Great photos, Vulpes! I trust you and Mrs. V are thoroughly enjoying being able to ride together (on your individual bikes) these days?! It's so good to see another woman out on her own Triumph. I have to say that in that first photo of your bikes, they have little faces--and that they are in love with each other!
It was great to be out together, @Sandi T . Racking up the miles getting experience. Got to say, mrs V is getting more proficient quite quickly. She recovered from a little slide (too heavy on the throttle with muddy tyres) without blinking an eyelid!
That's great to hear, Vulpes! I'm so happy that Mrs. V is doing well and can already recover quickly and, I trust, learn from her errors. One of the great things about riding motorcycles is that there's always room to become more proficient. Please give her my best and tell her--though I've (yet) to meet her, that I'm proud of her and her accomplishments and it's always great to have another woman in the fold.
I installed the Triumph highway bars (dresser bars) in my Speedmaster. I need them, because I have to have someplace to install highway pegs. I'm 6'2" tall and I get cramped on the bike after about an hour of riding. Pegs mounted directly to the frame didn't work. They kept rotating forward when I put my feet on them. I just could not get them tight enough. I thought about drilling through the mounts and putting a set screw in, but I didn't want to be buggering up the frame. I couldn't mount them high enough anyway. The radiator supports were in the way. I sent two sets of bars back that I got on line. Just didn't like them. The Triumph bars are expensive, but I decided to suck it up and buy them. Lemmie tell you...they were a motherfeffer to install!. I could not, for the life of me, get to the nuts on the inside of the upper motor mount bolts. I finally got them off. One fell into the abyss and I had to use a magnet on a telescoping rod to fish it out. The REAL fun began in trying to get the two nuts back onto the upper motor mount bolts after the highway bars were on. The right one wasn't too bad once I removed the coolant filler from its mount, but the left one was a real bastid! I could just barely squeeze my hand in to get the nut in place and it would slip from my fingers. I had to fish it out with the magnet five or six times, all the while loudly cursing Triumph. I finally had the bright idea to use a long surgical forceps with a hooked end (my wife was a paramedic) to hold the nuts in place while I threaded the bolts back into them. I got them all tightened up and went to secure the tabs on the bars to the tabs on the lower frame and find that the tabs on the bars have to be mounted on the INSIDE of the tabs on the frame!!! Had to pull the *&%!!!@ bolts from the upper motor mounts AGAIN so I could position the tabs on the bottom correctly. Then I had a drink. Or two.
As we hit a really cruddy stretch yesterday the bikes were filthy. I first took the high pressure hose to the bikes and then cleaned and lubed both chains. The dog did NOT help...
I found a small amount of rust on the underside of my trophy's chromed OE exhaust, so had a little pick at it. Oops, chrome flaked off and I had a rusty bit of metal the size of a sixpence (edit - I've just realised sixpence went out of service 50 odd years ago, I meant 5p). Oh well it is coming up to it's 20'th birthday. Looked at my shelf, there was some hammerite rust removal gel, probably over 20 years old. Read the instructions and followed them. Rust mostly disappeared after a few hours, back to bare metal. Revisited shelf and found some 20 year old hammerite silver paint. Now I have a silver patch under my exhaust that might not rust for a while. I've used hammerite on the external surface of a cooker grill and it withstood that heat for years, so here's hoping. All pretty boring and no pictures taken.
I'll bet the dog was hoping you didn't turn that high pressure hose on to her! Nice to see her on the forum again--I was just wondering how she's been doing as we haven't seen her beautiful mug in the Our Pets thread lately.
Came to use bike today and found it leaning against the fence First reaction was that it had been knocked by someone or some animal, then realised that the rear tyre was flat causing bike to topple off the sidestand. Good job bike is stored in a wedged in position. Found a screw/nail poking out the tyre, so must have picked that up on yesterdays ride. That's 3 punctures in 12 months as well as an innertube valve stem detachment just before that. Tyre was only fitted 11 weeks ago but it already 2/3rds worn, having done 4,000 miles, half of which was with a passenger. So thought I'd order a new tyre with innertube if I'm going to the hassle of removing wheel and taking it to fitters...
Our little band of brothers met up for a westside ride yesterday morning on yet another beautiful cool and sunny day. And "brothers" is appropriate--as is typical, I was the only woman in the bunch. I've given up on recruiting and retainment efforts with woman riders around here. Anyway, I have great guy friends who I love to ride with so it's actually really ok. We rode over Gates Pass to Coyote Pause, one of our usual breakfast haunts, then through Saguaro National Park West and back into town over Picture Rocks Pass. Today it was one Triumph, one Suzuki, two BMW's, and four Harleys. The temperature reading on my Speed Triple when I tucked my bike back into the garage. It was cool enough today that I pulled out a leather riding jacket for the first time since last April! It may be time to wash and put up the mesh jackets finally.
This jacket is perforated, Wessa, and I had a hoodie layered under it or I’d have been cold! Arizona thins ones blood, I’m afraid.
