Four Days of Riding, Days 1 & 2

Back last night at 8:25 from 2000 miles of touring!

My buddy JV and I left Wednesday morning and headed for the great state of Colorado for some mountain riding plus some good beer.

First day plan was to slab it to Colorado Springs from Dallas via 287 with a stop in Dalhart, TX for some food with a friend. Well those plans were dashed when running at higher speeds killed our gas mileage and a poor decision to forgo gas while leaving Amarillo lead to me running out of gas in the middle of nowhere south of Channing, TX. JV ran out to grab some gas and ended up in Hartley while I napped on the side of the road in 100* temps while everyone passed up the dirty biker on the side of the road. Shout out to the Hartley Co-Op for sending JV out with free gas and can, even offered to follow him back to me if he couldn't carry the can! Love small town hospitality.

My solitude.


JV catching it for posterity while pointing at the can of shame


We missed our friend but did get a glowing recommendation to try XIT (10 In Texas) for good grub and beer.


After a "few" more uneventful hours we made it to home for the night in Colorado Springs and this was the view from Amandas Cantina while we sipped margaritas.

JV is somewhat of an avid "photographer" risking life and limb to document our trip while riding a motorcycle, a few shots while riding up Pike's Peak

And the view from the top, beautiful morning with no clouds




We rode back down and headed north on 67 stopping for lunch and beers at Deckers Corner, great little place to eat. I highly recommend the breakfast scramble and when they say the hot green chili sauce is hot, they mean it! More beer cured the heat.


Out of there we headed up several more small back roads with great scenery and then stopped in Evergreen at Little Bear for more hoppy refreshments



Out of Evergreen we headed North then west for Central City, neat little main street town but the turn onto Central City Parkway off the highway was strange as they had a cow crossing next 8 miles sign. Actually they might have saved some money to just put "look out for and all animals" signs at the Colorado border, seems as though they have a sign for every animal imaginable.

Next Refreshment stop, Dostal Alley Casino & Brew Pub



Our next stop was Nederland which was confirmed to be a cool place by this guy

So leaving out of Central City we turned north onto 119 and ran all the way to Nederland, home of the Frozen Dead Guy Days and another great place for beer and pizza, Crosscut Pizzeria & Taphouse. Tons of good beer on tap and great staff.

Our last run of the night was to head back towards Boulder and down to Louisville to call it a night, almost. We headed over to another brewhouse to end the night and our staff member Elizabeth put up with us without kicking us out. 

WOLO because YOLO

While looking for inexpensive mods that can make a difference I came across one that didn't see much play on Harley's but did for imports and cars...... The WOLO Bad Boy air horn. I can say every single bike I have owned has had horns that barely qualify being called a horn. They do a piss poor job at notifying fellow drivers and inattentive cager's that they are going to run you over, an upgrade is definitely a step forward in safety. The impetus besides a fresh mod also came in the form of an email from Harbor Freight with a 25% off coupon which made the $39.99 horn only $29.99, how could anyone sane man pass that up?

In all it's glory after removing from the blister pack


With a silver bullet for scale


It is a compact two tone air horn that has a self contained compressor that does require battery power and a relay to be added but that is an easy deal. Well, so I thought until the curse of the Chinese relay bit again. I removed the factory horn from the bracket, drilled out the top hole, and bolted the WOLO right to it, easy peasy. For wiring you put the factory horn contacts on 85 & 86, +12v switched to contact 30, then contact 87 to the horn's positive, then the horn's ground to ground.

Easy.

Unless your relay that comes with the kit is broken and you spend too much time thinking you have a bad ground. SMH Using the spare I bought the other day when installing the cruise control every thing worked perfect, the damn horn scared the bejeezus out of me first time.

I'm sure it will get inattentive driver's attention when/if it is needed.



Actually tucks in tighter than stock




I'm now part of the club

It's the little things

It's almost too hot to ride in Texas, testing the cruise control can wait a little while, besides I leave Wednesday for a run through Colorado. 

So instead I decided a little extra project was needed for the right saddle bag. With the 05' cop bikes having ABS it leaves a useless part of the bag on the front side which is only good for a pair of folded up soft lowers or your bungie straps but I though a shelf was in order.

I whipped up a quick pattern and made this shelf out of some scrap lexan and some black faux alcantara, both of which I had laying around the garage. 

It makes a nice shelf for the things that usually ended up in the bottom of the bag like sunglasses case, ear plugs, phone, etc. 

Success!

Kind of...

After running through the diagnostics 50 times and not getting the correct results I decided that I needed to add a relay for the brake circuit. I grabbed the two I had on hand and wired one up, screwed around with it for an hour, grabbed the second one and spent another hour, wiring it every way possible and still not getting the correct diagnostic reading. I quit, I have something else to do, run out and get cat food and I'll stop at Autozone and pick up a new relay. I get back to the garage, wire it in and BINGO! Brake circuit is working correctly! Tuck a few wires away, add the side covers and let's see if it works.

I get on the highway, hit 70mph, turn on the switch, thumb the set button, and cruise control! Wait, it drops about 3mph, speeds up 3mph, drops about 3mph. Darn, I think I may have too much slack in the control cable or I have the sensitivity set too low.

But I did get it all back together



More things to check tomorrow.

