S50 Road Trip

M

moochiemoo

New member
Just got back from a 6 day ride from the tip of lake michigan, down through kentuky, across to the land between the lakes, into Missouri , up into Iowa, over to Wisconsin, down through Illinois and back home again. Awesome ride! Got rained on about 40% of the time, but didn't care. Averaged 52mpg. I'll post pics next week.

2 points of interest that are a must see:

1. Land between the Lakes is a really nice scenic ride.
2. Anamosa, Iowa National Motorcycle Museum (millions of $$ of bikes dating back to the early 1900's).

2000 miles of a really good time.
 
I just finished a 4 day camping trip to Suches, Georgia with Dr. Bob and a few other friends. I'll have to get total numbers from my GPS later, but I am fairly sure I put on close to a thousand miles over those days.

I rode, however, in mostly sunny skies. :)
 
I, too, had a great 3-day road trip on my '06 S50, riding two-up with my wife through the Colorado mountains. We went over Kenosha and Red Hill Passes into Fairplay, and over 11,500 foot Hoosier Pass to Breckenridge. Then, Swan Mountain Road around Dillon Reservoir to Keystone. The next day, over 10,600 foot Vail Pass for an afternoon in the town of Vail. Back home on day 3. The bike ran beautifully and averaged about 56 miles per gallon. Occasionally a little cold, but no problems with rain or wind. Unfortunately, NO PICS!
 
You guys make me sick! :mrgreen:

It's been ...rain, cold....rain, cold....rain, rain.... here all spring.
Am I gonna have to come to Georgia to get some riding in ??

Oh, wait...... I AM gonna do that in about 6 weeks !! :bluethum:
 
Hey Wildwolf, did you happen to see our Deals Gap crew riding through Suches yesteday. According to the original plan Rowdy, Rickster, tricker, ShonR, FrostbiteVinnie, stp1971, cms58 and a few others would have been going through there by early afternoon. Provided of course their plans didn't change because of the heavy rains the MN people had to go through Friday. That would have been a neat meet-up.

Map is here.
 
Nope. My wife & I left Suches Sunday morning around 9:00 am....There's a few from my group that were gonna stay a bit longer and see if the rain cleared up. I had to work this am so didn't have a choice. Got a couple hundred miles in the rain...and about 50 out of it yesterday. :) There's some great riding in that area though!
 
I just read a post in the Deals Gap thread and it turns out they didn't do the sunday trip because of weather. Probably good I didn't make the trip after all.

Anyways the weekend turned out great for me, I picked up my shiny new 2007 S50 Saturday.
 
I just got home late last night- I left Suches and rode to Orlando for a family get together. Weather was fine once I got south of Atlanta.

Boy, do BillyJack and I have a story about the Land between the Lakes...
 
:cheers: I'll look forward to hearing it in Maggie Valley.

Did some work on the carbs again last night but it got too late to sync & put back together for road test (well, suppose I could, but I'd like to not have the neighbors get TOO pissed at me).

Rode the wife's 800 to work this am and will sync & ride mine when I get home. :D Never did like how the front air filter seated (oblong shaped K&N) and remembered Tina's has two different filters (mine are RC-1820s , hers were RC-2580s).

I figured since the stock bikes have the carbs set up different (different sized air boxes/filter designs, different needles and main jets, etc) that it wouldn't hurt it overly much to have different aftermarket air filters. I grabbed her rear air filter and replaced it with my front, and put her smaller RC-2580 up front where it fits MUCH better.

Now I just gotta wait and see if the changes I made to the jets work out....so I can keep the K&Ns and get my top end back. Couple of the road trips we had...the 800 struggled.

Once when Donnie & I made the beer run, I couldn't get above 75 going up a hill. Dropping a gear...didn't help. No change in bike sound/performance from 1/2 to full throttle, so I'm guessing it had as much gas as it was going to get and was a bit limited. Another time on the trip to the Colonel's for lunch...after leaving the overlook and heading back around Fort Mountain, I got tired of following Willow. His 2000 Vulcan picked up great during the straights....but I couldn't as well...but gained on him so much in the twisties it was bothersome. So, I tried to pass him at one long uphill straight. He hammered it (well, touched it I guess with the 2000ccs) and closed the gap before I could overtake him....and dropping a gear there didn't help me either. My bike was giving it all she had and it wasn't enough.

I miss the last VS800. :( Donnie can attest it ran much, much better. Oh well, maybe it's time for a new bike if this one doesn't make me happy any more. :(
 
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