After seeing my Givi T411 Voyager Saddlebags rub the paint job on the VFR and VStrom and the Two Brothers logo on the VStrom, I finally broke down and got a pair of Givi E36N cases. These cases are designed to be either top or side cases. With the addition of the Givi PL528, I will mount them as side cases. I found all three components (2 x E36N’s and 1 x PL528) for a bit of a discounted price compared to most websites. A company out of Southern Georgia called RL Motorcycles has a website dedicated to Motorcycle accessories. The cases and PL528 were a bit under typical MSRP and shipping is a flat $9.95 per order!

The PL528

The PL528 consists of three major parts. The two side case holders and a crossbar for stabilization. My first step was to remove my Givi top case rack to access the two bolts that hold the rack to the top of the motorcycle’s sub-frame. This was a fairly simple task. There is a plastic cover held by four (4) small screws. After removing that, there are four (4) nut/bolt/washer combination holding the Givi rack mount to the Suzuki rack. Remove those to access the two bolts that mount the rack into the sub-frame. I found that using a magnet to hold the nuts steady made it easier to remove and install the nut/bolt/washer combos on the front two bolts. Remove the two bolts that hold the rack to the sub-frame. These will be replaced with the large bolts that came with the PL528. Wiggle the two side case holders into place. Get the two new Givi-supplied bolts into place and hand-screw them a few turns. Do not tighten them all the way as the other bolt holes won’t line up as easily. You will find that the lower bolt hole lines up with the top hole on the passenger peg mount. That is where you will place the bolt/washer/lock-nut combination. Again, do not tighten them until later, or the crossbar won’t line up. Side story: Funny thing is I have learned the old “don’t tighten first” trick from working on modifications/repairs on bikes, cars, etc. I actually remembered this time, not to tighten everything down. Then, the other night, I was watching Dirty Jobs on Discovery Channel. Mike Rowe, coincidentally, started tightening down some bolts one at a time. The guy leading him promptly said, “Don’t tighten them as you go like that or you won’t get the last one on.”

Back to business. Now that you have the bolts in place. Get the crossbar in place and use the funky-looking, concave washer and flush-mount bolts. Get these bolts in place and started. Now, tighten away! I would start with the top two bolts, then the passenger peg bolts, and finally the two crossbar bolts. Now you can put the top case rack back into place. Remember, use the magnet trick seen above to get the nuts on the front of the rack. It is not necessary, but it is helpful.

The E36N

That funky-looking, concave washer is the lower mount for the side case. You will notice that the side case will rest on the two mounts and snap into the large tab. It is simply the same interface as the top case turned 90 degrees!

See all the photos: http://photos.tonyfugere.com/gallery/v/vehicles/bikes/vstrom_k12/givi_sidecases/

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The key is not to sand off ALL of the old paint, but just enough to roughen up the surface. I used a 100 grit paper with my electric hand sander. After sanding for about 20 minutes, I wiped down the helmet with a moist paper towel to clean off all dust particles. Then, it was time for the first coat of spray paint. I used Krylon Fusion for Plastics, which claims to not need sanding or priming, but I sanded anyways. It doesn’t hurt. I put about 3 or 4 coats on in 10-15 minute intervals. Then, I proceeded to sand lightly with a 220 grit paper. After this sanding, I noticed that I exposed a few small red spots. OOPS! I sanded too hard and too much! So, I went back and placed a few more coats on the helmet. The paint was near empty, so I proceeded to finish off the can, and this was probably overkill on coats for this base layer. I sanded ever so lightly again with my 220 grit paper. This time, I did not expose any old red paint! The base sat in my garage for a few days as I got busy in the evenings again. When I returned to working on it, I had to be sure to wipe the dust particles off. Although it was very little dust, this ensured that the next coats of the premium water-based custom paint by AutoAir Colors would not have any problems. This is where the spray gun came into use.

