Ride Report: Route 22 & Far Hills NJ

The most fun you can have with *all* your clothes on.

 

I was kind of pissed that there was no simple, accurate resource for good motorcycle roads.  I asked around and was told that 22, 202, and 27 all lead to good roads.  Without much more than that, we headed to Plainfield, NJ and had a late lunch and with the web browsers on our phones, picked out a general route.

 

I had the lil’lady with me, 2-up on the back of the Road King Classic.  And boy, that bike needs a name.  I want to call her Bessie, because she’s like a big black whale.  I’ll try that name now.
And Mike was with us on his Sportster, a bike I’ll try calling Hoggo in this entry.

I realize my ‘readership’ is pretty low, and that’s fine, this blog is informational beyond all.  But if no one’s really reading, then no one can complain if I say certain crazy things. And that sound good, so I’ll also start that now.

ANYWAY,

We ate at that subshop just before Plainfield Ave meets 27.  They had fresh ingredients and everything was very good, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Mike pulled up and met us inside, though we didn’t hear Hoggo approach, and he ordered a tuna sub.  Then touch the map and go, uh oh, cha-cha-ching.  So yeah, we got subs and hit the road.  Hotsteppin’.  You know..

Took Plainfield across 27 until it broke into a fork, then went right.  Stopped for gas.  I got premium.  First time in my life I bought premium.  The 6-gallon tank really rocks.  My Volusia’s only a 4.5 gallon, I believe.  Normally I find myself putting in about 3 gallons, sometimes 3.5 – now, under 1/4 of a tank, I was putting in almost 5 gallons.  Cool!  I’m sure that gas will last, too.

At the fork we went right, and ended up on Washington Ave, which we took until we got to 22.

There were cars in the way, and Mike split to pass them all and ended up waiting for us as we followed the cars in front of us.  He called me out on it and I pointed at my odometer and said “70, give me a break!”  He just liked to tease me.   I know he was curious about what the bike could do, being a whole 500cc larger than his (though twice the weight).  I’m happy to report that we have yet to settle it.

Bessie was gentle with bumps in those old roads.  At speed, there was no loss of confidence on my part taking some tight turns, going around cars and pulling off and back onto the road (we double-checked the maps).  These were residential roads, speed limit 35mph, and not that many cars as it was a Sunday afternoon.

When Washington Ave met 22, there was a great incline heading up a mountain in front of us, but we turned left at the lights and followed 22 for a mile or two: it was our chance to open up, even though I definitely was wondering what was up that mountain.  Figure Mike was too because later that’s all we did.

So on 22, Mike was putting along nicely at about 40 or so, still accelerating away from the light (and 22 is very straight and was mostly empty in our direction) when I cranked the throttle open and flung by with the annoying and artificial whooping of the engine.  It felt good to get that far open, cracking 80 after two seconds, but that was when I noticed that the performance was dampened very much by the presence of my loving and beautiful passenger.  She was dead weight, gah!!!  I should have been going much faster.  I’ll get around to speeding recklessly when alone though, no worries.

Sportster 0, King 1.

We putted along 22, catching some lights, not really seeing the appeal (22 was supposed to lead us to 206 (or 202?), which should be a great twisty road).  We came up on a wide open field off to the right, and it was there I spotted maybe 7 or 8 deer, grazing in the tall grass and doing deer things in the low woods.  So I took the first turn off on the right and we went through a quarry.

The lower dot is the quarry. Can't really say how we got from one spot to the other, but my GPS says we did.

 

 

I should have taken a photo at the quarry.  We turned off 22 and were immediately greeted by a “road closed to through traffic” sign that we ignored.  We rode slowly over the gravel and gravel-strewn pavement.  We saw no deer, but the quarry was a real sight.  There were hills torn in half and strips of discoloration all across the big mounds – trailor or backhoe marks or something.  Was fun to trespass a little bit.

At the end of the quarry road, we came out before a regular-enough road, making a T with it.  There were two other bikers there – one riding an old road king himself, and one riding some kind of chopper.  I noticed they were young, like Mike and me, and one was dark skinned and the other looked korean.  Very harold and kumar.  I asked, “What’s good?” and they told us to head left, not right, and to make a right at the end of that road.  Said it was good roads.  We thanked them and continued.

