Pressureangle

No idea yet.

Friday ended in Chama, NM. Didn't ride the Cumbres & Toltec train as weather Saturday was wet. Saturday, surprised myself by finding my route passed the Durango & Silverton steam railroad as well. Spent a couple hours in and around, then moved on to the 4 corners monument- a monumental waste of time as the entry line went from the road to... Eternity. So I have a picture of the sign. Then through the lesser-travelled road through monument valley; lesser views but zero traffic. Also, lesser places for pictures as the good views were narrow 2 lanes with huge drops and no shoulders. Hot, too, the kind that withers and makes you long for coldbrain, (I'm leaving that spelling error in) or even a spot of shade, of which there was none. Pressed on to Moab, UT where I'm now having a fabulous mocha latte.

I'm too dumb to figure that out smoothly, plus people not on forum have access.

No food at the campsite, at least that's the story- but the other two are Canadians so I'll bet all my gas money there will be grilled cheese sammiches for breakfast. Got insect repellent jammies, skeeter nets for over helm, bear spray across the border where they take it seriously. Lunch in Cuba, NM.

Yeah, you know I like to travel light, and this is as light as I could get it given that we're camping whenever possible and reasonable, so there's tent/bag/footer and a lot of cold weather gear that I hope I never have to take out of the drybags, which I hope never get wet. One thing I did assemble, which I've meant to put together for a long time is a trauma kit. I've always carried simple band tourniquets, but studying up for this trip revealed how remote much of the travel is, and also the frighteningly frequent, almost daily, news of bikers killed or seriously injured in Canada and Alaska. Let's hope it never gets opened. I built my own, in a Pelican case; C-A-T tourniquet 'Israeli' bandages clotting bandages and powder chest wound valve bandages Leatherman surgical shears plastic airway helper SAM splint Of course I have some Ibuprofen/Acetaminophen, burn cream, allergy pills etc. I figure anything less than serious can ride on to the next pharmacy. I forgot forceps, duct tape, and parachute cord. I suppose I can pick the tweezers up at an Albuquerque head shop lol.

So it begins. Let me say first, I'm not riding a Moto-Guzzi. A nice '04 BMW R1150GSA Adventure got thrown at me instead of a V85TT, thanks a lot guys. I'm leaving tomorrow morning, 28 June from El Paso. Should be an easy ride through Albuquerque to Chama. I intended to ride the Toltec Steam excursion but looks like weather doesn't want me to hang around there Sunday. I may post some pictures here, but mostly just put them in a Google Album with this link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/RLJDCUNS6Pwux8gj7 We'll spend plenty of time out of cell service, and I'm not carrying anything with a keyboard. Oh, already had someone ask why I don't post a thread in the ADV forum. Well, because there are only 2 people I know on that forum, one is in this forum and the other is the old friend meeting me in Bozeman. Or Billings, or Sturgis, if I don't dawdle too much on the way up. Besides, the ADV forum is full of menies.

Yes, yes I do. It's more a time and place thing than a too many bikes thing. I don't ride at all in S. Florida anymore unless it's a special occasion or necessity.

I bought the MG Cycle starter, and it's been sterling- for 2 years and 50 starts. <shrug> there was no visible difference from the Valeo it replaced, right down to the rivets used to prevent maintenance. They may come out the back door of the Chinese factory that Valeo owns.

2 Spine Raids ago, my starter locked up. It had been giving me clues and warnings, with slow starting and low cranking voltage I blamed on the battery. In the end, it was the starter; I did not disassemble it to discover whether it was magnets or bearing failure, but it was drawing over 300 amps stalled on the bench, then half the time it would turn but even on the bench drew something like 80 amps. The new replacement draws about 80A initial pull-in then about 40 turning the motor, iirc. There's a thread around here somewhere with the specifics.

I always remember the consultant to the movie 'Saving Private Ryan' who made the landing- when asked, 'What if anything was wrong with the movie?" his answer was, "There were not enough bodies on the beach". https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2429903/Peace-Day-Reminder-millions-lives-lost-war-artists-stencil-9-000-bodies-Normandy-beach.html

Home run... I was training night driving with FLIR- the screen was 14"x16", a little too close to the driver's face and above head level. Sucked to drive with. The guys who could drive all, every one, suffered driving 'on-screen' as it was pitch black outside. Some simply could not get certified. There was a young girl, though, from NYC somewhere who had never driven anything before enlisting in the Army. Of course, they put her in a logistics battalion as a truck driver... and so since she was airbrake certified she got tagged to drive our truck. She wasn't a good driver in the daytime, had no sense of direction or sense of speed or inertia. She crawled through every obstacle slowly and fearfully, but did manage to pass. Of course, all the guys were either 'coaching' her condescendingly, or teasing her, and jerking each other off about who was fastest. At night, though, when the lights went out, she was a freakin' werewolf. As soon as it was full dark and she could only see the video screen, she set a course record for her battalion. At night. Over 12 foot hills and 12 foot deep trenches with blind corners, around off-camber turns. We were all so stunned we could only laugh. And every one of us learned something from that.

