K1200LT Auxillary Fuel Cell FOR SALE

My new cell is working out fine so it is time to get rid of the old one.

4 gallon RCI (3.5 actual).
It mounts in place of the pillion seat and uses the same mounting method/bolts.
Has shutoff valve and vent.
Backrest hardware mounted.
I have a well used cover and backrest that come with.
asking $250 + shipping (over $1000 invested in engineering time)

Let me know if you want some more detail. Older pix here:
http://employees.org/~mlangfor/2005/accessory_05.html

Thanks for looking, 

Service Experience at BMW Touring Sport, Greenville, SC

This post has been languishing for a few months because it is negative
and I really hate to go public with negativity. The reason that I post
this now is because the Iron Butt Rally is starting in Spartanburg, SC
and Touring Sport <http://www.touringsportbmw.com/> is the nearest BMW
dealer and I feel that sharing my experience may help others make an
informed decision on whether or not to use this dealership for service.

I had a breakdown on the Cape Fear 1000 rally and, based on the high
recommendations of others, chose to have my bike towed to Touring Sport
over a closer dealership. My bike has quite a bit of long distance
customization and I know that it costs extra to deal with non-stock
motorcycles. I fully expected to pay time and material for the repairs.
The failed ignition switch is deep inside the tupperware on a K1200LT so
the $500 labor charge, while not pleasant, was not surprising.

What was surprising was that the job was not done properly. While I
expect that my customization will cost extra, I also expect that my bike
will be returned to me in the proper condition. I had to ride the bike
home and then completely tear it down to reconnect my communications
system properly, essentially replicating 90% of the labor for which I
had just paid. In the process of reproducing this work I found other
examples of poor workmanship, stripped and missing screws, improperly
routed wiring, and missing spot ties.

I brought all of this to the attention of the management at Touring
Sport with little satisfaction. Their position was that they had to
charge flat labor on non-stock work and that the charges were normal.
They never did seem to understand that I was not objecting to charges
for work that was properly performed but was objecting to paying the
full freight on improper work.

Bottom line is that I felt they fully understood that I was a "one time"
customer who they would never see again.

My apologies for cross posting this to my blog
<http://ibpete.blogspot.com/>, the BMW Luxury Touring Community
<http://www.bmwlt.com/forums/cmps_index.php>, the Iron Butt Association
forum <http://www.ironbutt.org/forum/default.asp>, the LDRider forum
<http://www.ldriders.com/>, and the IBR private forum, I normally try to
be a good netcitizen but in this case I am following through with a
promise to Touring Sport that, should we not be able to resolve the
issue, I would make this post.

If anyone wants to see the entire email exchange please let me know and
I will post them on my web page.

--
Mike Langford [aka Pete]
Raleigh, NC
IBA#341
http://employees.org/~mlangfor/
The mysteries of life?
"it's faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, and more money"
Tom T. Hall

Not Superman Rally Withdraw

I managed to do what I have read of others doing and didn't see how--I lost my wallet.

I was going strong on leg 1 and was about 50 minutes ahead of plan when I stopped at the GA welcome center for a hygiene break. As I dismounted I felt for my wallet and, not finding it in my pocket, proceeded to turn the world upside down searching. It was definitely missing in action! Talk about discouraging, after some consultation with my wife and rallymaster Jim Pucket I headed back to my last 2 stops (one for fuel where I knew I had last used the wallet) in the hopes of finding it on the ground. 100 miles later, no joy.

I still had my cash, another credit card, and my drivers license (thanks to the bonus that required us to seal it up--it was tucked in with my paperwork) but two factors influenced my decision to drop out. Tough to say which was most discouraging; losing a valuable piece of ID (with my SSN) and the sickening thoughts of identity theft, or the fact that the additional 100 miles and loss of 2+ hours ruined any chance of a good finish.

I opted to head home via my daughters house in Columbus, GA.

Later that night, resting at my daughters, I came to a startling revelation about myself. I am so competitive that once a top finish was out of the picture I no longer wanted to play. I think I need to seriously rethink this rallying hobby and make sure I have my priorities straight.

Now that a couple of days have passed I am rethinking my decision. I missed out on the true reason for rallying--coming into the finish, tired and whipped, and sharing the experience with the other riders. The camaraderie is the true joy of this sport!

