It was unbelievable there, and looked more beautiful than anything can. The sky alone was perfect. Here’s an example as we approached the North rim:

This will be updated as time allows!

More pics are in my Flickr album.

The leather “wiper” on the index finger of my left glove was no longer wiping my face shield clean. Admittedly I was making some pretty weak wipe-attemps, as every time I removed my hand from the heated grip, my fingertips went instantly from stinging cold to aching cold. I could see a hazy red dot ahead of me – either Dad’s KLR650 taillight, or the mouth of Hell – and where my shield wasn’t totally fogged, I could see snow pouring down.  Illuminated as it was by 200 watts of twin PIAA 910s, and coming at me at roughly 60 miles an hour, the blur of flakes made it look like I was entering light speed in the Millennium Falcon. I bet Han Solo’s hands never hurt this bad.

After the 300th time trying to clear my face shield, it hit me: I can’t get this water off, because it isn’t water anymore. My shield has frozen over. Oh hell, my GLOVE has frozen over.

My life was about to end at 9,000 feet, crossing the frozen Sierras, and my Dad was going to have to explain to my Mom and Incredibly Understanding Wife that I had ridden bravely, but ultimately not quickly enough to clear the Sonora pass before the storm came and froze my arms and legs off, leaving my torso to balance precariously on a rock-hard, freezing cold Sargent saddle, and my bike then careened into the woods behind Strawberry.

I needed some dry clothes, a hot shower, and an evening with a beautiful woman. I made do by thawing my gloves on the jutting cylinders of the GS as I pounded a slushy Red Bull.  After four straight days of riding, and in blistering cold, I wasn’t sure that that Red Bull was going to be enough to get me home.

When we left, I knew there was a risk that we wouldn’t make it back by Tuesday.  On that last day, I was confronted wit the possibility that if the weather got worse, or I stopped paying attention, I might not make it back at all…

What had started as a four day pleasure cruise with Dad had become a full-on race against time. We had decided that we’d “try to make it to the Grand Canyon,” but if we saw that we were not going to be able to do it, we’d just turn around after two days and head back. Yeah. Like that’s gonna happen.

Dad and I had managed to get Friday and Monday off, making a nice long weekend for a fun fall trip. Maybe a little camping, maybe a little dirt, maybe see some sights and explore. Then we both realized we had explored everything nearby. And everything that was near that, too. If we were going to go anywhere, we were going to have to really GO somewhere. In four days. With the first good winter storm of the season coming in from the North.

So, South it was. Baja seems cool, but I had never seen Zion National Park, and neither of us had seen the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. How far can it be? We have FOUR WHOLE DAYS. That’s a lot, right?

Well, it was nearly enough. So we cheated and left our jobs at 3:00 on Thursday to get a head start and beat the traffic out of the Bay Area.

Keep checking sundaybender.com for more updates here – you have to read the part about the Clown Motel. We stayed there. It’s for real. And it is worth a visit…

Five days, ~1,671 miles
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Day one – 226 miles

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Day two – 471 miles

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Day three – ~ 121 miles

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Day four – 449 miles

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Day five – 404 miles

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Why, you ask? (Do it, ask.)

Because she got on the back of the GS, and let me pilot her from La Honda out to the coast, down to Pescadero for a sandwich (which was awesome and a half, by the way) and down Pescadero Creek road back to our house.

For non-natives, imagine the second half of the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland. We basically did that, but on a bike. With no abominable snowman or whatever.

She’s awesome! She waved to fellow bikers, she leaned into turns, she made me laugh inside my silly looking helmet. F-ing amazing. I didn’t even crash! Come on!!

Next up – Chile. Or maybe Mexico. Or maybe Woodside.

Check her out! Sweet BMW jacket, huh? I am jealous. I may have to remedy that soon…

Seems that Gazo’s creek road turns dirty and leads to a secondary entrace to Butano state park. Nothing too challenging, just a good old dirt road, with a couple of sections that were “paved” way back when, but have over time been reduced to gravel and chunks.

Shiny new R1150GS and lack of dirt riding experience be damned – I was gonne give ‘er a try.

The bike was impressive. More impressive than I was, to be sure. That said, we made it 5.9 miles up and 5.9 miles down without incident, ABS-ing along the way, and bouncing around a bit because I forgot to lower the pressures in my Tourances to a more dirt-friendly level.

