saddlebum

Being somewhat old school and of a somewhat basic nature I tend to often demonstrate a dislike for the computer era and the control it has taken of our simpler and less stressful life style of the past. However even I have to admit despite all my ranting and dislike of the computer age, had it not been for the internet I would not have many of the benefits it also provides. Carl,s opening praise of this site is an example of one of them. The friends I have gained many of which I have become very close with and count them among the best of my friends, the knowledge I have gained both technical and otherwise. Sights I have seen, that I would not have otherwise even thought about, thanks to organized Rallies, organized by the outstanding members of this club, (The trains I still get to complain about for keeping me awake all night in Galena ) LOL. Marcarl put it all very well, this a great site with great members. When you see the never ending scathing personal remarks and vulgarity of many other sites, I like the fact that we have excellent moderators that do a great job in keeping this site clean and non-controversial. Yet not so much that we can still indulge in some light hearted bantering. The overall camaraderie and willingness to offer assistance among members on this site is overwhelming. Freebird your efforts to run and maintain this site are greatly appreciated and I for one am proud to be member of venturerider.org

Hey cowpuc If you remember in Grimsby my tire side wall weren"t to good so I spooned on a new set of Dunlop E4's and (yes they now make a front tire for 1st Gen's). Anyway so far I am loving them. So quiet and smooth and laying the bike over in the corner's is sweet. front was 120/90-18 65H @ $179.89 and the rear 140/90B16 77H rear @ $190.39 (Canadian $) As I said so far I super love the ride and handling. I have not had them at highway speeds yet or on wet roads, but on my way home from work after midnight i did use the dotted lines on the road like slalom course and weave back and forth through the spaces at 65 mph /100 kph and I found the handling superb. I went through 2 sets of E3's and I got the same millage out of them. I actually did not wear them out the 1st set I changed because after 25,000 the rubber got too hard and would no longer hold the corners and the second set at 20,000 started to develop some heavy weathering on the side walls (in fairness to the tires, the bike is almost never covered except in winter and sits outside all year round). As noted earlier I now have a set of E4's on the bike and time will tell bt so far I really like them

yup now to try to get some riding in to make up for lost time

I missed everyone too and I'm sorry you had to settle for @Marcarls hugs Peggy, I would have gladly given you one of mine

Oh its mine ......I just remembered... I left it there by mistake......Im surprised that it was still sitting there. after two years. Glad to see see everyone had a good time, sure wished I had been able to make it but I wasn't about to make the trip with sketchy brakes. I thought later or I should say my wife did I could have caged it down :doh:even us geniuses can be pretty dumb sometimes.

Here you go Don -----easy peezi install

So went at brakes again today. More bleeding and bled brakes some more too. Then took a abrasive disk to the Rotors and roughed them up. A few laps around the block and Voila I got good brakes again.

So thats why all the women leave before dark......And some of the men too.

Sadly No. spent a good part of the day using different techniques to bleed the brakes and though there was some improvement I still did not have full braking performance. Went to Royal distributing yesterday and picked up 3 sets of pads. I had hoped to get seal kits for the calipers and master as well but they did not have any. Plan to to dismantle my brakes today and get to the bottom of this. also going to look into some rotors since they are worn plus have a mirror finish on them so there probably glazed.

Definitly sounds like tire vibration to me. When a tire is out of balance it begins to vibrate as you gather speed but it reaches a harmonic point were its vibration peaks and beyond that starts to come down until it either totally smooths out are starts vibrating again. Sometimes you can have more than one peak for example starts to vibrate at 40 then smooth out as you go faster than start again at 90 peaking at 105 and then as you go even faster start to smooth out again.

No different up here than anywhere else. Its all legal till you get caught. Then when you do get caught you got a million and one excuses as to why (A) you should get off the hook. (B) Its not my fault i'm just an innocent victim of an unfair system or circumstance beyond my control © well C I can't use because I am a white male without an out of control protest group to declare my innocence or that Ive been singled out due to my Race Creed or Color. But like the song say's 2 out-A 3 aint bad, .... Soooooo We probably need a rum-ball Rep here north of the border........... Just Say'n .........

