Ouch, WTF, Continued....... Part III

Honest....the check's in the mail!

And that's the latest word from GEICO. They mailed the check to Patriot, and when it arrives the parts for my Softail will get ordered and repairs can begin.

Backing up a little, Patriot Harley Davidson's estimate didn't quite jibe with GEICO's, with a small difference of about $2,500! Patriot found damage in places I would never have thought to look, and I'm glad I took the bike to them for the work. GEICO never put up a fight, and readily agreed to Patriot's estimate, so once again, they get Gold Stars for being cool to work with.

Now even the lower estimate dwarfed the lousy hundred bucks the minivan guy offered for me to forget about the wreck, which says a lot for his stupidity, especially if he though I was dumb enough to take it. Fuck him. Let his insurance company pay the big bucks, and maybe they'll raise his rates so high he'll be extra vigilant for bikes in the future.

All that is the good news. The bad news is that part of the repair involves tin and paint work, which might take a month or more since it comes from the Harley factory. I'm hoping for very early August, but we'll have to wait and see. Maybe I'll get lucky...maybe not. At any rate, when I get it back there will be new fenders, new back tire (the wheel is OK), new kickstand, new rear lights, etc. etc., and it'll be ready for the road.

For the foreseeable future, I'll be riding the Joker, bitching about a sore ass and a rough ride. And also complaining that with no back seat and rear foot pegs, the odds on me picking up a passenger for a midnight ride are just about zero, at least until the Softail is back in the garage.

On a side note, I learned this: I will NEVER be careless about those fenders again. It turns out that just the rear fender, painted up in the Copper/Pearl Black/Pin-Striped 105th Anniversary color theme, runs damn near $900.00!!! Next time I'm tying something down, you can bet I'll be more careful. Yikes!

In other news........

In just 2 weeks, Southern Comfort jumped up 1,000 page views, to well over 11,000 total hits, and now averages more than 500 page views per week. With the increased readership, I need to clean up my act a little. I tried out a new format, along with a "Best of SC" set of options over in the right rail to make popular articles easier to find. The list of popular posts is based, in descending order, on the number of times an article was read. If you like or hate the new format, let me know.


Cowboy

Burn Ride 2011

****** UPDATE**********UPDATE**********
6/21/2011 - Cancun Cantina reports that a whopping $113,000.00 was raised !!!! Read on for the ride details!
****** UPDATE**********UPDATE**********

If there was ever a reason to ride, and a day to do it, it was Saturday, June 18, starting in Hanover, Maryland. While "Burn Ride" conjures up thoughts of hot days and toasted buns (and that's not far off), it's actually far more than that, and Burn Ride is just one more example, far too often overlooked, of the Biker Community helping those in need.

Yesterday I had the honor of joining the 8th Annual Anne Arundel County Professional Firefighters Burn Foundation ride. Here's some background on it from the Burnriders Helpers Facebook page:

"" "Burn Riders" was founded by a group of local businessmen as a Non-Profit Foundation of Bikers riding to raise money for the rehabilitation of child burn victims.


Over the years we have raised tens of thousands of dollars for the Mid-Atlantic burn camp for children. 


www.midatlanticburncamp.org

"Helping One Child At a Time, One Mile At A Time" ""

The ride began at a local very-biker-friendly club, Cancun Cantina, where bikers registered, bright orange t-shirts were distributed, and breakfast happily served, at the very early hours of 7-9AM. After a way-too-f***g-early wakeup call, I rolled in at 8AM from Alexandria, Virginia, and the lot was filling up already. By 9, it had overflowed! As counted at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge toll both, there were over 1,400 bikes participating. Never let it be said that a biker won't show up, even early on a Saturday morning, for a good cause! (I do suspect some hadn't been home yet from Friday night, but that's an entirely different story......)

