Introducing Bill Young, our age group, rides a Honda 550 straight 4 that he has refurbed from various sources.   He has planned to come Dragoning with us 2 years ago but wasn't able to make it due to circumstances cropping up.  

Bill is of a type to fit in just fine with the group.  His 550 makes more hp that we do, so he should have no trouble keeping up equipment-wise.   His problem may be handling more than raw power, as has been the problem with the Sportsters and BMWs in years past.   Bill tools it around pretty good, but it is a vintage straight four with vintage Honda handling.

I will encourage Bill to log on and chat some on the thread as we need to start an occasional roll call up as we are 3-4 months out.

That was a declared nasty black line ride of some consequence, with experts only attending.   It was a tough mother of a ride, it was.   Beat my poor old body badly, it did.

This Dragon is a lighter duty ride, with civilians coming and all.

You me and a few others may get way out ahead and let rip a little but I doubt we'll be killing the bikes or the bikers all that much generally.

By the same token, we will post the standard "bike maintenance alerts" the month prior to the ride to get folks to sort out their bald tires and worn out brake pads (which we have seen in years past on civilian rides).

Aaaaaaaaa

Yea Zuk that would be the same ride alright !

Seems like them Harleys doin't like going from 2000 to 4000 up and down , repeattly.  

The Drive sprocket on the primary worked loose to the point of wearing out the teeth on the crankshaft.   There ain't no taper to tighten up on .    

By time I got it fixed , I was ready to get rid of it.
I traded it  off  last Saturday !


Well :

my first experence with a Harley my be my last !

hee hee  


He did it on the road to Mt. Mitchell  --  remember when he tried to lose us?

What kind of car tire was that?  I'll be needing a back tire soon and thinking about this option.

 

First Maintenance Warning

We are about 3 months out -- look at your tires and decide if they are going to make it to the trip (and back again).

Front brake pads need an oggle about now too -- looking now gives you time to order the parts and for them to arrive and you to do the change outs without being in a big time bind.

Just ask the trip leader for that trip where the meet up spot is going to be -- we always string out on the longer runs if someone fast is leading.

Somebody slow leading,  not so much a string out problem.

We ain't lost anybody yet .....


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We are talking about the excessive fast wear that takes place on the tires and brake pads.    

We have had 1-2 rear tires give out on the trip so far and at least one set of totally bald front brake pads.

Nobody has brought dry rotted tires yet.


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Sparky floor boards, huh?     You and Toymaker can swap sparky stories if you want,  remember my sparky stories are a little harsher than that and involve large hurleys going to the right and to the left sideways after speeding up after I passed them.  

You have to get Lancer or MMRanch to tell you my sparky stories anyway, I never saw them personally because I wuz gone around the next turn by the time they completely harikari'd themselves.

I can tell you some Toymaker sparky stories from when I followed him in Al's white pick up truck ---