To those of you who may have been tracking my progress on SPoT, I apologize for the late report and hope no one was as concerned as my mom.

NotSuperMan Rally -- I'm off!

Early Thursday AM (7/9/09) I head out to Cape Girardeau, Mo for the Not Superman Rally starting at 0600 Friday morning.

This is a 54 hour venue with two 27 hour legs. Each leg has a mandatory 3 hour rest stop, leaving 24 hours for travel time for each leg. I've planned some pretty aggressive routes for each leg in the hopes of being a top scorer. Time will tell whether or not I can maintain the 56mph average needed to meet my goals.

If you want to play along virtually you can follow my progress with my public SPoT tracker page. You can find tracking linked from this blog page in the upper right corner.

This will be my last big shakedown ride before the Iron Butt Rally starting August 23rd out of Spartanburg, SC. Between the trip out and back and the rally itself I will rack up about 4500 miles before Monday evening.

I have been trying to support my expensive hobby with some advertising, so feel free to click on some of the advertisments you find on this page. So far I have earned a whopping $4.08  ;-)

thanks for looking,

--  Mike Langford [aka Pete] Raleigh,
NC IBA#341 http://employees.org/~mlangfor/
The mysteries of life? "it's faster horses, younger women,
older whiskey, and more money" Tom T. Hall

A Sunday Ride

After the hard time I had riding to Columbus, GA to visit my daughter (a mere two 500 mile days with lots of aches and pains), I decided I needed some more saddle time so I went for a little ride this last Sunday.

A fellow IBRer, Joel Rappoport was embarking on a 100CCC (Coast-to-Coast-to-Coast in 100 hours or less) ride out of Wilmington, NC and needed a witness at 2300 Sunday night. Since I am only 2 hours out I volunteered. The problem was that this was too short of a ride for me to really get in any IBR training and prep, so, in true IronButt form, I decided to add a few miles.


I left out of Raleigh early Sunday morning and grabbed a start receipt for an instate Saddlesore 1000. My route was mostly secondary roads and I needed to make 18 stops to document the corners. My map planning software told me that a 0300 departure would put me in Wilmington about 2200. With all the stops and a drop dead arrival time window (to meet Joel) I figured this would be good rally practice. I was worried about the mountain leg from Ashville, through Murphy, Highlands, and on to Hendersonville. US 64 is tourist haven and in my previous rides on this route have seen trip averages sink like the Titanic. I didn't want to miss the time window in Wilmington and make Joel hunt up an official witness.

I grabbed the start receipt at 0247 with 111594 miles on the odometer. As it turns out the roads were great, traffic was light, and my stops were efficient. I got to Wilmington at 2030, a full 2 1/2 hours early! Now I just had to kill time to wait for Joel. He showed up a bit early, we completed his paperwork and I was off to Raleigh. I snagged my finish receipt at 1255 with 112671 miles on the odometer. BMW miles were 1077 and the GPS showed 1046.

The ride was pretty much a normal 1000 mile day and rather than bore you with turn-by-turn details here are the highlights:

• Deer--between 0300 and 0530 I saw more deer along the road than I have ever seen before. This was the first time I've ridden a deer infested area with the new wide angle Soltek Fuego HID driving light. I can't help but think that they had always been there and this was the first time I could see them.
  
• Ashville to Murphy on US74--this is a beautiful road and beautiful country. A most enjoyable ride.
  
• Highlands, NC. If you have ever traveled US64 in this area on a sunny Sunday you, like me, do not have fond memories of the traffic. I stopped alongside the waterfalls on US64 and there was only one vehicle in the turn out. In the 5 minutes or so I was there NO traffic passed me in either direction! I traversed downtown Highlands at the speed limit and didn't have to wait at the stop light. In all honesty this was pretty scary stuff. I had allotted myself an extra hour to traverse this area and, compared to what I have seen before it was like a ghost town. It may have been too early in the season. I sure hope that was the case and not a sign of the economy.
• East coast heat and humidity--in the afternoon the thermometer was pushing high 80's. When you are AGATT (all the gear all the time), it can be a bit uncomfortable. Getting acclimatized to this heat is part of the training. I was keeping myself well hydrated thanks to one of my new farkles. I added a water pump to the water cooler. It sure is nice to just push the button and have that water flow instead of trying to suck it up a 4 foot straw :-)
• Rain Squalls--Horrible downpour east of I95 on US74 for about 10 miles. It was actually pleasant. The temps dropped 15 degrees and my new Olympia jacket performed as advertised and kept me dry. Much more so than the 20 or so bikers parked under the overpass waiting out the rain. I love it when I ride past them, wave, and smile.