See as how there is already a Thanks Marcarl thread guess I best throw my hat in the ring. With all the best of intentions Marcarl spent all day Thurs helping me get my machine back on the road so I could make it to MD and we almost succeeded too, despite all the issues that kept popping up, not the least being the bike falling off the lift table a few days before. It started out simple enough. Get new hides on the rims. But then there was all that oil leaking down the back of the front forks. Ok, no biggie. Just reseal the forks and with Carl there to help who has a few forks under his belt. How hard could it be? Until--------we got into it and the forks were not resealable due to some butcher (and I'm not talking about a meat cutter like Carl). OK all is not lost after some serious discussion I give into Carl,s suggestion to steal the forks off my Project bike Which I inherited from Abdul. Well eventually we got the good old girl pretty much back together at which point Carl left to put some final touches to his own machine. and i'm sure from all the hard work and the heat he was as exhausted as I was. It really was disappointing to work so hard to get that done and still not be able to go due to a sudden loss of brakes, double so that I had to Call Carl and say that after all that hard work I was still not able to go. But just the same, Thanks once again Marcarl for all your help. I really wish things worked out better.

You and me both @dogman. I set out to meet sleepy and Carl at Casablanca only to discover a serious shortage of stopping ability, so ended up staying home. Wonder if @Flyinfool will send us a care package of rum balls.

I seem to remember somewhere on the shinko site that they said to run their tires at the max pressure stated on the side wall Which I believe is around 41 PSI and not to go by the OEM spec. Their reasoning is that the OEM spec was based on older different type tire designs common at the time. They state that the new tires are designed to run at the stated PSI on the side wall. BTW I did finally break down and get new tires and Dunlop now has replaced the front E3 with the E4 so I now have a new set of Elite E4's on the old girl.

Oh man I need the recipe for those baby's

Nice pics Jay - Keep em comi'n - Since I can't be there at least I can sit at home look at the pics and over the fact that I couldn't be there. Had all my gear packed ready to go - new hides (E4's on front and rear rims) - [bTW Dunlop now makes An E4 for the front as well as the rear for 1st gens] - redid the front forks actually stole em from another bike and added progressive springs to em, also stolen, but from my old forks which Carl and I discovered were badly mutilated by who ever worked on them prior to when I got the bike, when we attempted to reseal them. Oh yeah did I mention Carl spent the whole day helping me try to get the bike back on the road in time so I could make it to MD. Any way as I was saying - got the bike together - packed up my gear - took the bike for a quick scoot around the block to make sure all was well, only to discover my 1st Gen is now equipped with ABS BRAKES and I do mean ANTI-LOCK , Yup no brakes or at least very little. Hand brake was real spongy and the rear wasn't feeling overly hard either, I have a suspicion that when the bike flipped off the table, I may have got air in the lines at least the front ones at anyway, since Carl did bleed the rear as we switch the caliper with one from the other bike. the other possibility is that because we swapped out the pads with another used set and since my rotors are a bit on the rough side that the pads may need to be seated in, May just get new Pads. Any way despite my being with envy I hope you all have a great time, ride safe, No make that extra safe, and hopefully I will see most of you at some point through the summer. And keep the pics coming

I just call her Good Old Girl.

I agree with all of the above, BUT timing is a big factor and being force to do major work on your bike 2 days before a trip does tend to take the joy out of it.

Yup always check the date codes but since my bike sits out the tires do get a lot of sun exposure specially were I park at work.

I tried the Avon's on my 1st gen and my bike developed one heck of a tail wag at highway speeds and adjusting air pressure did nothing to get rid of it.Went back to the dealer and he replaced them with E3,s and the bike handled like a charm. this would have been my third set going on but they are discontinuing the E3 replacing with the E4

So I checked with my favorite tire source today to get a new set of E3's only to find out that Dunlop has discontinued the E3 for the rear and will be phasing out the fronts eventually as well. They suggested that it is fine to run the E3 on the front and the new E4 on the rear. Anyone do this and how do you feel about the E4

Well thanks just the same Paul.

I copied this pic from the web and this is what mine looks like just busted up.

Great video log Puc i really enjoyed watching them. And it was great to see you make it to our humble country. Now everybody in Mich will be wondering were you developed that new great accent.

Oh wow how hard did you have to think on that to find a way to slither out of that one. That would be great if you are willing to part with it that is. Got any spares?