We checked both ways for traffic – the T intersection was at a curve in the road, but the woods were cleared for a ways on the side of that road so we could see very well.  With no one coming, we struck out onto the road and Mike slowed immediately and I matched his pace.  We were doing about 25 in 2nd gear as he counted down… 4, 3, 2… he put his hands back on the bars and cranked hard.  I followed but he simply pulled straight ahead faster than I could. Every second he put another few lengths between us until he approached the next big curve ahead and there he slowed.

Sporster 1, King 1.

Does this blog count as a review of the 2010 FLHRC yet?

 

We took the turns gracefully, splitting up immediately with him in front and me at least 40 feet behind.  I trusted my brakes but not my tires – cant’ tell if all the film is off those newly-minted rubbers.  I should say I took the turns gracefully, or we referring to the bike and myself (and the lil lady), because Mike was a freakin’ animal.  And I can’t blame him, I would be too if I were on my old bike.  But I was trying to be respectful of my own unknowable ignorances and, of course, trying to not freak out the lady with any stunts.  At least, not until I know what we can do.

We rode those good roads and stopped at the ones that had sharp inclines – no better excuse to rev up and no better way to feel those beasts pulling under your ass.  We came on a suggested-10-mph turn, a very sharp hairpin, and because we had been looking ahead we made it without incident, despite the SUV in the oncoming lane falling far over the double yellow.  Lucky there we weren’t daydreaming.

We found some really, really big houses up in the sticks.  4-car garages, 3-wing structures, guest house in back type stuff.  I wondered what they cost – it’s the boonies, after all, but probably not more than 15 minutes from 78, that awful mountain highway.  They need to finish resurfacing that bitch.

The leaves were glorious.  I hate that I didn’t stop to take any pictures, even with the elevation and the foliage.  Our plan for the day got fouled and we were down to only 2 hrs of light for this ride, so we just kept at it.

My ride was equally glorious.  It was this Sunday I discovered that 2nd gear is truly the sweet spot, at least until I get the bike tuned (to stop the pinging – see here for an example).  I found the handling to be incredible – so, so much better than anything else I’ve ridden in my 2.5 years.  I want a little rumble, a little soul from the exhaust, but I’ll get there soon.  I put my feet up on the highway pegs on the way home, riding the Garden State for 20 minutes.  I love it, I love the feel of it, I love the way she rides.  I like that the auxiliary lamps cast such a bright net riding in the dark, and I like that the blinkers work (My Volusia’s had some troubles…).

I’m not 100% with the fact that the slowspeed handling feels like holding a toddler by the arms rather than by the chest.  Let me try that again.  Ever pick up a 5-yr old and swing him by the arms? You hold hands, or if you’re smart, you hold his wrists and you spin around, dragging him through the air?  When you first start, or when you are slowing to stop, that feeling like the weight is just far away from you – too far to control perfectly – that’s what the Heritage bars feel like on the Road King, that’s what Mike’s drag bars feel like on his Sportster, that’s what the Deluxe and the Wide Glide and the stock Road King feel like too.  That’s Harley’s frame/fork design.  The Volusia doesn’t feel like that, the V-star doesn’t feel like that, the Ducati doesn’t feel like that, and the BMW doesn’t feel like that.  (How is it I’ve never been on a Triumph?)  It’s not a complaint, it’s an observation, and I’m going to get used to it.

That plus the stupid exhaust note are on my list.

The rest of it … god, I just melt when I get on this bike.

 

The Whale, beached on the sidewalk.

 

I spoke to Mike about the ride, saying it was great to take all those twisties for 2 hours and to tour through the leaves up on the mountain and all.  He said I only thought it was “great” rather than “acceptable” because I hadn’t had many good roads.  And he’s right, I’m very casual, I’m more about strolling than performing.  But I love riding hard, I just always tend to have the choice between that (solo) or the equally wonderful stroll with the lady, drinking and eating and having a lazy time.

He said his work schedule was changing and he’d have Saturdays off in a few weeks for the next few months, until summer. Said we’d do some cold weather riding, taking the day, and go into the Catskills of NY (near where we grew up) as soon as possible.  He said then I could properly use the word “great” on a ride.

