After the Rally, Now What to do.

I woke up this morning not knowing what I should do. Should I continue west on my own? Or do I just go home to Nancy and the cats? To be honest, I really wasn't feeling like a long solo ride, so I told myself that I would ride west for half a day, and if I still wasn't sure what to do, I'd turn around and go home. 
I gassed up in Custer and took off for Newcastle, WY. I stopped at the SD-WY state line for a picture. While I was there, a young couple in black car drove past me, stopped, turned around, drove back past me, turned around again and as I was leaving, they stopped at the Wyoming sign.

I stopped in Newcastle at an auto parts store. I needed to buy a new 12 volt power outlet.

The one I had been using developed a short in the cord. The new one, on the left, eliminates the cord. Now I can use both the Xm radio and the GPS again

I took WY-450 past the Thunder Basin Coal Company's Black Thunder Mine.

In Wright, WY there's a mining museum. I didn't go in, but I did snap a few pictures of the large dump truck parked outside.

I left Wright on 387, then took 259 towards Casper, WY. I gassed up outside of Casper and while taking a break, I met a couple from Kentucky. They were riding a Kawasaki Vulcan. They had traveled from KY to visit a relative in UT, then up to Cody, WY.  They were on their way back home. They were going to be heading into heavy rain when they left the gas station, but they told me the weather was fine behind them. That was the direction I was going.
I took 26/20 west, and made a quick stop at Hell's Half Acre.

As I was getting off the bike and getting out my camera, the black car from back the state line went past, stopped, turned around and pulled into the parking lot. They were from Tennessee and had just been married. They were on their way to Yellowstone N.P. We talked for a bit and I wished them well and continued on my way. 10 miles down the road I made a quick stop at a WY wayside rest area. As I was waiting for traffic to pass by so I could continue west, they went by, honked and waved. I followed behind for a bit, but he was moving pretty fast. I ended up following about a mile behind them for quite a long time... We made good time. I turned off at WY-789 and took that down to Lander, WY.
I stopped for the night at the Holiday Lodge, where I got a very nice room with a 40+ inch flat screen, for a nice price.

After a little clean up, I walked next door for a dinner of steak fingers, baked potato and a trip to the salad bar. mmmmmmm

I don't know where I'll be tomorrow.

STN Rally, Days 3 and 4.

On Tuesday I took it easy. I went for a ride from Custer up to Spearfish to find a better chain lube. I had been riding in the rain and the chain was looking pretty rough. I'm not happy with the lube I had been using.  I picked up a can at the Honda dealer. I also discovered that my camera memory card was still in my netbook back in Custer, so I stopped off at Walmart for another card.
On the way back down to Custer I rode down Spearfish Canyon and 385. I stopped off at Lake Pactola for a break. The water in the reservoir was quite high.

I stopped in Hill City at Rico's Restaurant for lunch. They have great home made Mexican food.

From Custer, I rode into the Custer State Park on 16, then up the Needles Highway to 89. Down 89 to 16 and back to Custer.

After my ride, there were fellow members of the Sport-touring.net forum hanging around the parking lot BS'ing. At 1800 everyone walked over to the restaurant for dinner. That was followed up by more BS'ing in the lot.

Wednesday...

Today, 7 of us went on a group ride. We chose a route through Custer State Park. It was a nice 100 mile loop. Many of the roads are very narrow, and a lot of the other drivers on the road drive like they are the only ones on the road. They will stop and nearly block both lanes, while they try and feed the donkeys or photograph the buffalo.

For the most part the ride was enjoyable, but...
If you are close to this...

And the last 5 of 6 corners have been posted with this....

And you lose your concentration.... This can happen...

I came around a 15 MPH corner and found one of the riders from our group, lifting his bike up off it's right side. He had run off the right side of the road, at the exit of the corner. He may have had a bit of "target fixation" and ran onto the narrow grassy shoulder, and dropped the bike. He was fine, but the plastic on his bike was damaged, and his pride was hurt.

We continued on the ride and stopped along side Mount Rushmore for a picture.

The guy that crashed his bike rode back to the motel.

After the ride, there was more BS'ing in the parking lot for most of the afternoon and well into the night.

STN Rally, Day 2

I had a great nights sleep in Winner last night. I woke up at 0130 to a loud thunder crack. It was raining really hard. I went back to sleep and woke up around 0600. I watched the weather channel, took a shower, had a quick breakfast and packed. I was on the road by 0800.

