I made it back home from the trip last night. Here is a rundown of the events.
Day one I met my brother out in eastern Colorado for breakfast in La Junta. He rode around 150 miles from Lafayette and I rode around 50 miles from Pueblo. We headed out across the barren plains of SE Colorado and the Oklahoma panhandle. Heavy wind as normal in this part of the country. We had one small problem when my brothers bike stopped running and we had to do a roadside Boyer wiring fix. We folded a paper towel up around the wiring to stop the wires from vibrating to death.
We continued on down through Texas to our first stop at Childress for the night. Problem number two was when the right hand exhaust came loose on Ernie's bike. The threads had been a bit loose before we started but now they were completely gone. The next morning we pulled the right hand pipe and removed the nut and rode my bike down to a local auto repair place and gave the man $10 to cut a slot through one side of the nut. Then we picked up a $3 precision screwdriver set from the hardware store. Back at the bike we screwed the nut back into the head and used a rock to drive one of the small screwdrivers into the slot to expand the nut enough to tighten it. Then we drove the screwdriver all the way in and broke it off. This little trick lasted the rest of the trip without touching it again.
Ernie also did an oil change as he had been using 10-30 motorcycle oil and the hard running in the wind had resulted in a nearly empty oil tank. Filling the tank with 20-50 v-twin oil cured that.
Mileage so far was about 500 for me and 600 for my bro.
Day two was uneventful with another 500 miles to Jefferson TX and a historic hotel for a good nights rest.
Annie's pub fed and watered us well.
Out to the Lake of the Pines the next day for a few days of fun with a great group of people.
They gave Ernie the "Best Norton Ridden to the Ralley" award this year. He certainly worked hard for it.
Jay rode his B33 all the way from Phoenix Arizona this year.
I always thought he was a bit whacked.
Sunday morning we packed up and headed south to Port Arthur TX and then east along the coast with a ferry ride to Camron and then back up to Lake Charles to find a motel for the night. Around 450 miles. Damn camera wouldn't work. I guess the humidity was a bit high.
The next day we rode interstate 10 and 12 over to the Louisiana border and dropped back down to the beach road for the trip into Gulfport where the Cruisin-the-Coast car show was getting a good start. We had reserved a room at a beachfront Comfort Inn and spent the next couple days wandering around through an incredible number of neat cars, music and everything else.
Imagine a block party about 50 miles long. This event takes over all the small towns from Pass Christian to Biloxi and was up to 7000 show entries with cars still coming in when we left. This was just one of the cars in the parking lot in front of the motel.
From our hotel window.
By the next day every parking space had something unusual parked in it.
Elvis even made a showing.
There was everything from this real 427 Cobra
To something that is hard to describe.
Even a few motorcycles.
During my stay at Gulfport I noticed my O2 sensor stopped working so it was no longer keeping the fuel mixture right on the nose like normal. The bike still ran fine but the fuel mileage was down. The mixture defaults to 10% rich when there is no O2 sensor input.
I got online and ordered a new sensor and had it shipped to the motel in Birmingham where we were headed next.
Wednesday we packed up and headed on east to Loxley Alabama and then turned North and rode a lot of twisty secondary roads up to Birmingham. I was really enjoying the extraordinary power that the bike was making with 93 octane fuel and the knock sensor keeping the timing right at 2 degrees under the knock point. After some miles of aggressive riding and a lot of fast passes while enjoying how quick my bike would reel in my brothers bike, I found the weak link when the rear drive belt broke. It seems I have found the tensile limit of the standard Kevlar belt but, luckily I had stashed a new carbon fiber belt in the fairing and a well manicured park along the highway with a nice shade tree to do the replacement. There was even a gas station across the road with a cold beer. It took some refreshment after finding the front drive sprocket was thoroughly corroded to the trans shaft by my trip to the Salt Flats. After an hour of wiggling it finally came free. No pictures -got to get a new camera.
Thursday at Barbers we spent the day at the museum. Even though I have been there several times before there is always something new to see. I had a good visit with Brian Slark who was not totally swamped like normal.
Friday we spent a good part of the day wandering through the swap meet. I was very successful, I only bought a bottle of water.
We caught the show at the wall of death where they were having a blast. Also checked out the new vendor area.
I installed the new O2 sensor on my bike but it didn't cure the problem. I had noticed the connector for the sensor was green and corroded where it had leaked a bit of salt water a few weeks earlier and suspected this was the problem but after replacing the connector the problem was still there. The O2 worked now and then but most of the time it was running on default.
Saturday was spent watching a lot of great racing from the Ace Cafe area.
Frank and Ernie put on quite a riding show over the lunch hour.
Kenny got his Norton into first place for a bit in the Formula 750 race but moved back to 2nd after a bit of trouble with some lapped traffic. John got his Shell 750 Yamaha by him for the win.
Sunday we headed back out to the track for a while but we decided to pack up and head out before the nasty weather got there. We got to Pine Bluff Arkansas before we met the weather front that was moving through the area. Just as we got into Pine Bluff my bike started running bad like it was about out of gas. We made it to a hotel and got in out of the rain. We spent the next day at the motel while the front passed with heavy rain, wind and tornadoes in the area.
Monday evening after the rain subsided I pulled the fuel tank off my bike and found the problem that had been affecting my O2 sensor all along. The connector on the relay that powers the fuel pump and the O2 sensor had vibrated loose and was just setting on its terminal. A little cleaning and tightening and that solved my O2 problem and the bike ran great again.
Tuesday morning we got an early start and rode I-40 to Woodward Oklahoma. A bit cool and a long boring interstate ride.
Wednesday we packed up for the final leg home. Ernie and I split up out in SE Colorado and he headed north to Denver and I headed out on a gravel road shortcut toward Pueblo. The gravel road turned out to be freshly graded with a few inches of soft dirt with ruts. It made for a slow interesting ride with a heavily loaded street bike. That only lasted about 8 miles and then I passed the grader that was making it tough.
Total mileage for the trip ended up at about 3450 miles and a couple hundred more for my brother. Great trip. Jim
