cowpuc

Tip (my best friend) and I have covered a fair amount of miles on Tweeks (1st Gen) with the scoot packed to the gills. While I do get teased a lot about my unwillingness to pull a trailer because of the extra weight we carry, I have actually found these touring bikes to be very capable of carrying max loads without to much problem. The main thing when carrying full capacity is to remember that when you have a passenger on a fully loaded scoot is that being mindful of the change in handling attitude that the xtra weight brings about is now up to BOTH of you instead of it just being on your shoulders as it would be if you were riding alone. That old saying about "practice makes perfect" comes to mind here, pack up your scoot - get your precious wife on the back and go to a parking lot and practice practice practice. A huge thing for the passenger to learn is when its ok to move around and when its not - she has to participate in "riding" the bike or bad things can happen real quickly. As far as tires go, I tend to run the lower end tires (cheaper) because carrying the amount of weight we do combined with our LOVE for HOT desert tarmac - the differences in mileage we get out of high priced compared to low price tires has been negligible = 4k miles out of cheap, 6k (maybe) out of expensive - plus I change my own tires from start to finish so an "on road" tire swap is not that big of a deal. More important than brand (IMHO) is that you make sure that what ever tires you decide to run, make sure your purchasing tires with a high load rating on them - I like to stay above "78" on my load ratings which keeps me above 900 lbs cap on each tire. I have found we go thru 3 rear tires to every front tire. Also, when packing heavy, keep in mind that the last part of the tread wear wears A LOT faster than the first part (especially in high tempts) and if your near wear bars = begin the process of ordering a new tire. Concerning brands, there is only one "brand" that I would stay away from,that would be "Metzler". I only say this because I have personally experienced delamination with a rear Metz and I also have a very good friend of mine who also had this issue (almost cost him and his wife some severe personal injury). Due to this, I would NOT put a Metz back on unless I had no other choice. Run max tire pressures, run max suspention pressures (especially rear), dont tailgate (ride defensively), learn to use front brakes (where REAL stopping power is) and keep an eye on brake pad wear, pack heavier items in bottoms of saddlebags, if riding with other bikes ALWAYS ride your ride (dont find yourself getting pressured into riding over your head) and you folks will do fine!! Happy touring! Puc

and no playlist would be complete without Ohhhhh yeaaahh

Day after day Blue would report to work at the Nuke plant. Beside the locker he kept his containment suit in was a sign with a little red button in the middle of it - the sign above the button read "Authorized Persons Only". Being a normal member of VentureRider.org, the day came when Blue could no longer handle the pressure of wondering what on earth that little red button was for so he pushed the button and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjnm3V0xYjI

got have some room for a little polk salad in here too

pull in, slip em off and hang em on Tweeks Antelope Horns out at Sturgis and I betcha the problems with finding a place to park her in all those Harleys would instantly become a thing of the past Bern

Gotta be a way to tack on a tent rack there Fool - where there's a will there's a way!! I am with ya on the throttle by wire and traction control too.. Like your fellow engineer Scotty said about the "new" Excelsier Star Ship = the more sophisticated they become the easier it is to stop up their plumbing

Another one I LOVED to listen to when I was a teenager..

YOU GOTTA WATCH YOUR STEP WHEN KNOW THE CHIPS ARE DOWN!!! YIPPEEE I OHHHH COWPATTI!!! :dancefool: THANK LAR - FROM OL' COW PUCKI

Hey Dave,, any chance of a or two? Maybe even some of you folks out riding it - WOULD LOVE TO SEE SOME!! Sounds like a DANDY brother!! What kind of performance we talking on the FJR - any idea of HP specs on it? Are those 6 speeders? @BlueSky mentions something in talking about his Concours, that being where his bike carries the fuel up on its backbone creating some top heaviness. Does the FJR have a backbone mounted tank and if so, have you noticed it making a difference compared to your 1st Gen?

Well you lop eared varmint Eck,, I clicked on this thread thinking I was at least gonna have a chance to do some guessing - RATSSSSSSSSSS,,,, I LOVE to guess at stuff.. .. Its ok though cause I was gonna guess that the Thrift Store you were at had a whole box of Kentucky Fried Chicken someone donated and they gave it ya (always thinking with my ).. WOW THAT IS AWESOME MY MAN!! Dont cha just LOVE it when that happens? Sounds to me like this would be a really good time to hop down and pick up a Mega Millions Ticket brother,, ,, :scratchchin: and if ya do and its a WINNER - remember who suggested it will ya Congrats my friend! Oh yea, almost forgot,, ,,

Ok Kiwi, here ya go. Here are some pics I just took out of my shop manual. See if you can follow me on this (what the heck,, its just another adventure right?). Looks like ya gotta pull the trunk and the seat to do this so start there. Make a couple jumpers as shown in the pics. Jumper the wires for the rear valve as shown in the pics - gotta have your key in the Acc position according to the book - when you jumper the rear solenoid connector under the seat as shown you should hear a click - leave it jumpered so its engaged. Now jumper the compressor motor lead as shown so the compressor runs, you should see the back of the bike raise as the air fills the shock. Your gonna have guess as to how much air is in it by the height of the bike as it lifts - dont wanna over fill but you wanna get enough so your not bottoming out.. If I were on the road on a tour and had problems like you are having - this is what I would do long before I started trying to disconnect hoses (real pain) to hand pump. Matter of fact, it wouldnt be beyond my "make it work" attitude to even toss a couple switches into the jumpers so I could adjust the rear boingers again if I had to.. Hope this helps get ya riding and doesnt create confusion of some sort,, I KNOW I can be hard to follow sometimes!! Maybe someone with a better solution will come along here:fingers-crossed-emo