But this Sunday, short as it was, well, it was a hell of a ride.  And then we saw and fought a huge dragon, went back to the house and had steak and shrimp on the grill, and watched an old Simpsons episode. Then we won some money.

Yup, crazy.

 

124 Miles and going strong.

Can’t close on a ‘technical’ pic…

 

Bessie in the garage the next morning.

First Ride Report: 2010 FLHRC + Stage II 103″ Kit + SuperTrapp Slip-Ons

H

O

L

E

E

G

A

W

D

!

!

!

!

I must use more expletives so that the formatting works (I put pictures in) … don’t worry, it’s easy!

HOLY SHIT, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BIKE?

HOLY EARTH-F%(*@#)$*, NINJA-SHITTING #$%@!^#& !!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW!

Hooooooooooooooooo baby !!!!

I have one thing to say that isn’t glowing praise: the SuperTrapp fishtails are shockingly soft.  They’re barely a notch above stock.  It’s a little bit of a let-down.  I don’t need to sound like an asshole, but I want a little roar.  A little something.

Now, everything …. sweet son of a bitch, it’s gorgeous.  This bike is too good for me, or for any mortal man.

Rather than give a detailed blow-by-blow on everything, I’ll just focus on one thing per entry.  Except this entry, where I’ll give general responses to a weekend of riding, and then a ride report on coming home from the dealer (the 30-mile break-in).

Gotta ride!!

In General

The ride quality is 10/10.  The lil’lady was unhappy with the stock pillon seat – as compared with the old bike, where the pillon was a separate cushion a few inches above the rider seat, the RKC’s stock seat is flush and thinner.  So she felt closer, lower, and less cushioned.  New seat is top priority.

The suspension is perfect.  Lots of bumps and it’s no problem.  There is a difference riding solo vs 2-up, and I’ll check the manuals for recommended shocks and tire PSI for 2-up touring.

Handling is great, though I admit I’m not fully used to it.  Put on a little over 110 miles this weekend but she still feels heavy.  Had to put my feet down twice during tight turns, and I noticed that if I was doing a bad job, the passenger floorboards would slice across my calf muscles when deployed.  Makes a bad situation worse.  I’ll keep taking it easy.

Now, the part you’re all eager for: the engine performance!  The Stage II kit  FUCKING ROCKS!

96" Big Twin with Stage II Big Bore Kit, expanded to 103"

As in,

OH

MY

GOD

If you rev up in 1st, pop into 2nd, and wail on the throttle, you get a feeling like you’re falling except you’re going forward.  If you don’t feather the clutch but just pop it out, you FLY forward like mr sulu just engaged the warp drive.  It’s so tight, so quick, so beefy, you can get away with a Star Trek reference.  Seriously.

I got my money’s worth and I got that pep I was looking for.  I went riding in some mild twisties with my brother on his sportster, and while I was hesitant to open up all the way and beat on the engine during the first 100 miles, I was able to show him up in this corner or that straight run every now and then (at least as much as he did me).  I’m hungry to get out, solo, and see how much she can scream.

Oh yeah, she needs a name.

The handlebars – the heritage bars – are excellent! Truly excellent…I was extremely comfortable at all speeds, and with the highway pegs, I felt like a million bucks.  The lady remarked her feet got very cold when I moved my feet to the pegs. Looks like I’ll get her to wear boots after all (instead of Uggs, the ugliest shoes a woman can wear, unless she’s super fat and it looks normal on her).

And I’ll post more remarks as time goes on – a lot happened this week and hopefully I can get it all down.

The Ride Home From The Dealer

This ride report is my break-in.  You can find lots of different numbers on the internet about how many miles it takes to break in the piston rings.  Motoman says 20, others say 30, or 50, and manufacturers tend to say either 100 or 500.  All agree that the break-in is done in majority over a short period, and then finished (the remaining 10-25%) over the course of a few hundred miles.  The rate tapers off quickly, or, if you want to get technical, decays exponentially.

The Long Branch dealer (and they get their own write-up soon, suffice to say they over charged me a$700 and threw in nothing, but were otherwise good and I’ll go back to them for my warranty work no-problem) is about 30 miles from my house.  I figured the ride home would be the break-in, so I read up and talked to people and made my decision.

