first ride of the year

Hey All!

took my first ride of the year yesterday! the wind and rain finally let up, as well as the shearing pain in my neck & arm, so i decided it was time.

i changed the oil, put in a new battery, had some new tires put on and hit the open road. did about 150 miles and it felt great! i'm trying a half helmet this year, and so far i'm liking it. kind of get more of the wind in the face experience! :lol:

this is only my second summer of motorcycle ownership. last summer i made the mistake of doing a handlebar swap which really cut into my riding days. this summer, i'm just planning on riding, and saving repair projects for winter!

i got a throttle rocker which is nice for the hiway, but kind of awkward in stop and go traffic. i guess the jury is still out on that one.

the bike still scares me a little, but i still get a kick out of riding it. i feel like i'm cheating death every time i make it home! :laugh:

i'd like to find some forward pegs. anyone have some they like? or how about an engine guard? does anyone know of a more comfortable seat for the old kz1000st?

anyway, later in the summer, i'd like to plan a trip to iowa to see my grand kids. i'll have to look at the atlas and find some back roads between here and there. a friend of mine rode from nebraska to alaska last summer, but i think iowa will be stretching it for me!

anyway, sorry for going on and on. still kind of geeked up about the bike...

happy motoring!

Sounds cool, I can't wait to go for a ride. My bike's getting close.
Mark

Hey John. Glad you are out on the road and enjoying your 1000.
What was the hold up with your handlebar swap last year, as it sounds like you must have had some difficulty? Just being nosey I guess, but thought we might could learn something from whatever your experience was.

Good to hear it, John.

Looks like if you mosey your way over to Broken Bow and then Grand Island and then on Hiway 30 east, you'd probably miss a lot of traffic. Certainly looks more interesting than I-80. Of course, there look to be a dozen other routes to try as well.

Post edited by: N0NB, at: 2007/06/09 17:30

Hey All!

thanks for the replys!

nate, you're absolutely right about the broken bow, grand island, hwy 30 route. i'd probably drop into lincoln and see my sister on the way and then cut up into iowa on the back roads. should be a fun trip!

on the handlbar swap; long story short, i always do things the hard way! :lol: this is because i'm a cheap-ass, and always try to do things to save money which usually ends up costing me more. in this case, i utilized a set of bars (free from a friend!) from an LTD, and an old barn fresh windshield (free from the same friend). of course the the LTD bars are a little taller and reach back a little more than the ST bars, so i had to get new cables. also, the windshield came with no mounting hardware, so that had to be fabricated since the windshield was old enough that the company no longer made the hardware (are you seeing how things go for me? :lol: )

well, between the shop guy ordering the wrong cables for me twice (he's a great guy, but he's so busy he can never remember that i have the oddball kz1000 st), being busy at work, and painting and fabricating it just took me a long time to get the project finished. oh, and then after i had the shop guy order the cables twice, i measured them closer and found i didn't need them after all!

also, even though i end up doing nearly all of my own mechanicing out of sheer bloody mind-ed-ness (and the cheap-ass thing), i'm not a particularly skilled mechanic and i know next to nothing about motorcycles, so i ususally proceed pretty slowly! lol

hey, does anybody know anything about aiming the headlight, or improving it's output? riding at night is pretty spooky, especially with all the deer around here. someone said there was a kit from jc whitney to upgrade to a g4 (?) bulb or something. any ideas would be appreciated.

at any rate, keep it rubber side down!

JCWhitney has the headlite kits, they replace the factory bulb with a H4 Halogen, they are on ebay all the time too.
Ride safe.