We hit the road at 9AM sharp, with none of the usual half-hour of getting peeps motivated and seeing who's still wandering around! We headed east on Route 100 to I-97 South to Rt 50 East, with Red Eye's Dock Bar as our destination. Red Eye's lies across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on the far side of Kent Island at Kent Narrows. It's about a 40 mile ride from Cancun Cantina.

To their full credit, the Anne Arundel County Police, the Maryland State Police, the Maryland Toll Authority Police, and the Caroline County Sheriff's office all joined in to keep the ride organized, and actually provided a full escort, closing off all roads to traffic for the full 40 miles.

Now if you don't live here, that might not sound like much, but these roads are just about the only way to/from the Eastern Shore beaches of Maryland and Delaware, and on a Summer weekend morning, this is no small thing. They even closed the entire eastbound Chesapeake Bay Bridge to let us pass. For the whole ride, there wasn't one single car or truck on the road with us.

The 1,400 bikes, double-file, stretched out about 4 MILES!!! Camera crews followed us the entire distance, getting stills and video, though I've only seen a few bits of the video. Here's a pic from last year's ride over the bridge.

From BR 2010

There were people all along watching us pass, many in the cars being blocked from entering the roads. There were lots of funny stories told later about people taking pics and videos, waving and cheering us on, but there were more than a few giving us the finger for causing a massive backup!! I can hear 'em now: "Goddamned no-good bikers!!! Look at them, Martha. Up to no good, and they even get a police escort!" LOL

After cramming the 1,400 bikes into a very small piece of real estate, Red Eye's served us lunch and entertained the orange-shirted masses with live music and cold drinks. This was no small accomplishment, but somehow they pulled it off.

And so we all hung out, making new friends and telling war stories of past events. We compared plans for future events, checking in to see who was going to Sturgis, and East Coast Sturgis...yeah, I know, it's East Coast Motorcycle Rally, but I'll probably always call it East Coast Sturgis, so just get over it, will ya?

And as a total surprise, I ran into LC again who....among all those damn people....happened to be sitting with the 6 of us eating lunch. (She's one of those Smokin' Hot gals that you just don't forget!) LC was at East Coast Sturgis last year, and had posed for pictures for me!!! Great to see her and to find out she's heading back to Little Orleans for the 2011 event.

From Red Eye's we rolled out, unescorted now, to Bamboo Bernie's to continue the fun. Folks rode in small groups on the way west, giving up on trying to keep 1,400 bikes together for more than one morning. Hell, we did pretty damned good keeping it together all that time! At Bernie's, we had yet more food and cold beverages, meeting even more riders and trading stories and plans. It was really a perfect day for riding, and the scenery at Bernie's was just awesome.

Then it was time to hit Home Territory, and for some of us, that means only one place: Daniel's Restaurant and Bar in Elkridge, Maryland. Though I live in Virginia now, I've been going to Daniel's since I was in my teens, and that will always be a home away from home. Good to see my friends, Jesse, Debi, and Ricky.

And about the time I was thinking about the ride back to Virginia, the Swede said some of the crew were going back to Cancun Cantina for dinner...Yep, three meals in one day. For a single guy, that's progress!. Away we went for BBQ, music, and cold drinks. Cancun Cantina did one hell of a job making this Burn Ride a success and kept the fun going all day. Two Gold Stars. There was also a chance to grab some snapshots taken of just about everyone, which was hard to imagine! EVERYONE? How did they do that? Here's me, on the Joker, with my Bro John just over my shoulder. (Click here to see if your photo is available)

And that's where I finished up, heading back across the Potomac into Virginia that evening. An incredible day of riding, brotherhood, laughs and good memories, not least of which are all the awesome biker girls that were out there. My eyes still hurt.

Speaking of hurt, I'd be remiss if I didn't add that I did this whole 165 mile frickin' run on my Joker bike, which is decidedly NOT the scoot you'd pick for the long-haul. But since the FXSTC is still in the shop, taken out by a minivan, I had to cowboy-up and ride the Joker. I might have to rethink my decision to lower it so there's no shock travel left, but no one's ever accused me of using common sense. After all, it does LOOK good while it's beating me to death.

