klr600 & 650 specifications

Norm Keller · Post by **Norm Keller** » Tue Dec 29, 2015 1:15 pm

#ygrps-yiv-1488352473 blockquote.ygrps-yiv-1488352473cite {margin-left:5px;margin-right:0px;padding-left:10px;padding-right:0px;border-left:1px solid #cccccc;} #ygrps-yiv-1488352473 blockquote.ygrps-yiv-1488352473cite2 {margin-left:5px;margin-right:0px;padding-left:10px;padding-right:0px;border-left:1px solid #cccccc;margin-top:3px;padding-top:0px;} #ygrps-yiv-1488352473 .ygrps-yiv-1488352473plain pre, #ygrps-yiv-1488352473 .ygrps-yiv-1488352473plain tt {font-family:monospace;font-size:100%;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;white-space:pre-wrap;} #ygrps-yiv-1488352473 a img {border:0px;}#ygrps-yiv-1488352473 {font-family:Tahoma;font-size:12pt;} #ygrps-yiv-1488352473 .ygrps-yiv-1488352473plain pre, #ygrps-yiv-1488352473 .ygrps-yiv-1488352473plain tt {font-family:Tahoma;font-size:12pt;} Have you had the left cover off to assess damage in that area? Just my $0.02 so please ignore as required, but if were in your shoes I would either do as Jeff suggested (buy another bike); or a good used engine complete. In order to get back to your trip, it would seem best to avoid the potential of more undiscovered problems in your engine. As John Wayne remarked, "You're burning daylight, Pilgrims!". It might seem that using vacation time makes time wrenching very expensive? Next time, plan things a bit better and blow it up near my house. Lots of help, tools and accommodation.

Kidding aside, hope you get it resolved as easily as possible.

Russell Scott · Post by **Russell Scott** » Tue Dec 29, 2015 3:28 pm

Regional forum on AdvRider.com if you are still looking for help.

http://advrider.com/index.php?forums/regional-forums.16/

[b]From:[/b] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com] [b]Sent:[/b] Tuesday, December 29, 2015 2:13 AM [b]To:[/b] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [b]Subject:[/b] [DSN_KLR650] Re: Blown engine in Mexico/Yuma

The guy that builds the TopGun shocks is a Klr guy and he is real close to you as well. Worth a call. Michael

E Hines · Post by **E Hines** » Tue Dec 29, 2015 6:54 pm

To each his own. You can get killed in America if you go into the wrong area. I know of 3 riders that go to Mexico all the time. They never have any more problems than you would have going to Colorado. No where you are going, that will reduce a lot of your problems. On Monday, December 28, 2015 9:13 PM, "jokerloco9@... [DSN_KLR650]" DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> wrote: This rider sure is gutsy doing what he is doing. Travelling in this part of the world with a cobbled up bike???.. It hasn't been that long ago (a year) that someone rode into Mexico and other parts just like this guy, and it took about a month for his sister to find his body.' So many Americans think the whole would is their bed of roses. Most of the world doesn't give a crap about the individual. You trusted a "mechanic" in Mexico, obviously looking like a non local, and you are suprised by what you got? Seems pretty standard type stuff from the dozens of people I have talked to that have been to Mexico. Good luck, and you probably should buy a new bike. My guess is if you can't afford one, you have no business doing what you are doing. Sorry to sound like an ass, just my opinion. Jeff -----Original Message----- From: Pete Blaszcak p_blazak@... [DSN_KLR650] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> To: DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com\ dsn_klr650@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Mon, Dec 28, 2015 5:51 pm Subject: Re: [DSN_KLR650] Blown engine in Mexico/Yuma Try calling Eagle Mike in San Diego: Mike Cowlishaw Eagle Manufacturing 619-261-1281 Sent from Outlook Mobile On Mon, Dec 28, 2015 at 4:50 PM -0800, "motorsouth@... [DSN_KLR650]" DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Hello all, I've run into a bit of trouble on the road and am currently looking for a used head for my 2006 KLR650. I'm willing to pay for overnight shipping or drive to pick up in the Yuma/Phoenix/San Diego/Las Vegas. I'm also in need of new valves, new piston and timing chain, but I can order those online. If I can't get a used head, Im looking for an engine I can swap out. The interesting part of the story is this: my brother and I are headed to South America on our Klr650s, with mountaineering gear and surf boards strapped on the side. We went as far north east as Newfoundland, then swung diagonally across the states. Things were good until about a week ago. About 500 miles into Mexico, my engine died. Couldn't get it started. We believe that the timing chain slipped, possibly a problem with the tensioner, causing the piston to hit the intake valves and bend them open, causing a lack of compression. We had to sleep in the ditch for the night, then in the morning we got it hauled to a camping area and set up a base camp. A friend found a mechanic who could get parts, so I had it hauled to the town 50 miles away. He said he put in new intake valves and new timing chain. Bike ran for 30 miles, then died hard. I got pulled behind the mechanics car (a little scary) and he said he would pull it apart after Christmas. When I next got back to his shop, it was apart and not looking good. One intake valve broke into three pieces and had been bouncing around inside. Piston is chewed up and has hairline cracks in multiple places. So close to breaking apart but luckily held together. Cylinder sleeve has a small groove in it, so I'll have to get it bored out. Obviously also need all new valves. Spark plug is all chewed up as well. Cams and cam journals look okay. We suspect that he just straightened out the old valves and put it back together with the old parts, pocketing the extra money. The valves are pretty coked up for only 30 miles. The side cover shows no signs of being removed, so obviously he never changed the timing chain. In retrospect, he gave me a rotten deal and replaced my relatively minor problem of two bad valves with a major problem that is going to cost me a lot of money. I'm pretty angry about it, but I gotta figure out how to be mobile again. Anyway, two friends happened to be down visiting my brother and I with their van. They have hauled me up to Yuma, AZ. My brother decided to stay behind and soak up the sun. Really no reason for him to hoof it back here just yet, as I hope to have another try at Mexico soon. My friends plan to ride the imperial sand dunes for a few days then return to their home in Salt Lake City. Basically, I'm trying to find someone who can overnight me parts or possibly someone in the area with an engine I can buy. Please let me know if you have a good used head around. There appears to be no Kawasaki dealer with many miles (I was told San Diego). Anyone know of bike junkyards in the south west? Anyone happen in to know of a machine shop in Yuma where i could bore out my cylinder and head? We have tools and my friends have taken KLR motors apart before, so if we had the parts we could do the job ourselves. If you have any questions, my number 701 609 0690 or I'll be checking my email. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I can send photos to anyone interested. Just send me a direct email. Thank you for your advice and any parts you'll sell me off of your garage shelf! 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calvin gardner · Post by **calvin gardner** » Wed Dec 30, 2015 6:38 pm

Thank you all for the advice and the services offered. Sorry I haven't gotten back earlier, but things have been busy. I took the advice to call Eagle Mike yesterday morning. What a great guy. He didn't have a remanned head on hand, but offered to have one ready by the time I could get there. I rented a car and made the 2.5 hour drive. I bought the head and the 685 big bore kit. He had a lot of miscellaneous parts on hand that I needed and was incredibly nice and helpful. I would recommend him to any KLR owner. I got back to Yuma at about 6pm. My friend and I spent until 230am putting the engine back together in our hotel room (shhhhh!). This morning we tightened a few bolts and put the muffler on, filled up the fluids. Rolled it outside and tried to fire it up. For a heart rending second, while it half sputtered, I was worried. But we realized it was only a dead battery. Got a jump and she fired up instantly. Went through the break in period. In our tiredness last night, we had crisscrossed the hoses on the water pump, so it ran hot, but was a quick fix. Runs like a beauty. Rode it the 160+ miles back to Eagle Mikes to get another gasket I needed and a doohickey spring (mine was broke). Plan to spend a day or two checking things, gathering up some supplies and will start back down south again. I have never been much into the Internet, which is weird for my generation, but this case has proved it to be very valuable. Thank you very much for the reccomendation and ideas. If there is interest, I'll periodically post updates on my trip. Attached are a couple photos of the damaged head and piston. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

achesley43@ymail.com · Post by **achesley43@ymail.com** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 6:22 am

So great that all is resolved and you're back running. Yes! Please keep us posted on you're trip.

Monty · Post by **Monty** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 8:18 am

Wish I had half your energy Calvin. Godspeed on the balance of your adventure. Looking forward to hearing about it more. FWIW - rebuilding a KLR motor in your hotel room? Outstanding! You get my vote for fortitude and determination. Safe travels -

Monty

Russell Scott · Post by **Russell Scott** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 1:33 pm

Outstanding!

