back from alaska - part 1

[Tom Myers]

>my friend has a 110/100-18 rear tire on his xr250l. what do the dimensions >mean? can he put a 120/90-18 pirelli mt21 on there without a problem? >(that's the closest pirelli seems to have...) lookin for a good dual-sport

I vote YES! The 120 is only 5 mm wider (per side) than the 110. Tom -- +---------------------------------------------+ | CycoActive Products | 701 34th Ave | Seattle, WA 98122 USA | | Design/Manufacture of Motorcycling Accessories | Products website: http://www.cycoactive.com/mc | e-mail: moto@... | tel (206) 323-2349 fax (206) 325-6016 | trail tips website: http://www.cycoactive.com/mc/trail_tips +---------------------------------------------+

[Steven van Twuyver]

Hi I'm back, It's been a long strange trip! 8500 miles, lots of problems, day after day of rain and snow and cold. I had to cut it short after barely getting into Alaska. For the first time in 40 years there was snow on the Tok Highway in August! My KLR is not snowmobile and my Gortex over mittens had completely disintegrated. I left from San Diego for a campout with friends just 2 hours away. That short leg fried my GPS which continued to display stuff but would no longer acquire any satellites. The next day to the Bay area was relatively uneventful except the temperatures hit 117F and I made a few wrong turns to make a planned 500 mile day more than 600. I spent a layover day in Pleasanton and went to downtown San Francisco and saw my first 3D movie on largest IMAX theater in this country. Way cool! My inexpensive hard-wired digital voltmeter made by Whistler had been indicating 12.3v with a new "high output" Electrex stator and regulator. I chose to ignore this vital information since I never trusted its accuracy because it often showed over 14.5v with the stock stator and regulator. I suspected the meter must be temperature sensitive and discounted its accuracy because it was so hot! The next day I got up early and gassed up 60 miles away from Pleasanton, CA and about 650 miles from home. It's 8:00am and the battery is totally dead. Attempts at push starting failed. The bike was so grossly loaded that I could not push it myself - I needed help. But no dice. Fortunately, I pooped out at a real service station and was able to get a battery charge. With headlight disconnected , I limped back to my friend's house and spent the rest of the day installing the stock stator. The Electrex stator comes with no verifiable test data and I totally bought into the hype - it is without a doubt an expensive piece of shit. I lost a day in the heat putting the stock stator back. The stock stator and regulator worked fine the rest of the trip. The metal guide that internally routes the stator wires also disintigrated and could have caused serious problems but the magnet in the rotor caught the bits of metal. This bracket failure was caused by a less than perfect fit of the Electrex stator and tension from the stator wires, which I believe caused the metal fatigue where it is screwed into the case. Mind you I soldered all the connections and was totally anal about installing the stator. Finally back on the road. I drove leisurely up the coast on Rt.. 1. In Oregon I lubed my chain and noticed my master link clip was missing. I had a spare and avoided catastrophe. I covered 1900 miles from San Diego to Seattle for which Yahoo calculated 1334 and I was now 4 days behind "schedule". My plan was to buy a new tire in Seattle to be as prepare as possible for the tire eating dirt road to Inuvik. I had good information that Renton Motorsports had Avon Gripsters in stock. Surprise! They never heard of this tire. To their credit, they called at least 6 other dealers none of which had any dual sport tires. I called TourTech BMW and they did have one in stock, but couldn't install it for till Wednesday - it was I Friday and I back-tracked 100 miles to get this tire. I decided to take the Professor up on his offer to help mount the tire. I strapped the tire on top of the Leaning Tower of Pizza and left TourTech happily after dropping $142 for the Gripster. Even BMW's aftermarket stuff goes for legendary prices. It took Prof. Jim and I about 6 hours to install that tire which did not want to seat using our feeble air pumps. A automobile tire store finally helped out and it took them a bunch of tries. I owe Jim a big debt of gratitude. Now it's 8:00pm and still daylight. I thought I could make it to the Canadian border just 120 miles away, but the heat had sucked the energy out of me and after about 30 miles I stopped in a cheap motel. The next 1500 miles went without incident and the weather cooperated. I took the Cassiar Highway and saw at least 6 black bears, one of which had just been killed by a truck. It is an awesome stretch of road. I should have stopped in Hyder, AK but I was in too much of a rush to make up for lost time. The temperature started dropping and 50F felt cold. I finally put on the heated vest and used it sparingly. In Whitehorse, Canada, I needed to adjust my chain and noticed I lost the drive side chain adjuster. The tensioner screw had gotten bent as it sheared by the rear sprocket. Knowing this specialized part would be unavailable, using a Crescent wrench as a hammer, I straightened the screw. I swapped the left side with the drive side and replaced the non-drive side with a couple of large washers and plugged the swingarm with silicon - all purchased at Canadian Tire. I also used nylock nuts to prevent further failure. I believe everyone should switch to nylocks nuts - the stock locking system is arcane. That's it for now. More to come. Steven van Twuyver 98 KLR - San Diego, CA -svt-