Posts Tagged ‘motorcyclerides’

Rides Tracked & Recorded

March 27, 2021

Partially true. It was hard for me to remember to record ALL my rides or even a large percentage of them since my main goal was to just get out and ride. That little camera I mentioned in the last post would run out of battery power after a while so some of the rides that I was trying to record didn’t make it to the end. In some of my first videos had the camera set to make 5 minute shots, then switched it to 3 minutes and even some I recorded at 1 minute intervals.

I would then pick one of the better intervals of some rides and post that short video to Youtube. Not really a youtuber like so many are and certainly don’t own the professional equipment it requires to make quality youtube videos but if you want to see what I’ve posted so far this is My youtube channel. Hopefully I’ll get better at it and post more in the very near future. With that said if you want to subscribe and be notified when that happens feel free to do so. 🙂

By the way, “Tracked” was also mentioned in the subject line so yes that is another thing I do on some rides and it doesn’t cost a thing. There are free aps on your phone that can record your route and some are actually geared for motorcycles. The one I use most often is “My Ride”, it was developed by Yamaha Motor Europe. When you start your ride just turn it on and it records not only your route but some other interesting tidbits also.

Occasionally I’ve used “Rever” which seems to be popular with a lot of motorcycle enthusiasts but honestly I prefer the “My Ride” ap. In fact I’ll post a photo of a “Rever” ride I took. The three minute video excerpt in the previous post was a short clip of the ride tracked that day.

Rever has an upgrade option as most free applications do which of course would most likely provide more and better info but for my purposes just sticking to the free version.

Will have to say there are some interesting rides I’ve tracked which I will share with you later. One that is especially interesting is the one recorded on June 14, 2020, day of my accident. Stick around I’ll make a post someday about that entire day since there has been a lot of questions about it.

Until then, remember I’m not an “Old Biker” by definition, just an old man (by birth certificate only) that loves to ride motorcycles. Stay tuned and hit that follow button so you’ll be notified when the next post hits the web. 🙂

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Starting to Ride the Road Star

March 25, 2021

After learning all I could about the bike I really just wanted to get out and ride forever. Started off with a few short rides maybe fifteen to twenty miles each. That was fun but after a few days I needed more. Increased the riding time little by little each day that weather permitted and even some days that weren’t so nice. 🙂

That bike handled great, was a little heavy feeling at first on curves and turns but getting more accustomed to it’s response was fun and exciting when you found the right sweet spot for every situation. Bike had plenty of torque and power but always felt like it could use another gear higher. Was a five speed and would cruise easily at seventy five to eighty miles per hour but sounded as if it had a higher gear would have been better.

Previous owner had installed an after market Kuryakyn 9421 Pro Hypercharger air filter system. When you twisted the throttle that puppy would sing sweet sounds your way. Since I’m a firm believer in proper maintenance, noticed on the invoice where the previous owner had it worked on, they only showed replacing two of the four spark plugs. Yes, it is a V-Twin engine (only two cylinders) but it has two spark plugs for each cylinder. Well just had to check them out and replace all four at once, don’t believe in side stepping part of the job, lets do it all the right way. 🙂

Immediately searched Amazon and found the correct plugs instantly NGK Spark Plug DPR7EA-9- Set of 4. Installing them on the Road Star was a treat for sure, involved removing the gas tank and then using some mechanical skills to pull the plugs from those deep wells in the cylinder head and replacing them. All in all not a hard job just took a few to figure things out and was sure the next time they needed changing would be much easier.

According to the owners manual and the repair manual it recommended changing the oil every four thousand miles at most. Well usually I go a tad overboard. After about three thousand miles figured I needed to try my hand at changing the oil and filter. After all, I had the repair manual with detailed instructions and honestly I’ve always been mechanically inclined so shouldn’t be much of an issue, right? LOL

Really the toughest things about it was finding the correct drain plugs to drain the oil and then getting the oil filter off in such close quarters was more difficult than expected. As with the spark plugs, first time is the hardest so I learn quickly and instead of the normal oil filter I replaced it with a K&N HP filter. K&N Motorcycle Oil Filter: High Performance, Premium and if you notice it has a built in nut on the end which makes it much easier to get on and off in those tight situations.

I’ll just say it here I really like the K&N products for motorcycles, cars, trucks and other equipment they make products for. On top of that Amazon carries quite a few of their part numbers. Check it out …. Other K&N Filters and Products

The Spark Plug change, oil & filter change both happened within a weeks time when the bike had approximately twenty eight thousand plus miles in mid April of 2020.

Hope you stick around for more posts upcoming. Just hit the follow button as we will have more events to tell you about and maybe even some product reviews, some good and some not so good. 🙂

OH, almost forgot, below find some photos of this much talked about bike the Yamaha Road Star XV1700.

  • At Lake Jackson in Florala, Alabama

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