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Day 1: Saturday, May 3, 2008
Start: Champaign, Illinois
End: Dubuque, Iowa
My plan was to be on the road at 8:30. That is not such an early start, but I am not an early riser. I hardly slept the night before and woke up too early. I ate breakfast, drank a few espressos, tried to relax, and stepped outside. It was sunny, there was just a light breeze, and it looked like it would be a good day to start my trip to Seattle. I started loading up my saddlebags around 8:15. I had mounted them empty a few days prior to gauge how to go about it, but fully loaded they were far less manageable. Finally around 8:45 I kissed my wife goodbye (after she took this photo) and hit the road.
As soon as I got out of town, the wind picked up. I looked at the weather history later, and it seems I had been riding into a 20 mph headwind with 30 mph gusts. That would explain why when I tried to pass someone, I'd downshift two gears, roll on the throttle to the stop, and nothing happened. Not long after that that the sky darkened, the temperature dropped, and I got very cold. I pulled over at a gas station and put on a sweater, neck gator, balaclava, and the anti-fog insert in the helmet. I also noticed that one of the buckles on my new saddlebags had broken--when you put 65 liters of gear in 60 liter saddlebags these things happen.
I felt warmer and continued. On a bridge 95 miles from home, the bike suddenly sputtered. Normally I get 110 miles or more before I hit the reserve tank, but of course that is without a constant headwind. On the '85 GS550ES, there is a silly door in front of the petcock that cannot be opened with gloves on, so I pulled over, turned the petcock to prime, muttered to myself for a few minutes while the bowls refilled, turned the petcock to reserve and carried on. I decided then to leave the petcock on reserve for good, since I was carrying a gallon of gas on the rear rack. My destination this day was GSR member Skreemer's house in Dubuque, Iowa, and I was making awful time.
I arrived at the Quad Cities around 12:30. Dubuque was about another 120 miles, so I thought I would arrive at 2:30 instead of the hoped-for 2 o'clock, which is not too bad. Then I encountered a detour on US67 which wasn't signposted properly and I became slightly lost. Meanwhile my speedometer stopped working and my bike had an awful tapping noise at low road speeds. I pulled over to check it out and found nothing. Eventually I found my way, got out of the Quad Cities, and then encountered small town after small town all the way. However now that I was in Iowa, there were trees and hills and turns, the weather had turned warmer, the wind had died down, and I was feeling good. The view of the Mississippi River on my right also helped. Around 4 I finally arrived at Skreemer's.
We quickly unloaded my bags. Then I ran up to my bike and saw that all four exhaust flanges had come off the heads and had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I'd spent weeks going over every part of the bike and on the first day it was already falling apart. Maybe this trip was a bad idea. Then Skreemer mentioned that he'd had an impossible time keeping the exhaust headers clean on his aftermarket pipes and it occured to me that I was looking at his bike and not mine. Our bikes do have a passing resemblence:
Then he took me on a tour of the countryside around Dubuque (Skreemer, maybe you can fill in the route--I lost the first page of it). Needless to say, I will be back. The northern two thirds of Illinois may be as flat as a pancake, but Iowa is not.
After a 2 hour ride and dinner, we got home and went to work on my bike. It turns out the upper end of the speedo cable had simply come loose--the square end rotating against the speedometer housing was the cause of the tapping sensation at low speeds. Skreemer also looked at my neglected, rusty chain and gave it a good clean & lube while I pulled the fairing to reattach the speedo cable. We also discovered that one of my carburetors had begun to leak gas at the float bowl gasket. I had packed several tiny screwdrivers, but naturally they were all too long or too short. We went off to Wal Mart looking for one of those angled screwdrivers that look like Allen-head keys. They had none for sale individually, so we bought some screwdriver drill bits and managed to tighten the float bowl screws a little bit. It didn't stop the leak but slowed it down considerably.
I went to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the basement and slept more peacefully than I had in weeks.