My route took me through the Pine Ridge Reservation.  After the reservation, I saw something that looked out of place....

That's a peacock sitting on the sign. I also saw some long horn cattle.

I made my way to Interior, SD for gas and a water then up hwy 240 into Badlands N.P. where I picked up my park pass. I plan to go back through the park later this week. I left the park and stopped at the Minuteman Missile N.H.S. I watched the video they had playing and spoke to the Park Ranger. She asked me if I wanted to tour the Launch Control Facility. I got my free ticket for the 10:45 tour.  I drove out I-90 to exit 127. Then a very short drive on a gravel road to the facility.
 There were 6 of us waiting at the gate for the Ranger to start the tour. Ranger Butch was great tour guide. We started at the back of the building and worked our way towards the front. Everything in Launch Control Facility Delta-01, was pretty much just like it was when the last person left the building after it was deactivated in 1992. I saw typical military bunks, A day room with vintage 90's magazines on the table. We then went to the front section of the building where the security force sat and watched the main gate. Behind a door in that area, we rode an elevator down 31 feet to the under ground control room. That's the room that 2 Air Force Officers would sit in, for a 24 hour shift, behind a 3 and a half foot thick steel blast door, and wait for orders to launch their 10, nuclear warhead equipped, Minuteman II missiles.

From the Launch Control Facility, I went to exit 116 where the Parks Service has a self guided tour set up at Launch Facility (missile silo) Delta-09.
There is normally a 90 ton concrete cover over the silo that opens when a missile is launched. This silo cover is partly open and covered with a glass enclosure. You can look into the silo and see a Minuteman II missile.

As a child of the 60's, that grew up reading Civil Defence materials about building fallout shelters in your basement, I thought the chance to tour a nuclear missile facility was AWESOME!!!

After the silo, I rode to Custer and checked in to the Bavarian Inn. I met a few of the guys from the Sport-touring.net web site. We all hung out in the parking lot and b-s'd a while, then Jack(madjack) and I went for dinner. It started to rain just after I pulled into the parking lot.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow.

Day 1 of the ST.N Meet in Custer.

I've been busy this last week. I changed oil, mounted new tires and picked up my modified tank bag mount. I left home this morning around 0830 and my Ninja's odometer read 18126 miles.

55 miles later, in New Prague, MN, I made my first stop. I bought a bottle of water and put on my rain gear. I rode in a constant light rain for the next 140 miles. I stopped in Worthington, MN for gas and the rain stopped.

I was going to try and avoid all Interstate Highways on this trip but once I was in Worthington I decided to break that rule and ride on I-90 into SD and get off after Sioux Falls. I stopped at the South Dakota information center rest stop on I-90. I picked up a map and some reading material. The nice older woman behind the desk asked where I was going. I told her, Winner. She suggested I take I-90 across the Missouri river. She said there has been a lot of local flooding near the river, and was concerned that I might have a problem crossing on SD 44. I knew the bridge across the river is quite a ways above the water and decided to risk it.  I took SD 19 from I-90 down to SD 44 and followed 44 to Winner, SD.  The river may have been high but the bridge is a LOT higher than the river.

I got a room at the Warrior Inn.

When I checked in, I asked the desk clerk, Nina, where I could get a good meal. She recommended the Wild West. I rode down to the Wild West only to find out they aren't open on Sunday. I settled for Subway.

I didn't stop for any pictures today but I will get plenty in the next few days.

432 miles today.

First Thursday, Dulono's Pizza, June 2011

I went to First Thursday at Dulono's Pizza again. Like last month, I met John at his place and we rode to Mpls. Had pizza and pop, then walked around and checked out the bikes. I saw many of the same bikes as last month, but a lot of new ones.

RZ-350

A nice GL done Cafe style

A pair of old H-D knuckle heads

A very clean CBX

An old school Honda chopper. I'm diggin' the King-Queen seat.

A Mickey Thompson N-50-15 car tire on the back of this one

A nice CB1100F

An old Ducati, with interesting button on the dash...

Filthy Air Filter! and Hybrid Tank Bag Mounting?

In further preparation for next weekends trip, I've started a few projects.

I changed the air filter in the Zx-14. Holy Crap! was that thing dirty. I had pulled it out last year while in Sturgis and knocked a few bugs off of it, but this was bad.



Old and Skanky





New and Fresh





I won't be neglecting that project again. That's 2 seasons and 18000 miles.