[b]From:[/b] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com] [b]Sent:[/b] Wednesday, December 30, 2015 4:38 PM [b]To:[/b] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [b]Subject:[/b] Re: [DSN_KLR650] Blown engine in Mexico/Yuma

Thank you all for the advice and the services offered. Sorry I haven't gotten back earlier, but things have been busy. I took the advice to call Eagle Mike yesterday morning. What a great guy. He didn't have a remanned head on hand, but offered to have one ready by the time I could get there. I rented a car and made the 2.5 hour drive. I bought the head and the 685 big bore kit. He had a lot of miscellaneous parts on hand that I needed and was incredibly nice and helpful. I would recommend him to any KLR owner. I got back to Yuma at about 6pm. My friend and I spent until 230am putting the engine back together in our hotel room (shhhhh!). This morning we tightened a few bolts and put the muffler on, filled up the fluids. Rolled it outside and tried to fire it up. For a heart rending second, while it half sputtered, I was worried. But we realized it was only a dead battery. Got a jump and she fired up instantly. Went through the break in period. In our tiredness last night, we had crisscrossed the hoses on the water pump, so it ran hot, but was a quick fix. Runs like a beauty. Rode it the 160+ miles back to Eagle Mikes to get another gasket I needed and a doohickey spring (mine was broke). Plan to spend a day or two checking things, gathering up some supplies and will start back down south again. I have never been much into the Internet, which is weird for my generation, but this case has proved it to be very valuable. Thank you very much for the reccomendation and ideas. If there is interest, I'll periodically post updates on my trip. Attached are a couple photos of the damaged head and piston. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

rrttbbnn · Post by **rrttbbnn** » Thu Dec 31, 2015 2:10 pm

Not being nosey, but I would be kind of curious how much money it cost to make the repair? My thought is that you would have been money ahead by selling\parting out the existing bike, and buying a new or newer bike. Depending on the mileage of your existing bike, plus any other unknown damage to your engine by the monkey working on it, I would think makes the motor a bad choice to spend money on. Thanks, Jeff -----Original Message----- From: 'Russell Scott' russell@... [DSN_KLR650] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> To: DSN_KLR650 DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com>; 'calvin gardner' Sent: Thu, Dec 31, 2015 11:33 am Subject: RE: [DSN_KLR650] Blown engine in Mexico/Yuma Outstanding! [b]From:[/b] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com?] [b]Sent:[/b] Wednesday, December 30, 2015 4:38 PM [b]To:[/b] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [b]Subject:[/b] Re: [DSN_KLR650] Blown engine in Mexico/Yuma Thank you all for the advice and the services offered. Sorry I haven't gotten back earlier, but things have been busy. I took the advice to call Eagle Mike yeste rday morning. What a great guy. He didn't have a remanned head on hand, but offered to have one ready by the time I could get there. I rented a car and made the 2.5 hour drive. I bought the head and the 685 big bore kit. He had a lot of miscellaneous parts on hand that I needed and was incredibly nice and helpful. I would recommend him to any KLR owner. I got back to Yuma at about 6pm. My friend and I spent until 230am putting the engine back together in our hotel room (shhhhh!). This morning we tightened a few bolts and put the muffler on, filled up the fluids. Rolled it outside and tried to fire it up. For a heart rending second, while it half sputtered, I was worried. But we realized it was only a dead battery. Got a jump and she fired up instantly. Went through the break in period. In our tiredness last night, we had crisscrossed the hoses on the water pump, so it ran hot, but was a quick fix. Runs like a beauty. Rode it the 160+ miles back to Eagle Mikes to get a nother gasket I needed and a doohickey spring (mine was broke). Plan to spend a day or two checking things, gathering up some supplies and will start back down south again. I have never been much into the Internet, which is weird for my generation, but this case has proved it to be very valuable. Thank you very much for the reccomendation and ideas. If there is interest, I'll periodically post updates on my trip. Attached are a couple photos of the damaged head and piston. 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calvin gardner · Post by **calvin gardner** » Sun May 01, 2016 6:45 pm