Day 1: Saturday, May 3, 2008
Start: Champaign, Illinois
End: Dubuque, Iowa
My plan was to be on the road at 8:30. That is not such an early start, but I am not an early riser. I hardly slept the night before and woke up too early. I ate breakfast, drank a few espressos, tried to relax, and stepped outside. It was sunny, there was just a light breeze, and it looked like it would be a good day to start my trip to Seattle. I started loading up my saddlebags around 8:15. I had mounted them empty a few days prior to gauge how to go about it, but fully loaded they were far less manageable. Finally around 8:45 I kissed my wife goodbye (after she took this photo) and hit the road.
As soon as I got out of town, the wind picked up. I looked at the weather history later, and it seems I had been riding into a 20 mph headwind with 30 mph gusts. That would explain why when I tried to pass someone, I'd downshift two gears, roll on the throttle to the stop, and nothing happened. Not long after that that the sky darkened, the temperature dropped, and I got very cold. I pulled over at a gas station and put on a sweater, neck gator, balaclava, and the anti-fog insert in the helmet. I also noticed that one of the buckles on my new saddlebags had broken--when you put 65 liters of gear in 60 liter saddlebags these things happen.
I felt warmer and continued. On a bridge 95 miles from home, the bike suddenly sputtered. Normally I get 110 miles or more before I hit the reserve tank, but of course that is without a constant headwind. On the '85 GS550ES, there is a silly door in front of the petcock that cannot be opened with gloves on, so I pulled over, turned the petcock to prime, muttered to myself for a few minutes while the bowls refilled, turned the petcock to reserve and carried on. I decided then to leave the petcock on reserve for good, since I was carrying a gallon of gas on the rear rack. My destination this day was GSR member Skreemer's house in Dubuque, Iowa, and I was making awful time.
I arrived at the Quad Cities around 12:30. Dubuque was about another 120 miles, so I thought I would arrive at 2:30 instead of the hoped-for 2 o'clock, which is not too bad. Then I encountered a detour on US67 which wasn't signposted properly and I became slightly lost. Meanwhile my speedometer stopped working and my bike had an awful tapping noise at low road speeds. I pulled over to check it out and found nothing. Eventually I found my way, got out of the Quad Cities, and then encountered small town after small town all the way. However now that I was in Iowa, there were trees and hills and turns, the weather had turned warmer, the wind had died down, and I was feeling good. The view of the Mississippi River on my right also helped. Around 4 I finally arrived at Skreemer's.
We quickly unloaded my bags. Then I ran up to my bike and saw that all four exhaust flanges had come off the heads and had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I'd spent weeks going over every part of the bike and on the first day it was already falling apart. Maybe this trip was a bad idea. Then Skreemer mentioned that he'd had an impossible time keeping the exhaust headers clean on his aftermarket pipes and it occured to me that I was looking at his bike and not mine. Our bikes do have a passing resemblence:
Then he took me on a tour of the countryside around Dubuque (Skreemer, maybe you can fill in the route--I lost the first page of it). Needless to say, I will be back. The northern two thirds of Illinois may be as flat as a pancake, but Iowa is not.
After a 2 hour ride and dinner, we got home and went to work on my bike. It turns out the upper end of the speedo cable had simply come loose--the square end rotating against the speedometer housing was the cause of the tapping sensation at low speeds. Skreemer also looked at my neglected, rusty chain and gave it a good clean & lube while I pulled the fairing to reattach the speedo cable. We also discovered that one of my carburetors had begun to leak gas at the float bowl gasket. I had packed several tiny screwdrivers, but naturally they were all too long or too short. We went off to Wal Mart looking for one of those angled screwdrivers that look like Allen-head keys. They had none for sale individually, so we bought some screwdriver drill bits and managed to tighten the float bowl screws a little bit. It didn't stop the leak but slowed it down considerably.
I went to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the basement and slept more peacefully than I had in weeks.
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