So many wires... Ride Report

     So, in our quest to give Gabriel's XLX350R lights, we went downtown
last saturday to look for the voltage regulator. Turned out that I, in
my ignorance, mixed up the bikes. His bike does not have three yellow.
It has one pink, one white and one yellow. He needs two different
parts, one is the regulator/rectifier and other is only regulator,
with one wire connected to the white wire and other directly to earth.

    Also, I bought a new starter relay to try to solve the problem that
bike does not charge battery and also a new spark plug, just
because...

    Gabriel's wife was bugging him a long time to take her on the trail.
But, as you know, women likes to have another of theirs around, she
convinced Gabriel - and myself - to take Gabriel's sister to the
trail, and that had to me me to take her... oh well... It is not
uncommon around here, during summer, a rider takes his wife/girlfriend
to a ride. It is easy this time of the year, there are lots of fruits
on the trail, the beaches are full, there's almost no chance of rain
and it's summer after all. I've taken girlfriends before, but never
someone that I barely knew... I am Gabriel friend for quite a few
years, but I never stoped to talk more than 10 minutes with his
sister.

    Saturday we also tried to raise the needle on Gabriel's bike. He
replaced his much valuable mechanical carburetor for a vacuum carb
from the newer NX350 dual sport bike. Advantage it does not hang like
the old worn mechanical does, but who ever owned a bike with vacuum
carb know it is inferior. Gabriel arrived at my home with Eduardo (has
the newer NX350, but completelly adapted to off road), his wife, his
sister and a bike that barely ran. We removed the washer that was
under the needle and had to clean up the spark plug, it was covered in
black soot.

    Gabriel's sister is nice to carry along. She weights about 52kg and I
weight 62kg. Combined weight is less than Eduardo (118kg).

    It wasn't long to my bike start to miss and finally die. We removed
carb, thinking that was it. Removing a carb that does not fit on it's
place. I think it is easier to remove carb if we remove the engine
first... After cleaning, bike fired right up. A couple meters later,
missing again and died. I disassembled lots of wire connections and
looked and looked... The handlebar electric switches quit working... I
was ready to set the bike on fire with it's own gasoline, when I
decided to short circuit the starter relay and bike started! Great.

    On the first obstacle, going out from the paved road and climbing a
hill. I was first. Bike missed a few times, threatened not climbing...
But did it. Just after crossing a river over the train track bridge,
bike died again. That's when I figured it out. The yellow/red wire
that goes to the starter relay was disconnecting. I connected again
and it disconnected itself again after about 20 minutes. Then I cut
the wire and twisted the wire directly to the starter relay connector.
No more trouble.

    We met a group of people we more or less know. They were at zombie
woods, stopped, don't know why. One of the guys was with his wife too.
We merged our groups and headed to the grass hill, a nice climb, this
time of the year it is great because it is dry...

    When I arrived, two guys were already up there. The rest of the group
were waiting. I had a passenger, but I had a good bike... I got up
there with no trouble. Rest of group followed. The second "step" of
the hill climb is more chanlenging, but everybody climbed up ok.

    A rest stop to eat some chicken and clams and we were again on our
way. Eduardo had a crash, he went too fast over a mud puddle and hurt
his hip. Oh well... He was in a lot of pain. We decided to skip some
sections of the ride and return straight home. Then, Gabriel crashed,
alone, lucky his wife. Then he crashed again, this time with the wife,
who hit her knee on the ground and took quite a time to recover...

    After arriving home, we went to a bar and drank a million bottles of
beer, with beef and pasta...

No pictures, I forgot to charge the batteries.... :-( Well, Gabriel's
sister is not that hot, she definatelly needs a cheeseburger or four.

-- Tiago

 
Sounds very nice. Thanks.
Please charge your camera and bring a hot one next time.

 
Beer always makes the girls look better. It has worked here in the USA
for hundreds of years. OF

 Hi!

