lazyeye

The shop has it. So I'm bikeless for the moment 😞 I'm probably going to borrow my mom's Vulcan 500 for the meantime.

Hi lazyeye, Thank you for your donation of 5.00 USD. We look forward to improving the forums with your donation. Thanks VFRDiscussion

What's your profession Dutchy? I'm in Information Technology. Regrettably when bad economic times hit the first things companies do is dump IT workers (after they worked me to death supporting the transition to remote working for the company).

Instead of being on the road I'm waiting for my shop to figure out whats wrong with my bike. Probably a result of filling up from too many gas stations with rusty tanks or something. New filter and associated parts are on the way 😞 I will probably borrow my Mom's Vulcan 500 and ride for a week or two on that.

Good looking hugger. I love my Powerbronze screen.

YMMV? That 6500 miles was with worn out suspension so the tires were eating themselves, and it was mostly straight up and down. If you find something that grips well and will last 7k, let us know for sure.

Beginning of June I changed my tires. I had a set of Pilot Road 5s on my 800 that I'd mounted in September. After 6500 miles the rear was past the wear bars and handling like crap. The front had reached the wear bars. Since this was a Autumn/Winter/Spring set I'm not surprised I burned out the center, also because my suspension was worn out (got it refreshed in May). I put on a set of S21 takeoffs to hold me over until I decide what to try next. The plan is to do a lot of mileage so I need something that'll handle the miles without getting out of shape really fast.

The issue happened before I took it in for service and was independent of the last time I raised the tank. It was fine for about 3000 miles after the service, that's what really confuses me. My bike has the evap cannister, I've been too lazy to figure out how to properly eliminate it.

The last maintenance was spark plugs, valve adjustment, air filter replacement... pretty much everything. The tank had to come off to do that work. I'll have a look and see if the breather hose is kinked. I don't detect any vacuum in the tank (its easy to open up just like usual) and there's no codes or warning lights showing up. I've heard that the charcoal filter can eventually get clogged up and cause running problems, is that real or is it an old biker story?

2014 VFR800F/D. 42000 miles. Starting about 4000 miles ago the bike started bogging down and then surging. If I'm maintaining throttle (like on the highway) it will start losing power even though I'm holding a constant position, then if I move the throttle its like it realizes where it's supposed to be and surges back to that position. It stopped doing it for about 3k miles after I had the full service done, but recently started doing it on a trip. I thought bad gas so I ran the tank nearly empty (the condition got worse as the tank emptied), refilled it, and then it started doing it again 30 or so miles later. I thought the Throttle Position Sensor might be going bad so I tapped into the system via my Power Commander 5. The PC shows that the throttle position (at least in my garage) works properly 0-100%. The bogging/surging is kind of inconsistent so its hard to drop it off and say it does a thing when it doesn't do it all the time. What am I missing?

Yeah he was pretty beat up after some of those rough forest service roads.

The weekend before my layoff I had done a run out to Eastern Oregon that was fraught with bad weather, and my riding buddy had a breakdown. It was supposed to be a bigger group but as with group travel things always fall apart. Well one of the people that was part of that group planning to begin with said "Hey Lazyeye, let's do the Eastern Oregon thing since I have a three day break coming up". Day 1 Good enough for me, lets go! He lives quite a bit north of me so we met in Prineville for lunch. Being a motorcycle person is funny because you attract attention from people that'd normally ignore you. At lunch a middle aged guy with lots of tattoos talked at us about how he used to ride (has osteoporosis now) and partied with the Hell's Angels in Oakland. After lunch we were off to more interesting roads. We didn't have a really firm plan and no motel reservations. Our first interesting road we had to scrub because of road work, but found some other cool roads near Dayville/John Day and eventually moved east through a collection of highlighted roads on my Butler map. We'd get to a junction, pull out the map, and choose a road. We stayed in Baker City which gave us a choice of cool roads in all direction. Day 2 We set out to hit a gold highlighted road that lead us into Idaho to Cambridge. Turns out it wasn't that great and burned a lot of our time. On the way back we decided to hit the Hell's Canyon Overlook. If you're in the area you owe it to yourself to spend half an hour there just appreciating the view. On the way up we both got waved by a sheriff on the twisty roads. You don't get that in Western Oregon... We worked our way further on to Joseph for lunch at the base of the Wallowa mountains, another place you could plant yourself to watch the view for quite a while. Joseph doesn't have interesting roads in all direction though and we had to get stuck in slow traffic for the next hour to LaGrande. It was hot and we were kind of shot so we had cold drinks in front of Starbucks (No dine in). After 12oz of cold brew I felt like I could rip the arms off of The Rock and we got going again. 244 from Hilgard/LaGrande to Ukiah Oregon was a great way to finish off the day. We checked into a Cabin there and got a late dinner at the only cafe in town. Dinner and a show really because the bar tender had to throw out a belligerent drunk. At closing time in front of the bar we met a group from Portland and shared beers with them on main street. I love the wild west. Day 3 The only retail gas station in Ukiah is a cash only place that looks like its closed, and the guy who runs it doesn't keep firm hours. So we cruised down the 395 highway (which has fresh asphalt and wonderful curves in this section) to the next gas station. The businesses in this area have gotten together to publish their own map for motorcyclists that shows paved/unpaved roads, because they want our business. From there we hit the Blue Mountain Scenic Highway on over into Central Oregon. This is a beautiful ride with good pavement, just watch out for cows. Central Oregon was windy enough to be tiring to ride in. At lunch we parted ways. I cruised on through Fossil and checked out the new chip seal on 218 (its OK, needs time to cure) and on into the central Oregon slab for my way home. The more Portlandified the region becomes the more onerous it gets to get through/past central Oregon to get to/back from the good stuff.