Cowboy

PS Only one incident I know about all day. A Yamaha "Harley-copy" went up in smoke and flames as we pulled into Red Eye's. Maybe the owner will realize the error of his/her ways and buy an American Made Motorcycle. I think the Harley dealers are open today......

Ouch, WTF, Continued.......

On June 4, a minivan driver rear-ended my Softail Custom...an event duly documented earlier this month in Southern Comfort. It's been almost 2 weeks and this is how things have gone:

June 6th, the guy that hit me admitted fault, so there was no BS about who did what to who.

On June 7th, I trailered the bike to Patriot Harley Davidson, turning it over to the powers-that-be for a damage estimate by both GEICO and Patriot's tech guy that handles insurance work.

June 8th, the GEICO guy took a look at it, finding things I never thought about. For example, he found some damage (a crack!) to the primary cover, in addition to the turn signals, etc. He also authorized inspection for rear wheel alignment and bent wheel/suspension bits.

It wasn't included, so I appealed for a new rear tire, which really absorbed the bulk of the impact. For all anyone knew, the sidewalls could have sustained damage that might not show up until I'm on a hairpin turn of a narrow road winding around a sheer mountainside. For some reason, that bothers me. A lot.

And a few days later on June 13th, Patriot had their look. Even more damage was suspected, which effectively blew July's Southern Comfort II ride right out of the water, or at least the July 1 departure date. This is due to time needed to resolve differences in damage estimates (BIG difference!), and the lead time for ordering parts. If tin gets replaced, and it might, it needs the 105th Anniversary custom paint scheme...nothing that's going to be on the shelf.

Sure, I've got a second bike, but there's the simple fact that I can't....DEFINITELY CAN'T.....ride the Joker bike (a bar-hopper) for a couple thousand miles.

Bottom line: Southern Comfort II has now been rescheduled, tentatively, for August 13th, immediately after East Coast Motorcycle Rally (East Coast Sturgis). I'll roll out of Western Maryland, making a run west, north or south, but definitely not east.

I'm totally bummed about postponing the vacation, but at least I wasn't hurt in the accident, nor was anyone else. And having a few shiny new parts, plus a thorough going-over, also isn't the worst thing that could happen to the FXSTC. I'm just trying to stay patient while the insurance adjuster and the Harley tech guy sort out their differences and work can get started.

Cowboy

PS I didn't use the words FUCK, FUCKING, FUCKHEAD, or MOTHERFUCKER even once in this whole post. Pretty good, huh? Working on those social skills...little by little. Never know when one of those society Dames is going to come along......

10,000 ! Wow.......

Today, at about noon, Southern Comfort was viewed for the 10,000th time, which is pretty freaking amazing. The product opinions and how-to articles seem to have suddenly got the blog "noticed", and lots of folks are checking out articles on the work I've been doing on the Joker bike. Many others are interested in the posts about the Kendon Standup Trailer and Pitbull Lift. And yeah, biker rally atricles are popular too, but I suspect it's the pictures, instead of my writing, that are the main attraction! Sex sells!

As I always say, it comes as a complete surprise that anyone would even find the blog on the internet, much less read the damn thing, but I'm truly flattered. I've always enjoyed writing, and I guess I finally found something to write about that folks find interesting.

So that's it. Just memorializing a little milestone for Southern Comfort, and wondering where it will be in another year. With the next Southern Comfort ride scheduled for July 1, just a few weeks away,new material is on the way, not to mention some fun for me.

Cowboy

Ouch. Goddammit that hurt! You didn't see me? WTF?

And so on. So maybe.....just maybe.....the only thing that got hurt was my Harley, but dammit, that really DOES hurt.