Just like her airplane.

You've been here 2 weeks and your second post is supporting the destruction of the purpose of the list you joined?

Valve guides are much more complicated than it first seems. Aside from materials, lubrication is strange science here. Too-tight guides can sieze, of course; but too-loose guides, and very high temperatures can coke up motor oil in the guide and reduce clearance to the point of siezure. This is particularly bad in small engines as in the Ariens above. Iirc the valve guide clearance in some old Briggs & Stratton small engines is something insane like .003-.005 because the heat swells them so much. A proper K-line is a great rehab, if oil control isn't a problem. On the LM1000 I hotrodded, I had to add valve seals to the intakes.

I realized via instructing young soldiers, that there is a specific mentality in a lot of people I don't really have a phrase to fit, but the anecdote illuminates- While training overseas, I was issued a laptop to interface the vehicles we were attached to. I discovered very quickly in field training that when I brought the computer, nearly everyone defaulted to the position that whatever problem was had, could not be solved without the computer. So afterwards, I never carried the computer unless it proved to be absolutely necessary- and it nearly never was. I developed the standard to train "99% of all faults can be found with your eyes and fingers". This seems to be where this pilot was, searching for answers in the technology- technology that she was incompetent to operate sufficiently- when the problem was self-evident upon looking out the window. On a side note, I have a reputation amongst my sailing friends as the best navigator they know. That is terrifying, since firstly 90% of navigating is looking at the horizon and the compass only and secondly that I can find a lighthouse on a chart and relate that to the horizon and the compass. So I have to wonder, are people so truly absent the concept that they can look out the window and tell where they are?

Some pretty fantastic *current* science based information on oil and related matters.

Dunno- a very wealthy friend (no waiting) went from first solo to checkflight in a month, flying weekends only. <shrug>

Well, he said it took her 8 months from solo to checkflight. One might wonder how many times she was recycled.

A little Mark Knopfler, a little Jimmy Buffet, a little Bruce Springsteen. Nice.

Yeah, airplanes. I grew up thinking I'd be a fighter pilot, but at age I realized they were all jets and the romance (of youth) of dogfights was pretty much gone. Truly, I never had sufficient working memory to be anything more than a private pilot, and had neither resources nor reason to fly. Helicopters, now, that's a different story. After extensive travel by rotary in military craft, I'll say that if the resources show up I'll do that. Given my history with motorcycles, it's unlikely that aircraft would be more dangerous in my hands lol I have very good spacial awareness and sense of direction. I don't get seasick. I'm not afraid of heights. I consider myself marginal for licensed flight. There is no profit in shaming the dead, but this woman really shanked the ball and wasn't overconfident- she was ignorant of her own shortcomings, which was kinda the point of this video.

Phil's spot on. Here's the thing about exhausts; unless the system you are replacing is poorly designed and the system you replace it with is very well designed, they have near zero effect on engine tune. 99.9% of exhaust effect on fueling happenss in the headpipes and crossover, if there is one. After that it's sound mitigation. Even then, a quiet muffler has very little effect except at WOT. The main advantage to an exhaust change is weight, particularly if it has a catalytic converter. And of course we all love the boom.

The 'nut' (little crimped on ring, right?) is there so the inner doesn't fall out of the outer, for instance if your cable comes loose from your transmission. I don't think it matters for operation as long as it has clearance in the ferrule.

Tinnitis has always been a fascinating topic to me- I've always had it, since my earliest memories. It doesn't bother me at all, in fact in a very quiet environment I find myself playing with it rather like a musical instrument. I can ignore it to the point of 'absence' or I can make it amazingly loud. I suspect these are artifacts of perception more than a physical condition. In no way does it ever affect my hearing. I struggle to imagine what it would be like without it, and also what it must be like to acquire it after a life without it; Lastly, if there isn't some way to replace the annoyance with accommodation such as I must have. Separate thread?