Before the spray gun, I tried my cheap, little airbrush that was also from Harbor Freight. It was not working too well, and I thought, “This will be a good time to try out the spray gun.” The first coat with the spray gun was almost a disaster! I did not realize how quick the paint was going to come out. I should have tested it with water alone on a dummy surface, but I figured it would be ok. I was dead wrong. I emptied the paint, cleaned out the gun thoroughly with warm water and made adjustments to the spraying volume. This resulted in a much better second coat. So, now I have put two coats of the blue AutoAir Colors paint on the helmet, and I am calling it a day. I am going to take photos of the helmet and start to mock-up designs with a graphics editing software. Below are photos of the first and second coats of the helmet to complete the transition from Krylon to AutoAir Colors.

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I started on the tank with a nice thick coat of bondo over the large scratch. I applied it liberally and carefully as I was very close to the wing decal and did not want to have to deal with replacing it. I neglected to sand or polish this surface before putting on the bondo. I hoped it would do fine without.

Initial bondo

After sanding it down to form to tank

After this coat of bondo dried, I sanded it down and began to paint. After two layers of paint, I realized that there were some imperfections in my sanding that were quite ugly. You can really see the edges and a few dimples in the middle in these two photos (click to enlarge photos).

First two layers with ugly sanding

After the paint dried, I sanded it down again and filled some of the dimples with a light layer of glazing & spot putty. Sanded that to ensure smoothness and we’re off to the races again!

Sanded again, filled with glazing & spot putty, sanded

A much better result after sanding and refining from above

Back to the lower that Hollifield started for me. I put a few more coats on while it was still taped up and then removed the tape. There were some pretty obvious lines that needed blending. I used the airbrush from a further distance than before and with a fine misting spray. This resulted in a blending that removed the lines created by the tape and a gradual fade of the two slightly different shades of red. Click to enlarge the photo to the left. See if you can easily distinguish where the painting took place.

Now onto the rear plastics. Same story over again. I sanded it down and used the glazing & spot putty to fill in any gaps. Then, I put about 4 or 5 layers before removing the tape. Then, I blended it into the existing paint color. Finally, I put about 2 layers of clear coat on all of the painted areas. Here’s the final shots of the front and rear. Check out all of the photos at: http://photos.tonyfugere.com/gallery/v/vehicles/bikes/vfr800fi/repaint

Before:

After:

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A Perfect Endo to a Perfect Day – Watch more free videos

I am still working on compressing video. Until then, I will go over the weekend. The Gixxer’s wiring harness was finally repaired after sitting at Motorsport of Albuquerque for almost 4 weeks. It had become frayed somehow and shorted out. When it shorted out, it the high amount of current burned up a few of the connectors.

After picking up the bike from the shop, we went to Cycle Gear and picked up a mountable video camera called the Hero by GoPro Camera. It came with a few different mounting options:

• 2 - curved bases
• 2 - flat bases
• 1 – bicycle helmet mount
• 1 – head mount
• 1 – single axis tilt attachment
• 1 – two axis tilt attachment

The bases came with strong 3M double-sided tape. We mounted a curved base to the nose of Hollifield’s ’04 CBR600RR. Then, we used the same fasteners from my VStrom handlebar project to mount a flat base to the Gixxer. We did a few tests and had a big problem with the camera. It recorded our first run around the block just fine. Then, it wouldn’t record anything. It would stay on for a second then turn off. After a bit of deduction, we figured out it was the batteries. We figured the batteries that came with it were trashed, so we just put new ones in and moved on our way. I’ll come back to the video camera in a bit.

Did I mention that Hollifield got to ride his new toy for the first time? We sold his ’93 CBR600F2 and found a smoking deal on an ’04 CBR600RR on Craig’s List. It was previously owned by a former SMRI racer, and is a fantastic bike! I have not ridden it on the track yet, but Hollifield loved it. I even had a hard time keeping up with him during the morning sessions! I was not 100% comfortable with my riding. Thus, I took it slow. When the sun came out after a gloomy morning, I felt much better. I’m not sure if the cloudiness/moisture around the track psyched me, but I think it did.