Kevict and the KLR went bounding up and down without issue, as expected from a veteran dirt guy and a “real” dirtbike, and I impressed the hell out of myself by puttering up and down without scaring the life out of myself even once. A little clutchwork, some balance, juducious braking and looking far ahead served me very well… Hm, sounds almost like track riding to me…

I don’t think I have ever had more fun going eight miles an hour. I am addicted. This GS is amazing. The KLR is amazing. Touring is awesome. I had no idea. I can’t wait to actually go somewhere! I wonder how much a good GPS costs? What about knobbies? Do I have a tent? How much vacation time have I accrued? how many clif bars fit into the side cases luggage?

Oh man. Trouble.

As I tend to do, I have recently become preoccupied by the idea of a new BMW. This time however, the manifestation of my longing has only two wheels instead of four. I don’t know how it happened, but I decided that I’d really like to take the Incredibly Understanding Wife around on the back of a motorcycle and see this fine nation. Or at least, this fine area very close by our house. Or maybe I would just commute to work on it by myself. I dunno, something. Whatever. It was a romantic notion.

If I was going to force the IUW onto the back of a bike, It couldn’t be the torturous pillion accommodations afforded by my track-prepped SV1000s. I needed something more grand. More luxurious. More appealing. More German.

An K1200RT would be the right bike for sure. Knowing that, I decided to become preoccupied with an R1150GS instead. Tall, rugged, strong, black… it’s everything I wish I was. I began dreaming about it, and what started as Internet research snowballed almost overnight into full-fledged obsession.

The IUW, seeing my compulsive buying behaviors begining to surface, tried to nip this whole process in the proverbial bud.

“Honey, we can’t get one.”

“Of course not, I know.” I reply as I surf craigslist and email a seller to ask for more detailed pics, “It’s dumb.”

“Seriously, honey, we can’t afford that.” the IUW, now clearly vexed, strains to see the laptop screen.

“I’m not gonna buy it. But check it out – Ohlins shocks front and rear! And full luggage! This is really a deal!”

“We’re not buying one, honey. We can’t.”

“I know. We’re not.”

“Okay, I hear your words, but it feels like we are buying one. You just emailed the seller!

“That’s just because I am curious. Because even though we aren’t buying one, I might, you know, have to buy this one.”

“You need to stop looking. Are those heated grips?”

“I am not looking. Yes, they are heated grips! Holy crap this thing is awesome!” I reply, and then I email a dealer to ask when I can test ride the perfect bike I have just found.

The dealer says Tuesday. I say perfect. I email on Tuesday to confirm, and the bike has sold. I weep. Just a little. Like a man, though. A rugged, tall weeping. The dealer says that another bike, very much like the one I am pining for, the one I never even saw or touched but that had somehow become part of my very soul, the one whose sale severed the only link I had to true bliss and eternal enlightenment, the dealer said another bike like it would be coming into his shop in just two weeks. This other bike belonged to a regular customer whom this dealer knows well and trusts and who takes good care of his bikes. Would I like first right of refusal on that similar bike?

My heart skipped, my stomach leapt to my throat. Could it be? Could fate be so clearly forcing me to buy an R1150GS? Even when the one I need so badly has sold and left me hopeless and gasping for breath, another emerges on the distant horizon, staring mistily at me, pawing the ground gently and tossing its wild mane as the rising sun glints off its dewy sweat-soaked coat. I cannot argue with destiny. I agree.

And then it’s my birthday. The IUW gets me a little box, wrapped beautifully. In it, another box. In that box, another, like a series of Russian dolls, each tightly packed inside the other and gaily decorated.

And in the last box, a funny-shaped key.

Thanks entirely to the IUW, Kevict, my mom, and a very clever salesman from BMW of Santa Cruz ,there, outside of my folks’ house (only recently PUSHED to that place of rest by Kevict himself, who had sneaked away under the guise of visiting his own parents who live nearby and fetched said bike, whose key was wrapped and waiting for me to find it and thus he bike was not able to move under its own power) was the R1150GS. The very one that had sold the day before I was able to see it. The very lifeblood that I thought had been sapped from me! It was there in my parents’ driveway, magnificent and regal, big and scary, clean as the proverbial whistle and as real as the nose on my extremely surprised and seriously confused face.