One Step Forward

And maybe a step sideways.

Spent most of Saturday finishing up the wiring on my cruise control project, well most of that time was spent looking at wiring diagrams to decide where I would pull the tach and VSS signal from or running after heat shrink and split loom. I was able to grab the tack wire from the stock 12 pin connector on the right side of the bike but I got tired of chasing that white/green VSS wire so I split it and tagged into it near the connector also on the drivers side.

After connecting to the wrong taillight wire, brake instead of running, I got it all hooked up right and performed the diagnostics on the paperwork included and it works! Go out for a ride, no bueno, the cable is too tight and binding the throttle. This creates a cruise control of itself lol. Back to the garage to extend the attachment. After burning myself twice I got it done but called it a day, the wife asked me to install two new faucets, one kitchen the other our bathroom, and the latter tested every bit of patience I had requiring a dremel to remove the rusted nut holding the hot side handle on. That was the end of working on Saturday, on anything. Now to find time to replace the faucet in the other bathroom....

More Parts

Not much has transpired on the cruise control project, I've been rearranging wires, drawing diagrams, and doing some ciphering' now that I've decided to get this done before a planned trip to Colorado the end of July.

I like last minute mods, lol.

I also "lucked" into a Craigslist deal on a Reckless Motorcycles fairing for the princely sum of $400. It needed a little bodywork on the front which I was going to color match it anyway and brackets for my bike, but was a unknown as to whether or not it worked, seller said it did but couldn't prove it.





The best feeling was that after procuring a plug that it fired right up and sounded great, I was sweating blown speakers or a non-op head unit. Not a bad deal as the run $900+ new.
The nice thing about the Reckless is they use a Bluetooth Infinity marine stereo with Polk Audio marine speakers, no need to fear the rain.


So while I was playing with that I perused eBay and picked up a new chrome rack for the tour pack and decided to grab a left side control for an Ultra to utilize the Push To Talk button for my aftermarket cruise. $50 later one was on it's way but upon ohming it out the PTT button was junk contrary to the listing. I can still use the radio volume button I guess, although I was saving that for the radio. We will see what the seller says as it was listed as working fine, maybe a little discount for my trouble would be nice.

Sunday Mornings

What better to do than spend some time in the garage while the wife sleeps away the day, lets cut something up.

After pulling the bags and both side covers I started looking for a spot to stash the cruise control unit. The right side was full with the ECM and the PCIII unit so it left the right side that had a few problems in the way and after rearranging some wiring I think it could work although the abandoned ABS wiring still presented a problem.

Not any longer, not going back....


With that out of the way it looks like a great location and fits behind the side cover


The included cable is long, too long really but I was able to route it up by the coil and back around


The kit had several pieces to attach the cable to any throttle body


But I ended up using this one that fit perfectly on the factory connecting point on the throttle body



I also beat the mounting bracket into submission but called it a day after that.

And for my next trick....

I have decided that I want to add cruise control. It was an option when my bike left the showroom floor but my came without being a police model. The quick and painless way(short of install and cost) would be order up Harley part number  77196-04 which is the kit for my bike, unfortunately Harley no longer makes this and there is only one available at a site that carries the non-obtanium kits but they would like a modest $863.

That's not happening.

After hours of research I came across several sites with people using an Audiovox kit that uses a vacuum servo or a Rostra kit that has an electric servo, I chose the latter and ordered it from Amazon for $167 plus a left side set of handlebar switches for stock radio/CB controls. I think that I can make the Rostra kit work for what I need along with factory style switches.


In the mean time I have disassembled a factory king tour pack and it is ready to take to my paint guy. Plus the next obsession is looking for an aftermarket removable fairing with a radio, I have convinced myself it will be great when touring.....

Time Flies...

When you are working and you don't take time to live.

So, lots of work has been done on the King since last time. I had advertised my blacked out windshield on CL and had a guy come look at it but it was just as tall as his stock so he wasn't interested but we started talking and he was wanting to black out his Road King while I had been toying with going back to chrome.....so a date was set. We spent the better part of a Saturday swapping parts across both bikes including the front ends.
Before


And after



I also decided to do a real stage 1 by installing the classic looking S&S air cleaner
 

And I picked up a "new" set of RCX slash cuts from CL that can also bee seen in the first pic.


After the last trip I knew the Samson rolled ovals needed to go, way too staccato sounding and I found people not wanting to ride behind me. After a bunch of research I found the RCX's were loved for their deep sound and not being annoying while touring. I can say they were right, I love them.

In the mean time I picked up a pair of factory vented lowers on CL to continue with the touring package I envision. I dropped them with my painter which I was still waiting on to finish my new rear fender after we got through hail season here in Texas. A week ago I got the call, they were done!



Love the new tail light, goes great with the old school air cleaner


Also I sold off the LePera seat that was literally a pain in my ass while riding when CL had a Corbin Classic solo and backrest in black ostrich pattern leather pop up for sale.



And to add to the projects this week I picked up and old king tour pack and solo mount to add to the removable touring package I have been building. It will require paint and I need to space it up so the saddle bag lids clear


The bracket is tight to the seat, I don't think the MOCO was thinking about this seat combination but I'm going to make it work.


Now off to build some spacers and tear the pack apart to take to paint jail......