We started in Group 3 (Novice) to warm up our tires as we barely got there in time to get on the track for the first round of sessions. Then, we rode Group 3 one more time before we realized that we were too fast for it. So, we bumped ourselves up to Group 2 (Intermediate). That was a much better pace for us. We got the camera out for this session, and tried it out. It appeared work perfectly for the entire session. Then, we broke for lunch.

We decided to go home (I live 20 minutes from the track) and get Hollifield’s laptop for viewing videos in between sessions. As expected, the video recorded fine. However, when we checked the battery strength, they were dead after one use! After lunch, we put new batteries in and recorded that session. The good news was that I picked up my pace and was able to keep up with Hollifield. Then, we tried the camera the session after that without exchanging the batteries and it died! The camera is destroying batteries…

Upon arrival to the track, we saw another guy with the same camera and he said his batteries last all day. We were obviously not experiencing the same results. We were able to capture two full sessions that I will have posted into this article soon. I will be returning to Cycle Gear for an exchange and hoping that it was just a fluke. The camera’s quality is really great; especially for the low price of ~$170. I will test it out the next time Tamara and I ride the VStrom.

All in all, it was a great day at the track. No hitches, no problems, nothing! I think my tires are just about done for though. They were started to slip a bit in turns…

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My parents came out Thursday night. They had a real tight connection between Atlanta and Albuquerque and barely made it themselves. Their checked luggage did not make it. So, we had to wait for the first Friday flight from Atlanta to bring the bags. This was nice, because we got to take them to Frontier to experience one of Albuquerque’s best restaurants. We also got to have a nice leisurely start to our weekend on Friday morning. We got the bags early Friday afternoon, and headed out at around 4:45pm.

Tamara and I rode the VFR and my parents rode the VStrom. We took off towards the Jemez Mountains. Since we left so late and had to get to Taos that night, we did not stop to take any pictures. Once we got through the Jemez and into Los Alamos, I missed my turn onto NM-502 and we ended up driving through the residential areas of North Los Alamos. My Dad’s GPS smart phone told us to take Rendija Rd to get back on track. A few miles down the road we found that it was unpaved. We pushed on through it though. Then, right when we thought we were almost at the end of the road, we found a locked gate blocking our way. We looked around for a path around the gate, but it was surrounded by barbed wire fence… We trekked our way back out of there (which seemed much faster than the way in), and back into Los Alamos to find NM-502. This took us to NM-30 and into Española. We picked up NM-68 and rode through dusk into Taos.

We got into Taos around 9:15pm or so. The city’s fireworks show greeted us and we stopped on a side road to watch the last 45 minutes of it. After it was all over, we were beginning to suit back up for the short ride to the hotel. Then, a wave of traffic started coming towards us as everyone from the fireworks show was going home! We picked up the pace a bit and squeezed into the traffic before it got too bad. It was like leaving a music concert at a pavilion all the way to the Best Western. The hotel was just outside the Taos Plaza. Luckily, there was one bar open and they had some food for us. The kitchen was closed, but they had chips/salsa and pretzels for us. We ate, drank, and enjoyed a blues/funk band that was in town for the night. Just around 1am, we went back to the hotel and fell asleep before our heads could hit the pillows.

The next morning, we got up and ate breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant. We got on the road around 10am, and headed north towards Questa on NM-522. From there, we began our journey on the Enchanted Circle. It is a beautiful ride that twists and climbs up through Red River, to the top of Bobcat pass (elevation: 9820′), down into the Moreno Valley and into Eagle Nest. We stopped for a nice break in Eagle Nest where we refueled, took photos of Baldy (which is on Philmont’s land), Wheeler Peak, the valley, and Eagle Nest Lake. My Dad reminisced about stopping here as a kid with his family after hiking at Philmont and continuing west for a sailing trip with their beloved Lollipop. It was a gorgeous valley surrounded by 12,000′+ peaks. From here, we headed south on US-64 to Palo Flechado Pass. There were a few convoys of vehicles on this tight-turn section of US-64, and we made a few risky passes to get away from them. We had some fun on the road though.