On the lot, the dealer told me to never keep the same speed for more than a few seconds, and he asked me to call him when I arrived home to let him know the bike ran alright (and it had just started raining, but I’m sure he didn’t care if I made it home, haha).  And that was what I’d decided to do anyway.

Of COURSE, wouldn’t you know it, as my first maneuver, I stalled.  The brand new bike has a brand new clutch, and hot dog if it isn’t particular! My 8 year old Volusia shifts like butter.  The Road King shifts like you’re shaking hands with a robot.  But that’s ok, it’s new, and it’s a performance clutch, and it’s a different breed of bike.  I got used to it (though I will definitely switch the tranny oil in the hopes of shifting more smoothly).

But I got going – I actually stuck my camcorder in the lil’lady’s car and recorded my whole ride home, but it’s long and I don’t think anyone would want to watch it if I YouTube’d it. I spun up through all the gears and went by the sound of the engine more than the speedometer.  A little green light went on eventually, and it looked like a ‘5’ and I got scared, thinking my transmission was only a 5-speed.  Could they have done something that stupid? Then I looked closer (hard to do at 90 mph) and it was a 6.  I was elated.

I took the Garden State Parkway home, even though obviously they say not to take freeways.  I had my chase car in place, and she had her hazards on (and I mine) and we varied from 45 to 95 on the way.  I figured that, especially since it was starting to rain, people would see us both with hazard lights on and go around us – and that happened.  Then, those idiots drove almost slower than us, or they went only a little faster, which meant we had to go around them to move my RPM’s up a few moments later.  So we had to go around.  Eventually, I simply pulled away and went on my own, not really worried about tailgaters.

Nose over the Heritage bars, out the garage, through all that autumn.

The Garden State was very pretty, actually, with all the leaves still up and still bright.  Anything’s a twisty if you go fast enough, and I was pulling along nicely.  The windshield was fantastic – I forgot how nice they are, having taken my old one off the Volusia about a day after riding her.  Come to think of it, I took the Road King’s windshield off on Sunday.  Old habits, I guess.  But I’ll put it back on soon – it got cold after a few hours in the wind in the mountains.

I would lean into the curves at speed and the bike was extremely confident in leaning.  All that weight fell to my advantage as I tipped over and righted, again and again.  There’s a creamy feeling to that bike that is simply worth every penny.  It’s worth anyone teasing you about riding an old man bike (and not, say, the Heritage Softail or Deluxe – the most gorgeous bikes still in production).  The Heritage, beautiful as it is, and comfortable as it is, can never handle like my Road King.  At least not in my hands, which is what matters to me.  I think of the Softails as overgrown Sportsters – a light frame, very agile, very quick, and often wanting for grace.  The King rolls around corners the way I imagine a whale to swim – huge, yes, but perfectly smooth.  Guess the ubiquitous comparison to boats isn’t far off.

Harley makes driveway happy!

And man, she pulls.  The SE255 cams are known for “coming on early” which is a lay-translation of “providing air for combustion and then closing less recent in the cycle than stock cams” though I suppose that’s a layman’s explanation itself.  In short, the cams of an engine control the air flow to the combustion chamber (the space above the piston where the spark plug is causing the fuel to ignite) – and in effect, this allows you to change the “focus” of the engine from horsepower to torque, or vice versa, and to further control where in the RPM band the peak efficiencies are.  So long story short, the bike can pull away from a dead stop extremely well (high torque in the low range), but at top speed it takes more work to go from 90 to 100mph than it would take a higher horsepower bike.  In practice, this translates to a huge Christmas-Morning grin everytime you hit a stop light and waddle to the front of the line.

When I made it home, the odometer read “000040” on the nose.

40 Miles from the lot to my driveway. I hate that I didn't take a picture of the "000012" when I picked it up.

And that picture isn’t too sexy, so here’s another:

Rode down the street to the piers for a few pictures.

My ride, ladies and gentlemen.

Handlebars for Road King Classic

Let me cut to the chase by saying Heritage Softail bars are going on the 2010 Road King Classic.

