What Have You Being Doing With Your Non-triumph Today?

Got everything back on today.
Now on to the next thing, the gear indicator packed in so I got a cheap Chinese one and I need to file 1/2 mm from top and bottom to make it fit in the old hole in the speedo casing I also have connect the wires.

I have the same amount of wires and of course they are all different colours.


Can any of you tell me, in the book wiring dia.



How are the gears set out?

Is it left to right 1 2 3 4 5 or 5 4 3 2 1 ?

The g/r wire goes to the neutral light. So is the b l wire, power, ( seems to be fused)?



I have the key for the Chinese replacement.

 

Hi Oldskool. Believe it or not mine is exactly the same year and model as yours. 2004 F41000s! Done a bit of work to it over the years including bored out end cans, de-cat and his flow air filter and an updated ecu to match. Smoothed out the dodgy low rev stutter/grabiness that came with these bikes.

Longing for no lock down and some dry roads eh?

 

"It's a hobby". I like that Sprinter. I'm gonna start using that. And hobbies are very important for one's mental health--particularly during a pandemic.

 

Today Mr. Sandi and I did a little breakfast ride which included a good friend and riding buddy of ours who is back on his motorcycle for only the three time since crashing his bicycle (yeah, those are dangerous!!) and tearing a meniscus in his knee and the hamstring in the same leg. He was thrilled to be back on his BMW and we were thrilled to ride with him again.

We met up at our "usual" QT gas station and when we pulled up to the pump, this car was sitting at an adjacent pump. I asked the owner if I could snap a pic of his awesome ride and he obliged with a smile. Do any of you know what this car is??


There are really only two breakfast places on our ride list right now thanks to COVID. So I'm sure that some of you will recognize this one, Coyote Pause. I'm always amazed that their courtyard doesn't have more people dining there. Surprisingly, there are always more people eating indoors at this place. Though the indoor tables are well spaced and the COVID protocol here is excellent, Mr. Sandi and I have agreed that we'll not be eating indoors at a restaurant for some time to come. So we're VERY glad for the nice weather that allows us to eat on one of the many restaurant patios in Tucson. Many patios...but not that many on good ride routes.


I elected to ride my non-Triumph Street Glide Special today. Mr. Sandi was on his Street Glide and our friend was astride his BMW R1250GS.


We made him park on the other side of the parking lot because he was on a Beemer. Ha, just kidding.


This is the little path that leads from the front of the restaurant back to the lovely courtyard area where we always eat these days. Today the temperature when we left the house was 37ºF. But it warmed up relatively quickly. Still, it was nice to sit in the sun while eating our breakfast. I think the high temperature today was in the low 60ºs making for a nice ride as we took the long way home through Saguaro National Park West.


Today there were people at one other table for a bit when we first arrived. They finished up and left relatively quickly leaving the whole courtyard to us.


There are several of these arched windows in the south wall of the restaurant. While I've noticed these windows in the past, today I looked at them more carefully. The "bars" protecting the windows are made of rebar! And they are designed to look like ocotillo plants. Very creative and very artistic.


Some more traditional art that sits at the edge of the courtyard patio dining area.


We did the bulk of today's ride miles after breakfast and much of our route was through Saguaro National Park West. It always makes me smile when we do this ride to know that I'm able to do just a "regular" Sunday afternoon ride through a national park!

Another day of "therapy". Hopefully this post brings a vicarious ray of sunshine to those of you who are in lockdown or sidelined by bad weather--or both.

 

I wish you could get out and ride, too, @DCS222. I know full well how therapeutic riding is to us bikers along with being, as you said, a great mindfulness distraction. Being unable to ride for seven months after my bicycling accident truly drove this home for me and made me appreciate how riding motorcycles truly feeds the soul. I will keep fingers (and toes!) crossed that that conditions allow you to ride soon.

 

Dry roads and no lock down....!Sounds like Nirvana....,
Have you got some photos John ? Interesting mods that you have done to yours. I have left mine as standard and it’s been great .

 

Your breakfast runs look a whole lot classier than ours in the UK. And blue skies, that seems so long ago here. Thanks for the photos and report. How many hours behind GMT are you there Sandi ?

 

Our breakfast runs "classy", Oldskool?! Mr. Sandi and our riding buddies will laugh when they hear that. They are fun, however, and as I've said before, very therapeutic. Glad you enjoyed the photos and report. We've lots of sun that I can share with you, at least through pictures. Regarding time differences, it looks like we're 7 hours behind GMT.



BTW, the reason that Arizona has multiple time zones is because Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time like most of the rest of the U.S. But the Navajo Nation does observe Daylight Savings Time. I worked up in Tuba City, Arizona several times as part of my work in the schools. U.S. 160 runs through Tuba City and on the north side of that road it's Navajo land and the other side is Hopi. We were working with the school district there which is on the north side of the road. But we stayed in a hotel on the south side of U.S. 160. So we had to remember to set our alarms correctly and to account for the time difference in order to get to work on time!

 

That caught me and the missus out once. We stopped overnight in Paige, got up at 7:00 am for an early start and went looking for breakfast. Everywhere was shut and nobody about. Took a while for us to realise we were an hour in front of everyone else. Think we must have spotted the town clock or something.

 

had my 1st ride out this year, took the Harrier out for a quick blast.. loved it that howl just makes me grin

 

Sorry taking so long to reply. This is the only pic I have. But apart from a dark screen and "silver coloured" exhaust/end cans it's identical to yours.

 

This is what I've been doing with TWO of my non-Triumphs.

Both my Harley Street Glide Special and my Low Rider S have been in the dealership service department recently. The Low Rider is still there. And that's another story....