Sorry all that it took me so long to get back to you all. The trip is going well and I am currently just south of Mexico City, climbing a few of their very tall volcanos. Hotel and car rental fees aside, it cost me about 1050$ to rebuild the top end of my motor. I may have been better off with a new motor, but at the time hotel fees were mounting and it felt like a better option to rebuild. I've put on about 7000 miles on the rebuild and everything still runs well. I did find one mistake I made while doing the rebuild. While I was replacing the clutch plates (I wanted to do this before I was too far from the border), I was putting the water impeller back on and over tightened the nut, snapped the shaft off. I didn't have a torque wrench (first mistake) and was just guessing. Won't do that again. But after some mad stressing I did some research and came across Sergeant's "how to" with a great fix. I was only a couple hours from San Diego so my brother rode there on his KLR and picked up a new front balancer shaft from the ever helpful and knowledgable Eagle Mike. I was able to replace the front balancer shaft in a less than a day and I now have a much better understanding of how my engine works. The point of the story is that, one, Eagle Mike is a life saver, and two, that while I had the left side cover off to replace the shaft, I discover that I didn't have the timing chain guide in its correct "pocket." This caused the timing chain to rub against a bolt head. It had worn off about a quart of the very top of the bolt head.This is where it gets freaky. So extra tension was applied on the left side of the timing chain. Apparently, I also set TDC on the "f" instead of the "t". Somehow these two mistakes canceled eachother out and the bike was able to run for about 3000 miles. Now the timing chain is running in its correct path and the TDC is correctly set. I have noticed more power and better performance, not a lot but enough to notice. I guess the moral is - if you're going to make mistakes rebuilding your engine, do two at the same time that will cancel eachother out. Aside from that, things are going well. My brother hurt his wrist while doing some rock climbing and had to return to Michigan. I am continuing the trip down south on my own. For those of you who don't know, I am riding my KLR650 2006 down as far as I can. We went as far north as Newfoundland and am now currently near Mexico City. I am carrying mountaineering gear (ice axes, crampons, rope), technical rock climbing gear, and a surfboard strapped on the side. Also, camping gear, paper maps, etc. I have a little of everything and not much of anything. It makes for a pretty heavy load but it has been great so far. I just finished climbing Iztaccihuatl (17,160 feet) which was really amazing. I feel like not very many others have done a trip like this but I feel like they would be on a KLR if they were to. I get some pretty strange looks with the surf board strapped to my tank and pannier, if I'm pretty far from the ocean as I am right now while in the mountains. I'm not real big on blogs and writing posts and all that, but i do have a Instagram account that I post pictures to. It's @ledgepirate if you have Instagram. Otherwise, I send out emails to my friends about once a month with a list of events. I'll copy and paste them below if you are interested in my trip story. I'm sorry they aren't written very well and maybe without some details that you fellow riders may be interested in. I'm not trying to get a big following or capture your attention. If you're interested, cool. If not, no worries you don't need to keep reading. There is too much to do in his life! I can't sit still long enough to type it all out nicely. But if you're stuck someplace and need an adventure story this might give you a fix. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! If I can help others get out on a trip, I'll gladly throw my limited experience into the pot. Trip update #1 Well, it's been 187 days of freedumb since we quit our jobs in North Dakota, 70 of them being in Mexico. I've put on about 13,000 miles since we left Michigan. Far more miles on the bike in the last six months than I've ridden in my whole life. It's been really good. We crossed into Mexico (at San Diego) on Thanksgiving Day. We made a last phone call to our parents and then bombed south to Punta San Jose, about 90 miles south of the border. The last twenty miles are all dirt road and lead you into the middle of Nowhere, Mexico. There are just a few fishing shacks there and a light house, nothing else. No one came around to collect camping fees and there were some starving cattle around, which was strange, as I had been here two years before and got to know the owner a little bit. There were no waves to be surfed the next morning, so we packed up and headed further south. We found out later that about a year ago, somebody shot the owner in his barn and left him to rot. With no family to carry on the ranch, the place and cattle went to seed. Then about six months ago, a tweaker from Ensenada hijacked some surfers at gunpoint when his own vehicle broke down. Well, I guess timing is everything.Our next stop was a cool surf spot called Freighters a little farther south. We spent about a week here, where we were able to surf every day on some smaller waves. This is a good spot to get back into surfing because it's a pretty mellow and forgiving wave. This spot is especially cool because when the waves are breaking right, you can surf right alongside a rusty, wrecked freighter, probably within ten feet. As would turn out to be the norm so far, we met quite a few kindred travelers here who we had a good time sitting around the campfire with. Pretty sad story about the firewood here. There is a sign for firewood, so Sam pulls over and asks for firewood. The guy goes to his dead orchard (the drought doesn't pay attention to borders) and starts to break branches off his former livelihood. I guess there is no great loss without some small gain. At least he can get some income from the trees. After about a week, Sam got a ear infection so we decided to get out of the water for a while. We went further south, away from the coast, to the road stop called Catavina. This is a great area. A real arid desert, not more than six ranches for a three hundred mile stretch. This place is quiet. We spend almost two weeks here (treating Sam's infection with a mixture of water and vinegar). We do a lot of rock climbing on the near endless supply of granite boulders. The tallest is only about sixty feet tall, but this is made up for by the quantity of the boulders and the fact that we have them absolutely to ourselves. Most of our climbs are probably first ascents, judging from the loose rock we clean off and the general lack of development around here. You never can say for sure though. They feel like they've never been climbed before and that's good enough for me. We also spend a lot of time hiking around, exploring caves in the area. We found a lot of pictographs (not petroglyphs- pictographs are painted on, petroglyphs are etched into the rock). Mostly human figures, rabbits, small mammals, circles and series of intersecting lines. We saw a few arrowheads lying on the serface, and lots of chips, probably undisturbed for hundreds or possibly thousands of years. I spent a lot of time reflecting on what they were like, how their lives were similar to our own. Probably had the same gamut of emotions and desires that we have. And now they are dust. Or pretty close to it. I was also reminded of a scene in one of my favorite books, Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy. There is a character in it called the Judge, who is a very resourceful and self-centered, to put it very mildly. One could say he was downright evil. But the scene I am reminded of is this: the party is traveling through Northern Mexico, just like Sam and I, when they come across some very similar ruins. The Judge draws each of the artifacts in his notebook, noting every detail and even copying all the drawings from the walls. Then he systematically destroys all the tools, burns all the bones, and effaces all of the artwork. He says "that which exists without my knowledge, exists without my consent." What a trip. I believe they were traveling through an area some few hundred miles East of where Sam and I were, but it was a cool parallel. I didn't destroy any of what I found. After a couple of weeks away from the ocean, and virtually only seeing and talking to each other, we decided it was time to head back towards a more populated area and some surfing. A few passing motorcyclists comment on our bikes and tell us how brand of bikes never break down. So, que break down. We packed up and were headed south to the Seven Sisters area of Baja. This is my favorite area of Baja and has the best available winter surf spots. We were only 3 miles away from the coastal town of Santa Rosilillita when my motor died going around a corner. Sam saw a cloud of white smoke come out of the muffler and me trying to pull off the road. The roads don't have shoulders down here, but I was lucky enough to need to get off at a spot where there was a sloping, paved road gutter. So I took it, but it was covered in gravel so I slide out and skinned up my knee a bit. But all good. Couldn't get it started and the sun was setting, so we had to sleep in the ditch right there. We pulled up a canyon as best we could and laid out our bivy sacks and slept.Next morning I took Sam's bike into town and asked every guy I saw with a truck if he could transport my bike for me. (Remember my spanish is very poor, so these situations are fairly humourous and the Mexicans are very kind and put up with my mangling of the language). Third guy is willing to do so, so within 45 minutes we are back at the ditch and the bike is loaded up. We haul it to a great surf spot nearby and set up camp. We tried a number of different things to isolate the problem, and eventually figured out that something was wrong with the valves or the piston, since we weren't getting any compression. The owner of the surf spot knew a bike mechanic and offered to haul the bike there. He is a great guy who I met two years ago and I trusted his advice. He brought me around and showed me his new house and even brought me to his sister's house for coffee and pastries. Once we got to the mechanics house (thirty miles away), he took the bike apart and we saw that the intake valves were bent and timing chain was worn out. Okay, he'll order parts and install them and in about a week my bike will be ready. Cool. A week later I pick up the bike and it sounds good. I rip to the nearest bank and back (twenty miles one way). About five miles short of the mechanics, the bike makes a loud clacking noise, dies and won't even turn over. I hide the bike as best I can (it's the desert and there is nothing to hide it behind). I take my backpack and start walking, because there is nothing around. It's fun to be in another country when you are mobile. It sucks when you aren't mobile, especially if you have more stuff than you can carry on your back. So it's getting dark (conveniently) and I'm trucking through the desert in Mexico with no water or food or even my passport. Perfect - how could this end badly? But after a couple miles, the mechanic drives by and asks me whats up. He goes to get a tow rope and I hike back to the bike. It's still here, so thats good. The guy comes back with a tow string. It's a ten foot length of 1/4inch string, which he lengthens by adding a broken tow strap. Cool. Not scary at all. But he tows me the five miles and I only nearly tumble once when he turns off the highway. The first car that pulled up behind us slowed down and put on it's hazards. Drivers really look out for eachother down here (sometimes, I'll just skip all the stories of almost getting run or backed over). He gives me a ride back to my basecamp and I promise to return to the bike in two days (the next day is Christmas). It's a little harder to be merry when you are stranded in Mexico and your trip seems on the rails, but Sam was there and a couple other friends from Michian were visiting, and we had a good time on Christmas with excellent surf. After Christmas, we went back yo look at my bike. It's taken apart and pretty f***** at this point. They offered to haul my bike back to the states (Yuma, AZ). So we load it up and head out. We figured out later what happened. I paid the guy for labor and new parts, but he just straightened out the valves in his garage (those things have to be perfect, zero tolerance) and didn't even replace the timing chain which caused the problem in the first place. He just put the old parts back in and pocketed the extra money. Rip off. And he caused my relatively minor problem to turn into a major problem. My head and piston are destroyed. I need a new motor or at the very least I need a whole new top end. After getting back to the States, we get online and try to locate parts. This takes time and I'm wondering what's to become of my trip south. Is it going to happen after all? How much am I going to spend on this? Eventually, we find a guy with parts in San Diego, so I rent a car and go get parts. This guy is the complete opposite of my mechanic in Mexico. He gives me a lot of tools and parts that I need for free after he hears my story. He didn't have a complete head ready to go, but he was glad to spend his afternoon putting one together for me (on a holiday weekend, no less). I bring the parts back to Yuma and my bike. We roll the bike into our hotel room when the maids aren't looking. We stay up until 3am putting the bike back together. We get up in the morning and finish up the loose ends. We push it outside and try to start it. No go. Shit. I just put about $2000 dollars into this and I'm still stranded. Heart dropper. But it's only a low battery and after a jump, it fires up. Long story short, I am able to ride it back yo Mexico.1500 miles later it still runs and drives good. So two engine rebuilds later, the trip continues. It feels good to be mobile again. There have been a couple problems since, minor ones, where I thought I had messed up the engine rebuild somehow. If I was someone else, I wouldn't pay Calvin Gardner to rebuild my motor. That guy doesn't know enough about bike motors. But then again, I wouldn't pay anyone else to do it either. I already learned that lesson. Sam broke four welds on his bike rack, but he was able to get them welded up. They are now reinforced with chunks of a mountain bike frame. Looks a little goofy, but it gets the job done. My battery died this last week, so every time I want to start it I have to jump start it. But I've got another one en route that should arrive in a couple weeks. Otherwise, the bikes are running well. We've dropped a lot of weight because we were way over packed. I got rid of a lot of extra clothing and my library of books. I originally brought along 20 books, but I've had to let them go after I've read them. I just bought my first ebook, so that'll be be the norm from now on. I read my first book by Celine on this trip and I have to say he is now up there among my favorites. Right now I'm reading Sailing Around the World Alone by Captain Joshua Slocum. It's a great adventure story over a century old.We're still in central Baja. We've been here about six weeks, traveling from surf spot to surf spot for a little variety. If we could update you every day, it would be surf day after surf day. Every morning the sun rises golden and blooming over sand dunes and red hills. Sometimes there is a fog and it lends mystery to the air. Since we have been down here, there has been swell after swell. They say it's one of the best winters for surf in a long time. We picked a good year to come this way. Mine and Sam's surfing have really improved a lot. Switching between surf spots (each one has a different wave shape) has really helped. I'm able to turn on the wave a lot more and "play around" - not just cruise down the line. I've also got back into surf shape. I just had my longest session yet - 8.5 hours in the water in one day. Incidentally, that day I caught my tallest waves yet, double overhead or about 12 feet high. It was awesome! The ocean has a lot of power and is to be respected. A lot like human society, the ocean isn't against you... it just doesn't care. You have to know what you're doing and what your limits are. That day one guy got tossed on the rocks and got banged up pretty good. He didn't go to the hospital, but two EMTs who were camped out nearby took care of him. After a couple days rest, he called the trip finished and headed back to Montana. The day after my long session, the waves were even bigger and I didn't get in the water until sunset when they settled back down. I guess that guy reminded me that you gotta know when to call it. The surfboards are still in pretty good shape, although we have both fallen over a lot. Sam has had to get good at surfboard repairs, as all the damaging incidents happen to his board, but on the positive side his bike has been running great (oh, did I mention the carb problems I had that left me stranded in Moab?). A normal day for us... wake up. Grind some coffee beans and make a bomb cup of coffee. Listen to a hardcore album to start the day. Watch the waves while eating breakfast. If they are good, we surf. If we think they will be better later or at a different tide, we read the best books or we go hiking or check out a different surf break. Eat lunch and return to what we were doing before. It's a pretty bomb life. And we have so much to look forward to --- Copper Canyon on mainland Mexico, world class waves on the coast and some big volcanoes to climb. I'm really looking forward to climbing in the mountains and being above 17,000 feet. This is it. Life doesn't get better. Sometimes, when I have a motor issue or say its crazy windy for a few days, we start to feel bummed out, it seems like there is always something to pick us up. An email from a friend and a picture is enough to turn a day around. Or last week a lady baked us a fresh loaf of bread. First of all, we are in the middle of the desert, where the nearest store is thirty miles away. We haven't eaten bread in two months. We've eaten hundreds of tortillas of course, they are the norm here. But heavy, fresh, moist bread can't be bought here... and a lady bakes it in her dutch oven and gives it to us. Tasted so damn good. Our diet doesn't very much usually... we eat a lot of beans and eggs and potatoes, along with as much fresh fruit and vegetables as we can get (limited here in the desert) (Sam is being a team player