I'm also working on modifying a Cortech tank bag mount. I really like the 21 liter bag I have. It works great with the magnetic mount on the FJR. It has very strong magnets and I've never had it move on me. The Zx has a lot more plastic near the tank, so I have to use a strap mount with the bag. The strap mount isn't very stable in a cross wind. The bag wants to flip over. I know it won't go anywhere, but it's very distracting. Kind of like the rope ladder at a Carnival.
I thought I could improve upon the Cortech strap mount base by adding 2 "flaps" with strong magnets in them like on the magnetic mount base.

Here's the strap mount base.

And here's the magnetic one.

My idea was to cut the 2 flaps off the magnetic mount and sew them to the strap mount. There's just enough steel from the gas tank near the middle section of the mount. There's no way our sewing machine could sew through the heavy nylon layers, so I contacted Two Rivers Canvas and Upholstery. I rode over and showed Natalie what I was thinking. She was positive she could help me out with my project. I'm going to go back over there next week with the strap base mounted to the bike in the correct position and let her mark the pieces and cut and sew. I hate to cut up a good magnetic mount base, and the Cortech 21 liter bag has been discontinued, but a replacement magnetic mount is still available. The same base also works for the Cortech Tri-bag. I also have that one, but it's HUGE.

This is the the Cortech Tri-bag on the big Ninja.

Givi PLX35 Cases Mounted on a Zx-14.

I took the time today to mount up the color matched Givi PLX 35 side cases on my Zx-14. I started the project by watching videos of the installation on the Twistedthrottle.com web site. They have a nice 2 part video of the installation on a Kawasaki Zx-14. It was a pretty easy job. There are 2 brackets that attach under the rear tail cowling. I had to cut a square notch out of the under tail plastic. It was a pretty easy cut with a Dremel tool and a Roto-Zip bit. I went slow and used the included paper templates. I think it turned out ok! There are 4 more brackets that attach to the muffler and rear peg hanger. A total of 8 mounting points, 4 on each side. I had to think about one of the attachment points. I was supposed to mount a bracket to the stock license plate holder, but I removed that big, ugly, extra chunk of plastic, shortly after I got the bike. So the bags now attach to the bracket, but the bracket's not bolted to anything.

Here's a shot of the mounting frames, the 6 brackets, 2 bags of hardware, and the bracket for the license plate mount. The frames are removable from the bike using 8 quick release type fasteners. When you take the frames off, all that's left on the bike are 6 small brackets.

This is a shot of the left side of the bike. You can see the 2 brackets. The lower bracket, pointing at a 2 o'clock position, is attached behind the muffler mount. One at the top, pointing about 3 o'clock, is attached behind the peg/muffler hanger.

Sorry, Photobucket lost my pic..............


This is one of the brackets that required cutting to mount. It's scary to cut into your bike, but it wasn't really too bad. Left side...

Right side... In this picture you can see the bracket that is supposed to attach to the license plate mount. Now it floats, but holds the bottom rear attachment points of the frames together.

I know that this picture might be tough to figure out, but it's taken from the right side, looking down along the swingarm. It shows the position of 2 of the brackets. One behind the muffler hanger bolt, and one behind the cast aluminum hanger/ mount.

The only thing about this set up that I didn't like is, I lost the use of the hand hold to lift the bike onto the center stand.

Picture on Photobucket gone AWOL!

Here are a few shots of the bike all put back together. The bike is dirty. I got caught in a downpour the other day and haven't washed it yet.

Now I have to mount up a new set of Michelin PilotRoad 2's, change the oil, and I'll be set to ride off to the Sporttouring.net meet in Custer, SD in 2 weeks.

I've been thinking that I might make this the long trip of the summer. I know that John won't be able to get away from work this year like he has in the past. So this years Sturgis run will maybe be 10 or so days. If I want to get some seat time this year, I may have to do it alone.

I started making a list of things I want to see. Some of them are..
The Pacific Ocean from Northern CA
A redwood forest
CA hwy 36
The Oregon coast
Rachel, NV
4 corners
Hwy 550, and Hwy 34 through Rocky Mountain N. P. in CO
Hwy 12/Lolo Pass, Arco, and Atomic City in Idaho

That's a few of the items on my list.

I've been spending a lot of time on the RoadsideAmerica.com web site. It's a great resource of odd things to see on a road trip.

Microsoft street/trips has my route at about 4200 miles in a loop from Custer, west, and back to Custer. Add another 1500 miles for home to Custer and back, That's looking like 3 weeks+ to me.