10-16-09
Getting ready to go.

It has been really nice to have some home grown spuds to eat. These are the Youkon Gold variety and they produced OK, but not at good at the red spuds (Caribe?).

I have had the Nevada desert dog in the house most of the summer. It has been nice to have a bike inside. I did move it out into the shed and took its battery out for the winter. I actually take all my batteries out and bring them inside to keep them from freezing if they should happen to become a little discharged. It is really hard on batteries to freeze, which they will in below zero temps, which can sure happen here in the winter.

My friend Raff down in Australia on Kangaroo Island gave me a little piece of kangaroo leather that he had hand tanned. It is incredibly tough stuff and I finally got around to making a new wallet as my old one was getting worn rather thin. Raff showed me the wallet he had made several years ago that had been through the washing machine several times and was still in very good shape. I may not live long enough to wear it out. It was nice to get the Elena sewing machine out for this project. I abuse this machine and other than breaking a few needles (only one this project) it can handle most extreme jobs I ask it to do.

The weather turned very cold and it has sure gotten the attention of everybody. It usually is rather nice this time of year and it was a shock to have this mid winter event happen so early. Days didn’t get over freezing and nights got down to 11 degrees. The thing I didn’t like was it has been just gray and overcast which doesn’t give that welcome solar heat for the doghouse. I have had to have a little electric heater on as the temperature was getting down to 65 in here. Here are the Fat Dog and the new Livernose (ST) ready to go over to Bob’s for a nice winter snooze and refresher service to get them ready for next summer. Yikes! This early winter isn’t nice to them out of their shed.

I was down at the Laundromat doing a major washing and found this coin on the floor. It is a ten KR coin form Norway…… I have taken it as a sign that I have to go over to Norway and probably Europe this coming summer. It is the only way I think I will be able to spend it. It will be fun to see what I can buy with it.

I have been having trouble with my tires on the yellow dog going flat. I plugged this tire when I came back for Colorado in Wyoming. It lasted somewhat until I got home but I had to stop at service stations along the way to keep it aired up. When I got home I dismounted the tire and put a nice radial patch on the inside. That lasted for a while but soon started leaking again. I attribute the patch failure to poor glue. I dismounted it again and patched it again using a new tube of glue and another radial patch. Damn if it didn’t start leaking again so I broke it down again. These tubeless rims have a ridge in the inside that keeps the tire seated on the rim and it is a huge bitch to get it broke down. I carry a little plastic chisel and a four-pound hammer to break the bead and it can be done, but it about wears me out to do it.

This is the easy method I have to bread the bead. This bench and vise must weigh 300 lbs and it would be nice to be able to carry it along with me to change tires out on the road but WOW….

My buddy Mark Weeding told me that he learned a trick down at the Horizonsunlimited meeting in Colorado this summer. He said that the guys are filing down that ridge for about 9 inches on both sides of the rim, opposite the valve stem.

After having to deal with this damn rim so many times I decided to modify the rim and see how well it works. Ahhh, how wonderful little modifications can be. I ended up doing both front and rear rims. After I had seated the tire I let the air out and took my little chisel and gave it a tap with my hammer and Presto!! Life is good……….. J Many smiles.   Oh, I ended up putting a tube in that damn leaking tire so I shouldn’t have any more problems with it, but if I do, I think I can do it right along side the road and not have to take it off and hitch a ride someplace with it to get it fixed.

One thing I am going to have to carry is a little hydraulic bottle jack as that is the only way I can get the tires off the ground when I have the sidecar attached. Oh, and I need to find several rocks to chock the other two tires or it spins off the jack. Steep learning curve here in spots.

I went over and picked up my Bloodhound that I had over at Bob’s Motor Werks for him to do a complete service on. It had been about 15K miles on it since the last service and I always take my bikes over to Bob to have a service done. Most of the service is not that difficult and I am able to do it, but I don’t trust myself to not make small mistakes and I know Bob sees things I would miss. This time the service was a reminder how fortunate I am to have Bob doing my service. Bob caught the fact that the coil on the bike was about to go south, and when I mean ‘south’ I don’t mean down to Arizona or Mexico. He tests stuff as he goes along and found that the coil had unlimited resistance when it should have about 8K resistance. I would never have tested the coil and that is the type of thing that can leave me with a dead dog along the road some place where it would be next to impossible to get it fixed or even to find the problem. He also found that the throttle gears were about to fail too. It is fortunate that I had a spare throttle that I had in my parts pile. That throttle breaking down in the Sonoran desert would have been another head scratcher to get it rigged up to get the bike out of there and home.  I really like having the bike looked at all over and I now feel that I can take the bike anywhere and not be worried about something serious happening mechanically. I love this little Bloodhound and it seems to like me too. I have it set up with a medium size windshield that gives me good protection in spring, fall here and Arizona winters. I have a set of small soft panniers that I tie on the back as well as my camp bag on top. I carry my bike cover, drink bottles, oil and some snack food in the tank panniers. The tank panniers protect my knees and legs and give me that extra measure of protection.

The Bloodhound is just itch’n to get down to the desert and have some fun. My buddy Charlie came up and helped me put the sidecar in the back of the pickup after unbolting it from the Yellow Dog. I ran the yellow one up the ramp and got it strapped down next to the Bloodhound. T’hey sure do look nice together, to serious dogs headed south for some warm winter sun.

I got every thing hooked up and am just finishing loading the last of the essentials into the pod. I will charge out of here in the morning.