The Enchanted Circle led us back to Taos. I was just about to head south to the High Road to Taos when my Dad said, “Hey, let’s go to the gorge.” We had left the Rio Grande Gorge out when we departed due to leaving so late in the morning. I was not sure how much time we would have spent on the Enchanted Circle. So, we headed BACK through Taos. This was a mistake, because the Taste of Taos wine festival had the town full of traffic. It was well worth the wait once we arrived at the gorge. It is a deep, narrow box canyon that has been formed by the relentless Rio Grande. Just west of the gorge on US-64 is a rest area at which we stopped. We walked a little ways down the west rim trail, took photos of the bridge, and headed back to the rest area. We re-hydrated, suited up, and headed back into the Taos traffic.

Just south of town, we took NM-518. This is the High Road to Taos in reverse. It winds up over the Sangre de Cristo mountains and into a valley full of orchards and farming. From there, we took NM-75 back to the Rio Grande and NM-68. We stopped for a late lunch at Embudo Station. This little restaurant and inn sit right on the Rio Grande. We dipped our feet in for a refreshment before eating. Leaving from there, we headed back to NM-75 to take NM-76 south to NM-503 and completing the High Road to Taos (in reverse). 503 goes through the Nambé pueblo before hitting US285/US84. We rode the highway into Santa Fe, found our hotel, and enjoyed a wonderful dinner at The Ore House on the Santa Fe Plaza. We went to bed much earlier, but slept in anyways.

Sunday, we got up around 9am or so. We did not like the hotel restaurant’s breakfast options, so we headed into the Plaza again. We found a great diner right next to The Ore House called The Plaza Cafe. Afterwards, we headed over to the Loretto Chapel to see the Miraculous Staircase. It is quite an amazing structure. We snapped a few photos of the St. Francis Cathedral. Then, it was back to the hotel to pack up. We left Santa Fe at 11:45am and decided to take the interstate home instead of the Turquoise Trail just to be safe on time as my parents’ flight was at 4:30pm. The trip ended up being roughly 450 miles or so. It was a nice pace for a two day weekend since we were cut short at the beginning of the trip and had to get home early afternoon on Sunday. The roads and scenery were spectacular! You can see all of the photos here: http://photos.tonyfugere.com/gallery/v/trips/2008/july_4th/

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(Click for Google Map)

Tamara’s niece turned two over the weekend. This is the Jones family and they live in Roswell, NM. It is her sister and brother-in-law live there with their 4 children (3 girls and 1 boy). We took the opportunity to drive the VStrom on a longer trip and test out a few new toys.

1. Our new BlueAnt Interphone bluetooth headsets that also have an intercom feature
2. A homemade hardware mounting plate for my garage door opener, MP3 player
3. New headphones for the both of us
4. My old Escort 945i radar detector

We took a straight highway route to get there on Saturday morning. It was colder than expected, humid, foggy (in Vaughn), and a bit rainy. It took just a bit longer than usual because we took an extended gas break in Vaughn to let the weather pass over us a bit. The route we took home was the fun part.

Before we get to that, let’s look at the mounting plate I created. I took a leftover piece of 2″ steel plate from another project and cut it to 8.5″ inches long (an aluminum plate would also work and be much lighter). The VStrom already had a mounting bar that my Dad installed. It is the SW-MOTECH universal handlebar crossbar. I cleaned all of the surfaces with denatured alcohol and placed 3 Superlock Strips from RadioShack on the bar and 3 more on the bottom of the plate. I put industrial strength 2″ x 4″ Velcro strips on the top of the plate to mount electronics. I started out by trying to mount my radar detector on the windshield with the suction cups. That was not working well, so I placed it in the middle where you see my CamelBak tube. It also had a small piece of velcro to keep in on the plate. This was quite convenient, but if abused, one would have to make many more stops… You also see my RCA Lyra RD1201 MP3 player. It has a SD card slot that makes it a great, inexpensive (I got it for free) 2GB MP3 player. I ran both the headphones and radar detector speaker cords under my tankbag to keep them from flying in the wind. After a few minor adjustments of equipment along the ride, I had everything in a good place by Sunday’s ride.

