Scud

Then, the next day, was it a Blue Monday?

^ very nice. I used to play the hell out of Dire Straits and Mark's solo work. But it's been a while. Time to revisit those timeless classics, including one of my all time favorite songs:

Loc-tite makes a thread repair kit they call Form-a-Thread. I've not used it before, but it may be worth a try. (in addition to longer bolts if possible. Edit - I see you already sealed it. There are lot of bolts on the cover, so chances are that the sealant and the ones you can get to proper torque will do the job.

Can you get the rear wheel off the ground? If so, if will be a lot easier to see what's going on with the linkage while you rock the rear wheel back and forth.

Pies, pints, and pushrod engines. The three P's of a good outing.

There's not much in the Eastern Sierras in terms of motorcycle dealers, shops, hangouts, etc. But there are seemingly endless dirt and paved roads. Are you doing the VCMC dual sport ride in Bishop? I did that a couple times, great event. Stop at the Bishop Visitor Center (across the street from Eric Schatt's Bakkery). The visitor center sells paper maps showing permitted motorized trails and OHV areas. I've been meaning to visit the Husky monument, which is actually pretty easy access from Southern California.

1) That could be interesting, so the scope here would essentially expand to include the sporty CARC bikes? Which could mean your own 1200 Sport. 2) Yeah that could be a huge task, and you'd have to deal with the transfer of personal information. If you do go down that road, there might be a member who'd be willing to act as a Griso moderator and copy over the main technical topics. But even that would be time consuming and require a lot of filtering.

Well done. Made all the sweeter because of the history of the bike. Thanks for taking us along for the ride. I haven't done a pass over the Sierra Nevadas for a couple years. This is giving me wanderlust.

Sounds like a proper adventure. Enjoy that ride through Utah today. For future reference (and for anyone else) when the spring breaks you cannot shift at all. Other types of shift misbehaving are most frequently remedied by cleaning and/or adjusting the external linkage (especially the long shift lever pivot bolt).

Getting close to steep, twisty, high elevation stuff. That's my favorite.

Sorry to hear that news. I've heard good things about that site, but never looked closely as I don't have a Griso. But it looks like I missed a good resource for my Stelvio... I do hope the site gets maintained.

^^ I am still not aware of a single failure of any V11 that has the "new" spring installed. Not one. And that's how it should be. There are other springs in the shift mechanism, and they never break. Was it really 2017 that we started doing that? Wow... time flies.

Ideally, you should put it in neutral to put the side plate back on anyway. Can you get the rear wheel off the ground? If so, you will need to move the shift selector arms along the two rods until you find neutral. It takes a little guess work at first , but soon you will find how they engage. You can rock the wheel back and forth until it spins freely - and you've found neutral. I notice you've made three posts, so assume you're new here. Chuck designed and improved "unbreakable" shift spring and I had them manufactured and still have a lot of them on hand. I'll send you a PM.

That's pretty in white. I can easily imagine a tall-bar / tall-screen version with a set of painted luggage. And a police version.

+1 on paper maps. This picture was the start of a great adventure. San Diego, CA to central Utah primarily on twisty two-lane roads. One sheet per gas stop. Just rotate in the tank bag window. I had another set for the way home. And here is Capitol Reef, the last point on the map in this picture. And I'll tell you my favorite paper map story... I'm on a 450 KTM doing a solo loop from Sedona AZ to Flagstaff and back. I get my trusty Federal Motor Vehicle Use Map from the ranger station and plan my loop. On the way back South I'm getting a little concerned about time so I'm moving quick and I get flagged by a ranger. He tells me I'm not allowed to continue on my motorcycle and that I need to turn around. This a HUGE time-sucking detour if I do it. I pull out my Motor Vehicle Use Map. I point to a spot on the map and ask, "Are we here?" He says "Yeah, I guess that road is open now, but only to motorcycles, go ahead." I make it back before dark. PAPER MAPS RULE. Now I confess, I also had a GPS mounted on the handlebars at the time and I was following the line I had laid down (based on the MVUM). On a sidenote, a "breadcrumb" GPS track can save your ass if you are off in the woods alone and get confused.

Longest reigning Monarch in the UK, and a long, full life. But from my (US-centric) point of view the whole Royal Family thing seems unnecessary and ineffectual. But as counterpoint to my own statement, I can't help but feeling the world would be a little bit better today if King Charles and Queen Diana were ascending. Imagine how much good she would have done in the last 25 years. And Diana would have ridden a Moto Guzzi. Actually, she probably would have a Triumph with a super cool flag tank.

She looks down at the trip meter and realizes it is near the bike's maximum range.

Ooohhh... I see a Black LeMans in your dropbox links. Well done. I notice the Hepco Becker racks in the pictures. Does the bike come with all three hard cases? Those could come in handy on a long trip. I've found that a tank bag can give a little relief on a long ride - like a pillow on the tank. One thing to consider is the age of the tires. You might be safer with a set of new shoes before you take off on that long trip. Re the Utah to California route... Unless you really want to go to Las Vegas, it seems you have chosen a long route with a lot of Interstate. Consider going through central Nevada instead. I camped at Great Basin National Park once and loved it. From there it's less than 400 miles to Lee Vining (including the fabulous route 120 from Benton to 395 by Mono Lake). Depending on the route, you might need to carry a gallon of gas (ride 50 miles then top off the tank). Central Nevada would likely be very nice at that time - and almost certainly cooler than going through the Mojave desert.

Ha - good reminder on the plugs. Sometimes simple stuff is the answer. Hope y'all have a great weekend. Mine has rain in the forecast, which we desperately need.

^ That one could do with a re-paint. @docc if it comes down to a repaint, I have dark grey fender from a 2002 Champagne LeMans that you can have for the cost of shipping. Consider it a forum donation.

PM just sent - we'll get dowieze back on the road.

I suggest first lifting the rear wheel. See if you can get it to shift when you rock the wheel back and forth. A lot of problems are due to obstructed or sticky linkage. So you might want to pull the starter and get a good view of everything. Check that the pivot bolt is not too tight. Check everything before you pull the cover off (it needs to be removed before you remove the cover anyway, so just take your time with disassembly. Even though your spring was replaced recently, new ones have been known to fail after only a few thousand miles. That happened to me and was one of the reasons I got involved with the effort to re-engineer the shift spring. One more test for you to consider. This is based on the premise that the internal shifting arm needs to be pushed toward the front of the bike to engage (that's what the spring does). If you have a small hill, roll the bike down and hit the brakes hard. Sometimes this will cause the internal shift mechanism to go back into place and you will get one or two shifts before it falls out again. If that happens, the spring is almost certainly broken.

For your viewing and listening pleasure...

I believed you, I just wanted to learn more about it. As they say, sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. And I had to "unlearn" some things I thought I knew.

Ok - you made me go searching. I found a discussion on an R3 forum with post that seems credible. There's a good illustration there that explains the reasoning for the smaller piston being on the leading edge. Maybe @docc could figure out how to borrow that picture and post it here for us?