and going mostly vegetarian for the trip so far). That loaf of bread though; it's been a trip, learning to appreciate things I've always taken for granted. Like clean clothes... now, laundry day is a good day. I've only got one pair of pants and two t-shirts (from two of my favorite bands - shout outs to Totally Deece and Game Ender). Having freshly laundered clothes is the bomb. The wardrobe I had back home seems incredible to me now. So we're learning to appreciate the smaller things in life. This minimal and non-materialistic lifestyle is different, but I like it. I'll be doing this for a while.We plan to spend about another three weeks in Baja, then head to mainland Mexico. That will be all new territory, a place where neither of us has ever been. Everything south from Baja will be new and we're both looking forward to that adventure. We'll probably spend about three months (the last of our visas) on mainland Mexico, before heading to Guatemala. Excluding the bike issues, we are under budget on everything else. Hopefully there are no more bike issues and the trip will be longer than expected. Trip update #2Well, it's been about six weeks since the last update. A lot has happened. Both good and bad. We spent another week surfing in the Seven Sister's area of Baja. Looking back I wish we would have gotten more pictures and videos of that time because we had some really good days where we were at the right beach at the right time. There were some really good days when the tides were perfect and the swell was coming in line after line. My surfing really improved in the last several weeks of surfing. I was a lot more nimble on the wave and able to pull some really steep turns and switchbacks. Fuck I love surfing. But the clock ticks and while I do want to spend my life surfing I also want to see the rest of Mexico and I want to see what's down the road a piece.We headed north and hit some really cool hot springs along the Sea of Cortez. They are incredibly hot, but they get cooled off when the tide comes up and mixes with the spring water. Our timing was good. There is something beautiful about a thing so transient as a hot spring that is only usable for about an hour a day. The tides were right after dark and we soaked it up under a cloudless sky.Both of our bikes were showing some signs of TLC, so we decided to head north to California to get some parts. Both of our rear tires were deteriorating quickly. Mine had big rubber flaps were the tread was separating. I only got about 6500 out of that rear tire, whereas I had got 10,000 out of the last. As Sam pointed out, the increased weight and higher temperatures probably caused this. My shifter (a rather vital component if you think about it) was nearly warn out and causing serious wear to the splines on the motor. Sam also wanted to put new bars and brush guards on his bike. There were a bunch of other things I'm forgetting at the moment. We got a cheap hotel room in El Centro. It wasn't very nice but it was okay and they let us work on our bikes in the parking lot. Pretty shitty neighborhood and neighbors. We both ordered about $500 worth of parts and got it all done. When I was replacing the clutch on my bike, I fucked it up when I put it back together. There is this little nut you put the balancer shaft to attach the water pump impeller. It's supposed to be tightened to 7.25 foot pounds. I didn't have a torque wrench so I gave it my best guess. It's difficult because as you are tightening it it spins. I snapped it off and I guess it's not uncommon to do so. Breaking it off sucks because now there is no water pump and the engine overheads very quickly. And the shaft is an integral part of the motor. It looks like you have to fully disassemble the motor to replace it. Depression ensues as you consider the implications of tearing your motor fully apart in a hotel parking lot. But a little research shows a way around it and a few phone calls later you find you can get a used shaft just a few hours away in San Diego. Not bad. Somebody has already been through the shit show and has written up a full walk through with pictures. Perfect. Oh and before this my battery died on me in Baja. It wouldn't take a charge either. Our bikes don't have kick starters, so every time I wanted to start the bike I had to get our Sam's little jumper set and start the bike. Not so bad once in the morning, but it gets rather comic to jump start your bike every time you stall out your bike or pull over at a store for five minutes or shut off your bike so you don't have to yell over it. Then jump start the bike again probably just to turn it off again in five minutes. Anyway, got a new batter as well.Got the new shaft installed in the bike. Discovered that I had set the timing wrong when I installed the big bore kits few months ago. It was pretty ridiculous. So instead of setting TDC at the "T", where I should have, I set it at the "F", setting the timing forward by about links on the timing chain. But I also didn't put the timing chain guide in it's correct notch, so that it made the timing chain run a longer distance - which also happened to shorten the timing by about two chain links. The timing was close enough for it to run, by some freak coincidence, but now that the timing is fixed it has more power. So if you are going to fuck something up, make sure you fuck up a second time to counteract the first. The negative aspect is that the timing chain was sliding against a bolt and wore off part of the bolt's head. But the chain seemed in decent shape still and hopefully all is now well. While I had the engine apart I checked behind the oil screen filter and found the missing tension spring. It was chewed up into innumerable pieces but at least it's out of there now and won't chew up anymore of my internals. There are pictures of the spring pieces on Sam's Instagram.ANyway, after about a week in El Centro we bailed and headed to Nogales in Arizona. My low and high beams died out en route and I had to set up camp as it was getting dark. Driving at night on a motorcycle with zero lights is scary. On the freeway it kind of feels like falling through the void. THe next day I took it apart and eventually got a soldering gun and resoldered a few wires on the headlight switch. All good. We headed down to Hermosillo and caught a Bane show. It was fantastic. Cool town, cool scene, and great show. It was really good to see the boys in Bane again and hang out a little bit. Did not think I would see them play again, especially not in Mexico. Fuck I love that band.After that we headed to Baseachi over in the state of Chihuahua. Yes, there is even a town called Chihuahua City and that's where all those little annoying fucks come from. Yap yap yap. But the Chihuahuas down here actually a lot quieter and not even that annoying. Love dogs, hate American Chihuahuas. En route to Baseachi, where there is this 800 foot water fall, we took some dirt roads and saw some gorgeous country. The Sierra Madre Occidental is one of the more beautiful places I have ever seen. Sparsely populated with winding roads with staggering vistas. Mountain chain after mountain chain, where the fog of distance makes each one less distinct. The fog really lights up at sunset - so many hues of purple and violet and some deep deep reds. And pine trees. The smell of pine trees is delicious after a winter in the desert. We had a small run in with some interesting people. My speedometer cable broke and we had just finished temporarily patching it up. Sam was riding ahead and saw this gorgeous tower off on the right. He had ridden past some people and not noticed anything. When I rode past them, I noticed one had a large pistol on his hip and another had what looked like an AK-47. Interesting. The guy with the machine gun yelled "Hola! Come estas! Come here! Come on!" Nahhhhh... I'm just gonna nod and keep riding like I'm deaf. I caught up to Sam who was parked in view just a little a head and he was all stoked to climb that gorgeous tower. I mentioned the guns and what the guy had head in a quiet voice and we rolled out immediately. The next ten miles to town were exciting, if only because our minds were racing. It was a very narrow road that dropped several thousand feet rather quickly. No turn offs or anything, not wide enough for two cars to pass each other quickly. We were thinking about those guys coming after us or even radioing their buddies at the bottom of the hill to stop us. It was exhilarating. At the bottom, there was a big intersection where our map didn't show one (lost in Mexico on dirt roads with civilians with machine guns... Fun times. Why don't you come down and join me?) Then the truck full of guys with guns rolled up on us, but now they have a bunch of passenger women in back. Short of anything else logical to do, I walked up to them and asked the way to town. Confidence gets you want you want. In my broken Spanish, I got it across and they pointed the way, down the less used road. I stepped closer to hear better and their faces got angry. I noticed their hands shift to their radios and guns. Hmmm. Okay, I'm a dumb tourist. Gracias. They went on ahead towards "town"... Were they going to set a trap for us? DId they not mess with us because they had picked up some passengers? Lots of questions. We busted out the IPads and opened Maps. For some strange reason, our maps were still zoomed into the area from the last time we had internet and we were able to tell that the way they suggested was the way to town. Perfect. We decided to head that way and soon we were in town. Didn't see those guys again, but we sped through the little village and kept on rolling back to the main highway.Was the danger real? I don't know. Maybe it was all in our heads. Super impose danger and travel fears onto situations aren't fully understood. You can be scared of a spider if you think it's poisonous, right? We made it to the National Park about two hours after dark... And couldn't find lodging that wasn't super expensive. Driving after dark wasn't what we wanted to do, considering the previous events, and it was frustrating to be unable to find a place to sleep. Eventually we talked to a very drunk, strange Mexican who told us where we could camp for free. We decided to sleep next to our bikes and see what happened. THe next morning we checked out the water falls and hiked to the bottom of the canyon. We dove into the large pool at the base and swam underneath the "shower" of the water falling 800 feet. Pretty frigid bu very awesome. There are some pretty gnarly aid climbs up these walls. That night we got visited by two dudes who rubbed us the wrong way. Like this shit is fucked up kind of wrong way. Both pretty drunk and checking out all our stuff. Well, first they pulled up in their truck and stared at us. Then they pulled out of the parking lot and stopped just outside of it and watched us through the trees. Then they turned around and came back into the lot and watched us again. Then they pulled up next to us and started talking to us. This is on of those situations that is bad, you say to yourself. Then they said they were going back to get some more drinks from town. Soon as they left we packed up our shit and went to one of the expensive campgrounds where they have a locked gate, etc. The next morning we packed up early and left. On the main drag of town, the same truck pull out immediately behind and follows us out of town. Fuck. We pull over to get gas and they pass us. The truck has about 8 guys in it. Hmmm. They kept going while we got gas. Once we were filled up, we went back the opposite way we had come (luckily there was a "T" in town"). Once again, maybe it was in our heads. But it was strange the way they followed us out of town and we had that shitty feeling again. Maybe they were going ahead to set up a road block. Maybe not. The day before, at the water falls, we met and talked to a Mexican family that had been held up at gun point and robbed while they were driving on the main highway. This had happened an hour before we talked to them. If we hadn't driven late at night, we would have covered that same stretch of road about the same time that they got robbed. Wow, we got out of that one. And that thought was going through our heads when those guys pulled out behind us. Do I have proof that we were in danger of being robbed? No. I am a doubter in many things. But that was pretty strange. We high tailed it out of town towards the bigger tourist town of Creel near Copper Canyon, about two hours away. We felt a lot safer there. There is a "stop all non-essential travel" advisory by the US government to the border of Sonora and Chihuahua, the area we were in. Reports of theft, kidnapping, etc. Maybe these warnings exist for a reason. We knew about them beforehand, but went anyway. This was an area I had been talking about seeing for years. A lot of what you hear about danger is fucked and exaggerated and not true, but I guess I believe it for this area of Mexico. While they say it isn't as bad as it was six years ago, it's still rough. Sometimes when people tell you something is unsafe, maybe they are right. Maybe I am just a white, overpriviliged piece of shit who thinks he can go where ever he wants. Decision, action, consequences. Can't escape them all the time. Copper Canyon/Creel was bad ass. We spent about two weeks there. It's at about 8000 feet, so hiking and backpacking was a lot of effort. The bottom of the canyon is about 4000 feet, so there is a 4K elevation change which is pretty tiring, especially if you've been hanging out at sea level all winter. It was very beautiful. Some rock climbing too. So many unclimbed, unknown, untouched faces... But many have loose bands of rock and it's certainly adventure climbing. Much of the good quality cracks through quality stone were very difficult and we didn't want to ruin Sam's wrist by getting on anything difficult too early. We climbed a few days but mostly just hiked and saw the country. Did some cannon balls into the river. Saw some Indian paintings and caves. Saw some ancient irrigation that water lemon, avocado and mango trees down near the bottom of the canyon. This land is old and has been inhabited for great expanses of time. What is my life in the face of this tradition of life? Some of the Tarahumarra Indians here make crafts and sell them. You can buy handmade reed baskets for a dollar and necklaces and bracelets for $.25. It is very sad. Especially when you get mobbed by kids from families that are competing with eachother, trying to bring home money to feed the family. Many Tarahumarra Indians are employed by the local Mexicans in return are given one or two meals a day. No pay, no cash. Some Mexicans give them food and some cash. It's pretty fucked up. I guess a lot of things are. We had a Tarrahumarra guide to take us backpacking and he was a very agreeable and excellent chap. A window into another life, another culture. After two weeks of being in the Copper Canyon area, we headed East to Monterrey. It took us several days to make that stretch. The roads improved. We made it out of the Sierra Made Occidental, across the high plains, to the the Sierra Made Oriental. Monterrey is a big town. Not incredibly nice, but big. Would not call any of it beautiful. But the mountains around it are pretty cool. Our goal was El Potero Chico, a climbing area 20 miles NW of Monterrey. Wanted to come here for a while. Here now. Pretty cool. Big soaring routes. Camping is like $4.50 a night. There is a large pool for the hot days. Lots of hot water and lots of showers/toilets... No waiting in line. Walking distance to the routes. It's pretty dope. Sam hurt his wrist after a few days of climbing. He slipped on an easy climb and caught himself with his wrist. Game ender. He made the difficult decision to let it rest for several months and hopefully rejoin me. Everything that we want to do will irritate his wrist... Pushing on the surf board, climbing and self arresting in mountaineering. It's tough to call it quits on a trip you have imagined and dreamed of for 8 years. Takes guts to make the right choice and let it heal. He is en route to MI. I'm still here in Potero, looking for climbing partners. Been climbing quite a bit. It feels good. People are friendly. It isn't the busy season, but there are still quite a few climbers here. Which is perfect. Who wants to climb with the retard crowds? I plan to spend about a month here. In ten days a friend is flying in to climb for a couple weeks. After that, I plan to head to Mexico City and climb a few 17,000+ volcanos. Should be amazing. I brought crampons and ice axes all this god damn way, I plan to use them! Very excited to get so high in the mountains. ABout then my Mexican visa will expire and I'll have to cross into Guatemala or Belize. I'll probably come back to Mexico to check out the Mayan ruins in the Yucatan, then go surfing in Guatemala. I met a cool guy who lives in Guatemala who I can stay with. Hopefully he'll be able to help set up a rental and a few of you will come down and visit and surf. It will be strange to travel alone again. More intimidating. No back up. Just me. But I did it before in Baja and while my bike seems to have a lot of problems, I feel better about it now than I ever have before. What else can go wrong? Ha. Ha. Ha. But on the other hand, being on my own is making me more social and helping me to meet new people. Last night I sprained three of my toes on a slack line. One of them has turned purple. But if I can get my climbing shoes on, I think I'll be able to climb when the rain stops. You never really use the three little toes while your climbing right? I guess it's just part of being a hardcore slackliner. Right. No. Well, that's about all. Really pumped to be in this place of long routes and word class rock. It's beautiful here and it's my life. Just finished reading my 56th book of the trip (The Road to Wigam Pier by Orwell). Doing the math, I'm reading a book every 4.8 days, which isn't bad when you consider the length of some of them. Right now I'm reading "Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch" by Henry Miller. Started listening to the old Against Me! albums again. And Counterparts and Dead End Path. Started using Instagram (not as bad as using crack I'm sure) to share some of my daily life now that Sam and his Instagram are gone. I guess that's how things stand, or lean, or do whatever it is that they are doing. Send me an update about what you're up to. Sometimes I think of spring in Michigan and feel a little nostalgic. But can't be everywhere at once. Gotta pick one and this is a pretty dope place to be. Sent from my iPad