When I first posted about my layoff on my socials, my first girlfriend from college (happily married now) said "If you're ever in *cityname*, I'll buy you a beer". I like free beer so I packed a change of clothes and plotted a somewhat twisty course down to South Central Oregon. We met at a pizza joint where she does Trivia weekly (they'd just started allowing dine-in in this county) and shared pizza, beer, and talked about our respective industries. She's one of my smartest friends and has the gift to be able to have a rational conversation without thinking that her opinion is the only right one. So we can talk about current events without arguing. After dinner I went over the hill to see my folks, and the next day had lunch with my brother and dad, then sped home to file unemployment paper work.

Out on the road. Sunset in the mountains.

I'm seeing the same thing on Canadian websites. Guess I'll do that trip next time. Still lots of places to go. North Cascades, Sierra Nevadas, Monument Valley...

I don't care for camping either. My first couple places to visit I'll have family or friends to stay with though so that'll be nice. I'm considering riding down the sierra nevadas, or maybe riding north into BC/YT, but I have to look and see what's "open" right now.

My job was cut due to the global pandemic whatever. So once I get my affairs in order I'm taking a long ride. That's about the extent of my ride planning so far.

Mounted new tires. My PR5s that I mounted in September and rode all fall/winter/spring on were shot (6100miles). Burned out the center of course, but that's what happens when you live in a valley and have to ride straight roads to get to the fun roads.

I rode 1100 miles this weekend. Dodged a few thunderstorms then got caught in a whole lot of cold rain and wind. Had to reroute to avoid a late spring snow storm at high elevation.

Laguna Seca 2019 Backstory. I'm in a couple of racing/trackday groups on the book of faces. Back in '17 or so this kid came on selling shirts to fund his trip to Europe for an RC390 cup event. I said what the heck and bought a shirt, next year bought another. Anyways in 2019 he was racing in Twins Cup. I found his pit in the paddock, walked up and said "hey I'm one of your sponsors!". Draik Beauchamp. Talked to him and his father Curtis for a while. Good kid. He joined the Air Force after the 2019 season.

few more from Austin 2018.

2016 Laguna Seca Tequila Girls and yours truly Also me and a good personal friend who just happened to be an umbrella girl (she also rides a VFR) for the Go-Eleven team a few years in a row. I added a screencap of the WSBK broadcast to prove it.

WSBK/MA Laguna Seca 2019 WSBK Riders doing their thing

WSBK/MA Laguna Seca 2019 Forza GP has an exhibition of kiddos on Ohvales. First step to rebuilding American race talent starts with little kids.

WSBK/MA at Laguna Seca 2019 We ran into the Thrashed Bike Racing crew at Black Bear Diner and chatted them up about race stuff. The next day we found them in the paddock and they let me pose on their bike. If only I had talent and money I could get out of the Novice race class and ... oh hell who am I kidding I'd never be able to qualify for SBK. LOL.