-Bret Tkacs-

The plan was simple: do the majority our pre-trip maintenance at home in Washington, send the bikes to Colorado where I needed to go to teach a class; then before the ride home we do a few last minute items and hit the road for a shakedown ride of bikes and gear.  But as we know plans are just plans and often reality alters them significantly.

We had each evening planned out so I could get work done, she could work on her resume and school applications, we could see a local site or two and we would finish prepping the bikes. The first part worked out great, the bikes made it to Colorado and then things started to get interesting starting with Christina’s flight from Texas where she was delayed for 2 hours due to Denver shutting down the airport and throwing off the schedule before she even arrived. Next a student was injured during training keeping us up until 2 am at the hospital and of course I started the week running on multiple days of 4 hr nights which made me less than productive as I struggled to catch up on my sleep. The plan:

1. Install fresh rear brake pads… a simple 10 min job turned into far more than we bargained for. When she pulled her brakes we found out the pins for the free floating caliper were completely seized. It took over an hour to free the one pin and we would have to replace the 2 rubber pin covers to complete the repair at $30 per caliper! Knowing her 800 has had a road bias life before her acquisition of it I was concerned for my own 800. As it turns out I was right… both front brakes were seized up on their pins and the rear was close to the same.  We decided to hold off on doing the front calipers on Christina’s bike but expect to see the same. The bad news is that it will cost $90 per bike for 6 little pieces of rubber and it is taking about 1 hr per caliper, the good news is we found out now and not somewhere on the road after we leave the U.S.   It should only take about 5 min per caliper to grease the pins in the future.

2. Install a Rekluse autoclutch into Christina’s bike and install a fresh one into mine… Christina pulled her bike apart for the install and her clutch cover gasket tore which meant mine would have to wait until after our return since we only had one spare gasket with us and mine is already torn from an earlier install.

The positive point is we found these issues before our departure date. On the ride home the list continued to grow.

1. While checking the rear brake pads Christina also found the bearing in her sprocket carrier is failing. Luckily we already have bearings at home as we were going to change these as a precautionary measure given the reputation for the mid-sized GS to eat wheel bearings.
2. My oil filter caught a small rock that put a pin hole in it causing an oil gusher that covered the bike, rear brake and rear tire in a thick coating of oil. I hammered out my skid plate to make more room between the filter and skid plate so it wouldn’t happen again (I hope)

3. While inspecting my bike I found the cross bar to my new luggage is failing with the support tube being fractured at 50%.  I will have to pull it all an weld it before we leave. 4. Christina’s  bike failed to start one morning with only 8.8v of power in the battery. We added a new volt meter to the tool kit, did some trouble shooting (failing charging system). We swapped her discharged battery into my bike so it could recharge and put my fully charged battery into hers to limp home. We found an internet string about this issue and then with the help of the folks at Big Twin BMW in Boise ID located an aftermarket replacement stator for only $165 (Ricks stators), the OEM system was over $900! We couldn’t get it in time to fix it on the road but it should be waiting for us when we get home.

Being we already installed the auto clutch to bump start her dead GS we had to convert it to a manual clutch and push like crazy. Being her playful self Christina had to play around with a big smile announcing she had a real clutch again while revving and popping the clutch… of course stalling it in an intersection. The look on her face was priceless as she waited for me to get upset. All I could do is laugh in my helmet as we pushed it up a hill to bump start it again. The good:

• Each failure we found is an easy fix here in the States and could have been a huge deal once we on the road
• Our tool kit has been thoroughly tested now and we have added a few items to improve it a tad

The bad:

• We have lost several precious days needed for preparation as each event and item has chipped away at the time we have left
• All the repairs and tools are already tapping into our travel budget.