Trip to California - Day 1
Plus side, weather was not the concern I had expected it to be.
I ended up on the road by 10:00am. Not quite as early as I had originally planned, but then I had no hard plans for today anyway. Quick stop to fill the gas tanks, and I was on my way. Temps weren't too bad, about 41 degrees when I pulled out of the garage ... no rain, just some pretty dense cloud cover.
The first little "event" happened less than 5 miles from the house. I had the original seat foam from before the second fuel tank was added strapped to the back seat. We were going to re-use that foam when recovering the rear seat pan. Somewhere between when I got on the tollway and when I got off, it flew off the bike. I didn't notice it was gone until I was at the end of the tollway.
The next little event was less than 100 miles from home. There was a wreck on 380 just east of Decatur that had the highway closed. They had us detouring around the wreck on a nice soggy mud trail. That was fun. Just follow the car tracks from in front of me and all was good, but the bike did get a bit dirty ... at least on the left hand side.
As I got closer to Wichita Falls, the temps dropped. As I cranked up the heated gear, I suddenly had NO HEAT! Pulled over at a rest stop, the Heat Troller (thermostat) wasn't getting any juice. This would be fun. At this point, the fuel cell was still completely full, so I figured I'd mess with it at my next stop. The closer I got to Wichita Falls, the colder the temps dropped. Low point was 36 and rain. Just north of Wichita Falls it started snowing, but that was short lived. About 120 miles southeast of Amarillo the clouds parted and the sun came out to play. Temps jumped to a pleasant 45. I stopped for lunch in Claude TX ... at a Dairy Queen no less, and warmed up. After eating, I pulled the seats to get to the fuse block, and sure enough the fuse had blown. When we added the heated seat to the bike, we had to relocate one of the fuse blocks. When the fuse block was moved, the lead for the Heat Troller wasn't reconnected to the post with the 15A fuse, rather it was on a 7A like everything else (there are 5 fuses, in my case I run 4x7A and 1x15A). Since all the posts aren't in use, I swapped fuses around until I had the 15A in the right place, and the blown fuse was installed in an unused circuit. From there on, I had a good ride.
Fuel cell works good. Once I hit reserve, I opened the valve, and it brought me back up to half tank showing on the gauge. It seemed to level out there, and stayed at half tank until the fuel cell emptied, and then it lowered on the gauge as it normally would.
I'm in Santa Rosa NM tonight. Streets are dry here, but there's still some snow on the ground in the areas with less direct sunlight. I should be about half way, with 550-600 miles to go tomorrow. Temps should get better as I go, as the weather in Arizona was looking pretty dang good.
I ended up on the road by 10:00am. Not quite as early as I had originally planned, but then I had no hard plans for today anyway. Quick stop to fill the gas tanks, and I was on my way. Temps weren't too bad, about 41 degrees when I pulled out of the garage ... no rain, just some pretty dense cloud cover.
The first little "event" happened less than 5 miles from the house. I had the original seat foam from before the second fuel tank was added strapped to the back seat. We were going to re-use that foam when recovering the rear seat pan. Somewhere between when I got on the tollway and when I got off, it flew off the bike. I didn't notice it was gone until I was at the end of the tollway.
The next little event was less than 100 miles from home. There was a wreck on 380 just east of Decatur that had the highway closed. They had us detouring around the wreck on a nice soggy mud trail. That was fun. Just follow the car tracks from in front of me and all was good, but the bike did get a bit dirty ... at least on the left hand side.
As I got closer to Wichita Falls, the temps dropped. As I cranked up the heated gear, I suddenly had NO HEAT! Pulled over at a rest stop, the Heat Troller (thermostat) wasn't getting any juice. This would be fun. At this point, the fuel cell was still completely full, so I figured I'd mess with it at my next stop. The closer I got to Wichita Falls, the colder the temps dropped. Low point was 36 and rain. Just north of Wichita Falls it started snowing, but that was short lived. About 120 miles southeast of Amarillo the clouds parted and the sun came out to play. Temps jumped to a pleasant 45. I stopped for lunch in Claude TX ... at a Dairy Queen no less, and warmed up. After eating, I pulled the seats to get to the fuse block, and sure enough the fuse had blown. When we added the heated seat to the bike, we had to relocate one of the fuse blocks. When the fuse block was moved, the lead for the Heat Troller wasn't reconnected to the post with the 15A fuse, rather it was on a 7A like everything else (there are 5 fuses, in my case I run 4x7A and 1x15A). Since all the posts aren't in use, I swapped fuses around until I had the 15A in the right place, and the blown fuse was installed in an unused circuit. From there on, I had a good ride.
Fuel cell works good. Once I hit reserve, I opened the valve, and it brought me back up to half tank showing on the gauge. It seemed to level out there, and stayed at half tank until the fuel cell emptied, and then it lowered on the gauge as it normally would.
I'm in Santa Rosa NM tonight. Streets are dry here, but there's still some snow on the ground in the areas with less direct sunlight. I should be about half way, with 550-600 miles to go tomorrow. Temps should get better as I go, as the weather in Arizona was looking pretty dang good.
posted by Charlie at
10:14 PM
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