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First long road trip on any bike starts tomorrow


rckrzy1

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Never done more than 400 miles in one day and leaving Dallas area for Toas NM in the morning, about 12 hours in the saddle. I think I have the best compromise bike for touring and sport with more emphasis on the sport once we get to Paonia CO for the rally with 3 days of serious twisties and scenery. I'm only adding about 60 pounds of gear with my factory side bags and a ventura back pack rear bag and once we get to hotel in Paonia the side bags and rear bag come off easy enough, no tools required which is nice compared to my CTX1300 that needed large allen key to remove side bags which weighed a ton. Packing much lighter on the VFR than my 725 pound pig which probably weighed over 800 pounds easily loaded with the factory trunk, heck the honda factory tail mount added about 15 pounds alone, then the trunk was another 8-9 pounds.

 

So hopefully I get to see some great scenery and a chance to wear the sides of my tires which is hard to do in flat Dallas area. Going with a long time friend, former co worker I know for 25 years and he will be on his triumph tiger 1200 .  So he will be needing gas more often than I do so should get enough breaks to stretch and relax on the way. After the first killer day it's all leisure touring. One day trip we plan to go on a well groomed gravel road so I'm glad I have the ABS and TC , it might get a work out on that road. But it all depends on the road condition, if it's poor we will just skip that ride.

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Enjoy the ride!

 

Gravel coming up!!

IMAG4873.thumb.jpg.8e2a232dcd50dcf12118ae5455130cbd.jpg

 

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Try to avoid these guys 

IMAG4809.thumb.jpg.959958b7b50ffd9918eaec7e8a237310.jpg

 

 

Looking forward to your pictures and stories..

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I assume since you're staying in Paonia, that you're already planning on hitting 133 up to Carbondale.  If not, you must...it's an outstanding road.  Also, if you're not already, you must do 65 over Grand Mesa...truly amazing place.  Let me know how far away from Paonia you plan on going, and I can recommend some more roads, unless your routes are already planned and set in stone.

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On 7/17/2017 at 0:27 PM, rckrzy1 said:

One day trip we plan to go on a well groomed gravel road so I'm glad I have the ABS and TC , it might get a work out on that road. But it all depends on the road condition, if it's poor we will just skip that ride.

 

Sounds like an awesome trip - but I would make sure the Triumph rides behind you on the gravel so as to lessen the chance of marring your fairings :tongue:

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Are you taking 60 pounds of luggage for 3 days?

 

I can pack enough for 2 weeks into a 30 litre tailpack and that's after flying over with a 50 pound weight limit, even wearing my jacket and taking the helmet as hand luggage my boots and leather jeans are in the 50 lb limit

 

 

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On 7/24/2017 at 7:16 AM, Katie said:

:ohmy: I was with you until I saw the gravel track! Beautiful scenery though

Not many sport bikes up on gravel, felt like it was drifting the turns.

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21 minutes ago, rckrzy1 said:

Not many sport bikes up on gravel, felt like it was drifting the turns.

 

 

You probably were! Gravel scares the life out of me

 

Mind you , I don't think she would have minded...

 

 

Gravel.jpg

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42 minutes ago, rckrzy1 said:

my left arm and hands are weak and numb , for about 3 days now, probably from my death grip in the rain going down black canyon .

 

Could be, but you might wanna get your neck checked just to be safe.

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Take a rest day, take some paracetemol....

 

In 2012 during TMAC, the non stop twisties I had been doing resulted in some muscle ache between my shoulders. Paracetemol and a bit less alcohol at night took care of it.

 

As long as you feel "in control" of the bike you are -imho- good to go :-) 

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1 hour ago, Rectaltronics said:

 

Could be, but you might wanna get your neck checked just to be safe.

I have a c4-c7 fusion which is were hands get nerve inputs from, I may have aggravated my c2-c3 . I will wait a week before seeing the doc.

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2 hours ago, Samuelx said:

Hope it's just temporary rckrzy!

Me too, but our ride times were more than I ever did in my lifetime. 6 days, 3K miles total, getting there we did 650 miles day one, then about 400 day two. Then about 250 mile day rides for 4 days then the return was 550 first day and 450 to get on home.

 

The bike did well, I had to use my airhawk 2 pad on the long days but did not like the softness in the heavy twisties and I could do 250 on the stock seat without too much suffering. The stock dunlops worked great in dry, rain and even gravel roads. My rear has a bit of flat spot now from the interstate runs but no too bad, the front looks great, I measured my depths as 5/32 on front and 6/32 on rear at start and they still measure that. Even in the rain and gravel I never saw ABS or TC come on. I did have to play with the idle when we got to first stop at Toas NM, it was idling about 2K but we were at at least 5K ASL compared to Dallas at 500 , just strange to have to adjust the idle on a modern FI bike. Fuel economy went up from 40-50mpg to 60-70mpg , at one point my avg was 74mpg , but you could tell power was down, I needed to down shift to 4th to make passes.

 

Thru the twisties like 550 "million dollar highway" I preferred to stay in 3rd so I could stay above Vtec engagement which made it easier to pull out of turns. I found the rev limiter at 12.5K a few times. After the 3K trip I used maybe 1/8 qt of oil , I ran 1 qt of honda full synth with the rest reg gn4 honda 10/30 , My bike had 2 previous oil changes, the first at 300 miles and again at 750 miles. Next change will be with full synth because it's broke in now for sure. On one hot day , over 100F and pulling hard up a mountain I saw coolant temps hit 210-213 , but once we got to higher elevations and 80-90 degree weather it ran 175-185 even pulling hard up mountains. Chain was adjusted once about 300 miles as it was way too loose, after that no adjustments made, I was good about wiping down and re waxing chain each night.

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No pain

No mileage gain!!

:goofy:

 

Any normal person will have some discomfort after that.

Now u are home.... :beer:

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The best part were ever we stopped the RED VFR got all the attention , it was quite nice to get all the questions and compliments, and the SEB clear clutch window only added to the comments, other riders really thought it was cool.

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On 7/17/2017 at 5:06 PM, DriverDave said:

I assume since you're staying in Paonia, that you're already planning on hitting 133 up to Carbondale.  If not, you must...it's an outstanding road.  Also, if you're not already, you must do 65 over Grand Mesa...truly amazing place.  Let me know how far away from Paonia you plan on going, and I can recommend some more roads, unless your routes are already planned and set in stone.

 

Did grand mesa twice , I enjoyed the second time as I had a feel for it and my times were much faster , except on the way down when it turned into a monsoon and lighting storm. The gravel road was from crested butte on road 12 .

 

I think I'd like to trailer my bike to say Toas and leave trailer there and spend all my time on the bike at elevation and cooler temps . The ride from Dallas to Toas was too straight and way too hot this time of year. But the VFR I will say is the best sport touring bike I have ever ridden, it did a good job of carrying my stuff to the mountains and then I took the bags off and had a blast in the mountains.

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27 minutes ago, rckrzy1 said:

The best part were ever we stopped the RED VFR got all the attention , it was quite nice to get all the questions and compliments, and the SEB clear clutch window only added to the comments, other riders really thought it was cool.

 

We get random people asking about our VFRs all the time. It makes me believe Honda failed to market these bikes properly...

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