What I Did With My Bike Today

[sikatri]

Well I practiced my Meatloaf imitation and finally put the windscreen on the front fairing. Put some nylon washers between the screen and fairing and also behind the screw head. Not the exact size it needs, but close enough.

Nylon washers.

Sitting and seeing how my strength is at the controls.

 

[solomon]

Went shopping.

Had my sling-over panniers and a rucksack

In the shop, reached a magazine for an old lady riding a mobility scooter.

Met same old lady at checkout. Unloaded her mobility scooter basket, as she asked, on to the conveyor belt. There were a lot of antidiarrhoea tablet packets, a whole armful. Didn't seem right. Cashier called supervisor.

Lots of traffic going home, people wasting their lives in stationery cars. Gave them a fruity loud twist of the throttle as I whizzed past.

 

[RockyDS]

Went shopping.

Had my sling-over panniers and a rucksack

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In the shop, reached a magazine for an old lady riding a mobility scooter.

Met same old lady at checkout. Unloaded her mobility scooter basket, as she asked, on to the conveyor belt. There were a lot of antidiarrhoea tablet packets, a whole armful. Didn't seem right. Cashier called supervisor.

Lots of traffic going home, people wasting their lives in stationery cars. Gave them a fruity loud twist of the throttle as I whizzed past.

Diarrhea medication contains loperamide which is an opioid and can be used in large doses to obtain a high similar to oxycodone.

 

[Vector]

I had to trouble short a problem as the bike would not power up. The problem was an idiot installed a battery tender cable, used electrical tape and when it melted in the 100+ degree heat the batter neg side nut was loose again.

 

[Rocky]

Good grief! What some people will do

 

[Vector]

Diarrhea medication contains loperamide which is an opioid and can be used in large doses to obtain a high similar to oxycodone.

Give a new meaning to s#it faced.

 

[solomon]

Gave my jacket puppy love and sheep love.

Used puppy shampoo, because I reckoned without any evidence, it won't strip the leather of oils. Shifted some difficult stains on cuffs from gloves, and spruced up all over.

The Flexalan is made from lanolin, which is the waxy stuff in sheep wool. It didn't noticeably darken the white or orange leather.

 

[DoorPosition]

I've heard about the pet shampoo technique before on other forums. Definitely make sense.

 

[DaveM]

I feel bad about my bike these days. Having issues with an old shoulder injury my bike is just stuck in the shed. It is a real mission getting it out and this is the process needed.

• Open the shed.
• Take the covering off the bike.
• Roll the bike down the small ramp onto the grass, this has to be done in reverse.
• Move the car as the only way out is through the carport.
• Open the front gate and get the bike onto the sidewalk.
• Close the gate.
• Get dressed into riding gear.
• Take the bike for a ride.

Now getting it back is the same list in reverse but added that I need to let it cool down before I can pull it back into the shed and cover it again.

So any small ride is really out of the question so if I am going to ride it need to be planned and then I must see if my shoulder is ok to do all that on the day.

 

[solomon]

• Open the shed.
• Take the covering off the bike.
• Roll the bike down the small ramp onto the grass, this has to be done in reverse.
• Move the car as the only way out is through the carport.
• Open the front gate and get the bike onto the sidewalk.
• Close the gate.
• Get dressed into riding gear.
• Take the bike for a rid

Sounds you've got it easy.

Here's my ride process.

# open sliding patio door fully.
# go into garden, to small shed.
# from shed remove two large sheets of ply.
# move furniture around.
# in the lounge, do a multipoint turn on my bike, so back end is pointing towards open door.
# lay one piece of ply outside, one inside, so there's a double sided ramp going over the 6" high threshold.
# facing away from door, roll bike backwards. Enough momentum to get up ramp, and over the 1" mini threshold at ramp apex. To far to my right, I demolish the dining table. To far to the left, my bike crushes my into the door frame. I have to go backwards, only way for me and bike to get through the door. So getting the right momentum is crucial, as I have to be prepared to abort move.
# too fast through door, and I can't keep up with bike, it rolks away while I have to squeeze through small gap bike left by bike.
# bike and me end up on timber decking, that's lethal in wet weather, so I have to sort of walk a bit like jackboot marching. I'm doing this backwards too.
# in garden do a multipoint turn, rest bike on a brick.
# go in house and get garden gate key.
# open gate, prop open with an old front tyre.
# do a 180⁰ multipoint turn to get bike front end pointing towards gate.
# sit on bike and paddle between low brick wall and small tree, turning sharply, tucking my leg behind footrest so my leg isn't crushed.
# lock garden gate.
# go in house, get anything on needing, fetch helmet.
# push bike 50 yards to nearest road.
# hope it starts. Obviously entails the ol' tickle and pray rigmarole.

Reverse process either after the ride, or when it won't start.

