last road trip of the season (...maybe)

Work has been hecktic since the start of September. Last Friday was one of the only days I could arrange a day off, so I booked a vacation day a while back and started planing a 3-day road trip with long time buddy, Sean, from Toronto. He took an extra day off and rode the 450 Kms to my place on the Thursday so we could hit the road Friday morning.

A last minute change in destination was necessary after carefully considering the weather forecast. Until mid-week, we had been planning to ride to Mont Tremblant. And a couple of weeks earlier, a riding buddy from work was to join us as well. But with a chance of snow (or at the very least lots of rain) we decided to head south of the border instead. That meant Evan wouldn't be able to come because he did not have a valid passport. But with the almost guaranteed miserable weather, Tremblant was definitely out of the question. Sorry Evan.

The weather outlook for northern and central NY still called for some rain (but much less) and the temperatures would be much milder.

We got away later than planned because of all the last minute preparations (and some work stuff that had to be done before leaving) but we eventually hit the road around noon. We figured we could make it to Lake Placid without much trouble - it's just under 300 Kms. From there, we'd head west or south on Saturday depending on the weather.

Just before crossing the border, we saw very light snow flurries for a few minutes. It was definitely cold (pretty much right at the freezing point) and pretty breezy. That's when I noticed some oil on my right boot... that leaky base gasket that I MacGyver'd up with some high temp silicone a few months ago was now giving out. Oh well, I had put about 5,000 Kms on it since then. It wasn't gushing copious amounts of oil, rather, just weeping a little and it seemed to be doing it only when I was cruising at 130 Km/hr. The solution was to keep the speed down, but that wasn't going to be a problem because until that point we had been riding the slab. On the other side of the border, it would be seconday roads from that point onward. Just the same, I picked up a quart of Rotella and a tube of silicone in case things got bad.

We made it to Lake Placid a couple of hours later and the oil level never dropped. Just a small amount on the engine casing and a little on my boot. We had been checking it every 15 minutes or so.

We stayed at the Crown Plaza. There was a hockey tournament going on and the hotel was just about full of 12 year-old boys. Oh God, get us outta here. However, the front desk clerk offered us a bargain price on a cottage that was completely detached from the main part of the hotel. It was huge and quiet. It was also loaded with everything (full kitchen, fireplace, pull-out sofa, twin beds in the loft, king size bed in the master bedroom, jacuzzi, two full bathrooms, two televisions, wi-fi Internet. We had a great meal at a local surf and turf restaurant, and drank much alcohol that night.

Crown Plaza cottage

I decided to pull the bike through the giant patio doors and into the living room to have a better look at the oil leak. I cleaned off the oily mess and applied another layer of silicone right over top of the bead I applied back in July. With the bike parked in front of the fireplace for the night, the silicone would have plenty of time to cure.

We woke up to a very soggy Saturday and decided we'd just hang tight for another night. We explored Lake Placid on foot for most of the day. By late afternoon, it dried up a little so we rode the local roads for a couple of hours. We got a little wet but it was still very nice.

Lake Placid Crown Plaza motorcycle valet parking

--- Valet parking ---

The view from our room

Olympic ski jump

We ate breakfast both Saturday and Sunday mornings at a local bacon & eggs diner, followed by coffee at Starbucks. When we headed for home around noon on Sunday, we crossed the border at Cornwall and we split company there: Sean hopped on the 401 to head back to Toronto, while I took the farm roads back to Ottawa. Since my ride was shorter than his, I decided to explore a few gravel roads on my way home. It was still a chilly ride as temperatures were just a few degrees above freezing. However, we were both properly dressed for cold and wet weather.

Hopefully this riding season won't come to an end for at least another month, but the weather can get unpredictable at this time of year. Snow can happen just about any time now, so leaving town on the bike could be a sure way to get stranded somewhere. I'll be happy if I can keep riding to work until December.

A Crackberry addict checking his email and getting his caffeine fix.

Somewhere just north of Cornwall.

New tires, helmet, front fender

Took a sick day off work yesterday to go pickup my new helmet, tires, and a front fender.

