The mailman

The windscreen seems like a reasonable idea but I've never understood tinting your head/tail lights. I would like my lights as bright as possible.

Hey Mailman, I live in Minneapolis (actually Richfield, a first ring suburb south of Minneapolis). I'm offering any support I can early in your trip. I'm about 225 miles south of Itasca State Park, where I assume you'll start. If interested or necessary, PM me and I'll give you my address and phone number.

Max

Oh! You probably do not need to be told but DO watch out for the hooved forest rats. They're nearly as thick as the insects. And they hunt VFRs. :sad2:

MaxSwell, I'm not coming near you! I know how you draw the critters! j/k I DO appreciate the offer! I have a sister-in-law in Andover on the north side of the cities and a nephew in Apple Valley as rescue points should something go awry but I will keep you in mind if something goes down. Deer are really the only real worry I have since we will be following the 2300 miles of river, that definitely ups the chances of an encounter. The critters love to be near water. If I could eliminate just ONE problem be it mechanical issues/ bad weather/deer/poking myself in the eye with a stick, I would eradicate all of the deer within 20 miles of the river.

First three nights itinerary from Colorado...A friend's home in Le Mars Iowa, Bemiji MN area, La Crosse or maybe Prairie Du Chien WI. as the sunset allows. Coming south out of Grand Rapids, we plan on skipping the metro area and will cut off of 169 @ Princeton, travel through Cambridge and wiggle down to Taylor's Falls and pick up the river again to the south. I can drive blindfolded from Andover through T.F./St. Croix Falls over to Rice Lake, WI on 8. (Mother-in-law lives there)

What to put INTO the bags gets into a whole separate thread from the mods to the bike itself!

http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.php/topic/79033-long-distance-touring-tips/

After purchasing my '07 VFR two years ago, I have slowly been adding bits to make it more touring friendly. Why do we buy a bike, spend months and thousands of dollars to make it just the way we want it, only to sell it and start over? There has to be a name for this medical condition! As posted in other threads, I'm about to set out on a 4500 mile round trip to follow the Mississippi River from beginning to end so I thought I would share some of my mods to make my 6th gen more tour-friendly.

I started out with some nice thick foam grips. I don't need risers but something a little easier to hang on to helps. The stock grips are rock hard and so narrow that my hands get tired holding something so small. Next came a nice Givi Tanklock tank bag. I prefer this over magnetic because there is NO contact with paint and it comes off with the pull of a lever. Next was the Leo Vince exhaust system. This is much lighter than the stock anvil system and has a nice adjustable note to it. I then chose the ST shield from Zero Gravity for better protection from the elements. The bigger the better for long hauls! I also found a Givi trunk and rack system on my local craigslist for less than the cost of just the rack new. To top it off, the seller delivered the items to me! Over the past week, I added some new Michelin Road 2s since they are bargain basement priced now and I'll likely flat spot them on my upcoming ride. No need to buy the latest most expensive tires to roast on a cross country trip. We ARE planning to stick to two lane county roads most of the time. And today, I received my Nelson Rigg saddle bags that I found dirt cheap on Amazon.com. I also purchased a digital voltage meter to keep an eye on things. I velcro-mounted it to the front side of my ignition box just low enough that it clears the bottom edge of the instrument panel. Being mounted down low also helps with visibility rather than having it up high in the sunlight. The last thing I did tonight was to re-mount the Monster fender that comes stock after I removed my Competition Werks fender eliminator. Without it, the rear tire is constantly slinging water/mud/debris onto the rear tail light and trunk. I could do w/o that for my cross country run. Aside from packing, The bike is much more road worthy for the long haul runs and can be easily reverted to sport mode.

