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What did you do to your V11 today?


Scud

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Not wanting to waste my negotiated kitchen pass for the 'weekend after the SSR' ( insert Homer Simpson 'Duh' emoji )

 

I headed off to the SE portion of Ohio & made my base in Marietta for the weekend. Where I took on the duty of scouting out roads for the soon to be announced Northern Spine & CARC Raid.

 

Leaving Marietta, in the bottom LH corner of the pic, I took the brown road, Route 26 up to Woodfield. Sorry about the image, using OSMand map app, after sizing the image to get the routes in, the road markers were gone.

 

Turning round I headed back SW turning off towards Grandview on 260, brown rd. Joining Rt 7 I travelled NE until Sisterville ( Ok it's actually in WV but..) then up 800. At Monroe turned around & back down on 255.

 

Rt 255 stops in the town of Sardis on Rt 7, where I was delighted to find a great place for a late lunch and a flirtatious waitress who directed me to a B & B. No, not for that reason !

Small B & B that could accommodate 4 guests or so, porch, outdoor gazebo seating for telling tall tales etc. Potential base of operations

 

Back to work I turned up onto 536 from Hannibal, where the 7 is on the pic. This road was the most technical of the day. It runs on the ridge, twists & turns, up & down. It has good signs posted, a good road surface but you are still on the top of the ridge. Awesome views, but the drop offs on either side don't encourage daydreaming !

One of those roads that you need to bring your best to. I was glad I'd rehersed on less challenging ones.

 

Lastly I enjoyed the big sweepers of Rt 78 into Clarington & then 7 back to Marietta to rest my sore stiff hands on a cool glass of beer, or two.

 

If any of you want roads that rival Tellico & its environs, come & ride SE Ohio. You won't be disappointed.

 

Not that I'm biased or anything

 

 

Looks good. I'm in. So will it be spine or carc for you?

 

 

I did some growing up in a little town up river.

 

Last time I rode the area, we crossed the ferry from Fly, OH, to Sistersville, WV.  i love being with a group bikes on a ferry deck gliding over a river . . .

 

 

 

I did some growing up in a little town up river.

 

Last time I rode the area, we crossed the ferry from Fly, OH, to Sistersville, WV.  i love being with a group bikes on a ferry deck gliding over a river . . .

Docc, do you know some of these roads then ?

 

 

 

Not so much, really. I was a little boy there and only rode the Sport there once.

 

I did wreck a Cougar Eliminator there in the 70s. :o

This *Topic* needs its own thread.  :thumbsup:

 

nobleswood, I have some .gpx files for some of those roads if you can use them?

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Did not fit my speedybleedies today! - Instead i rode a 250 mile scenic route thru the north west to buy a longbow! Wanted to see chester for the first time too, but couldn't get in the bleedin place for a bizarre amount of cars schniding up the roads...

(English longbow crafted by a canadian, bleeders fitted tomo.. maybe..)

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Traditional, I grew up shooting a compound for years and lost interest in my twenties. Living in WI now the bug has bit me again.

It's probably like motorcycles where in a way bows have gotten too good and the challenge of using less technology is more intriguing.

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Installed my Hepco Becker rack and bags over the weekend.  When I opened the box from Moto Machines, I ran into my 1st problem.  Only 1 page of installation instructions with only 1 picture of the completed bags, all in GERMAN. I looked on line for an English version without success. I did find a .pdf file in German, but being Germans, it was read locked so I couldn't cut and copy text from it. With out enough pictures to guess, I spent the next 4 hours using google translate, typing in crazy 30 character words that ended up meaning allen head screw (linsenkophschrauben). 

Finally with instructions in hand, I could complete the job.  The hardest part involved a bracket that mounts to the rear of the sub-frame and sticks out to either side of the fender to support the back of the brackets. I requires removing and cutting the back small inner fender piece to let the bracket pass thru.  Very poor design, it would have been better to install some standoffs on the rear subframe, drill 2 holes in the inner fender then bolt the bracket to the standoffs.  If I had lots of time to waste, I would have re-fabbed the bracket in this way.

Took about 4 hours of work to finish the installation.  Very sturdy and the bags are really nice.

The engineer in me appreciates the new functionality the bike will have and packing for the Lake Henshaw rally will be easy peasy.

The rider in me is not so happy. To a certain extent, it's like I'm dressing a super-model in cargo pants and cargo vest.  Yea, you can still tell that there is a super-model underneath, but the end result is way less sexy than she was before.

Gonna debate this one for a while, but if anybody wants a nice set of Hepco Becker bags in a month or so, let me know.

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When I got the kit for the Centauro many years ago.. I first thought they'd sent me the wrong stuff.  :grin:  After scratching my er.. ear for a while, I finally got it all mounted. Took me 4 hours, too. Yep, one page of instructions in German. 

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Rode the mighty Scura with the new bags today.  I had seen several posts about bikes that wobble after adding H&B bags.  Happy to report that did quite a bit of time with the speedo in the 8's and 9's and the bike is quite stable.  I can feel the back end getting nudged around by the wind a little bit, as would be expected.

 

That said, a couple of points -

1. I have the 30L bags, not the 33% wider 40L versions.

2. I have owned and ridden some notorious flexi-flyers in my time. Gummy-kuh BMW Airheads with their famous mid-chassis pivot. Early Goldwing interstates that would head shake anytime the bike was going 40MPH.

3. Even my other current bikes feel less stable.  My K1600GTL is always asking "turn now?", "Turn now?", "can we turn now?".  My F800GS with it's huge aluminum flat plates hanging in the breeze really bounces around the rear end.

 

So, it may be that I'm de-sensitized, but no bag wobble problems here.

 

Unfortunately, the bike is going home on a trailer this afternoon. That's in another post.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Been playing with the handlebar weights today, which were working their way out on every trip. Managed to source some new rubber damper tubes but the old ones would not budge - I tried hammers and everything! Turned out the innerds were replaced with lead tape & glue at some point and was all jammed in place, all a bit worrying attacking it with a drill and getting metallic flakes out when I was expecting rubber. Back to standard now. Rode her in this morning and what a difference - all the nasty vibrations have been damped out

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  • 3 weeks later...

48 degrees(f) misty, damp and probably right in the middle of the whitetail deer rut. I haven’t been on a bike in what seems like months but is probably only a couple weeks.

Probably last ride of the year. Bummer.

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  • 4 weeks later...
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