When the dealer told me the bike had sold, I never once thought it might have sold to Kevict and Megan, my IUW, who bought it for me. And unbeknownst to them I had been trying to buy it for myself, nearly ruining the surprise. What a heel! What a fool! What a lucky lucky sonofabitch!

They did it all without my even beginning to know anything was afoot. I have never been more surprised. I really am the luckiest boy ever, to have people who care about me so much.

It’s better than I ever imagined. And look – Ohlins shocks front and rear!

Installing an upside down fork and radial calipers on a 2006 SV1000s is something many owners are interested in doing. Having just completed this swap myself, I can say with complete assurance that the actual work is quite simple, providing you start with the correct parts and tools.

I have read a lot of different processes for swapping a late-model GSX-R fork onto a SV1000, but most of those seem to contain misleading or inaccurate information. When I decided to do this swap for myself, I decided to write a clear (albeit a bit long) process, with a clear parts list, based on my recent ‘05 GSX-R 600 fork and caliper swap. I apologize for the length, but I hope it will serve others looking to do this same swap.

Materials:

Starting with a fork and brakes from a 2004-2005 GSXR 600 seemed to me to be the easiest route, because many SV parts could be re-used.

Here is the complete list of parts I used for the swap. If it isn’t listed, you don’t need to buy it. The reasoning behind each part is included where needed.

• 2005GSXR 600 fork
• 2005GSXR 600 radial calipers
• 2005GSXR 600 upper and lower triples
• Speed Research carbon fender fender
  A stock GSXR 600 fender would, of course, work as well but the SV fender won’t work with the new fork.
• Custom machined spacers to fit the GSXR calipers to the SV rotors
  The calipers were designed to work with 300mm rotors. The brakes on the SV 1000 are 310mm.

  Dimensions:
  Outer diameter: 24mm
  Inner diameter: 10mm
  Thickness: 5mm
  Cost: 60 dollars for 4 at local machine shop. I am sure I could have got these cheaper, but I wanted them done the next day, and 60 bucks is cheap compared to a new front wheel and rotors.

• LSL “offset match” 50mm clip-ons with a 1.5 inch rise, and LSL bar ends
  The stock clip-ons will not fit around the larger fork tubes, and stock GSXR clip-ons do not preserve the comfortable riding position of the SV, and leave very little room (read: not enough) between the stock fairing and the grips.
• Race Tech springs
  I weigh 175 lbs with no gear, and the SV weighs at least 40 pounds more than the GSXR 600. The added weight of the bike alone necessitates a stiffer spring to get the intended performance out of the fork. The stock GSXR 600 springs are around .85s). I factored the extra weight of my bike in to the Race Tech spring rate calculator (i.e., 175+40 = 215 lbs “rider weight”) to figure the correct rate. Plus, the stock spring rate on the SV is .98 anyhow, and it was sprung pretty well for me, just not damped well enough.
• Redline synthetic fork oil
  Lightweight/Medium cocktail mixed 65/35 to achieve about 6.5w
• A new left grip
  I bought a new one so I could cut the old one off rather than wrestling with it and fighting grip glue.
• Some small strips of rubber
  From a bicycle tire inner tube, for example (see process below).

Time:

• Budget one weekend day. I spent about 6 hours, including cleaning and bleeding the brakes, re-springing and oiling the fork, etc.

Difficulty (one bleeding knuckle to five bleeding knuckles):

• Two bleeding knuckles for just the swap, three bleeding knuckles if you re-spring the fork. This ain’t rocket science.

Process:

1. Re-spring and oil the GSXR fork.
   You will need a fork spring compression tool, such as this one sold by Traxxion Dynamics. The tool comes with excellent instructions. Follow them, and take your time. I added 6.5 weight oil to a height of 115mm. This is the hardest part of the job. When you are done, take a break and have a beverage.
2. Raise the bike with a front stand, and support.
   I used jack stands on cinder blocks to support the innermost part of the frame sliders.
3. Remove the fairing.
4. Remove the ignition assembly (held on with loctited 40mm security torx bolts).
   I bought a security torx bit for a ratchet at an auto parts store.
5. Remove old forks, clamps, and clip-ons.
6. Remove the controls from the old clip-ons, and tie/hang them aside with stiff wire or zip ties
7. Remove the brake lines from the SV calipers, and get brake fluid everywhere.
8. Clean up the brake fluid mess.
9. Remove, clean and grease the old bearings, then re-use them.
   The Stock GSXR 600 bearings can be used if you prefer, they are the same.
10. Install the GSXR fork, triples, and new clip-ons.
    I ran the tops of the fork caps flush with the top triple, for maximum length.
11. Install the ignition assembly into the new triple clamp.
    Note that it fits perfectly, and the steering lock works just fine.
12. Install the controls, grips, and end caps onto the clip-ons.
    The starter and turn signal assemblies have plastic locator pins which seat in a matching hold drilled into the clip-ons. Rather than jigging and drilling the clip-ons, I dremel-ed off the locator pins, and used a very thin strip of rubber between the assemblies and the bars to prevent them spinning when installed. Works fine.
    I bent and re-used the brake fluid reservoir bracket by mounting it to the LSL clip-on bolt.
13. Install the GXSR Fender onto the fork.
14. Install the SV wheel with SV axle.
15. Attach the brake lines to the new calipers.
16. Attach the calipers to the forks, with the spacer mentioned above.
17. Remove the bike form the supports using the front stand.
18. Bleed the brakes.
19. Replace the fairing.
20. Take a picture and have a beer.

That’s a lot of steps, and many are simplified, but aside from re-springing and oiling the fork, there is really nothing tricky about it.

To remedy this, I chose a single pipe conversion from Yoshimura. The system is not available on the Yoshimura website, but can pretty easily be found by searching for yoshimura 3/4 system SV1000S in Google. I went with a carbon can because the look complements my bike, and because I plan on outfitting the bike with other choice carbon bits as soon as they are available from Speed Research. Neat.

Internet wisdom says the installation can be difficult, as apparently the slip fit onto the header pipes is sometimes very tight. I had absolutely no issues with this. See below for more details.

Yoshimura 3/4 system install

(or, how to lose 11 pounds in 35 minutes)

Installation of the 3/4 systems is pretty straightforward, and the instructions included with the package were pretty good. Below is my experience with this very easy project. I didn’t take many pictures of the process as all bolts are very easy to find, and there wasn’t much trickery involved.

Materials required:

• Loctite for reinstallation of all bolts and fasteners
• 12″ extension (or similar) for your ratchet preferably with “wobbly” u-joint
• A breaker bar/extension that can be used with a 10mm allen wrench (or a 10mm allen socket for a long-handled ratchet)
• The kit from Yoshimura should include a an M8 nut for the back of the chassis mount for the new pipes. If it didn’t, don’t panic, you will have plenty of them from all the crap you take off during the install.

Time:

• I spent about 35 minutes actually working. I probably spent another hour BS-ing, weighing parts, and taking pictures.

Difficulty (one bleeding knuckle to five bleeding knuckles):

• One bleeding knuckle – seriously kids, this one’s WAY easy

Process:

1. Raise the rear of the bike on a stand. This is not optional, as you have to remove the sidestand to get the stock midsection off the bike.
2. Remove the belly fairing/chin spoiler/shovel. Just pop out the four bolts, and the gently stretch the sides of the chin spoiler outwards to pop it free of the mounting bosses on the frame.
3. Remove the bolts holding the mufflers to the passenger pegs. (If your kit didn’t come with one M8 nut, or you bought the system used and didn’t get one, hang on to a washer and the nut from the passenger peg muffler bolt. You’ll need it later.)
4. Optional: Remove the mufflers from the pipework (4 VERY WELL LOC-TITED nuts each side) or remove the passenger pegs for clearance. I removed the pegs cause they were easier to get to, and easier to wrench off.
5. Remove the two 10mm cap head bolts that affix the sidestand to the frame. These bolts are on tight. I had to use a 10″ breaker bar on my 10mm allen key to get the bolts to budge.

   Note: Removing the sidestand is NOT explicitly called for in the Yoshimura instructions, but the post for the sidestand spring definitely prohibits the removal of the stock pipework.