20 MINUTES AS ADVERTISED! I just checked in here for a quick refresher prior to swapping out my rear pads on my '07. I had done my pads on my last VFR but it had been a while so I turned to you guys for a mental wake-up. From removing the first lug nut to tighening up the last one....20 minutes. The only thing different on my 6th gen is that I had to remove one additional bolt to let the caliper pivot downward just a hair to remove/replace the left side pad. A few pumps of the brake to settle the pistons in properly and then I made about five stops up and down our cul-de-sac and all was well. Man, I LOVE THIS ABS!!! You can just grab a whole hand full of lever and stand on the rear lever and you best be hanging on because this bike stops right NOW! I would have never attempted a stop like that on my non ABS VFR. Obviously road conditions and mid corner braking still require more moderation but stright line braking is very impressive. (I used EBC HH pads)

THANK YOU VFRD!!!!

Revzilla.com offers two Sport Touring screens for the 6th gen. One from Zero Gravity and one from Givi. I'm pretty sure the Givi will be my next moto-purchase.

One if the top things I miss from my 4th gen is the National Cycle ST windscreen that I added because it extended my comfortable riding days by hundreds of miles. I'm 6'-0" and 180lbs. I'm looking at either the Zero Gravity St or the Givi ST screens and am just curious about:

*whether yours gave you the protection you were looking for or did the buffeting get worse?

*Was the fitment acceptable?

*Is one brand more succeptable to cracking than the other?

*any other observations.....

I know it's just a damned piece of plastic but at $80 - $125, I want the PERFECT piece of plastic! My last one worked like magic for me.

Can you not angle your bike just enough to pass through the gate and wiggle one mirror though, then the other?

There's a theme here... all pro Chinese-knock off are non-members... and truthfully, there is a very good reason you don't want Chinese knock offs! You get what you pay for!!!

You do realize that the board crashed and all the posts that were prior to the crash lost the User Data, Avatars, Post Counts, Signature Information, ect. right?

You have to thump some people on the forehead from time to time. Gently, but a solid thump none the less.

Everything looks groovy, except the name..............

Killer bike mods but who's in peril? ...sorry... ?

I've never understood tinting tail lights - or head lights for that matter. It seems like most people these days are searching for the clear lenses for the rear lights.

You can have the sand dragster - GIMME THAT CART!!!

do you agree that a windscreen is more like a sail ?

African or European?

Sorry, can't help myself at times...

I guess that's like saying my tires wore out and not listing the mileage too. The air filter above had just over 15k on it. No Salvation Army trucks, no cotton gin nearby, and maybe 50 miles of dirt road in the life of the bike. Still amazed it would even run. - even more amazed I let something slide for so long.

Yay! 50 more horses! :angry:

I keep up with everything! oil changes - early most times, tire pressure, chain tension, daily visual inspections, everything. Well, evidently almost everything. Looking through my maintenance log I noticed the air filter seems to have been overlooked for a while. I had installed a K&N ...ummm... a while back we'll say, and hadn't checked it since then. I pulled it last night and I can't believe the bike could even breathe well enough to run. I didn't have mice in the airbox but I could knit a sweater from all of the "fluff" in the filter. Just lightly tapping the filter on the driveway produced enough for some warm mittens. After spraying on a heavy dose of the K&N cleaner, letting it set, and then rinsing, it looked brand new again. Once it dried completely, I sprayed a new coat of oil into the folds, let it soak in a while to make sure I had full coverage, and the re-installed the filter. I'm not sure if it is my imagination or if my VFR actually said thank you when I fired it back up. Everybody is always looking for more horse power - it may lie in a clean air filter!

A++ on the Airplane Stripper! I spent a cold February weekend in my garage with some tunes and a few beers and came out black-free. I gooped up one wheel, stuck it in a black plastic yard bag to help quell the fumes in my closed and UNVENTILLATED garage. I waited one beer, gooped up the other wheel, put it in another bag and then began scraping on the first wheel. I simply repeated the alternating process with very little trouble. The flat surface on your spokes WILL polish up shiney. The spokes on the 4th gens are very rough and can be polished but it takes an boatload of elbow grease for that job. I just left my spokes rough and polished the rims.

SMART IDEA! - I put a drop cloth over an old door that I had layed across two saw horses to bring the work up to my level rather than knelling on the cement. I used eye protection, long sleeves, and gloves. Stripper is not to be messed with!