When I'm around a bike.....in traffic, on the interstate, or wherever...I'm always on high alert, and it actually makes me uncomfortable to follow a bike, especially in the city. I have visions of the rider going down, and I give myself PLENTY of room to stop or get around. I never take my eyes off them, just in case.

Now I'm a rider myself, and I've been knocked down a time or two, so maybe that's part of the reason for being so careful, but damn, I also think it's just common sense.

And that, y'all, is why I'm so fucking mad. Some kid in a minivan, packed full of his friends, ran into the ass end of my Softail Custom at an intersection last Saturday.

While sitting at the light, I glanced in my mirror and saw him coming, but I had no where to go. Pulling out would have been suicide, so I held the brake and braced myself. He hit me hard enough to lift me up a little and push me sideways, getting the tire and wheel first before getting the tag bracket and my left turn signal. I stayed up.

I happily greeted the driver by explaining that 1) he was one stupid motherfucker, and 2) he oughta watch where the fuck he was going....that I thought he was going to run right over me. The asshole said he thought I'd pulled out into traffic, so he wasn't looking ahead, but instead was looking to his left for a traffic opening so he could go too. Trouble is, folks, I hadn't gone anywhere. Bam!

When I said I was calling the cops, 3 or 4 of his friends vanished into thin air, leaving just two of his buddies, one of whom had the balls to offer me $50 bucks to forget it. I sorta told him there wasn't a $50 dollar part on the whole fucking motorcycle! He then raised the offer to $100 as I was dialing 911. For once I was glad to see a cop. Two actually, who were totally cool and a lot of help.

Later that evening, my buds were quick to ask if I'd been locked up. I was puzzled, explaining that the accident wasn't MY damned fault. They said peeps figured I'd knocked the shit out of the driver....LOL. (In the good old days, that was def the way things woulda gone...I'd have gone off the deep end for sure. Maturity, however, has taught me that three football-player-sized kids might just have got the best of me! I'll let the Green Lizard kick ass!!!)

The Softail damage looked cosmetically light, but who knows about the tire, wheel, or whatever else absorbed the direct impact on the tire. Rear axle? On that Mazda minivan, there was a surprising amount of damage, but some was from a previous accident. Still I gotta give the Harley credit: Mazda 0 / Harley 1.

I'll also give early props to GEICO who has been nothing short of awesome about the accident. Even though the policy is only a month of so old, they've helped me every step of the way. Not the kind of treatment I'm used to getting from an insurance company, so that's been a welcome relief.

So now it's in the hands of the aforementioned Green Lizard and the local Harley dealer, Patriot. It goes in for an estimate tomorrow, and I'm crossing my fingers I get 'er back in time for Southern Comfort II...I'm supposed to roll out the morning of July 1. Gonna be cutting it close......

Cowboy
Monday, June 6, 2011

Nightster, Part III - Speedometer Relocation, Joker Machine Components

Joker modification, Part III

(! Disclaimer ! I've started and stopped this post so many times, it may read like a 6-year old wrote it, with apologies to 6-year-olds everywhere. I'll fix it when I get time, so no Howlers please!

(Disclaimer #2 - 3/26/2012 - After losing all the blog pictures, I'm reconstructing this post, and all posts, again so if something seems out of sequence, it probably got juggled around. Sorry. Send me a note if something's missing or doesn't make sense.)

My next move on the Joker bike was to relocate the speedometer. So far, things have been relatively easy, but this modification involved a little more serious wiring, including cutting the wiring harness to the existing LED display lights and splicing the Joker Machine LED leads into it. It had to be right, and it had to be done neatly since all this is out there where everyone gets to see your work. It ain't like you can wrap a roll of black tape around it and walk away.

For the record, Joker says the necessary electrical work is straightforward. Maybe so, but if wiring isn't your area of expertise, it does require a little patience. I had to take my time.