6. Loosen the pipe clamp at the front header-midpipe junction. Piece of cake.
7. Loosen the pipe clamp at the rear header-midpipe junction. Pain in the ass. If you are lucky, the adjuster bolt will be aimed such that you can get an extension on it by coming in from the right side of the bike (the brake side, not the chain side) just behind the heelguard on a stock footpeg assembly. I got it from there with a 12″ extension on a 3/8″ ratchet. A wobbly (u-joint) on the extension would have made this easier, but it is not necessary.
8. Loosen, but do not remove, the two bolts holding the midesction to the frame on either side.
9. With the pipe claps loose, remove the 2 loc-tited bolts that hold the front header flange to the front cylinder head. The flange will slide down the header. Clang it around it to make annoying sounds. I did.
10. Pull the front header pipe out of the cylinder head, and then twist and pull to remove it from the midsection.
11. Brace the whole exhaust system (or have a buddy hold it) and now fully remove the bolts that hold teh midsection to the frame. The incredibly massive weight (26.2 pounds baby!) of the system means as soon as you remove those bolts, it slides right off the rear header towards the floor.

    Check those pipes out! They are flattened and smashed, and likely as restrictive as a catholic schoolmarm. That can’t be good for performance. Plus, that whole assembly weighs more than a warehouse-store-sized bag of dog food. Sweet. Note also the removed sidestand assembly and front header pipe in the first pic below.

    Also have a look at how narrow the bike is without all those mufflers everywhere. That’s a big reason why V-twins are so cool. After swapping for this new system, you will be better able to take advantage of that narrowness with improved flickabilty and lean angle. Be excited.

12. Position the new clamps onto the fancy new (and incredibly light) midsection, such that you can get a wrench on them when they are installed on the bike. Use your head here. It will save you time later.
13. Slide the midsection up onto the rear header pipe (mine slid on with nearly no effort) and hold it in place while you loosely install the bolt to hold the midsection to the right side of the frame.
14. slide the front header pipe into the midsection (again, mine slid right in) and then pop the other end of the header into the cylinder head and loosely tighten the flange bolts to hold it in place.
15. With all fasteners still loose, wiggle and jiggle the midsection until you have it as snug and close as you feel is right. Tighten down the frame bolt, and then the front and rear header clamps.
16. Slide the muffler clamp over the midsection, taking care to orient it such that you can get to the adjuster once the muffler is on.

    Note: The muffler clamp will eventually need to be tightened A LOT. There will be a lot of threaded post exposed, and if you have it pointing directly at the swingarm, it will scrape when the swingarm moves. If you have it pointing directly away from the swingarm, it will look silly and potentially scrape YOU when you are getting on and off the bike.

17. Slide the muffler over the midsection, slide the outer bracket over the pipe, attach that bracket to the back side of the passenger peg (reinstall that passenger peg if you removed it before), and then tighten down the clamp. Keep tightening. It is way too big, isn’t it?

That’s it! Your bike is now 11 pounds lighter, sounds WAY cooler, makes more power, and has more lean angle than you can use without running out of tire. Not bad for half an hour!

While not the pinnacle of sporting motorcycles, that F4i seemed to be wired directly into my brain. Before that ride, downhill skiing had been the most natural-feeling sporting activity I had ever experienced. That experience, the connection between the bike and me, was impossibly close to the feeling of skiing. I was hooked. I needed a bike of my own.

Through the kindness of a very generous boss, I ended up with a free motorcycle. Maybe not the sporting steed that I had so longed for, but something to get me out on the road. It was a Honda, but that’s damn near where the similarities to that F4i ended.

That Shadow 650 VLX lasted about 2 months in my care. I sold it to a guy who was tired of riding on the back of his wife’s Harley, and needed a bike to learn on. I am not kidding.

With the spoils from that sale, and a little help from a friend, I bought an impeccably cared-for 1996 Kawasaki ZX-6r. Though nearly ten years old by the time I bought it, the bike had only 13,000 miles, and the motor was nice and stong. Now I was on the track to recapture some of that sportbike magic.

Sadly, the bike had a scary front end clunk, and steering almost as vague as the plot in a German art film. Those traits, coupled with the dated styling and angry hairdryer exhaust tone still left me jonesing for something more. That bike was sold to some guy with a flatbed truck, and the much-missed SV650 entered my life shortly thereafter. Then that Sv650 died on track, and was itself replaced.

That’s right. Two years of riding. Four bikes. One Incredibly Understanding Wife. Pretty incredible, huh?