On Dec 31, 2015, at 2:10 PM, jokerloco9@... [DSN_KLR650] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Not being nosey, but I would be kind of curious how much money it cost to make the repair? My thought is that you would have been money ahead by selling\parting out the existing bike, and buying a new or newer bike. Depending on the mileage of your existing bike, plus any other unknown damage to your engine by the monkey working on it, I would think makes the motor a bad choice to spend money on. Thanks, Jeff -----Original Message----- From: 'Russell Scott' russell@... [DSN_KLR650] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> To: DSN_KLR650 DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com>; 'calvin gardner' Sent: Thu, Dec 31, 2015 11:33 am Subject: RE: [DSN_KLR650] Blown engine in Mexico/Yuma Outstanding! [b]From:[/b] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com?] [b]Sent:[/b] Wednesday, December 30, 2015 4:38 PM [b]To:[/b] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [b]Subject:[/b] Re: [DSN_KLR650] Blown engine in Mexico/Yuma Thank you all for the advice and the services offered. Sorry I haven't gotten back earlier, but things have been busy. I took the advice to call Eagle Mike yeste rday morning. What a great guy. He didn't have a remanned head on hand, but offered to have one ready by the time I could get there. I rented a car and made the 2.5 hour drive. I bought the head and the 685 big bore kit. He had a lot of miscellaneous parts on hand that I needed and was incredibly nice and helpful. I would recommend him to any KLR owner. I got back to Yuma at about 6pm. My friend and I spent until 230am putting the engine back together in our hotel room (shhhhh!). This morning we tightened a few bolts and put the muffler on, filled up the fluids. Rolled it outside and tried to fire it up. For a heart rending second, while it half sputtered, I was worried. But we realized it was only a dead battery. Got a jump and she fired up instantly. Went through the break in period. In our tiredness last night, we had crisscrossed the hoses on the water pump, so it ran hot, but was a quick fix. Runs like a beauty. Rode it the 160+ miles back to Eagle Mikes to get a nother gasket I needed and a doohickey spring (mine was broke). Plan to spend a day or two checking things, gathering up some supplies and will start back down south again. I have never been much into the Internet, which is weird for my generation, but this case has proved it to be very valuable. Thank you very much for the reccomendation and ideas. If there is interest, I'll periodically post updates on my trip. Attached are a couple photos of the damaged head and piston. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Martin Earl · Post by **Martin Earl** » Mon May 02, 2016 12:06 am

