19, 180 (WolfPen Gap Rd), and 60 IMHO, War Woman is an OK ride but overrated, since the only REALLY good part is the eastern first few miles. FYI: If you get to GA, remember they now have the super speeder law, which doubles the fine for 20+ over--gets DAMN pricey!!!

The LocalRiders crew out of Cinti puts together a NC trip every year in early Sept. Part of the 'pageantry' is the route choice from-to in finding the best back roads for the trip. We spend lots of time researching and mapping and usually manage to have a great adventure in the process. Note that our destination is not Deals Gap but Waynesville, NC, which puts us in the heart of the mountains and close to the BRP and Cherhola Skyway, as well as some absolutely awesome secondary roads like 215, 276, 209, 281-Canada Rd, 28, and whole bunch more if you go south into GA. Here's last year's routes down and back, and if you go into the forum's Touring thread, you'll find additional routes from years past. 2-day trip south: http://www.localriders.com/forums/showpost.php?p=160786&postcount=101 Return trip north: http://www.localriders.com/forums/showpost.php?p=161059&postcount=181 EDIT/ADD: to use Mapmyride, click on the View Route Full Screen on the right of the page, then click to expand the Directions on the left of the page, which enables interactive following of the route by hovering the mouse over the directions box. You can also export the route as a GPX or KML file.

Cheap bobber = any mid-80s UJM on CL. Remove fenders, hack off rear sub-frame and chrome mufflers, install solo seat and drag bars. Done! A pair of tight stretch denims, sleeveless black leather vest, and a do-rag/bandana and yer good to go. For cheap cafe racer, apply same formula, except--for gear--substitute vintage leather track suit and old, open face Bell helmet, preferably with metal flake paint job and tinted bubble shield.

Joe: Big-boned? I thought you just told all your women you were value-sized….?

Great looking pants, but that white is gonna be pretty ugly after a day's ride in the summer rain or after a night ride thru a bug-splosion. ???s: Are these vented or perforated leather for hot weather? Large enough in the cuff area to go over mid-calf MC boots? You can PM me a price if the OR price is significantly different than the provided link to the item. Thx--Bubba

Gotta love a freakin' motorcycle forum with a thread on 6-pair recombinant DNA….FTMFW!!!

Thanks to Jeff for a nice lift table. It's clean and the price was right!

Doesn't sound like a clutch problem to me. Typically, a worn clutch will cause the engine to rev as the clutch plates slip relative to the speed of the bike. If you're shift lever is sticking, I'd look at several things: 1) make sure you're toe is completely releasing the shift lever between shifts; the amount of movement between the higher gears (4-5, 5-6) is much smaller than between the lower gears, so you may be unconsciously keeping pressure on the lever with your toe; since it's a pawl mechanism, if you don't release the lever completely after completing a shift, the shift pawl can't pick up the next set of teeth on the drum; simple matter to adjust the shift lever angle so you don't maintain pressure on it; 2) make sure your shift linkage is lubed and not so stiff/dry/rusty/dirty that it causing sticking (similar to the whole toe thing above); 3) it's possible that your internal shift mechanism is bent and not operating properly, but it's WAY MORE USUAL that the shift pawl would be bent/damaged in the 1-2 or 2-3 shift position, since that's what usually takes the most abuse. Bottom line, it doesn't sound like a clutch to me.

Ouch! So it sounds like the car driver wasn't paying attention, looked up and saw the left turning vehicle in front of him/her, figured he/she couldn't stop in time and made the decision that it was gonna hurt a lot less to cross the center line and take out two motorcyclists? The old smaller, lighter target thing? I bet a dollar the car driver was on the phone or texting…. RIP, Paul.

My AC unit just has 9 or so sheet metal screws holding the fan motor and housing on to the side louvers. I just take 'em out and tilt the whole fan/motor/cover back and either vacuum or hose the crap out. I've started using a cover for the fall/winter/spring months when the unit is not in use--it keeps things a lot cleaner--altho I suppose you can't do that for a heat pump. FYI, be sure and pull the buss bar/breaker on the outside box disconnect so you're not working around live 220V!!! And while you're in there, make up a soap solution--something like Mr Clean or Simple Green--and give the coils a good soaking, and then hose them off to remove last year's sponge and aid in heat exchange.

Can't help you with the paint question, but I'd be suggesting this: http://www.harborfreight.com/8-channel-surveillance-dvr-with-4-cameras-and-mobile-monitoring-capabilities-61229.html to you MIL….unless you've got an Uncle Guido with a barber shop in Queens. Nailing the neighbor to the wall would be SWEET revenge!!!