While in Roswell, the kids loved the bike and everyone wanted a ride. I gave Tamara’s sister a ride down the street (she was kinda scared, but enjoyed it). Then, I gave Cavan a ride who was followed by Addison (seen at left). Tristin got a ride Sunday morning and preferred not to have to turn though (scared to lean). She really leaned against the turn, but she is too light to affect my driving greatly. They all enjoyed the rides though.

After lunch, we left around 2:45pm. We worked our way West towards Capitan, NM on a back road (NM-246). It was a beautiful road that started out in ranch lands with fast, wide sweepers that moved its way into the small cedar trees that are typical of the Southern Rockies. The sweepers got a bit tighter in these areas, but nothing below 40mph (turn recommended speed). This ride was pretty straight with the occasional set of sweepers that rode the contour of the land or went around ranch land. After we fueled up in Capitan, we headed west to Carrizozo. I learned that the Valley of Fires was only a short drive from there and decided we should check it out.

The Valley of Fires is maintained by the Bureau of Land Management although it really has the facilities like a national or state park. According to their brochure: “Lava vents extruded lava which flowed on the earth’s surface about 1,500 to 5,000 years ago, making this one of the youngest lava flows in the Continental U.S. (Although Mount St. Helens erupted in the 1990s and is building a lava dome in its crater, it did not cause a flow of lava across the landscape.)”

From there we traveled back to Carrizozo and then north to Mountainair. Along the way, my route had us going up to Willard via Corona. There were a couple of isolated thunderstorms that way, and I came across NM-55. I realized that I could take it up through Claunch instead. Thank goodness, because the rain was heading our way. We saw maybe two or three drops hit the windshield before steering clear of that mess. We ate dinner in Mountainair at a small diner-like restaurant. Then, we headed north towards Manzano and Tijeras. NM-55 north of Mountair is a fun lazy sweeping road that twists up the Manzano mountains through three or four tiny unincorporated townships in Torreon county.

Just around Manzano, we caught a beautiful sunset over the Manzano mountains. Then it was onto Tijeras canyon, which consists of mid-sweepers and tighter sweepers that made the last part of the ride quite enjoyable. We took a side-road all the way into town that turns in Central Ave.

After we crossed the river, we took Atrisco up the bluffs and back to our side of town to get home at around 10pm. That made the ride roughly, 7 hours including a fuel and dinner stop. Outside of the fact that it is a more straight road ride, it was enjoyable. The VFR would not have been near as comfortable.

Check out all of the photos here:

Laurelen’s 2nd Birthday

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840 Miles of Southwest Fun!

It all started out with replacing a REALLY bent inner fork tube for the VFR. Check it out… <sarcasm>Can you see where it is bent? I’m not sure that it is pronounced enough.</sarcasm>

Tamara and I fixed the bike up together and went on a ride to Western NM and Eastern AZ over the Memorial Day weekend holiday. Check out the photos here: Memorial Day Weekend Ride.

Day 1 (Friday): 80 miles to Socorro

We left after work around 6:15pm and headed to Socorro. The wind was a bit high and we were heading into it. The one hour drive to Socorro couldn’t go by fast enough! An annoying start to the ride. We stayed at a Howard Johnson that was strategically placed across the street from Socorro Springs Brewery. They have the best beer and pizza in the Southwest! This would be our only stay in a hotel, too.

Day 2 (Saturday): 280 miles to Bill Evans Lake

The 280 miles to Bill Evans Lake outside of Silver City involved a beautiful drive to the Bosque del Apache just south of Socorro on NM1 and then across Emory Pass on NM152. We traveled north on NM35 and NM15 to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. The day was growing late from taking our time at the Bosque and then stopping at overlooks on the way over the pass. We wanted to try to find some hot springs in the mountains, but did not find any (that were free to the public at least). We ate dinner at a fine dining lodge called the Breathe Inn (ha!). It was in the middle of nowhere, but the food truly was fine. We had brie cheese with a strawberry glaze and chile rubbed shrimp cocktail for appetizers. Then, stuffed chicken and blackened ahi tuna with a fruit salsa! Pretty neat little stop in the middle of nowhere. We made our way to Silver City and decided to press on instead of stopping for the night just north of town at a campground. We found a public man-made lake (Bill Evans Lake) that had free camping and we called it a night there.