The helmet is a shiny silver Shoei Hornet DS and it fits like a glove. I recently went shopping at several local bike shops and tried on dozens of helmets... everything from cheap junk helmets (à la Zox) that sell for a hundred bucks to top-of-the-line premium lids that fetch $1,200 or more. Some of the cheaper helmets actually seemed to fit my funny shaped head better than the expensive ones. A low end HJC helmet was a nice fit, but the quality of the thing itself left a lot to be desired. But the high-end Arai lids were nice, yet they just didn't fit quite right for some reason. Then I slipped on a Shoei Hornet DS (dual sport). I liked the look of it, too, so that's a bonus. It just fits much better than everything else I tried on. They sell for $700 here in Canada, plus taxes. But I found mine for $349 on eBay.

The only let down with the new helmet is the wind noise: above 100 Km/hr, it's noticeably louder compared to my 2 year-old Shoei TZ-R (known to be just about the quietest helmet you can buy for under $500). Oh well, I always wear ear plugs when I ride the slab anyway. Maybe I'll use the Hornet DS for my every day riding around town, and use the TZ-R for highway trips.

Shoei Hornet DS

Also had some new tires installed: a pair of Avon Distanzias (90/90-21in the front, and 130/80-17 in the rear). They're a dual sport tire with a deep, heavy lug tread. Not the best performer in the off-road department, but much better in the dirt than any street tire you'd find. However, on asphalt they're a vast improvement over any dirt knobby. Rolling along at 120 Km/h, they are very quiet compared to the factory Brigestone Trail Wings. Those things were noisy, and they sucked on both dirt and asphalt. The local dealer quoted me $600 to have the pair installed and balanced with new tubes. However, the Ken Hill installed the pair (with tubes) for just $360 (US), making it well worth the extra hour's drive once again.

Avon Distanzia AM44

Avon Distanzia AM43

On another note, I chopped about 8 inches off my factory front fender several weeks ago because it flopped around a lot in the wind at speed. It also seemed to act like a big air scoop also, lifting weight off the front tire the faster you go. Not good for stability. While my fender chop job looked alright, it didn't look perfect. So for $40 I ordered a new supermotard-style fender from Acerbis. Now I've got a fender that holds tight at speed, and it looks much better.

I also re-located the Vision-X Solstice LED auxiliary lights to the stock turn signal brackets, and I've ditched the stock blinkers for a cheap pair of Motrax amber-tip LED lights which I've mounted on the brackets of the side reflectors (attached to the lower triple clamp).

Acerbis Supermotard fender,

LED auxiliary lights, LED turn signals

A new toy for the kids

I couldn't pass up a great bargain on this '93 JR50 for just $250. The kids are going to have a blast. It will be a winter project of sorts as it needs a little TLC. Nothing major. It runs quite well the way it is. Mostly needs a few adjustments (brakes, throttle cable, carb cleaning, etc,). The rear tire won't hold air, but the deal included a box of brand new parts (new tubes, chain, sprockets, air filter).

The old SV has been sold again.

Just found out the guy with whom I traded my old SV650 for the DR650 has already unloaded the SV. He apparently bought a CBR1000. Anyway, he had the SV painted shortly after we traded. Don't know what was wrong with the original paint (it was in perfect condition)... but I guess he needed to paint the lower fairings I threw into the deal so he decided he would change the colour of the entire bike.

When the paint job didn't turn out to his satisfaction, I guess he decided to have it painted again...Here is the first paint job that was done just a few days after we made the trade:

The colour wasn't quite what he had in mind. Shoulda left the colour as it was, if you ask me.

I think it looks awful...Yuck! Not only is the colour ugly but the big "Suzuki" decal across the tank is just ridiculous. I went out of my way to remove all the stickers, labels and markings because I know what kind of bike I ride; there's no need to advertise. Here's the photo from the ad he placed to sell the bike:

And here it is after the 2nd paint job. I don't know which colour looks worse. And the big ugly SUZUKI decal looks awful.