Bike, door, threshold, decking, tree, gate, low wall, shed

 

[RockyDS]

This is what I'll be doing in a few minutes ...

Walk from my house to my three bay garage. There's a truck in the left hand bay, a car in the centre bay and a choice of two bikes, a ride on mower and an ATV in the right hand bay. From the right hand bay, choose a bike.

Today's choice will be my Scrambler. Roll it back out of the bay onto the courtyard.

At the back of the bay, open the riding gear cupboard and choose some appropriate gear.

Choose a pair of boots from the selection, sit on the leather armchair to put on the boots.

Choose a helmet, etc. from the selection.

Close the bay door, fire up the bike and ride.

When I return, I'll reverse the process. If the wife is around she will have opened the bay door for me and I'll ride right in. If not, I have to get off the bike to do that because the right hand bay doesn't have a motorized door opener.

Sound good?

Yeah, except I can't do any of that between sometime in October and sometime in April, most years.

 

[solomon]

. If the wife is around she will have opened the bay door for me and I'll ride right in

That's what I need! A wife to do the heavy lifting.

 

[RockyDS]

That's what I need! A wife to do the heavy lifting.

If only it were a dependable system!

 

[T100ICE]

Took a little ride around the airport.

 

[Vector]

That would be a good entry for this months photo contest.

 

[sikatri]

That would be a good entry for this months photo contest.

Probably has even a better one! LoL. Just threw that one as an enticer.

 

[T100ICE]

That would be a good entry for this months photo contest.

That's what I took it for, but this is ended up being my runner-up photo I had two I couldn't decide between, but my wife liked the other one better.

 

[Vector]

That's what I took it for, but this is ended up being my runner-up photo I had two I couldn't decide between, but my wife liked the other one better.

Most often wise to agree with the Mrs...LOL

 

[RockyDS]

I spent yesterday diagnosing the reason my r/h grip heat isn't working on my 1200XE.

It would be nice if you could remove the grip to get access to the connector to check for power but noooo!!

You have to move the fuel tank back to get access to the connector on the other end of the cables, remove the clutch lever, remove the l/h mirror mount and remove the two plastic shields under the tank that protect the cables. Then you're ready to remove the l/h switch cluster for which you need a special Triumph tool. At least I was able to make my own tool and after a bit of trial and error I got the cluster moved.

Then you have to disconnect the cables under the tank so you can feed enough back up to the bars and through the hole under the l/h bar to push the connectors out of the bars and disconnect the heated grips.

Now it's not possible to plug the cable back in under the tank, so you have to re-route the connector on the harness over the frame to get power to check for power at the grip connectors.

I had power at both ends so I know I need to replace the r/h grip. There isn't one in Canada so at least 4 weeks before I see that.

Meanwhile everything has to go back and in 4 weeks time I'll have to go through the entire process again.

At least I won't have to make another tool.

Rant over.

Note to Triumph - this design could be so much better / simpler!

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Following up on my earlier post. The replacement grip eventually arrived having taken over a month - not that I need heated grips this time of year, so no big deal.

Fitting it was a little simpler than expected as during the wait I had wondered if I'd be able to get away with not removing the l/h grip as I had done during the fault diagnosis described earlier and that turned out to be true. No need to repeat the entire process and no need to use the special tool!

It's a bit fiddly getting the wire to the r/h grip to feed through the bars without removing the l/h grip and switch cluster but it is doable, so that saved some time and effort.

I still had to move the tank back and disconnect the harness to have enough wire to feed through the r/h bar so as to disconnect the old grip and connect the new grip and I did temporarily re-route the cable to test the grip before reassembling everything. I suspect that a dealership will have an extension cord to use so as not to have to re-route the cables as it would be easy to make one up.

Anyway, it's all working again now and I'm ready for cooler weather.

On a side note - after the initial investigation I was left with one small screw. It is identical to the two screws that hold the plastic cable protector in place under the front of the fuel tank. I couldn't for the life of me find out where it had come from and rather than take everything apart back then I decided to just wait until the new grip arrived and try to find out where it came from then. Still no answer! I have no idea where that screw came from, other than it came off the bike. I'm actually left wondering if it had been lodged in the loom or somewhere else from when the bike was built and just dropped out when I took it all apart. Who knows?

 

[Capers]

Changed my oil. Yawn! I hear. Let me explain...

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I use a self-priming pump. Don't have to get under bike and undo sump plug--you know, when the oil then runs up your arm? Doesn't happen to me anymore.

View attachment 54712
Also syphon out primary cavity. Use a thinner tube for this, from a wet'n'dry vac.

View attachment 54710
Then, because I'm not very strong, and I usually miss a funnel and oil goes everywhere, I pump oil back in from the large can I have.

Usually I pump oil back into primary cavity, but forgot this time. I'll ride bike, then top up main oil reservoir.

No messy tray. No mess at all really. Done it in house before.

Brilliance