Lessons Learned
This was a shakedown run of the bike and my body. All-in-all the bike is near perfect. I'm sure there will be some minor tweaks but everything seems to be shaping up nicely. I found some things that needed fixing:

• Exercise--I've got to spend more time getting in shape. My desk job may well prepare me for sitting hours and hours but it does little to help with the aches and pains.
• Game Face--This ride was much easier than the trip to Columbus. I guess having a set goal and getting your game face on helps out. Thank Goodness, I was really worrying about the 11 days in August.
  
• Seating--This was the longest run with the new Ricky Mayer saddle that I had bought used. This was a trial replacement for the custom saddle from Cycle Solutions. The seat needs some adjustment and I shipped it off to Cycle Solutions today for a custom rework of a custom saddle. Look for updates on the results in the future.

Further updates coming please stay tuned.
Mike (IBPete)

Shark Evoline First Impressions

I got the Evoline earlier this year. So far I have about 1000 miles on it. It replaced a Caberg Flipup that was okay but I couldn't get a replacement shield for it. Here are my impressions of the Evoline:

First off, I don't wear a full face for safety but for weather protection and if it wasn't so time and space consuming I would carry 2 helmets, one full face, one open face. The perfect helmet for me was the Gallet ISR in which the chin bar was a clam shell set up (open & closed). Regretfully, after 7 years my inner lining deteriorated beyond repair and they are no longer available.

The flipups don't do open face worth a darn. If I left the Caberg open, I would get horrible neck strain, either from the balance point or the wind pushing against the chin bar. That was my main interest in the Evoline, opening it puts the chin bar behind the helmet and out of the windstream. I had some concern that the extra weight of this helmet (~4lbs) might defeat this feature. My initial feeling is that this is the case but it is still better than the Caberg. With my budget I don't have a choice, so we will see if it's just a matter of getting the proper muscles toughened up over a few more days of riding.

Out of the box this is the best fitting helmet I have ever had. The cheek pads a firmly in place but not too tight and I am not getting any hot spots around my head.

This helmet is NOT headset friendly. Due to the inner lining (nice construction), there is no space for speakers. Adding a headset requires judicious surgical work (on the helmet not on your head). I wear custom molded in-the-ear headphones so all I needed to do was to make some room for the wiring and boom mic.

Now to my major problem (which I have had with all of my helmets). The space for my ears doesn't seem to align properly. It feels just fine for a few hours and then my ears get really sore. In the case of the Evoline the problem is where the straps come through the cheek pads. I think the strap is touching my earlobes causing the eventual irritation. I have removed some of the foam from the cheekpads to let the strap move away from my head but this has not yet solved the problem. More foam surgery is going to happen but again, due to the excellent construction of this helmet, not an easy process. FWIW--it took me several tries to resolve this problem with other helmets so it may just be my ears that have the problem.

Noise--The earplugs coupled with my hearing impairment make me a poor judge. That being said, it seems this helmet is pretty noisy. I know when I have the chin bar open and close the face shield it seems to have a lot of wind noise.

Bottom line--if you want the benefit of an open face and full face helmet this fits the bill. For me there is no other alternative and this benefit outweighs all of my other observations.

Farkling for 2009 IBR

I have been busy since getting the bike back from Greenville, SC after the ignition switch failure. I had to tear the bike down to correct the errors made during the repair and so decided it was a good time to clean up the wiring and finish up my farkles.

I put the final touches on the homemade custom fuel cell I built. It sits on the rear deck. The original plan was to have the box on top of it but the when I tried it with my full scale model the box was too tall. I bought a Storm Case and made a quick release mechanism for it. I have filled it several times now and it comes in between 5 and 5.1 gallons so I will be just below the 11.5 gallon limit.


I have added the following:

• Second Soltek Fuego wide angle driving light
• Storm Case
• tool canister
  
• storage bag on pillion seat
• map light
  

Other pictures of the bike, farkles, and the fuel cell building process are posted on my web album.