Joe: I doubt that, with the advent of FI on modern bikes, there isn't a lot of expertise remaining in the run-of-the-mill shop that has any specialized skills with fueling, especially fora specific model. I'd start out asking your question and looking for tips on the ThumperTalk forum. I had a DRZ for awhile and I'm sure that the FCR conversion is one of the more popular, so there's bound to be a ton of info. If you're not familiar with the link: http://www.thumpertalk.com/forum/17-dr-z-400/#!GSKca

That's not pretty! Interesting that there was a run of Yamaha FZ1's from the same era--'07 thru '09-ish--that had aluminum frame weld issues. The dealers were getting authorization from Yamaha to replace the frames back then, but presume an out-of-warranty issue nearly 7 years after the build date would present a problem. Sorry to hear of your problems and good luck with the repairs!!!

Whoa….my heady explody….need more beer.

Give up. You are trying to be The Voice of Reason in an unreasonable thread….you're wasting energy. This is why I love to lurk on OR--the humor and wit are AT LEAST on a par with members' riding skills. Aahhh, if only I could carve a decreasing radius corner the way some of the wags carve up the noobs here. A-N-D….it's not even winter!!!

Agree with this, if true. Hope this is the case…. Pretty sure the 'modern' H-D Sportster motors use a multi-weight 10W-40 oil in the gear case. The older motors used the 90W hypoid gear oil.

Mmmm, I don't know. If it was my bike, I'd be concerned. That's a metric shit-ton of shavings for a bike with 20K miles of wear-in, especially if the oil and filter was recently changed and the plug wiped clean. Some pretty big chunks of metal being shed by something in there. Problem is that you won't know what/why unless you do a tear-down, so I guess the answer is ride it until something breaks…unless yer into some serious wrenching.

Doug: I agree with you on the WeeStrom. That's my main go-to bike for day rides and week-long tours. Definitely has more capability as far as motor and suspension than can reasonably used at the limits on the street.

Nope. Not necessarily. Depends on what kind of fun you're talking. Given that both are bikes are wrapped in 20+ year-old technology, the performance envelope of the two bikes you're comparing isn't that wide. Nighthawk is your standard UJM with upright seating position and certainly more top-heavy than your lighter, lower Vulcan cruiser. Cruiser should take a bit less work to transition from side-to-side, but you're gonna run out of clearance and suspension competence way before you reach the higher levels of the fun quotient. Plus the V2 motor of the Vulcan will put out more useable torque at lower RPMs than the Hawk's I4, and you'd have to stir the Hawk's gear box with more regularity to keep things on a boil. So….more fun? Maybe. Better? Wait until you ride a modern sport bike to define 'better'!!!

Doug: If you want to ride some other routes in NKY, send me a msg. That's where I do the bulk of my riding, since the roads in OH have apparently turned to sh-t from our hard winter and no maintenance. Rts 10 and 22 are probably the best known around the Cinti area, but there are other/better roads that are less traveled. Check out the LocalRiders.com forum. Not as large a membership as OR, but several hard-core riders that are a wealth of route info. Welcome to OR!!!

I've got a pair of cheap-o lights that I took off my old DRZ that Id be happy to give you for the shipping costs, probably couple of bucks. They look like these: http://www.ebay.com/itm/M-Factory-Carbon-Stick-LED-Turn-signal-light-for-Motorcycles-Super-LED-TSL-332C-/221131838339?pt=Motorcycles_Parts_Accessories&hash=item337c7c1383&vxp=mtr ….only not the faux carbon fiber but rather plain black plastic, so in other words, even cheaper-looking. Honestly, if you type in "motorcycle turn signals" on Ebay, you'll be able to find some really inexpensive LED style for $15 to $20. At least it wouldn't look like you cobbled something together. Lemeno if you want the ones I've got--they're sitting in a drawer in the garage.

Just posting this up in case anyone on OR knows the rider, who is from Louisville on KY Sport Bike forum (Update posted by Dice32 on LR and AFJ): "UPDATE: on the condition of Ken, the Kaw Z1000 rider who hit the dog. He had surgery today on his thumb to repair the badly torn ligaments (no bones involved). His other injury to his knee, a torn ACL, is gonna be treated with therapy first, to see if surgery can be avoided. His gear did the job & no broken bones were involved in the highside. The bike was totalled by the insurance company......Ken's people are working it out with the owners of the dog's people (thru their home owner policy). Hope all goes well, Ken! We're all rooting for your recovery & hope to see you back out there on another bike. Thanks, Viper, for the update today from the hospital."