I chose the Joker Machine hardware for relocation, mostly because the quality is outstanding, and I stick with stuff that's made well. This was no place to get thrifty. I was moving a critical component, also replacing the stock risers and clamp with custom hardware.

Joker speedo bracket comes in two colors; I chose black. Wiring, etc is all included, along with a black wire loom.

2" Joker risers; same as stock height.

From Joker, all this will set ya back about $370, or $225 for the mount and $145 for the risers. Get 'em from Phat Performance Parts for about 10% off plus free shipping. They ain't cheap, but they're nice, and if you happen to be a machinist, you'll appreciate the craftsmanship. Both are 6061-T6 Aluminum, black anodized.

I also didn't care much for the other choices to move the speedo. One available kit involved moving it between the cylinders on the left side of the engine, but I'd just moved the coil there, and that seemed like an awkward fucking place for a speedo. Another idea was using some combination of AutoZone parts, mounting it on the fork tube, which might have been OK, but the Joker kit was just a sweeter way to do the job.

Let's do it!

Get the bike in the air so you can remove the front wheel. The bike gets a little tail heavy when the front wheel comes off, so I tied my bike down to my Pitbull Lift with two straps at the lower bend of the frame downtubes, just to be on the safe side.

As mentioned in Nightster, Part II, the Pitbull Lift Turntable Attachment doesn't work well with a Sportster, or at least not this one. Wobbly as hell. I took the attachment off, and then the lift worked just fine with the Nightster. So Softail=Yes & Nightster=No on that Pitbull Turntable....Just sayin'.

The Joker speedometer mount slips over the left fork tube, between the upper and lower triple tree, so the tube needs to drop down a little below the top triple tree. (They're ain't no way out, so you gotta do it. I puckered just a little when I read that little tidbit, but it was really no big deal.) 

Wheel removal and tube drop in this order:

1. Remove brake caliper by removing 2 mounting bolts. Pull it over to the RH side of the bike and let it rest between the front exhaust pipe and the cylinder.
2. Remove axle nut
3. Remove pinch bolt on right side of axle, remembering that the socket head was in front with no washer.
4. Pull out the axle, paying attention to where the wheel spacers are. The thicker one on mine was on the left side.
5. I had to let the air out so the tire would squeeze between the fender mount bolts
6. Then the fender came off, tucked safely out of the way in case I started throwing stuff. Didn't want to scratch up that new pin-striping with a flying wrench.
7. Loosen the two left side clamp bolts on the triple trees and the left fork tube easily slides down

This allowed me to slide the mount over the fork tube. I then moved the tube back up into position and torqued the clamping bolts, but I left the fender and wheel off for now, out of my way. On the tree clamp bolts, and all bolts, I used Blue Loctite.

Tie it down!

Disconnect your battery before messing with the wiring.

Next step is to remove the speedometer. Take the two allen screws out of the backing plate, unplug the harness, unscrew the odometer reset button from the backing plate (just squeeze and twist), and pull the rubber retainer seal from around the base of the gauge. The speedo then comes right out. Click this for a YouTube video that shows the steps. The video suggests a different way of dealing with the LEDs, so if you're using the Joker mount, ignore that part, but it was helpful to me for getting my speedo apart. Beats the fuck out of saying "remove speedo" and having some poor bastard like me fumble through, breaking stuff.

Leave the speedo mount/top cap on for now.

You need to get some slack in the speedo wiring so it can reach the new location. There's plenty wire, so no need to do any extension or splicing for this harness. To get some slack, take the two bolts out of the headlight mount and swing the headlight out of the way for access. Then carefully slit the rubber shroud* holding the wiring harnesses together. (*See the pic immediately below..I'm pointing to the shroud.) I made a cut about 4" long to get room to pull the wiring down and to the side so I could reattach it. The second pic, just below, shows the cut I made.

NOTE: In this step, I'm referring only to the wiring that we just disconnected from the speedometer, and not the bundle connected to the LEDs in the top clamp.

