I took the KLR out for its first real ride this weekend up to Pine Plains which taught me a thing or two along the way.
First of all, I need to sort out a power supply circuit for my accessories. My GPS ran out of battery power within the first 60 minutes, not at all surprising and I was fully expecting it but it really drove home for me how lost I am without it.
I found myself in some side town in NJ pulling off the fairings to get at the battery to keep the GPS running - as it turned out this was not the last time I'd be taking the fairing off the bike.
While sitting at a servo looking at my bike I noticed an oil leak. This was really quite alarming as the bike only has ~2500 miles and this was my first decent ride. Immediately I started thinking I'd purchased a handful of trouble with this second hand bike. As I investigated it appeared the oil was coming from a fairly high point on the bike next to the battery which led me to popping open the air box where I discovered it to be full of oil and the air filter soaked -- I quickly realized what was going on.
It seems the previous owner had seriously overfilled the oil causing the crankshaft and counterweight to splash oil up through the carburettor and through the air filter!! I removed about a liter of oil the messy way through the oil sump plug after which the bike suddenly ran smoother and I could select neutral again which seemed to be a related side effect, excellent!
Since this weekend was the first good weather weekend all year in the lower NY area every one with a moto was out and about - and so when a sportsbike overtook me going up a mountain, I (tried) to give chase.... only to discover that one should not go chasing sportsbikes with a load on the back across a pair of panniers. It turns out that my nice new panniers can get a slight side to side wobble to them which, when traveling a pace and laying over in a corner causes the bike to feel like she want to fishtail up the road -- I feel like I have to write on the blackboard "I will not chase sportsbikes up the mountain with loaded panniers on" -- Anyway I'm glad I found out about this.
I later made the ride back to NYC in the dark and made a new discovery - either I did not fill the tank to the brim at my last fuel stop or the side panniers are really causing me a lot of drag resistance since I hit the fuel reserve limit at ~190 miles but fortunately right out the front of a gas station.
Finally as I got back towards home, riding back down the building canyons on Lexington Ave at 10pm on a Saturday night was kinda cool.
More riding to be had yet.
N
I emailed with the team at
I emailed with the team at Twisted Throttle about the panniers getting a bit of a wobble to them when traveling at highway speeds -- apparently other customers have experienced similar -- I don't find it all that surprising I guess, my sense is that it'll be OK though.
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