saddlebum

Squirm immediately onto the drivers lap and being a big hairy dog obstructed the drivers view

I fully agree. Getting proper feel of your brakes is a very good thing. Another good practice is sudden counter steering. I drive home at night when the roads are empty and take advantage of this by zig zagging through the spaces of the dividing lines at road speed just to get the feel of suddenly shifting direction. or will pick out something on the road treat it as a road hazard that suddenly appeared and wait until the last second to suddenly steer around it or make a sudden stop. After awhile it all tends to become second nature. You will be suprised how far you can push the bike beyond normal handling. and how comfortable you can get, once you get used to it. With regards to delinking the brakes, I cannot swear that it is a better thing or a worse thing I can only say why I delinked mine and why I personally prefer it. When I first got my venture in 2005 I took an early spring ride through the back roads and at that time I was unaware that the brakes where linked and I had never owned a bike with linked brakes. As I came over the top of a hill there was a stop sign right on the down slope as well as loose sand on the pavement. I began to brake (gently because of the loose sand) to slow down but my front wheel locked up in the loose material and instantly slid sideways. I released the brakes and gently applied the rear brake only (or so I thought) and darn if the front brake did not lock again in the loose sand. By this point I was almost right at the intersection with no more room to stop so I gunned it through the intersection hopeing no cars where coming across. Later I found out about the brakes being linked and about delinking them. A few years later I delinked them and have not looked back. Yeh sometimes I have locked the back wheel up in loose gravel or sand but at least I still had steering control. Just beware that there is a big difference in locking up the back brake in a straight line compared to locking it up in a curve or turn. Better yet to avoid lock ups altogether but sometimes it just happens and also it is still better to use both brakes together when ever possible. I just like the option of being able to use the back brake alone when and if I feel the circumstances warrant it.

He may have beat you to it but lets face it at least this way the info is coming directly from the expert himself.

Bobby!! What are we gonna do with this guy

I put TomTom on my android last summer (as per Wizard's suggestion ) and found it excellent. It works exactly like the TomTom GPS and works with or without data. So you can turn data off to save on data charges or if you are in an area with no reception the GPS still works. Its a onetime fee with life time updates and it is transferable at no charge should you upgrade your phone as long as you do not switch from android to I-phone or the other way around. The only downside of the android version is you do not get the winding roads feature which you do get with the I-phone. However you can somewhat make up for this by using the limited road speed feature. You set your max road speed and the GPS will choose a route with roads that do not exceed the road speed you have set. TIP: Watch the pricing, two weeks after installing it my phone I installed it on my wife's and they had a (after Saddlebum bought it) sale so it was only half price when I put it on my wifes phone.

Mmmmm it seems Marcarl is not getting the hint

Hey monitors ....I think this post thread should be deleted.....It has definitely gone south.

I had much the same awhile back. Had all the tests done and everything. In my case it was an anxiety attack. (much the same symptoms though) doctor told me to take 2000 mg of vitamin D every day. I did, still do and it definitely seems to be working, I don't stress near as bad as before if at all and the symptoms have totally vanished. He said that these days with everyone fearing too much UV and staying out of the sun we are not getting enough vitamin D and so anxiety attacks are on the rise. Now that is not to say you should not get checked out. You may get lucky like me in which case the testing sure lifts a weight off of your mind. Or you do have a heart issue and it gets caught in time to be properly dealt with. Either result is well worth the inconvenience.

Actually there are three bikes on the left side of the arch and I do believe the middle one is a 1st Gen.

I could not help but notice that the boxes on the March Calender are looking kind of empty. Anyone else think there is something missing here?

Sorry to hear about your accident. Glad you walked away from it though even though you did sustain some injures. P.S. not to dampen your spirits but broken wrists, simple as they sound they can be difficult to heal to the point of regaining proper use of your hands, so make sure you take your time healing and though constant motion is good therapy, don't try over extending the use of your hands until you are well healed. On another note given I see snow about, is there any chance it had nothing to do with the bike but that you may have hit a patch of unseen black ice.

I have had six of them contact me........Decisions ...Decisions....Decisions:think: Do you think it would be inappropriate for me to send them a questionnaire and request they fill it out.

Any progress to report on the shirts and the registration forms

I have bought them from JBM, jbmindustries.com (part number BS34) in the past and they work very well. to install them you remove the white washer's by clipping them with side cutters then gently slip the bead of the JBM diaphram over the edge of the metal insert on the slider. Also check out this page there is a special note re: tips for the Venture about half way down the page in a yellow box. TX, SX650, KZ750, Carburetor Diaphragm Mikuni BS38, BS34 SS, BS32 and this page as well re:installation

Just Curious. When I access VR on my cell phone it suggests using tapatalk, but I never do and everything seems to work fine without it. So what is the purpose or advantage of using tapatalk?

Just made my reservations. I am on primitive campground #4

Or for $25 or less depending on whether or not you buy all new material or scavenge material you can do like I did and build something like this. and it works great. FYI it requires no restriction orifices because you dampen pulsations by adjusting the shut off valve connected the cylinder you are checking, the remaining three you leave closed. Plus by using one gauge you do nat have to worry whether or not he gauges are accurately matched. BTW in the pictures I show clear hose I have since switched to black vacuum hose because the clear hose tends to collapse.

Thats right... MD is coming and I wanna make sure I get an extra helping of grub come dinner time.

Thanks

What is the contact information to make reservations at the campground. I know I saw it somewhere but cannot seem to find it now.

Of course your heart wasn't in it ......We all stole it along time ago.......Right crew.

It is not so much that responsible gun owners are not trusted but more so that they are an easy target for spinless politicians who do not or ever have lived in the real world and tend to cater to the squeaky wheel (narrow minded bleeding hearts) for the sake of acquiring votes. They spent over 5 billion on a gun registry that accomplished nothing, should have realized it would accomplish nothing and should have spent that same money to improving ways of getting at non legal gun owners. Having said that however I do agree that a thorough back ground check should be done before allowing just anyone to own guns. Which our old FAC system already did quite well. But hey news flash nail legal gun owners and illegal ones will fall in line ....NOT.

I think he wanted bike pictures not pictures of the local scrap yard.... :stirthepot: :stirthepot:

At least when things happen with little fellows its cute but not when its not a little fellow. I was out on a service call one time. I was laying under a Western star transport truck, doing some repair work when all of a sudden my back started to feel extremely wet and warm. Turns out the driver of the truck decided he had a full bladder and needed to go pee. As is normal for truck drivers he preceded to use the space between the rear drive tires as his personal urinal, which happened to be uphill from were I was laying under the truck on the paved parking lot. Need I say more, and yes he still lives but only by the shear luck of my showing superior control and restraint.