There’s a very, very long story of handlebars that goes with my FLHRC.  And it’s not a good story.  But it does end with finding money, and maybe flava the dragon came too …

I want beach bars.  I think they look great and I think they capture how I feel about riding: casual, relaxed, chill.  The opposite of drag bars.  The opposite attitude of ape hangers.  The kind you’d find on a 1955 bicycle if you rode to the pier and bought an ice cream cone.

Beach bars won’t work for me.  They pull back a lot and my arms are very long.   Yes, that long.  Well, ladies, what can I say …

So yeah, no beach bars.  I’d have to pull my elbows up and it’d look like I was riding a wheelbarrow (that’s “wheelbarrel” for those that have never been to a Devitt’s and seen the price sticker with the proper wasp name on it…).

What then?  I really like the Chubby Wild1 bars.  They all look good, and the construction videos and the customer testimonials really sold me.  Or sold the bars, I should say, because I was fixin’ to pick up some.  The question became which?  The Road King and Road King II bars were the obvious choice, because they improved on the already-there bars and that seemed the prudent way to go.  I wasn’t taken with them, though, because I want something sexy for all that money ($215 for the bars, in 2009 dollars*  —  then around $500 for labor, since the lines all need to be extended and the ABS and TBW complicate things).  The RK and RKII bars have that crimp, crinkle, harsh bend, ugly turn, etc., that I couldn’t abide.

So I looked at baby apes, of all things.  They really grew on me.  They really do work with all sorts of bikes, and all eras, but they’re not really ‘me’ so I figured I’d let it go.

Back to square one.

Then, after what was so frustrating and annoying I’ll just skip to the end, I found the adjustable Heritage bars (same as on Police models) were an easy swap (no extension wires to run except the blinker cables, which is negligable).

The frustration could be summed as follows: WHY THE HELL can’t we put in perspective/angle parameters when using a google image search?  How long will it be before they crowdsource the cataloging of images to include what view you’re getting? Some things have MANY views, MANY sides, and having 44,000 pictures to sort through just to get the few dozen from “underneath left” really, really pissed me off.  It felt like blind hunting through FTP sites before thumbnails were ubiquitous.  Google image’s thumbnails need to evolve to have perspective tags. SRSLY!~

Heritage bars are the same as the Police bars on FLHRP(I)’s.  Have you seen what the MC cops can do?   They tend to be the *best* with maneuvering (skip 34 seconds in for the Road King):

Obviously the rider has great skill, but the Heritage / Police bars don’t get in the way at all.  I mean that literally – you can got *THAT* tight in your turns without hitting your own knee.  I’m 6′ tall and my legs are actually somewhat shorter than average (pant length 31″), I believe, but for whatever reason my knees are up way over the tank on the Road King.  Maybe I sit like a dweeb!

By the way, if you’re impressed by great riding, the hardest thing (IMO) is the slowride.  Here’s a video that still amazes me:

And of course, the Heritage / Police bars are adjustable, so that right there is a major plus.  They’re made for comfort as well as performance, and if they’re good enough for the Police then they’ll work for me and all of my different riding moods.

Looks wise, they’re not as sharp looking as the beach bars, but someone thinks the tall bars look right:

I'm not imitating anything - I have ALWAYS loved peanut butter, banana, and fried, in any combination.

Just hope they look good with the windshield off.

And while I was at it, I ordered the 1962 gun sight tank badges.

Now I can go around telling everyone about my life behind bars.  And when they say “what bars?” I can say “Police bars, son, Police bars…”

And no one will think it’s funny, because I’ll have taken that old joke too far.

*Allow me to admit that I hope this blog gets picked up by anyone else looking for information on a Harley-Davidson 2010 Road King Classic (with ABS … or without!).  You can tell I’m throwing in the model very often, almost as much as I can without (hopefully) becoming overbearing.  It’s intentional.  I AM advertising (but only ‘selling’ my free information; the story of my experience).  I want people who were stuck in my situation (“will this work with a 2010?” or “what can I expect from a 2010?”) to have at least SOME trustworthy resource.

And yes, I realize that by 2012, no one will care at all about a 2010.  So there’s not much need to label pricetags with the year.  But fuck it, there’s a comet coming in 2012, and the 2010 model may be more popular than ya think.  Especially if the MoCo screws something up.  Plus I can use this blog for my own records.