In day two, I took a couple more seconds off by the third session. I was carrying a bit more speed through the turns, and therefore braking harder to enter the following turns. In so doing, I started to fade the brakes, and I learned that brake fade is a crappy deal.

Braking hard into turn ten, I very quickly noticed I wasn’t slowing down. The brakes just weren’t having any effect at normal brake lever pressure. So I pulled harder. The edge of the track kept getting closer, and my speeds weren’t really coming down. Then I pulled MUCH harder, and bottomed out my fork. The ensuing tank-slapper* was really something. The bars started shaking back and forth incredibly quickly, and the bike was skidding left and right and left and right and boom. I went down.

The now-prone bike left the track much more quickly than I did, and apparently those frame sliders do a good job of keeping the important parts from getting scratched on the asphalt, but serve as vaulting poles when they hit the dirt. The bike careened away, and I slid on my back to the side of the track. Good times.

Check the pics. Pretty spectacular. I am totally fine. I have a bruise on my arm, and one on my hip. I am a little stiff, but that’s likely more from the exercise of riding for two days. I swear I am just fine.

The SV though – totalled. Given the options, I think that’s absolutely fine.

*See an example of this type of gnarly headshake in the video I shot from the previous day. This is one lap of thunderhill, starting at turn five. Download the video and then skip ahead to about 15 seconds before then end and watch the drama.

The camera is a super tiny still camera, but it has a movie mode, and I thought it might work for in-car or on-bike footage. I just completed an around the block test drive with the clamp attached to the topmost “ear” of my cheap momo seat (just over my right shoulder) and I am totally impressed.

Check it! (Right-click and save as please!) My first avi file.

Check back regularly for serious autocross and track footage! Oh boy!

Now the lengthy part. In an effort to bolster my confidence as a rider, and to learn what a motorycycle feels like as it approaches its limits (and therefore how to avoid doing just that on the street) I went to a two-day novice rider school at Thunderhill. My goals were met: I am both more comfortable and more confident on the bike after having attended this school. Of course, I now have new goals; one of which is to attend as many motorcycle track events as time and budget allow. You see, I have been back from the event for a week now, but I haven’t yet had a night that wasn’t spent dreaming of the track. I am hooked. Credit card company executives the world over are chest-bumping with glee.

I focused most of my efforts on proper riding techniques and body position. Having driven cars at Thunderhill a number of times, I figured I would pick up on lines and reference points quickly, and could then focus on the more physical aspects of riding a motorcycle. In two days I went from grinding footpegs through many of the turns, to drifting the bike comfortably, using the throttle to alter my lines, and confidently hanging off enough to keep the pegs in the air and my knees on the ground.

Though I didn’t rent a lap timer, I was able to measure my times based on the session countdown timer at the starter’s tower. My lap times improved from roughly three minutes at the beginning of day one to about 2:20 at the end of day two. That’s what happens after 177 miles on a track. (That’s a lot of laps.) If I could enter my SV650 in a spec Miata race, I would have a chance at a top ten finish. That’s something. Something sad, I guess. Further schools will surely bring me to at least the levels of faster cars. I am not so proud as to think I could actually get good motorcycle times. Not soon at least.

As far as the Keigwin school goes, I can’t say enough good things about the school. The instruction was top-drawer, and the instructors were seemingly all actual racers. There was none of the “track day junkie” instructor garbage that you often receive at car events, in which each instructor only knows “the line” and can offer you nothing once you too have learned that there is no such thing as a good early apex. The instructors at Kegwin were happy to discuss alternate lines, and encouraged all of us to ride everywhere on the track, to gain experience in a wide line, or on the outside edge of the apex. Their theory is that it is good to know what the surface is like everywhere, because someday, you will screw up, or get passed, or push yourself, and you will end up in an unexpected place. Better to be as prepared as possible! I fully agree.

If you have read this far, you are likely skimming, looking to see if I fell. Well, I didn’t. Of the two categories of rider, those who have been down and those who soon will go down, I am still in the latter camp. I hope to keep it that way for some time. I think this school went a long way to helping me meet that goal.

I now have to buy new knee and toe sliders. And higher rearsets. And clip-on style bars. Oh God. I have been here before. Anyone want to buy a 1600-2?