Pull the speedo wiring down and over to the new location, making sure there's enough slack to move the fork side to side without pulling on the harness. Leave the LED wiring alone for now.

Next assemble the speedometer into the Joker mount. Snug the clamp into position, rotate the gauge so it's oriented to your liking, and then mark the location with a pencil. Why the mark? I found assembly in the normal position to be a first-class pain in the ass, so after marking the location (and before throwing tools across the garage!), I turned it all upside down to put the thing back together. I lined up my marks, installed that rubber retainer, the wiring connections, the reset button, and finally the two small screws...WITH BLUE LOCTITE! Then loosen, rotate it back down, and snug it up again.

And I'll mention that once the rubber retainer is installed, you ain't gonna rotate the speedo in the mount, so get it in the correct position before installing the rubber retainer/seal.

Now I loosened the riser mounting bolts and then the 4 screws holding the top cap in place. Then.....deep breath now....I took a pair of wire cutters and cut the LED wiring bundle about 2" from the base of the top clamp, leaving a little something there in case I need to reinstall someday. Then the old risers came off and all the spare parts went into the parts bin. Open up another beer and take a break. (You are drinking beer, right?)

Burp!

OK, let's finish up this project. Next I installed the new risers, which is simple enough. I'll mention that I should have touched up the shiny bands on the bars with some flat black paint before mounting. The risers don't cover them up. Ask me how I know.

Don't fully tighten the riser mounting bolts until after you clamp the handlebars in place. Clamping the bars helps line the risers up, so tighten the top clamps first, and then finish tightening  the riser bolts.

 Risers on and bars remounted...Now the fun part.

Now, ever so carefully, I began splicing the leads from the Joker mount LEDs into the harness. The leads are staggered in length so you don't wind up with a nasty lump of splices all in one spot. I first pulled the longest lead through, grabbed the corresponding color from the harness, snipped it, stripped it, and crimped it onto the LED lead. Use the mount instruction sheet to match up the right colors. Then I grabbed the next longest, and did the deal again. 

Repeat until you splice 'em all and wrap up the wiring bundle with corrugated wire loom and secure it with black wire ties for a neat looking job. I combined the LED leads with the speedo wiring in one loom. Even mine looked OK!

Fini

That's about it. Reinstall the headlight, fender, front wheel, and caliper, all using Blue Loctite. Hook the battery back up and turn on the ignition. Now you can test all the LEDs and speedometer indicators. 

Untie the straps and set 'er down. Right about here, I was asking myself how I EVER got by all those years without a good motorcycle lift. Actually, I didn't even have a cheap one, unless you count the milk crates.

Now crank it up and ride to check speedometer operation, and of course take note of the cool new location, not to mention the clean, flat-tracker look of that front fork. I was VERY happy with mine, and the location still makes the speedo easy to read, plus the LEDs are easy to see. Another job well done!

Yeah, those bright-fucking-orange turn signals gotta go. I put smoked lenses on, which look much better, but I might just take 'em off completely.

Nice and clean...gives it a racing-bike look, with no clutter above the handlebars.

OK, stay tuned for the next installment. Air cleaner and whatever else I can find, but there's actually not much more I wanna do right now, figuring I'll get some riding out of the Joker before tearing it apart again.

Cowboy

PS Here are the links to all 6 Nightster/Joker posts in order, 1-6:

http://cowboyken.blogspot.com/2011/05/nightster-projectbeginnings.html

http://cowboyken.blogspot.com/2011/05/nightster-part-ii-coil-and-parking.html

http://cowboyken.blogspot.com/2011/06/nightster-part-iii-speedometer.html

http://cowboyken.blogspot.com/2011/08/joker-machine-air-cleaner-installation.html

http://cowboyken.blogspot.com/2011/10/canyon-carvers-real-story-aka-joker.html

http://cowboyken.blogspot.com/2013/12/good-times-and-good-memories.html