Hi Calvin, You have an incredible tale to tell.You prove the difference between adventure and adversity is attitude.You persevered, and once again proved why a KLR is a swiss-knife bike. Please keep telling your story here. It would be interesting to see how you have strapped a surfboard to a KLR. grin.cough. ding.ding.ding.before you get banned by the mods (which I would hate to see that happen)...this is generally known as a 'family-friendly' forum for 'language.' = sometimes read by young readers.(...not that I never yelled at the computer screen, with words requiring subscript, etc.) no, not ever. .cough. You should also read the KLR FAQ when you get a chance.List FAQ courtesy of Chris Krok: http://www.bigcee.com/klr650faq.htmlm1.

On Sun, May 1, 2016 at 4:45 PM, calvin gardner motorsouth@... [DSN_KLR650] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Sorry all that it took me so long to get back to you all. The trip is going well and I am currently just south of Mexico City, climbing a few of their very tall volcanos. Hotel and car rental fees aside, it cost me about 1050$ to rebuild the top end of my motor. I may have been better off with a new motor, but at the time hotel fees were mounting and it felt like a better option to rebuild. I've put on about 7000 miles on the rebuild and everything still runs well. I did find one mistake I made while doing the rebuild. While I was replacing the clutch plates (I wanted to do this before I was too far from the border), I was putting the water impeller back on and over tightened the nut, snapped the shaft off. I didn't have a torque wrench (first mistake) and was just guessing. Won't do that again. But after some mad stressing I did some research and came across Sergeant's "how to" with a great fix. I was only a couple hours from San Diego so my brother rode there on his KLR and picked up a new front balancer shaft from the ever helpful and knowledgable Eagle Mike. I was able to replace the front balancer shaft in a less than a day and I now have a much better understanding of how my engine works. The point of the story is that, one, Eagle Mike is a life saver, and two, that while I had the left side cover off to replace the shaft, I discover that I didn't have the timing chain guide in its correct "pocket." This caused the timing chain to rub against a bolt head. It had worn off about a quart of the very top of the bolt head.This is where it gets freaky. So extra tension was applied on the left side of the timing chain. Apparently, I also set TDC on the "f" instead of the "t". Somehow these two mistakes canceled eachother out and the bike was able to run for about 3000 miles. Now the timing chain is running in its correct path and the TDC is correctly set. I have noticed more power and better performance, not a lot but enough to notice. I guess the moral is - if you're going to make mistakes rebuilding your engine, do two at the same time that will cancel eachother out. Aside from that, things are going well. My brother hurt his wrist while doing some rock climbing and had to return to Michigan. I am continuing the trip down south on my own. For those of you who don't know, I am riding my KLR650 2006 down as far as I can. We went as far north as Newfoundland and am now currently near Mexico City. I am carrying mountaineering gear (ice axes, crampons, rope), technical rock climbing gear, and a surfboard strapped on the side. Also, camping gear, paper maps, etc. I have a little of everything and not much of anything. It makes for a pretty heavy load but it has been great so far. I just finished climbing Iztaccihuatl (17,160 feet) which was really amazing. I feel like not very many others have done a trip like this but I feel like they would be on a KLR if they were to. I get some pretty strange looks with the surf board strapped to my tank and pannier, if I'm pretty far from the ocean as I am right now while in the mountains. I'm not real big on blogs and writing posts and all that, but i do have a Instagram account that I post pictures to. It's @ledgepirate if you have Instagram. Otherwise, I send out emails to my friends about once a month with a list of events. I'll copy and paste them below if you are interested in my trip story. I'm sorry they aren't written very well and maybe without some details that you fellow riders may be interested in. I'm not trying to get a big following or capture your attention. If you're interested, cool. If not, no worries you don't need to keep reading. There is too much to do in his life! I can't sit still long enough to type it all out nicely. But if you're stuck someplace and need an adventure story this might give you a fix. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! If I can help others get out on a trip, I'll gladly throw my limited experience into the pot. Trip update #1 Well, it's been 187 days of freedumb since we quit our jobs in North Dakota, 70 of them being in Mexico. I've put on about 13,000 miles since we left Michigan. Far more miles on the bike in the last six months than I've ridden in my whole life. It's been really good. We crossed into Mexico (at San Diego) on Thanksgiving Day. We made a last phone call to our parents and then bombed south to Punta San Jose, about 90 miles south of the border. The last twenty miles are all dirt road and lead you into the middle of Nowhere, Mexico. There are just a few fishing shacks there and a light house, nothing else. No one came around to collect camping fees and there were some starving cattle around, which was strange, as I had been here two years before and got to know the owner a little bit. There were no waves to be surfed the next morning, so we packed up and headed further south. We found out later that about a year ago, somebody shot the owner in his barn and left him to rot. With no family to carry on the ranch, the place and cattle went to seed. Then about six months ago, a tweaker from Ensenada hijacked some surfers at gunpoint when his own vehicle broke down. Well, I guess timing is everything.Our next stop was a cool surf spot called Freighters a little farther south. We spent about a week here, where we were able to surf every day on some smaller waves. This is a good spot to get back into surfing because it's a pretty mellow and forgiving wave. This spot is especially cool because when the waves are breaking right, you can surf right alongside a rusty, wrecked freighter, probably within ten feet. As would turn out to be the norm so far, we met quite a few kindred travelers here who we had a good time sitting around the campfire with. Pretty sad story about the firewood here. There is a sign for firewood, so Sam pulls over and asks for firewood. The guy goes to his dead orchard (the drought doesn't pay attention to borders) and starts to break branches off his former livelihood. I guess there is no great loss without some small gain. At least he can get some income from the trees. After about a week, Sam got a ear infection so we decided to get out of the water for a while. We went further south, away from the coast, to the road stop called Catavina. This is a great area. A real arid desert, not more than six ranches for a three hundred mile stretch. This place is quiet. We spend almost two weeks here (treating Sam's infection with a mixture of water and vinegar). We do a lot of rock climbing on the near endless supply of granite boulders. The tallest is only about sixty feet tall, but this is made up for by the quantity of the boulders and the fact that we have them absolutely to ourselves. Most of our climbs are probably first ascents, judging from the loose rock we clean off and the general lack of development around here. You never can say for sure though. They feel like they've never been climbed before and that's good enough for me. We also spend a lot of time hiking around, exploring caves in the area. We found a lot of pictographs (not petroglyphs- pictographs are painted on, petroglyphs are etched into the rock). Mostly human figures, rabbits, small mammals, circles and series of intersecting lines. We saw a few arrowheads lying on the serface, and lots of chips, probably undisturbed for hundreds or possibly thousands of years. I spent a lot of time reflecting on what they were like, how their lives were similar to our own. Probably had the same gamut of emotions and desires that we have. And now they are dust. Or pretty close to it. I was also reminded of a scene in one of my favorite books, Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy. There is a character in it called the Judge, who is a very resourceful and self-centered, to put it very mildly. One could say he was downright evil. But the scene I am reminded of is this: the party is traveling through Northern Mexico, just like Sam and I, when they come across some very similar ruins. The Judge draws each of the artifacts in his notebook, noting every detail and even copying all the drawings from the walls. Then he systematically destroys all the tools, burns all the bones, and effaces all of the artwork. He says "that which exists without my knowledge, exists without my consent." What a trip. I believe they were traveling through an area some few hundred miles East of where Sam and I were, but it was a cool parallel. I didn't destroy any of what I found. After a couple of weeks away from the ocean, and virtually only seeing and talking to each other, we decided it was time to head back towards a more populated area and some surfing. A few passing motorcyclists comment on our bikes and tell us how brand of bikes never break down. So, que break down. We packed up and were headed south to the Seven Sisters area of Baja. This is my favorite area of Baja and has the best available winter surf spots. We were only 3 miles away from the coastal town of Santa Rosilillita when my motor died going around a corner. Sam saw a cloud of white smoke come out of the muffler and me trying to pull off the road. The roads don't have shoulders down here, but I was lucky enough to need to get off at a spot where there was a sloping, paved road gutter. So I took it, but it was covered in gravel so I slide out and skinned up my knee a bit. But all good. Couldn't get it started and the sun was setting, so we had to sleep in the ditch right there. We pulled up a canyon as best we could and laid out our bivy sacks and slept.Next morning I took Sam's bike into town and asked every guy I saw with a truck if he could transport my bike for me. (Remember my spanish is very poor, so these situations are fairly humourous and the Mexicans are very kind and put up with my mangling of the language). Third guy is willing to do so, so within 45 minutes we are back at the ditch and the bike is loaded up. We haul it to a great surf spot nearby and set up camp. We tried a number of different things to isolate the problem, and eventually figured out that something was wrong with the valves or the piston, since we weren't getting any compression. The owner of the surf spot knew a bike mechanic and offered to haul the bike there. He is a great guy who I met two years ago and I trusted his advice. He brought me around and showed me his new house and even brought me to his sister's house for coffee and pastries. Once we got to the mechanics house (thirty miles away), he took the bike apart and we saw that the intake valves were bent and timing chain was worn out. Okay, he'll order parts and install them and in about a week my bike will be ready. Cool. A week later I pick up the bike and it sounds good. I rip to the nearest bank and back (twenty miles one way). About five miles short of the mechanics, the bike makes a loud clacking noise, dies and won't even turn over. I hide the bike as best I can (it's the desert and there is nothing to hide it behind). I take my backpack and start walking, because there is nothing around. It's fun to be in another country when you are mobile. It sucks when you aren't mobile, especially if you have more stuff than you can carry on your back. So it's getting dark (conveniently) and I'm trucking through the desert in Mexico with no water or food or even my passport. Perfect - how could this end badly? But after a couple miles, the mechanic drives by and asks me whats up. He goes to get a tow rope and I hike back to the bike. It's still here, so thats good. The guy comes back with a tow string. It's a ten foot length of 1/4inch string, which he lengthens by adding a broken tow strap. Cool. Not scary at all. But he tows me the five miles and I only nearly tumble once when he turns off the highway. The first car that pulled up behind us slowed down and put on it's hazards. Drivers really look out for eachother down here (sometimes, I'll just skip all the stories of almost getting run or backed over). He gives me a ride back to my basecamp and I promise to return to the bike in two days (the next day is Christmas). It's a little harder to be merry when you are stranded in Mexico and your trip seems on the rails, but Sam was there and a couple other friends from Michian were visiting, and we had a good time on Christmas with excellent surf. After Christmas, we went back yo look at my bike. It's taken apart and pretty f***** at this point. They offered to haul my bike back to the states (Yuma, AZ). So we load it up and head out. We figured out later what happened. I paid the guy for labor and new parts, but he just straightened out the valves in his garage (those things have to be perfect, zero tolerance) and didn't even replace the timing chain which caused the problem in the first place. He just put the old parts back in and pocketed the extra money. Rip off. And he caused my relatively minor problem to turn into a major problem. My head and piston are destroyed. I need a new motor or at the very least I need