dr.toto

A few weeks ago, I sold my 99. I had owned it for close to 21 years. It was my traveling buddy. 🙂 The character that it possessed made it an easy travel companion. Some people thought the gear drive music was the sign of mechanical failure. 🙂 I told the selling dealer who was a friend that he made a mistake in selling it to me. Before that I was getting a new bike about every 3 years. That stopped that completely. I had plenty of projects but that bike was still my choice for travel. It was not the best in any one category being judged by magazine writers but excelled in all. The one that they weren't capable of judging was long term ownership. Not everyone gets to enjoy their ownership as much as I did. In the last ten years, my life changed and I wasn't able to ride on trips near as much as I used to. I didn't want it to sit and be unused. It wasn't real easy to sell but I'm not surprised. I have done many projects in my life and most take effort to sell. I loaded up the new owner and off it went into a new life. I was in kind of a funk for a few days after that. I know it was the right thing to do but I was still sad. I still have 2 bikes but none that I would take on a long trip. I may buy another bike. I watch the new releases some. It would be nice to have a real cruise control. 🙂 Another part of my decision has to do with distracted drivers. We are all aware of how that has changed in the last ten years. It used to be the animals that I worried about. Now it's people. Best wishes for safe riding to all of you and thanks to Miguel for creating this forum. Years ago it was a wonderful source for all of us who discovered the vfr and it's talents. The videos people put up from around the world were wonderful. It allowed me to see places that I would never get to visit as well as from a rider's perspective. Now, back to the shop for me next project. 🙂

Cool post. No bridges in the desert where I am. :)

My 99 was a year old with 1400 miles when I bought it. I never thought I would become a collector. :)

I've stripped a bunch of modern sport bike wheels. They were all powder coated or painted with urethane paint. None were very thick.

To the original poster: the salt is slick and soft. If you plan on 20 mph less that the top speed on pavement, that might be close. If you have very limited exp. at speed, be careful.

Watching vids like this remind me why I have owned my 5th gen for 14 years. :)

I don't have a sure fire way of explaining how to fix this but the forks aren't aligned in the triple trees properly. Someone may have a way of lining this up so it's right where it needs to be but I don't have a good explanation for you.

Another option is to take an undamaged bag to a PPG dealer and let them shoot it with the color match gun. They will be able to possibly do a formulation match to an available color. I did that years ago on my 99 and that's what my bags are painted with. As far as spotting in, absolutely not. You have way too many things to try and fix. That bag is small and simple.

My son bought a Chamberlain opener and has an app on his cell phone to open it.

Nice report and great pics. Thank you very much.

I'm a Givi user for about 14 years. Very satisfied.

It's 3 degrees here. I have an electric heater running next to my chair. :)

Thanks to everyone who posted that has exp. with these items. You helped me make some decisions. For us old guys that have regular work exp., it's great to find out the pitfalls before spending money.