Archive | Travel RSS feed for this section

Bad Gas

2 Jun

Problemas? Head to Llantera San Borjas in El Rosario.

There’s a nice, busy Pemex station as you enter El Rosario from the north. This is an important gas stop in Baja, as the next Pemex station isn’t for another 200 miles. There’s gas by the can midway, at Catavina, and more in Punta Prieta, although the latter is difficult to find, but those only have “magna sin” (unleaded regular), and the Pemex in El Rosario has premium.

Most are reluctant to get gas from the can. I’ve filled up in pueblas, fishing villages, and everywhere else they’ll sell you gas from the can, and have not had a problem once. I can’t say the same for the Pemex in El Rosario.

Gas from the can. Fishing village Laguna de San Ignacio. Magna sin only.

Less than a mile after filling up on Premium, while still in second gear to avoid getting a ticket in town, the DR started sputtering, then died. It would start, but sputter and die in seconds. It had to be the gas. What else could explain this? Turn around in the direction of the gas station. Start pushing.

After a 100 yards or so I get to the Llantera San Borjas, owned by a guy from LA, which was fortuitous, as I can speak some Spanish, but not enough come breakdown time. We talked it over and decided it was the gas, of course. They figured I hadn’t watched closely enough and filled up on regular instead of premium. I was quite sure I got premium. Regardless, we decided to drain most of the gas and refill. This went for my extra gallon loaded in a bag on my tail rack.

With much gas drained and the tank nearly empty I tried starting the bike hoping I could get it to sputter enough to make it to the gas station and save the boys a trip with the gas can. The DR started, and ran. And ran and ran. I made it to the Pemex without a stutter.

The answer had arrived. Whatever was bad about the gas was at the bottom of the tank. Which means it was water. There was water in the gas.

I pulled up to a different island for a completely different pump, loaded up on premium, again, and was on my way. No problema.

In Catavina I filled the DR up with regular for the first time. She ran fine. And for the next 1,500 miles or so I filled up mostly on regular, as that’s all that was available. Not a stutter.

Next time I won’t drain as much gas. There was probably less than a cup of water in the tank. Also, if you’ve never drained your gas, you need to put the petcock in the Prime position, otherwise it won’t drain.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Parking, Getting On and Getting Off

2 Jun

From this angle you can probably figure out the challenges of parking, mounting and dismounting.

You may recall that I shortened the kickstand about 1/2″ as the DR650 not only stands too straight up, but it has a soft suspension, so when weighted with the suspension compressed it stands even more straight. Shortening the kickstand increased the lean to the left, keeping the bike from teetering and making mounting and dismounting easier.

Easier may not be the right word. Possible is more like it.

In this shot you can start to see a few of the challenges – the narrow sitting space (not as big of a problem as it seems here), the rear luggage preventing me from mounting the bike by swinging a leg over the rear, and the surfboard further limiting mounting space. What you can’t see is that with the weight of the baggage, the bike is near teetering, so I always had to find parking that sloped slightly downhill to the left, to add lean.

Parked on the right ground, mounting and dismounting can begin. See that duct tape on the seat? That’s not a repair. It’s there to prevent scratching or tearing. To mount, I needed to lift my (heavily booted) right leg onto the seat, then slide it down into the space between the surfboard and the bike, aiming to plant my foot on the ground. I needed to do this in one smooth motion, because as I slipped onto the bike the bike would move more upright, the suspension would compress more, and momentum would push the lean to the right side, so my foot had to get planted quickly. So it was a 2-step deal: Lift right boot onto seat, then slip over and plant right foot solidly on the ground.

(One time I found myself without a landing place for my right foot. I was at the Oasis Motel in Loreto and had parked on the walkway in front of my room, which was narrow and raised, so there was a drop-off where my right foot was to land. Narrowly saved! Had I failed, everything would have toppled onto my surfboard and rack, and that’s for another post.)

Dismounting was just as strange, perhaps stranger. First, stand on pegs, weighting on the left. Second, lift right boot up and onto the seat, so I was now standing with one foot on the left peg and the other on the seat. Third, pull right boot up off the seat and onto the ground. Remove left foot. Why not one smooth motion? The distance between the pegs and the seat combined with the bulk of a solid off-road boot (Moose Racing M1 boot – great value for an excellent, heavy-duty boot) made it near impossible to complete that move in one step without dragging the boot across the seat, risking tears from the boot sole. Also, this was a good test of the stability of the parking spot.

Sounds like a lot of work, and it was at first, but you get the hang of it. The toughest part was the first time I did it, which was when I pulled the fully-loaded bike out of my garage into the alley and fired her up for the trip. No practice run, so I wasn’t even sure if I could get on and off the bike! I was already sweating as I pulled away. The adventure started right then and there.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Final weigh-in before the event

7 Mar

If you’ve been reading this you’ve seen that I’m keeping track of weight gains and losses on the bike. With all the extra parts for protection and lugging, I would like to net out at a zero weight gain to the bike by replacing parts with lighter versions (e.g., exhaust pipe) and just tossing unneeded parts, like passenger pegs. The big things I could weigh individually, but the little stuff just got thrown into a bag to weigh later, like today. So here’s the bag ‘o junk – old turn signals, bar-end weights, passenger pegs, upper chain roller, piece off the clutch lever, etc. – and the weight savings, 5 pounds. As of the February 23 post the bike had gained 1 pound. Not bad considering the tail rack, surf racks, skid plate, luggage rack, etc. But with this savings we were at a 4 pound loss, but.