a whole new top end. After getting back to the States, we get online and try to locate parts. This takes time and I'm wondering what's to become of my trip south. Is it going to happen after all? How much am I going to spend on this? Eventually, we find a guy with parts in San Diego, so I rent a car and go get parts. This guy is the complete opposite of my mechanic in Mexico. He gives me a lot of tools and parts that I need for free after he hears my story. He didn't have a complete head ready to go, but he was glad to spend his afternoon putting one together for me (on a holiday weekend, no less). I bring the parts back to Yuma and my bike. We roll the bike into our hotel room when the maids aren't looking. We stay up until 3am putting the bike back together. We get up in the morning and finish up the loose ends. We push it outside and try to start it. No go. Shit. I just put about $2000 dollars into this and I'm still stranded. Heart dropper. But it's only a low battery and after a jump, it fires up. Long story short, I am able to ride it back yo Mexico.1500 miles later it still runs and drives good. So two engine rebuilds later, the trip continues. It feels good to be mobile again. There have been a couple problems since, minor ones, where I thought I had messed up the engine rebuild somehow. If I was someone else, I wouldn't pay Calvin Gardner to rebuild my motor. That guy doesn't know enough about bike motors. But then again, I wouldn't pay anyone else to do it either. I already learned that lesson. Sam broke four welds on his bike rack, but he was able to get them welded up. They are now reinforced with chunks of a mountain bike frame. Looks a little goofy, but it gets the job done. My battery died this last week, so every time I want to start it I have to jump start it. But I've got another one en route that should arrive in a couple weeks. Otherwise, the bikes are running well. We've dropped a lot of weight because we were way over packed. I got rid of a lot of extra clothing and my library of books. I originally brought along 20 books, but I've had to let them go after I've read them. I just bought my first ebook, so that'll be be the norm from now on. I read my first book by Celine on this trip and I have to say he is now up there among my favorites. Right now I'm reading Sailing Around the World Alone by Captain Joshua Slocum. It's a great adventure story over a century old.We're still in central Baja. We've been here about six weeks, traveling from surf spot to surf spot for a little variety. If we could update you every day, it would be surf day after surf day. Every morning the sun rises golden and blooming over sand dunes and red hills. Sometimes there is a fog and it lends mystery to the air. Since we have been down here, there has been swell after swell. They say it's one of the best winters for surf in a long time. We picked a good year to come this way. Mine and Sam's surfing have really improved a lot. Switching between surf spots (each one has a different wave shape) has really helped. I'm able to turn on the wave a lot more and "play around" - not just cruise down the line. I've also got back into surf shape. I just had my longest session yet - 8.5 hours in the water in one day. Incidentally, that day I caught my tallest waves yet, double overhead or about 12 feet high. It was awesome! The ocean has a lot of power and is to be respected. A lot like human society, the ocean isn't against you... it just doesn't care. You have to know what you're doing and what your limits are. That day one guy got tossed on the rocks and got banged up pretty good. He didn't go to the hospital, but two EMTs who were camped out nearby took care of him. After a couple days rest, he called the trip finished and headed back to Montana. The day after my long session, the waves were even bigger and I didn't get in the water until sunset when they settled back down. I guess that guy reminded me that you gotta know when to call it. The surfboards are still in pretty good shape, although we have both fallen over a lot. Sam has had to get good at surfboard repairs, as all the damaging incidents happen to his board, but on the positive side his bike has been running great (oh, did I mention the carb problems I had that left me stranded in Moab?). A normal day for us... wake up. Grind some coffee beans and make a bomb cup of coffee. Listen to a hardcore album to start the day. Watch the waves while eating breakfast. If they are good, we surf. If we think they will be better later or at a different tide, we read the best books or we go hiking or check out a different surf break. Eat lunch and return to what we were doing before. It's a pretty bomb life. And we have so much to look forward to --- Copper Canyon on mainland Mexico, world class waves on the coast and some big volcanoes to climb. I'm really looking forward to climbing in the mountains and being above 17,000 feet. This is it. Life doesn't get better. Sometimes, when I have a motor issue or say its crazy windy for a few days, we start to feel bummed out, it seems like there is always something to pick us up. An email from a friend and a picture is enough to turn a day around. Or last week a lady baked us a fresh loaf of bread. First of all, we are in the middle of the desert, where the nearest store is thirty miles away. We haven't eaten bread in two months. We've eaten hundreds of tortillas of course, they are the norm here. But heavy, fresh, moist bread can't be bought here... and a lady bakes it in her dutch oven and gives it to us. Tasted so damn good. Our diet doesn't very much usually... we eat a lot of beans and eggs and potatoes, along with as much fresh fruit and vegetables as we can get (limited here in the desert) (Sam is being a team player and going mostly vegetarian for the trip so far). That loaf of bread though; it's been a trip, learning to appreciate things I've always taken for granted. Like clean clothes... now, laundry day is a good day. I've only got one pair of pants and two t-shirts (from two of my favorite bands - shout outs to Totally Deece and Game Ender). Having freshly laundered clothes is the bomb. The wardrobe I had back home seems incredible to me now. So we're learning to appreciate the smaller things in life. This minimal and non-materialistic lifestyle is different, but I like it. I'll be doing this for a while.We plan to spend about another three weeks in Baja, then head to mainland Mexico. That will be all new territory, a place where neither of us has ever been. Everything south from Baja will be new and we're both looking forward to that adventure. We'll probably spend about three months (the last of our visas) on mainland Mexico, before heading to Guatemala. Excluding the bike issues, we are under budget on everything else. Hopefully there are no more bike issues and the trip will be longer than expected. Trip update #2Well, it's been about six weeks since the last update. A lot has happened. Both good and bad. We spent another week surfing in the Seven Sister's area of Baja. Looking back I wish we would have gotten more pictures and videos of that time because we had some really good days where we were at the right beach at the right time. There were some really good days when the tides were perfect and the swell was coming in line after line. My surfing really improved in the last several weeks of surfing. I was a lot more nimble on the wave and able to pull some really steep turns and switchbacks. Fuck I love surfing. But the clock ticks and while I do want to spend my life surfing I also want to see the rest of Mexico and I want to see what's down the road a piece.We headed north and hit some really cool hot springs along the Sea of Cortez. They are incredibly hot, but they get cooled off when the tide comes up and mixes with the spring water. Our timing was good. There is something beautiful about a thing so transient as a hot spring that is only usable for about an hour a day. The tides were right after dark and we soaked it up under a cloudless sky.Both of our bikes were showing some signs of TLC, so we decided to head north to California to get some parts. Both of our rear tires were deteriorating quickly. Mine had big rubber flaps were the tread was separating. I only got about 6500 out of that rear tire, whereas I had got 10,000 out of the last. As Sam pointed out, the increased weight and higher temperatures probably caused this. My shifter (a rather vital component if you think about it) was nearly warn out and causing serious wear to the splines on the motor. Sam also wanted to put new bars and brush guards on his bike. There were a bunch of other things I'm forgetting at the moment. We got a cheap hotel room in El Centro. It wasn't very nice but it was okay and they let us work on our bikes in the parking lot. Pretty shitty neighborhood and neighbors. We both ordered about $500 worth of parts and got it all done. When I was replacing the clutch on my bike, I fucked it up when I put it back together. There is this little nut you put the balancer shaft to attach the water pump impeller. It's supposed to be tightened to 7.25 foot pounds. I didn't have a torque wrench so I gave it my best guess. It's difficult because as you are tightening it it spins. I snapped it off and I guess it's not uncommon to do so. Breaking it off sucks because now there is no water pump and the engine overheads very quickly. And the shaft is an integral part of the motor. It looks like you have to fully disassemble the motor to replace it. Depression ensues as you consider the implications of tearing your motor fully apart in a hotel parking lot. But a little research shows a way around it and a few phone calls later you find you can get a used shaft just a few hours away in San Diego. Not bad. Somebody has already been through the shit show and has written up a full walk through with pictures. Perfect. Oh and before this my battery died on me in Baja. It wouldn't take a charge either. Our bikes don't have kick starters, so every time I wanted to start the bike I had to get our Sam's little jumper set and start the bike. Not so bad once in the morning, but it gets rather comic to jump start your bike every time you stall out your bike or pull over at a store for five minutes or shut off your bike so you don't have to yell over it. Then jump start the bike again probably just to turn it off again in five minutes. Anyway, got a new batter as well.Got the new shaft installed in the bike. Discovered that I had set the timing wrong when I installed the big bore kits few months ago. It was pretty ridiculous. So instead of setting TDC at the "T", where I should have, I set it at the "F", setting the timing forward by about links on the timing chain. But I also didn't put the timing chain guide in it's correct notch, so that it made the timing chain run a longer distance - which also happened to shorten the timing by about two chain links. The timing was close enough for it to run, by some freak coincidence, but now that the timing is fixed it has more power. So if you are going to fuck something up, make sure you fuck up a second time to counteract the first. The negative aspect is that the timing chain was sliding against a bolt and wore off part of the bolt's head. But the chain seemed in decent shape still and hopefully all is now well. While I had the engine apart I checked behind the oil screen filter and found the missing tension spring. It was chewed up into innumerable pieces but at least it's out of there now and won't chew up anymore of my internals. There are pictures of the spring pieces on Sam's Instagram.ANyway, after about a week in El Centro we bailed and headed to Nogales in Arizona. My low and high beams died out en route and I had to set up camp as it was getting dark. Driving at night on a motorcycle with zero lights is scary. On the freeway it kind of feels like falling through the void. THe next day I took it apart and eventually got a soldering gun and resoldered a few wires on the headlight switch. All good. We headed down to Hermosillo and caught a Bane show. It was fantastic. Cool town, cool scene, and great show. It was really good to see the boys in Bane again and hang out a little bit. Did not think I would see them play again, especially not in Mexico. Fuck I love that band.After that we headed to Baseachi over in the state of Chihuahua. Yes, there is even a town called Chihuahua City and that's where all those little annoying fucks come from. Yap yap yap. But the Chihuahuas down here actually a lot quieter and not even that annoying. Love dogs, hate American Chihuahuas. En route to Baseachi, where there is this 800 foot water fall, we took some dirt roads and saw some gorgeous country. The Sierra Madre Occidental is one of the more beautiful places I have ever seen. Sparsely populated with winding roads with staggering vistas. Mountain chain after mountain chain, where the fog of distance makes each one less distinct. The fog really lights up at sunset - so many hues of purple and violet and some deep deep reds. And pine trees. The smell of pine trees is delicious after a winter in the desert. We had a small run in with some interesting people. My speedometer cable broke and we had just finished temporarily patching it up. Sam was riding ahead and saw this gorgeous tower off on the right. He had ridden past some people and not noticed anything. When I rode past them, I noticed one had a large pistol on his hip and another had what looked like an AK-47. Interesting. The guy with the machine gun yelled "Hola! Come estas! Come here! Come on!" Nahhhhh... I'm just gonna nod and keep riding like I'm deaf. I caught up to Sam who was parked in view just a little a head and he was all stoked to climb that gorgeous tower. I mentioned the guns