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:04:28 -0800 (PST), Tiago Rocha wrote:

Dude, now you finally have me going. I have been trying to ignore your
constant ignorance for German winter climate, my current job
situation/stress level and the impossibility to take my bikes out for a
ride just a bit too long now. This attitude, let me point that out with the
utmost emphasis, is cruel, inhumane and unfair. You folks are having fun
while I have not.

But, as I might add, I'm ready to answer back. During a continuous, 12-hour
marathon wrench session, only interrupted by hasty swallowings of beer and
fast food and some Averna jiggers out of the emergency box, riding buddy
Lutz and me were not only be able to retrofit an abandoned Brembo brake
pump incl. lever to my trusty Yamaha YZ426F (aka. "Black Widow") to
considerably improve the mushy action (it was a ay-night-difference) and
give Lutz's supermotard KTM 640 a jummy quad-piston caliper from Lucas
incl. racing brake pads, a new braided steel flex hose plus a radial-action
pump and forged lever but also fix my KTM 620 SC's constantly leaking fuel
tank with some DIY expert neoprene rocket science gasket. Some secret hot
air gun plus glue gun operation was also involved to correct traces of a
nylon zip-tie wanting to bite itself through the aforementiond POS bladder
which hopefully hols up until I get a new one - at a price that will almost
certainly bring tears to my eyes.

No, I have no electrical problems, definitely not. Or at least I hadn't,
when I fired up the big orange turd last time - a decade ago and after a
gazillion of kicks since the tragic (Mikuni) petcock not only leaks towards
the outside but also drips into the float bowl if it's shut off, naturally
creating a big gooey mess in there.

But, to top it off, an as-good-as-new 15:45 chainwheel-contershaft sprocket
ratio plus chain was added to the enduro setup which will, after an
indispensable air filter foam cleaning job, result in a complete street
legality and render the bike an ideal woods weapon if there wouldn't the
macho-style direct-pull Dellorto carb and the "directional stability" that
comes with every KTM bike of that age.

Sure, the precious DOT 5.1 almost comes out of my ears now - after a
martyrdom like that - and the dark circles around my eyes (from coding at
daytime and wrenching at night) have developed towards an alarming state -
but that is nothing compared with the prognosis that I'll be riding again
soon - no matter at what cost.

Sure, the riding I have in mind will be highly illegal and take place in
the "Panzerwiese", a no-trespassing recreational area for tree-huggers
where another riding buddy of mine, Tom, got shot at with lead shot, but
I'll be careful, and, more important: I'll be godd@mmf*cking fast. And I'll
post pictures on the web and it'll be fun. Quality time. Even at
temperatures that barely exceed the freezing point at noon.

So, just keep adding insult to injury with your lame riding stories. HAHA!
That doesn't bother me anymore! I'm working on something much better:
Riding MYSELF and posting the adventure later. That'll teach you! And when
worse comes to worse, I'll have a look at cheap flights to Brazil, bring
along my $$$ crimping tool, helmet and riding gear, so you don't have to
emergency-repair your wiring harness on the track anymore.

Pah. I don't envy you anymore. Those days are over! ;-)

Cheers,
Volker

P.S.: http://www.averna.it/en/index.htm

--
mailto:  V B A R T H E L D at G M X dot D E

 Volker Bartheld wrote:

If you think considering setting the bike on fire fun, yes, I had lots
of fun yesterday!
hey, I have a cousin who lives in Munich, I know that is cold there,
but it is hot here, way too hot for a normal - not used to heat -
human being.

<snip road riding>

hey, you make me jealous about being able to ride a KTM on the
streets. I can't even afford a KTM seat, let alone a 640!


One of my dreams is riding on snow. I rode on hail once, at Idaho, it
was fun. The camel back water gets deliciously chilly.


I think I will re-wire my bike... hmmm, no, I will just replace the
conectors and solder them all, instead of crimping. Seems that the
crimped conector came loose.

re: cheap airtickets, man, there are plenty of those, every week a
plane from Sweden lands here. You'd be very welcome, I'd show you all
the trails PLUS, one weekend at Porto de Galinhas, all included, just
show up with plenty of surfing shorts and cotton, short sleeve, light
t-shirts...

-- Tiago