The DBz Flat Top Duffle tail bag came in today; that’s another 2 pounds. (The DBz stuff is really light.) And I finally weighed the magnetic (heavy) tank bag I already had (and had never used because my Ducatis have either plastic or aluminum tanks); 5 pounds! So the 4 pound loss has turned into a 3 pound gain, and there’s not much more I can do without spending a lot of money, as in hundreds per pound. Better to lose some weight myself!

Tags: , , , ,

Test Run

6 Mar

I loaded up a 6’8″ in a canvas Julie Bag for a test ride. I cruised on up the the newly opened Deus Ex Machina on Venice and Lincoln to show the crew there what they had helped inspire. (There was an article on Deus in The Surfers Journal that showed one of their surf rack modified bikes.) I was surprised at the reaction. The moment I pulled up they all piled out to check it out. I showed them around the bike, making lame excuses for my prototype PVC mount for the front, but they seemed pretty stoked. They took some photos. Much better than this one of the DR back in my little garage, board in rack. How did it work. Excellent-ly. 😉

Yes, bad photo. But this isn't the right board bag, so the good shots will come later. You can see the PVC poking out under the nose. That's been painted black. The bungie up front attached to a tie wrap that goes through a small but convenient hole in the frame behind the triple clamp.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Board Support Up Front

6 Mar

A big concern has been how to support the front of the board and to keep it from hitting the front wheel or fender when turning, and to make sure it doesn’t get caught on the front brake cable. Since the racks are on the rear, they are only holding the back third of the surfboard, so wind and bumps will cause the front of the board to move around. Probably a lot. The DR650es has an oil cooler with a frame extension for protection. It’s a perfect place to mount some sort of stabilizer. For now, and maybe forever, I cobbled together a support piece out of PVC. Here’s the piece for mounting to the frame.

What's difficult to see here is how I cut the PVC to mount onto the frame tube.

Yes, working at night. I ended up putting a piece of neoprene between the PVC and the frame tube to keep the PVC from cracking and to give some shock absorption. Hose clamps are used to secure.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Surf Racks Mounted

6 Mar

Mounting the Carver surf rack to the Manracks tail rack was almost straightforward. As you can see in this pic, one bolt looks different from the other. The Carver rack mounting bolts are LONG, and would drill into the fender, so I replaced the left side bolt with a shorter one, about 3″. Not seen here is that I put a third bolt in the center. That one is even shorter. It’s a solid mount.

You can see that the Carver surf racks clear the DBz luggage racks nicely. That was a relief.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Carver Surf Racks

6 Mar

OK, down to the good stuff: Surf racks on a motorcycle. I checked Deus Ex Machina rack, but you can’t buy it without buying the motorcycle attached to it, and at this point they’re only doing street bikes. I also checked out the Surfer Peg rack, but again, it’s street oriented, and needs to attach to the frame. That’s not inherently bad, but it would require fabrication that I’m not quite interested in. Primarily, though, it’s the street focus that steered me away. I settled on the Carver Racks, even though they’re not for motorcycles – bicycles and scooters, but not motorcycles. What I liked, though, is that it could be bolted to the rear rack.

When putting the racks together I encountered a small problem: The rubber tubes were too long, so the pieces wouldn’t fit together without a bit of cutting. I called the guys at Carver in Hawaii. They were a bit surprised, but were good with the mod.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Case Savers

5 Mar

A slow-speed fall could spell disaster if the brake pedal or shifter gets driven into the engine case. And it happens all the time. So adding case savers is a must. I checked out the case guards at Procycle. They’re $80 and made of stainless steel. Then I found the aluminum (translation: lighter) guards at Motorcycleproducts for $60. Lighter on the bike and wallet too.

Easiest things in the world to install, once you find the right adhesive. The instructions ask for “RTF” adhesive. Went to the local hardware store, OSH, but they never heard of it. Went to Home Depot, same deal. But after scouring the aisle I found this (below). As it turns out, it’s basic silicon seal.

After finding the right stuff it’s easy. Clean the guards with 409 to remove all dirt or finger oils, and spread the silicon seal.

Press the guards to the cases and tape to hold in place.

After letting the silicon seal set for a day I added a bead around the edges to keep dirt from getting inside.

UPDATE: The installation went well, and after riding over 2,500 miles in Baja, most of that in desert temperatures well over 100, I’ve seen no problems. The news is that ProCycle now has installation instructions on their site. Not much different than these, but they like the red silicon. Check it out here.

Tags: , , , , ,

The Surfer’s Guide to Baja – New Edition

2 Mar

The new, 4th edition of The Surfer’s Guide to Baja is finally back in print. It’s been out of print for nearly a year while the update for the 4th edition has been under way. Available at core surf shops everywhere, or it can be ordered direct from Amazon, Createspace and other online vendors.

UPDATE: The Kindle version now available too…here.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Big Day – Rack Arrived

23 Feb

Tail rack from Manracks. The foundation for attaching the surfboard racks, as well as a place for luggage, probably the largest bag (the DBz Flat Top Duffle).

Big day, because the tail rack is the key component needed to getting this SurfMoto thing going. The surf racks bolt to it, and once the surf racks are on I need to make sure the DBz side luggage racks fit along with the new pipe. All good stuff; it’ll work out. This is the ManRacks rack. It weights 1.5#, so with the savings from the DG pipe With everything installed I’m currently at a net weight savings of 6#. BUT, I haven’t installed the surf rack, and that weighs 7#, so that puts it at a 1# gain…until the hand guards and luggage arrives. I can remove the foot pegs, for maybe a pound or so, but there’s not many more places to cut weight. Except from my own body.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →