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Posted By cablebandit on February 26, 2010
Well we finally got a good cold snap so it’s time to strip down the bike and take a look inside. I’m going to check the valve clearances and adjust them if needed, as well as take care of anything else that needs attention while I have the bike stripped down to the frame.
I’ll be taping the process and will get the videos up over the next few days.
Posted By cablebandit on February 12, 2010
Well after digging out for the umpteenth time I’ve decided to take the bull by the horns and make myself a homemade plow for the front of my garden tractor. I had all the scrap lumber in the garage so with a vision and a circular saw I got to work.
The blade is two pieces of plywood with a piece of hardboard on the front. I attached a piece of angle aluminum to the bottom of the blade so it would glide along the driveway and not tear up the bottom of the wood.
The plow is attached to the tractor with two 2×4’s that are attached to the frame with a threaded rod. When the plow is lowered the 2×4’s face straight out into the back of the blade so the load is transferred to the tractor frame for maximum strength. The 2×4’s are also reinforced at the plow blade with four steel angle brackets.
There is also a manual tilt feature consisting of a 2×4 and a string. No expense was spared in this operation I assure you. Below is the finished product.
Now the big question….will it work? Of course it will. As you can see above I sprang for two cans of yellow spray paint to set this thing off as an official John Deere accessory. I expect orders for this thing to come flooding in any minute.
As you can see in the video below the thing worked fine and turned out to be really sturdy. After plowing the entire driveway I did a quick inspection and found nothing broken or fatigued.
Homemade Snow Plow from Chris Clark on Vimeo.
Epic Win!!
Posted By cablebandit on January 27, 2010
It’s that time of year again. The 3rd annual Sport-Touring.net Winter Meet is upon us. I blocked a bunch of rooms at the Cacapon Resort just south of Berkeley Springs, WV back in the fall. As usual, the closer we got to the event the more the weather played a role as to who would actually make the trip. About four days out the forecast went south quick. Temperatures would be around freezing during the day but well into the 20’s at night making for a dangerous mix of frozen precipitation on the roads. By Wednesday prior to the gathering a good number of people had cancelled. Some had said they would still make the trip in their cars and three of us were just nutty enough to ride down and hope for the best.
This year I would be going down with my neighbor Marty. I had been over his place on Tuesday helping him mount a new tire and we talked about the possibility of heading down a day early on Thursday. It looked like whatever snow/ice was coming would be coming in Thursday night into the middle of the day on Friday. By Wednesday I had also spoken with Jerry, who would be riding down from Pottstown, and he was also planning on heading down early to beat the storm.
Below is the route Marty and I would take to get down to the Cacapon Resort.
After breakfast it would be a nonstop ride down to the resort. Overall the roads were in good shape. Being in Pennsylvania you have to expect that all the secondary roads would be covered in gravel…and they were. No worries though. It would be good practice for sliding the bike around once the snow / ice storm hits.
We got down to the resort about 12:30 and refueled. We decided to go for a ride this afternoon since it was still early and chances are we would be snowed in tomorrow. The ladies at the gas station said they were calling for 4-6 inches Thursday night into Friday with some ice after that. Good times!
Because I had Saturday’s ride in my GPS we decided to just go ahead and preride that route since the odds of being able to ride it later in the weekend were looking slim at this point. We ended up doing about a third of the planned route before we ran out of daylight and pavement. What we did ride is shown below.
Our first stop on our ride was on Route 9 just west of Berkeley Springs, WV. The Panorama Overlook is part of the Washington Heritage Trail. From the pullout you can see 3 states and two rivers.
From there we traveled to Oldtown and crosses the Oldtown Bridge. The Oldtown Bridge is one of only 17 private toll bridges left in the the United States. This bridge is a low water bridge and can flood rather easily during times of heavy rains and snow melt.
You can see the toll shack in the upper right of the picture above. Fifty cents per car, 25 cents per motorcycle. You can also see quite a bit of debris to the right of Marty. The water was pretty high.
Restricted Bridge….Duh!
Just a little gravely
After we left the bridge the camera was stowed away and we went on a nice ride through the hills. At some point we turned off of Route. 50 onto Grassy Lick Road to head up and over the mountain. We followed this road for several miles as it zig-zagged up the mountain and down the other side. Just before we reached River Road on the other end the road turned to dirt. Not just any dirt either but the slick wet clay that sticks to everything. I stopped not too far after turning into the dirt and motioned for Marty to pull up next to me. According to the GPS it was a little over a mile to our next turn. Like true adventurers we forged ahead hoping the next road was actually paved. I decided to ride on the left hand side of the single lane road because there was a large drop off to the right and every time my tires slipped the crown of the road pushed me closer to the edge. Good times. I got to the end and River Road was indeed paved. I turned around to see Marty right behind me. At this point is was 3:00 pm and we decided to head back to the resort so we got there before dark.
We got back at about 4:00 pm and checked in. Marty asked if they had someplace covered we could park the bikes and the did have a covered veranda on the side of the lodge. As we were walking back out to park the bikes Jerry arrived and we motioned him to the parking area.
(left to right…Marty (Tiger 1050), Chris (Vstrom 650), Jerry (Concours 14)
Thursday night we hung out in the lodge’s restaurant and caught up on old times. After that we hung out in the lounge area and played junior meteorologist, trying to figure out what the storm was going to bring us. It had already begun to sleet by the time we turned in for the night.
Friday morning we awoke to this…
It seems that it stayed a little warmer overnight and most of the snow predicted fell as sleet and freezing rain instead. We were still expecting some people to show up today, although they would most likely be coming by car. We ended up just sitting around the lodge Friday morning and finally Marty and I decided to head out and go up to Berkeley Springs for some lunch. After all it was only a little icy out now.
So it was time to suit up and get ready for the 10 mile ride up the road.
We landed at Earth Dog Cafe and had a decent lunch. The roads were a little icy but by the time we were ready to head back to the lodge it had warmed some and the roads were mostly wet at that point.
Yummy!
After dinner we headed back and got in some shuffleboard before retiring for the evening.
We awoke on Saturday to the sun of all things! Imagine that.
After breakfast Marty, Jerry, and I decided to shoot for a 10:00 am departure. That would give the sun a chance to burn some of the fog off and get some of the ice off the roads.
We left with no real destination in mind other than to head toward the drier roads, so we went southwest. The route we took is below.
Other than a stop in Petersburg for gas and a bathroom break our only stop was Seneca Rocks.
Chris, Jerry, Marty
The ride was about 260 miles and other than some snow and ice on Route 9 the roads were in pretty good shape. When we got back we noticed the bikes were just a little dirty.
We got cleaned up and ready for dinner. While we were out on our ride Gumby was busy at the lodge sledding and making snow angels.
After dinner we all retired to the lounge to shoot the breeze for the final time. Jim Gross and his wife joined us as well. They had traveled down from Latrobe, PA for the meet.
The forecast for Sunday was for rain…lots of rain. Jerry decided to get out ahead of the storm and leave Saturday night about 10:30ish. Marty and I would wait it out until tomorrow since we would only have about a 2 hour ride.
Sunday we got up, ate breakfast, and got ready to hit the road. The storm stalled some during the night and we figured if we were on the road by 9:00 am and slabbed it home we should be ok.
The ride home was uneventful, although as we got closer to home the wind really picked up so we knew the rain was coming. I think it started raining about an hour after rolling into the garage.
Overall, another Winter Meet successfully pulled off!
Time to fire up the power washer.
Final Stats