DUMB IDEA - After finishing the job, I took my drop cloth out in the street to shake off some remaining paint bits. After shaking the drop cloth out, I felt a burning sensation on my neck and knew immediately that I had thrown a big ol' glob of stripper onto my neck. I had what appeared to be a GIANT HICKEY next to my Adam's apple for two weeks before the burned skin finally peeled off. Did I mention stripper is not to be messed with? uh... have another beer

Colorado

I am now more convinced than ever that Larry's primary job on this board is to tittilate and frustrate those of us who don't have the tools and (far more importantly) the skills to build these sweet, lightweight race bits.

BLS is nothing special! I carved something very similar with my Leatherman and an old stick the last time we had a good fire and few beers in my back yard! OK, I can't even imagine coming up with that on my own. The closest I can come is a friend that has a CNC in his garage and he puts out bits n pieces for Kuryakyn. I just dream.

I guess the worst mod I did was dropping one tooth up front. The acceleration was great but I was always trying to shift into 6th when I was already there. MPG took a tumble and the speedo was even further off than normal. Two months later, I went back to stock.

My worst mod was done "free" for me by my local mega-dealership right before I left for a 3500 mile trip. I didn't catch it until almost half way through the journey. Brand new tires mounted with the rear on the rim backwards. Is it REALLY that hard to match up the directional arrows on the tire and rim?

Bailey Harbor - Lake Michigan '08

We did two full days of riding in the rain and I never felt a slip. I did get free replacement upon my return. Thanks (I think) Grand Prix Motorsports in Littleton, CO. :laugh:

When I did my '90, I made a scraper out of a scrap hardwood strip. No problems with that dissolving...

I'm getting closer to doing the 800's wheels; although the silver paint doesn't show the scratches as bad as the white on the '90 did, they're pretty messed up.

WOOD IS GOOD! - maybe best! When your edge wears down, just run it through your miter saw and it's brand new again. enzed_viffer gets a gold star today.

I did mine over a cold snowy February weekend. Be patient and use LOTS of stripper. I coated one one wheel and let it sit while I scraped away on the other one. By the time I got all the stripper/paint off that was coming off in that little session, the paint on the other wheel had softened. I just rotated back and forth and all went well. Airplane stripper and plastic paint scrappers worked great however I did go through a few scrappers as well since the stripper melts the plastic after a while.

- both equally quirky and absolutely nuts about motorcycles. Both of them were taken from us without warning, and both of them I miss terribly.

Forest view, memorial stone at lower left

That is an incredible statement that carries great meaning to me. I was talking to a coworker maybe 6/7 years ago about another coworker and I described him as "weird". The guy looked at me for a moment and then said "You know what, I think we are ALL weird". He made the comment in jest but I thought about it for days - well, evidently years because I think of that comment every time I think of someone as being different in some way. And after some introspective thought, I think that is exactly why I love fellow motorcyclists as much as I do. We ARE all weird or quirky in our own way but these damned machines bring us together like brothers and we DO care deeply when we loose a fellow rider, even when we never met them and they were hundreds/thousands of miles away. Thanks for the photos of the site. That last pic looks like a great place to just sit quietly and watch/listen for hours on end.

Good Lord! What happened? - and what's up with all the stickers? I must say ron al has the best idea. Print off StelvioOrBust's photos, go out to your garage, and repeat what you see in the photo. That thing almost looks better than a brand new 4th gen. That thing looks like a piece of art - more of what Ducati was aiming for when they designed the Monster, only they missed and Stelvio hit it. I have saved the photo myself - just in case.

Quite a messy job but well worth the effort. I did mine two or three years ago now and the finish has remained bright. I was worried they would discolor or become dull over time. No reason to worry, a quick wipe with a soapy rag when I wash the bike and they look as good as new. Great work BrittC!

I do not work for gates and I am definitely not an engineer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. - and I just read an article about converting chain drives to belt drive systems and they determined that most bearings on the internals of the engines designed with chain drives in mind would not be sufficient for the amount of tension that belts require to keep teeth properly engaged in the cogs of the pulley. Any consideration toward this line of thought? I'm not sayin' - just askin'. :cool: