Motorcycles BS Thread 2.0

Good thoughts! Now pick me up in that plane, I need hours!

 

Ah man! You just missed out. Right after I made that post I took the plane to a lake about 10 miles over from my house to get a bit of fishing in before I had to head into town.

 

Jealous! When I was getting my Private I had maybe 30-35 hours in and my buddy from near Palmer who hunts a ton kept sending me GPS coordinates asking if I was able to fly him there yet… haha. He’s crazy! Homie called me up once and asked if I wanted to ride a bike across Australia on a whim. I asked motorcycle or pedal bike and he said all he had was a pedal bike. Next week I see a photo of him biking across Australia haha. Anyway, would love to ride up to AK, but he doesn’t seem to understand that “I’m a pilot” doesn’t mean “I’m a bush pilot” just yet!

 

I flew in the North for six years, then went further North, above the tree line for two more. Always wanted to be a bush pilot. I hold the real bush pilots in the highest esteem. What I did flying twin Cessna’s and King Air’s to gravel, turf, or ice strips doesn’t qualify as real bush flying. I enjoyed it. Look back on it fondly. But I was a charter pilot at best. I’m kind of pretending now with the Aeronca on floats and skis. It’s entirely recreational though.

 

I went back to two wheels for lower cost and more frequent miles. Always happy to fly again, but don't much to be honest.

 

im tellin ya.

 

Looks good! I'm thinking about making one custom to my loadout, with a place to rest my elbows and all.

 

It’s my occupation. I’d been away from flying GA aircraft for about 18 years till I moved to this house. My neighbour had a couple of float planes that he let me fly, and now we own this one together. It’s exactly the kind of grassroots experience I was looking for in an airplane, with a few performance mods to get you out of small lakes surrounded by high hills on those hot, high density altitude days. I think it would be fair to say it’s rejuvenated my interest in flying, and made me a better all around pilot. I don’t not use the autopilot on the work bird. Hand flying at 39000 feet sucks big time. But I turn auto on later after takeoff than I use to, and turn it off much earlier on arrival.

Street riding is fairly new to me. Didn’t think it was really my thing, but I’m lovin the hell out of this little 300. It’s become my preferred method of going into town and running errands. The stock tires are sketchy on the gravel though. Might try a set of Perelli Scorpion Rally STR’s.

 

Damn motorcycles and aviation? Love this thread.

just placed an order today for a CRF300L and waiting for august delivery.

 

Checkout the Aviation BS and Photo thread too. Look forward to your impression of the 300L as well. I had a WR250R for awhile.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/aviation-bs-and-photo-thread.418644/

 

I rode Dual Sports off road and commuted when weather permitted in South Dakota and all over the western US for 15 years. This is my first street bike. Funny thing is I was waiting to get out of a congested parking lot a couple weeks ago and didn’t think anything of flooring it to a hard right and jumping a curb to get out of there. It wasn’t until after that I laughed to myself pretty hard and realized this ain’t my 290lb dirt bike haha I should probably be more careful. It’s only happened once more since then!

I miss the off road stuff but I just rode over 200 miles on the highway this weekend on a whim. Can’t say I’ve ever done that on a little dirt bike.

Happy you found a good place and good life up there. So many people in the rat race down here I’m proud to say I’ve never been plugged into all that. Lived in Micronesia before coming back home and my wife has family who lives with a dirt floor and tin walls and roof and carry buckets of water up the hill to shower and do dishes and laundry. We miss it and will be going back when she’s done with school, hopefully. I also miss the year around riding seasons there. This whole 7 months of winter, then tons of wind and rain and whatever else, sure messes up my mileage. I don’t touch the truck more than once or twice in the Summers. It’s just my winter beater when I can’t ride ha.

 

Keep us posted on how you like it!

 

I hear ya about the long winters. When I was working up in Inuvik, the joke was that they got 10 months of winter, and 2 months of bad snowmobiling. I’ve only had the Honda for a little over a week, but I’ve already got more use out of it than I did the last couple of years with the WR. The truck still does the bulk of the work though because it’s hard for me to get out the door without at least one of my dogs coming with me. They’ve been spending a little more time staring out the window since I pick up the new bike though.

 

I will if I ever get it. They say august but no guarantees. Guess it gives me time to scrap some money together for gear

 

I was washing my truck today after the drive through wash did a terrible job and wasted my $10. Figured I'd pull out the 1250R and give it a quick wipe down to remove the bugs and crap from the last 350 miles. It's a definite improvement over the 750GS on pavement but there's been a couple times already where I wanted to take a side dirt road and see what was there and didn't. I'm thinking the street tires are going to be swapped out for a set of 80/20s that will have better grip in dirt/gravel.

 

Couple days late and all, but just saw it on YouTube. You know how stuff pops up!

@MagtechPA


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iCLdevyvV74

 

MPG and carb question: The little CRF230 - 1st tank of gas I averaged 75 mpg doing mild off road exploration and some moderate WOT highway miles. 2nd tank was primarily WOT highway/backroad and mpg dropped significantly (2.3 gallon tank and I was on reserve 80 miles in).

Is this within the range of normal?

 

Completely normal, you're working the little engine much harder when going highway speeds compared to putting around offroad. Even my "big" 750GS was the same, 60+ mpg on backroads or offroad but it quickly dropped to around 40mpg on the freeway just by having to work that much harder to push the bike along at 75mph.

 

Cool, thanks!

 

Hey, thanks! The JB Weld didn’t really hold up all that well. Good info in that video!

I got the project Ninja running for the first time yesterday, and the engine sounds pretty good! I only ran it for 20 seconds because I saw fuel leaking from the carbs, so even though I rebuilt them, reusing the old (and hardened) gaskets on the fuel bowls was a bad idea. Ordering new gaskets today and hope to have it running again next weekend.