But I'll start off with a gratuitous puppy picture. This little cutie-pie, Daisy, was in front of the service department doors with her owner when I went to pick up my Street Glide a couple of days ago. Soooo cute! And quite friendly. Her name is Daisy. Perhaps it's time to begin the search for another dog.


I had new handlebars installed on my Street Glide. The stock bars put me just a bit too forward, enough to be uncomfortable for longer rides. It was quite noticeable on our Payson trip last fall. So the search began and turned out to be quite the journey. There are tons of choices out there but few that seemed like they would fit my needs. Finally I landed on a bar made by an LA company called Wild 1. The model is called the "Chubby Bagger Low" and they are about 1" taller than stock with a 3" pullback. The stock bar diameter is 1" and these are 1 1/4" so a bit beefier which looks really good on that bike. I've only ridden my bike home from the dealership which is just 10 miles but I already am far more comfortable with the new setup. Plus now when I put my backrest on my Le Pera seat I should actually be able to put my back against it and not just use it to hold my travel bag on!

It is hard to see much difference with all the black on the bike but here are some before and after pics.

Before:




After:

 

Today, I are been mostly, lowering the footpegs. Found a set on ebay, for £45, from China. Thought I'd give them a try. On centre stand, definite improvement in comfort position. Keen to try when restrictions ease.

Electrics are the next project.

 

And then there's the Low Rider S.....

Part of the reason it's in the shop is positive and part is negative. Unfortunately the negative is a bigger but the issues that comprise the negative are being addressed.

I bought my 2020 H-D Low Rider S from a dealership up in the Phoenix area rather than my local dealership because they had one with a custom paint job and graphics that I fell in love with. So I decided I'd have my 1K service done in that dealership's service department. Well, live and learn. In a nutshell, I had noticed a vibration pattern while riding the bike that I'd start feeling at about 40mph which would continue as my speed increased. And as my speed increased so did the speed of the vibration pattern. Uh oh. It seems that it's related to wheels and/or tires or perhaps bearings? I also had issues with downshifting from 3rd to 2nd and 2nd to 1st. The shift wouldn't "catch"--like when you're in neutral and can't quite get the shifter to engage. Well, this new-to-me-dealership essentially made it sound like those issues were related to the Milwaukee 8 engine. Nope. I told them I have another bike at home with that engine and had one prior to that, too. Then they said of the shifting that I needed to shift differently--more decisively, don't leave my foot on the peg, etc. The implication was that I didn't really know how to ride my bike. It got worse. One of the sales managers told me he had felt the same thing with the shifting on a woman customer's bike a few months earlier so he knew exactly what I was talking about. When I told the service advisor about that conversation it was like, Oh her. Yeah, we never could replicate the problem and she was unhappy about it and (the implication was she's a she) we're not unhappy that she never came back. He didn't say it quite that directly but the implication was clear. I remember thinking to myself, "Dude, you just dissed a customer in front of another customer AND you dissed a female customer to another female customer!" In summary, they didn't fix either issue and sent me on my way. And I will NEVER go there again. What's too bad is that the salesman was absolutely awesome! Fair, personable, exceptional follow-through. I'd go to that dealership again but ONLY to stop in and tell him hello.

When I talked to the guys my local dealership and shared my concerns and also my experience with the Phoenix place, they promised to take care of me. Which they always have. Yep, I've sure learned my lesson. Within two days they had called Harley corporate and learned that some 2020 Low Rider S's were having this problem but not many. But they knew just what it was--a shifter pawl that was just off enough to cause the sporadic shifting. Evidently a "batch" that wasn't machined to specs. A new one was immediately mailed out and that part is already fixed. They will also run diagnostics on my vibration issue once my new risers (the positive part of why my bike is in the shop) are installed and ready to roll. I'm replacing my stock 4" risers with Biltwell "Murdock" 6" pullback risers. Like my Street Glide, the stock position on the Low Rider puts me just a bit too far forward for comfort and optimal handling. There was a part related to the risers that was on back order until mid-February but the parts manager, again a guy I know and have a good relationship with, did some detective work and found that part at a dealership in California that was willing to ship it to Tucson.

It would be great if all dealerships treated every customer--new and old alike--the same. But I've been thinking a lot about this experience and I think everyone is only human. When we have relationships with others, there's a different level of respectfulness and even accountability to each other. I didn't have any sort of relationship with the guys in Phoenix but I have long-standing relationships with most of the staff at Tucson H-D. It seems that certainly does count for something....whether we think it should or not. It is what is it. And I'll be getting all my service work done right here at my local dealership. The silver lining is that if I'd like the Phoenix place more, it would have meant riding 100 miles each way! Instead it's only 10. I'm not sure when my Low Rider will be done and home but hopefully it will be soon--and it'll be sooner than anticipated because the parts manager was willing to dig around and find an available part rather than just wait for the backordered one to arrive. Some of it will depend on what's up with that blasted vibration thingy (technical term).

My service advisor brought me into the room where bikes are stored that are due for service but waiting on parts so I could say hi to my "baby" and see the offending part.

 

No sweat. Just nice to see a non Harley photo...eh Sandi ? MV do make a beautiful bikes. When things get a bit better it would be great to meet up and talk rather than doing it on a Triumph forum. .....Mine goes in on the 8th Feb for a BIG service at an independent mechanics. I’ve known him for 30 odd years and trust him implicitly. It could be a very big bill though....

 

Yep, it is nice to see a non Harley pic, @Oldskool. I do wish other members would post more of their non-Triumphs, too. I'd post some non-Harley non-Triumph pics if I had something other than Harleys and a Triumph. Maybe another reason for a bigger garage?? Food for thought---what would I choose to add to the stable? Hmmm....

 

I would post more pics of mine but the ZX-10R looks more like an accident in a spaghetti factory currently!
I hate wiring and electrickery

 

We can think of it as a large 3D puzzle, tc!