Bosque, Emory Pass, Cliff Dwellings, NM15

Unfortunately, we did not bring the proper sleeping gear for the weather. We got a bit cold. This time, dawn couldn’t come fast enough! As a matter of fact, I woke up once at night and thought dawn was coming. I was very anxious for it to show up. Then a few minutes later, Tamara got up to go to the bathroom, and I hear her say, “Awe crap! It’s the moon!” HAHAHA, we got a great laugh out of that the next morning… We got out of camp around 8am and headed West to Arizona. We made Clifton, a mining town, at around 10am and grabbed breakfast at a very busy local hole in the wall. We met up with two BMW riders from Phoenix that were also going north on US191. They had made the trip before and told us some pointers. We kept up with them for the first few miles, but we wanted to stop at overlooks and they didn’t. So we lost them. Then, we met up again at Hannagan Meadow Lodge. The BMW guys shortly after we arrived. They were trying to get all the way back to Phoenix that night! They were high mileage riders. We made it back to New Mexico after a lunch stop in Alpine, AZ. We pressed through Apache Creek (our original stop) and then tried to find food in Pie Town. Unfortunately, everything was closed… They were supposed to have good pie, too. We went back to Quemado (40 miles round trip). Oh, did I mention that there were 40MPH winds, too? Yea, it was really windy. It really beat us up good! Tamara found the “World’s Largest Chicken Fried Steak”, and it really wasn’t that great… We had fully bellies, which helped our attitude as we fought the wind again to get to the Cibola National Forest for camping. We found a great spot tucked off an unpaved Forest Service road (FR-6A) that had a beautiful view of the Sawtooth Mountains (pretty, but not the same as Idaho’s.

Day 4 (Monday): 160 miles to Albuquerque

Again it was cold, and we were cold and dawn couldn’t come fast enough. We slept later after the sun began to warm the tent nicely. We headed to the VLA, and took the walking tour. Got up close with a dish and saw the service repair building. Then, we fought the wind to Socorro before heading north to home trying to avoid the interstate wherever we could. We found NM-47 which goes from Belen to Albuquerque along the river. It was a great road and much nicer than the interstate.

All the photos can be found here: 2008 Memorial Day Weekend Ride

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My Dad, Hollifield and I had another set of successful track days this past March and May. We started at Arroyo Seco on March 8. My Dad and I were down there and taking turns on the GSXR750. The track was running counter-clockwise. I enjoy both directions, but seem to find better lines going counter-clockwise. I guess it is because I have ridden that direction more often.

Sandia was on May 4. The track was running clockwise which meant that the poor little CBR F2 was going to have trouble in the front straight. The carbs need to be re-jetted, but we have not had a chance to try to work on them. I had my GSXR750 out there for the first time since Dave (the previous owner) last raced it out there.

The day went well though. Both of us have not been out there since 2006, so we started in the beginner class. Near the end of the day, after no meatball flags to send us up to intermediate, we were asked to do so. Intermediate was a much better place for us anyways. Our track friends were all there and they were riding expert. Neither of us was comfortable enough to move up to expert. We did not get any photos that day.

The next weekend we took two days at Arroyo Seco. This involved both directions. We went counter-clockwise the first day, and clockwise the second. The drive down there also proved interesting with a stop at a gas station outside of Truth or Consequences…

Both days went very well until my GSXR’s charging system went out for some reason. It was halfway through the day, and I did not want to take the bike apart to have to put it together again! I did get to take the F2 around a few times though, and that was a good time! It’s a fun bike even though it has top-end problems. It was not a race weekend. This meant the track was an open all-day session (come and go as you please). We were good about pacing ourselves though. The only downside to this was that there were only 8 to 10 bikes there. It is nice to have the track to yourself, but having traffic to negotiate or at least some faster riders to learn from can be much more fun.

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