Leaderboard

Lots of media you start with friends and then start loosing them. Here you start with few or no friends and gain many.

It’s only 8 hours @ 200 MPH. 😬😬😬

Any trip on the bike is way better than in a car. I sorely miss my yearly trips with my friend Lynn. RIP buddy

At the beginning of April, I rode my '07 Venture to KC to help my brother out after having back surgery. Due to a variety of unforeseen circumstances, I ended up leaving the bike in his barn and fly back home to San Jose. Fast forward a month and my son wrapped up his 1st year of college in St. Louis and wanted to drive home and see some of our National Parks along the way. We threw together a quick plan, made some reservations and my wife & I jumped on a plane to KC to pick up the bike and meet my son to start the journey. As it turned out, my wife never got on the bike with me as we only packed warm weather riding gear for her. There were only two days that would have been appropriate for her riding with me. I was extremely tired from a long hike on the 1st day and the 2nd was a miserably hot day going into Vegas. So, the trip highlights, in order: Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs (highly recommend!) Royal Gorge Bridge (cool to see, but not my favorite) Highway 50 from Colorado Springs to Montrose (2 of the best days of riding scenery I've ever had....at this point...) Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP Arches NP (amazing! Did a nice hike to Delicate Arch) Bryce Canyon NP (pretty cool, but not something I would make a trip just to see, but I was also wiped out from the ride there.) Zion NP (Wowsers of all wowsers!) We did the Angel's landing hike on day 1 but I chickened out of the last mile which required holding on to chains as you climbed up with a straight dropoff 1500' down! 2nd day we hiked the Narrows @ Zion, best hike ever! We rented water boots/socks & poles as the hike is up a river in water that ranges from ankle to waist deep. We got very deep into the slot canyons & had to climb up a couple of small waterfalls, fallen trees, boulders, etc. It was quite an adventure! Was completely wiped out at the end of the day. Las Vegas - hmm, I actually don't have a lot of good to say about Vegas itself, the strip is way overbuilt, overcrowded and apparently a favorite hangout for pot smokers (to each his own, its just not my thing and I don't like to be around it - and it was inescapable). But, the highlight from our day in Vegas was at the Vegas speedway. My son & I each took 5 laps behind the wheel in a 760HP Shelby GT500 Mustang! That's an unreal amount of power and one intense experience. And now, the favorite part of the trip for all three of us: The drive down highway 128 from I-70 to Moab (on our way to Arches). By chance, we met a couple from Ohio the day before who recommended taking 128, even though every mapping app does not tell you to go that way. We said what the heck, let's check it out. OMG! And I say that with all due respect because the one thought that kept popping into my mind on hiway 128 was "This must be where God goes to hang out on his day off..." If you ever make it westward, hiway 128 is an absolute must see. Its ~40 miles and will take an hour to drive. I hate to oversell it, but I am not ashamed to admit that the beauty of this place literally moved me to tears. Perhaps my expectations were so low that they were easy to exceed. Perhaps its some weird manopause hormonal thing I got goin on that made me tear up. Perhaps I need to get out more. But in any case, after a little over 2,000 miles in 9 days, 4 National Parks in 4 days, it was the favorite part of the trip for all three of us. Highly recommended! And my love of my Venture just grows deeper! I got more than one "Nice Bike!" comment along the way.

The amount of current that will flow thru the meter is so small that it does not matter. Most digital meters are above 20KΩ per volt and you are measuring a connection that is a fraction of an ohm or if it is a really bad connection it might get up to a couple of ohms. But as Saddlebum mentioned it does require that the circuit is actually turned on and working and drawing current thru the connections.

We've gone thru Zion from BOTH directions. Amazing; you'd swear it was two different locations!! Rgds, WRIDR

I like the idea and is something I will definitely be giving some serious thought too.

Not exactly. When bridging a bad section the voltmeter acts as a bypass or detour. The worse the connection or the higher the load placed on the circuit the higher the reading because more voltage is taking the detour. What you want to see is no volts at all in this type of test. Say you touch one test lead to the Batt post and one lead to the clamp or terminal on that post. With the circuit powered or loaded up and you see no voltage you know you have a perfect connection at the battery terminal. If there is a reading you have a bad connection and the higher the reading the worse the connection. Keep in mind the bigger the load on the circuit the higher the reading as well and the easier to find the bad connection. I sometimes add an old head lamp to the circuit to make this test more effective. An old fashioned test light used in place of the voltmeter will work to. No light circuit is good. Any light at all circuit is not good and the worse it is the brighter the light. Here again you would have to clean or repair the bad connection or faulty wire.

Have you looked here? https://www.radiantz.com/yamaha-led-lights-s/131.htm , they have the round plates for turns and also the flat plate for the tail brake. I had that or similar on my 98 Tour Classic and my Venture, I mounted a small modulator right inside the tail light assembly so the brake light flashed, really gets people's attention. Also check here for tower lights. https://www.superbrightleds.com/cat/tail-brake-turn/ will need to get ones that have LEDs on the side of the tower so the show out through the lens.

There is a metal core in the boot. Check for leaks. I would not replace them, unless the appearance bothers you.

Being a Puc is a blessing and a curse... I am certainly pleased the jury is still out @saddlebum and encourage them to stay that way... Juries and I never did get along well LOL

It looks like there is enough interest to move forward with this, I will start checking with the state park about pavilion usage rules and camping accommodations. I will get in touch with Don about scheduling to make sure we have dates that will work for Maintenance Day and start making plans. There is a lady here in town that has had annual get togethers for several years that has volunteered her time to assist with planning. Since I'm a go big or go home type of guy lets try to get a crowd. For any that want to come early to check out the lake there are boat and jet ski rentals at the park along with bait and tackle. KY has a 1 day and 7 day fishing permits for out of staters.

Or you can do as I did and install a set of Sonic straight rate springs and never have to put air in your forks again.