and what the guy had head in a quiet voice and we rolled out immediately. The next ten miles to town were exciting, if only because our minds were racing. It was a very narrow road that dropped several thousand feet rather quickly. No turn offs or anything, not wide enough for two cars to pass each other quickly. We were thinking about those guys coming after us or even radioing their buddies at the bottom of the hill to stop us. It was exhilarating. At the bottom, there was a big intersection where our map didn't show one (lost in Mexico on dirt roads with civilians with machine guns... Fun times. Why don't you come down and join me?) Then the truck full of guys with guns rolled up on us, but now they have a bunch of passenger women in back. Short of anything else logical to do, I walked up to them and asked the way to town. Confidence gets you want you want. In my broken Spanish, I got it across and they pointed the way, down the less used road. I stepped closer to hear better and their faces got angry. I noticed their hands shift to their radios and guns. Hmmm. Okay, I'm a dumb tourist. Gracias. They went on ahead towards "town"... Were they going to set a trap for us? DId they not mess with us because they had picked up some passengers? Lots of questions. We busted out the IPads and opened Maps. For some strange reason, our maps were still zoomed into the area from the last time we had internet and we were able to tell that the way they suggested was the way to town. Perfect. We decided to head that way and soon we were in town. Didn't see those guys again, but we sped through the little village and kept on rolling back to the main highway.Was the danger real? I don't know. Maybe it was all in our heads. Super impose danger and travel fears onto situations aren't fully understood. You can be scared of a spider if you think it's poisonous, right? We made it to the National Park about two hours after dark... And couldn't find lodging that wasn't super expensive. Driving after dark wasn't what we wanted to do, considering the previous events, and it was frustrating to be unable to find a place to sleep. Eventually we talked to a very drunk, strange Mexican who told us where we could camp for free. We decided to sleep next to our bikes and see what happened. THe next morning we checked out the water falls and hiked to the bottom of the canyon. We dove into the large pool at the base and swam underneath the "shower" of the water falling 800 feet. Pretty frigid bu very awesome. There are some pretty gnarly aid climbs up these walls. That night we got visited by two dudes who rubbed us the wrong way. Like this shit is fucked up kind of wrong way. Both pretty drunk and checking out all our stuff. Well, first they pulled up in their truck and stared at us. Then they pulled out of the parking lot and stopped just outside of it and watched us through the trees. Then they turned around and came back into the lot and watched us again. Then they pulled up next to us and started talking to us. This is on of those situations that is bad, you say to yourself. Then they said they were going back to get some more drinks from town. Soon as they left we packed up our shit and went to one of the expensive campgrounds where they have a locked gate, etc. The next morning we packed up early and left. On the main drag of town, the same truck pull out immediately behind and follows us out of town. Fuck. We pull over to get gas and they pass us. The truck has about 8 guys in it. Hmmm. They kept going while we got gas. Once we were filled up, we went back the opposite way we had come (luckily there was a "T" in town"). Once again, maybe it was in our heads. But it was strange the way they followed us out of town and we had that shitty feeling again. Maybe they were going ahead to set up a road block. Maybe not. The day before, at the water falls, we met and talked to a Mexican family that had been held up at gun point and robbed while they were driving on the main highway. This had happened an hour before we talked to them. If we hadn't driven late at night, we would have covered that same stretch of road about the same time that they got robbed. Wow, we got out of that one. And that thought was going through our heads when those guys pulled out behind us. Do I have proof that we were in danger of being robbed? No. I am a doubter in many things. But that was pretty strange. We high tailed it out of town towards the bigger tourist town of Creel near Copper Canyon, about two hours away. We felt a lot safer there. There is a "stop all non-essential travel" advisory by the US government to the border of Sonora and Chihuahua, the area we were in. Reports of theft, kidnapping, etc. Maybe these warnings exist for a reason. We knew about them beforehand, but went anyway. This was an area I had been talking about seeing for years. A lot of what you hear about danger is fucked and exaggerated and not true, but I guess I believe it for this area of Mexico. While they say it isn't as bad as it was six years ago, it's still rough. Sometimes when people tell you something is unsafe, maybe they are right. Maybe I am just a white, overpriviliged piece of shit who thinks he can go where ever he wants. Decision, action, consequences. Can't escape them all the time. Copper Canyon/Creel was bad ass. We spent about two weeks there. It's at about 8000 feet, so hiking and backpacking was a lot of effort. The bottom of the canyon is about 4000 feet, so there is a 4K elevation change which is pretty tiring, especially if you've been hanging out at sea level all winter. It was very beautiful. Some rock climbing too. So many unclimbed, unknown, untouched faces... But many have loose bands of rock and it's certainly adventure climbing. Much of the good quality cracks through quality stone were very difficult and we didn't want to ruin Sam's wrist by getting on anything difficult too early. We climbed a few days but mostly just hiked and saw the country. Did some cannon balls into the river. Saw some Indian paintings and caves. Saw some ancient irrigation that water lemon, avocado and mango trees down near the bottom of the canyon. This land is old and has been inhabited for great expanses of time. What is my life in the face of this tradition of life? Some of the Tarahumarra Indians here make crafts and sell them. You can buy handmade reed baskets for a dollar and necklaces and bracelets for $.25. It is very sad. Especially when you get mobbed by kids from families that are competing with eachother, trying to bring home money to feed the family. Many Tarahumarra Indians are employed by the local Mexicans in return are given one or two meals a day. No pay, no cash. Some Mexicans give them food and some cash. It's pretty fucked up. I guess a lot of things are. We had a Tarrahumarra guide to take us backpacking and he was a very agreeable and excellent chap. A window into another life, another culture. After two weeks of being in the Copper Canyon area, we headed East to Monterrey. It took us several days to make that stretch. The roads improved. We made it out of the Sierra Made Occidental, across the high plains, to the the Sierra Made Oriental. Monterrey is a big town. Not incredibly nice, but big. Would not call any of it beautiful. But the mountains around it are pretty cool. Our goal was El Potero Chico, a climbing area 20 miles NW of Monterrey. Wanted to come here for a while. Here now. Pretty cool. Big soaring routes. Camping is like $4.50 a night. There is a large pool for the hot days. Lots of hot water and lots of showers/toilets... No waiting in line. Walking distance to the routes. It's pretty dope. Sam hurt his wrist after a few days of climbing. He slipped on an easy climb and caught himself with his wrist. Game ender. He made the difficult decision to let it rest for several months and hopefully rejoin me. Everything that we want to do will irritate his wrist... Pushing on the surf board, climbing and self arresting in mountaineering. It's tough to call it quits on a trip you have imagined and dreamed of for 8 years. Takes guts to make the right choice and let it heal. He is en route to MI. I'm still here in Potero, looking for climbing partners. Been climbing quite a bit. It feels good. People are friendly. It isn't the busy season, but there are still quite a few climbers here. Which is perfect. Who wants to climb with the retard crowds? I plan to spend about a month here. In ten days a friend is flying in to climb for a couple weeks. After that, I plan to head to Mexico City and climb a few 17,000+ volcanos. Should be amazing. I brought crampons and ice axes all this god damn way, I plan to use them! Very excited to get so high in the mountains. ABout then my Mexican visa will expire and I'll have to cross into Guatemala or Belize. I'll probably come back to Mexico to check out the Mayan ruins in the Yucatan, then go surfing in Guatemala. I met a cool guy who lives in Guatemala who I can stay with. Hopefully he'll be able to help set up a rental and a few of you will come down and visit and surf. It will be strange to travel alone again. More intimidating. No back up. Just me. But I did it before in Baja and while my bike seems to have a lot of problems, I feel better about it now than I ever have before. What else can go wrong? Ha. Ha. Ha. But on the other hand, being on my own is making me more social and helping me to meet new people. Last night I sprained three of my toes on a slack line. One of them has turned purple. But if I can get my climbing shoes on, I think I'll be able to climb when the rain stops. You never really use the three little toes while your climbing right? I guess it's just part of being a hardcore slackliner. Right. No. Well, that's about all. Really pumped to be in this place of long routes and word class rock. It's beautiful here and it's my life. Just finished reading my 56th book of the trip (The Road to Wigam Pier by Orwell). Doing the math, I'm reading a book every 4.8 days, which isn't bad when you consider the length of some of them. Right now I'm reading "Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch" by Henry Miller. Started listening to the old Against Me! albums again. And Counterparts and Dead End Path. Started using Instagram (not as bad as using crack I'm sure) to share some of my daily life now that Sam and his Instagram are gone. I guess that's how things stand, or lean, or do whatever it is that they are doing. Send me an update about what you're up to. Sometimes I think of spring in Michigan and feel a little nostalgic. But can't be everywhere at once. Gotta pick one and this is a pretty dope place to be. Sent from my iPad On Dec 31, 2015, at 2:10 PM, jokerloco9@... [DSN_KLR650] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Not being nosey, but I would be kind of curious how much money it cost to make the repair? My thought is that you would have been money ahead by selling\parting out the existing bike, and buying a new or newer bike. Depending on the mileage of your existing bike, plus any other unknown damage to your engine by the monkey working on it, I would think makes the motor a bad choice to spend money on. Thanks, Jeff -----Original Message----- From: 'Russell Scott' russell@... [DSN_KLR650] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> To: DSN_KLR650 DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com>; 'calvin gardner' Sent: Thu, Dec 31, 2015 11:33 am Subject: RE: [DSN_KLR650] Blown engine in Mexico/Yuma Outstanding! [b]From:[/b] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com?] [b]Sent:[/b] Wednesday, December 30, 2015 4:38 PM [b]To:[/b] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com [b]Subject:[/b] Re: [DSN_KLR650] Blown engine in Mexico/Yuma Thank you all for the advice and the services offered. Sorry I haven't gotten back earlier, but things have been busy. I took the advice to call Eagle Mike yeste rday morning. What a great guy. He didn't have a remanned head on hand, but offered to have one ready by the time I could get there. I rented a car and made the 2.5 hour drive. I bought the head and the 685 big bore kit. He had a lot of miscellaneous parts on hand that I needed and was incredibly nice and helpful. I would recommend him to any KLR owner. I got back to Yuma at about 6pm. My friend and I spent until 230am putting the engine back together in our hotel room (shhhhh!). This morning we tightened a few bolts and put the muffler on, filled up the fluids. Rolled it outside and tried to fire it up. For a heart rending second, while it half sputtered, I was worried. But we realized it was only a dead battery. Got a jump and she fired up instantly. Went through the break in period. In our tiredness last night, we had crisscrossed the hoses on the water pump, so it ran hot, but was a quick fix. Runs like a beauty. Rode it the 160+ miles back to Eagle Mikes to get a nother gasket I needed and a doohickey spring (mine was broke). Plan to spend a day or two checking things, gathering up some supplies and will start back down south again. I have never been much into the Internet, which is weird for my generation, but this case has proved it to be very valuable. Thank you very much for the reccomendation and ideas. If there is interest, I'll periodically post updates on my trip. Attached are a couple photos of the damaged head and piston. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Wilsons Sandbox

klr600 & 650 specifications

blown engine in mexico/yuma

blown engine in mexico/yuma

blown engine in mexico/yuma

blown engine in mexico/yuma

blown engine in mexico/yuma

blown engine in mexico/yuma

blown engine in mexico/yuma

blown engine in mexico/yuma

blown engine in mexico/yuma

blown engine in mexico/yuma

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