Next thing I would be looking at is a way to jumper the solenoid (or what ever they have in there to source air to the rear shock) and jumper the pump to make it run. I would do that before I would ride it with no air in the rear shock cause bottoming them out is hard on em. Front forks not so much unless the springs are sacked. Gotta be a way to electrically bypass that board and get air in the rear shock - the old hot wire it routine.. Been a long time since I had a Royale with onboard compressor (only had one and never had problems with the Class anyway) but it seems like the compressor and stuff was under the rack that the trunk mounts on. I would pop the trunk off it and take a look - may be surprised at how easy what I am talking about would be to do,, or maybe not.. Never know till ya take a peek..

IMHO, while it is possible for that cap gasket to be the problem and it would be a good idea to replace it I would look at some other things in search of the smell issue. You could make sure that the tank is venting properly - not building pressure and then slowly venting after being parked. Also might want to check your overflow tubes on your carb bowls for dampness - if these are damp it means either your floats have gone out of height adjustment or you may have a sticking float valve. Either one can cause some slow drippage of fuel when parked. No idea where or even if your scoot has a fuel filter in front of the pump like our 1st Gens but I have also had the stock filter develop a small seam crack creating the smell like your talking about with very little to none noticeable drippage on the floor - just a dampness on the filter. Locating the source of a smell like your talking about can take a lot of tedious work, another thing that I have found when working thru it is working in the dark with a real good pen light so my eyes are tightly focused on the small area where the light is showing. This way if there is dampness anywhere on aluminum (such as carb bowls) I can see the reflection of the dampness easier.

Oh no @Larry1963, you didnt go against any grain - sorry if it sounded like I was implying anything like that at all. It was just that BJ had asked us to put down songs that our friends would be surprised to hear playing on our scoots and, because my friends would not even blink if they heard me playing Willie (I LOVE Willie) - I couldnt list him on here. I was still hoping and counting on one of my brothers here to fill in that gap (so to speak) though

WOW @gez, THAT was beautiful and what a perfect way to honor and pay homage to those who deeply deserve it! Thank you to yourself, @videoarizona and the other 123 riders who went out of your way to do such a wonderful thing!! Also, thank you David for sharing this thread with all of us!

and, as his wife, Eileen knew how far into geezer land the Bird had drifted because he had subtly gone from a 1st Gen Venture to the slower 2nd Gen and than even deeper toward the land of Depends with his recent glide in that direction. She was hoping that once the Free-dom seeker took a test ride in the Chevy something would click inside him and he would

Right there with ya Jack, having never matured (take that anyway you would like ) into a real "touring" rider and having spent most of my "touring" hours aboard a MK1 first gen, I can really see exactly what your talking about brother. Looking at the seating of the FJ (height differences between driver/pass) this sure looks familiar. Couple things that I would question and want answers to would be where the air pocket would be on the FJ (what kind of coverage does that leaned back windshield afford the passenger) and how difficult would it be to bring the bars back to support a more leaned back riding position for the driver. Also I wonder if the front lower fairing has built in Highway pegs (seems like I saw this on a similar model to the FJ - maybe @TJ 's new Honda?) - gotta be able to get the feet out front for long distance comfort (in my case) but also keep the mid controls too. Yea,, I think with a little tweeking (here we go again) and a few well placed stickers (here we again again) that FJ would be completely capable of some 16hr days

There called selfies and they are completely legal PLUS - they will keep the VR 's off your back

You do realize that the Warden knows how to turn off the power at the breakers right? Just because your wiring your dog house up does not mean your actually gonna have power when you get sent out there Have fun and please dont forget those 's Captn'

I REALLY like this one Kev - they now have a new subscriber on You Tube!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIFAUljI17Q

:cool10::cool10::clap2::clap2::dancefool::dancefool::thumbsup: Which young man is he Kev and what instrument does he play? He and his group have definitely got talent :bowdown:

Now that there looks like a young lady who is PROUD of her Dad (and she should be), that pair of rabbit ears your poking up behind her head might not earn you any brownie points though .. WAYYY cool:clap2: what your doing Lar, THANK YOU for being there for the kids my friend:thumbsup:! Godspeed as you lead the troops and nothing but the highest hopes of a highly successful adventure Lar, ride safe and have fun out there!! PS - THANK YOU for the pic, if you get a chance to while on the ride I would LOVE to be able to share in that experience with you!

I used to lay around up at Deer Camp and listen to this gentleman,, definitely my kinda guy..

My son and I used to listen to Mark Lowry for hours, never heard that one before - good one M6!! Any of your guys ever listen to Jerry Clowers? Gonna start a new thread with a little Jerry in it:big-grin-emoticon:

Tip and I were in the process of getting ours up on Monday when her Gall Bladder acted up and we headed to the ER.. One would have thunk some of Santa's helper Elves would have shown up during the week and finished the job but onn noo,, this is exactly as we left it on Monday. Sometimes I think that naughty and nice stuff ya always hear about is a big myth,,, either that or something is wrong in the North Poles Human Resources dept cause the message of how much of a nice guy I am is obviously NOT getting thru to the big guy who signs the payroll checks!!