| | The Ride:
My favorite form of travel is via motorcycle and the ride of my choice is a 1999 Suzuki Bandit 1200. I got her back in 2006 and she only had 14,000 miles on her. We've been through a lot in the past four years which include one crash involving a woman running a stop sign and me and Suzi T-boning her car, one encounter with a goat that decided he needed to be on the other side of the road and many miles of pure joy.
Here she is fully loaded for a trip I took this Spring to Maryland.
Suzi, as I call the old girl ( Very Original....) has almost 52,000 mies. I think we will clear that number and then some on the vacation to Rhode Island.
For the most part she's stock all the way down to the fat aluminum can of an exhaust. Last year, during vacation, my friend Graham removed the carburetors and adjusted the mixture screws which helped with the cold lean condition. The only really non-stock item is I went up one tooth on the forward sprocket. I did this when I went to the most recent chain. I had to machine the clutch slave cylinder/sprocket cover a bit but I'll tell ya, it was worth it. She's a little slower off the line but so much nicer on the road at speed. Not to mention she's breaking 50 mpg on distance runs.
She had... Or should I say, I had a tendency to stretch a chain in under 10,000 miles. I'm not sure but I think the new heavy duty chain and this sprocket might help.
You may have noticed the odd saddle bag configuration covering the motor. This is a home made arrangement that I'll cover more later. I like it and it was fun to put together.
Equipment:
This is an example of what I carry for equipment. I would like to compare to what other people bring. I believe I should have other things and could stand to get
ride of some things.
This is what you see up in the photo:
|
|
| | |
