The Hootch - Lessons learned
This past weekend I made the trek to my first southern dual-sport ride. I also had a humbling experience, a dose of what can happen when you push things a bit too hard, and do not prepare properly. Be forwarned. What you are about to read makes me look like an idiot. I am writing this here to help my lessons learned sink in a bit further into my brain, and hopefully help someone out there as well.
I bought a Cannondale e440r about six weeks ago. Now what you might not know is that my wife and I just moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina in March. We busted our butts to get our 1833 antique colonial ready for sale, sold it, moved and here we are. Exhausting. Of course I have a whole new set of stresses at work, as the move brought a whole new set of responsibilities. So in-between the hectic pace at work, and getting settled into a new house in a new state, I bought a new bike. Not the best time to do this.
I ordered a dual sport kit from Baja Designs, and finally got the chance to put it on a few days form the ride. I had to give them a call to work some confusion on my part- the Cannondale is not wired like most other dirt bikes, I imagine because it was American Made and fuel injected. So I was up late in the garage two nights in a row getting it together. I also bleed the Hydraulic fluid for the clutch (replaced cable, the original one got tweaked on my first ride on the bike, but that is a different story), changed the engine and transmission oil. All for the first time on a bike I really did not know well.
To make things more interesting, I thought that the bike would not pass the sound check (92 db) so I stuffed some loose steel wool pads into the exhaust, a quick fix I read on the internet. I had tested the bike at <90 db using a sound meter from work, but since it was not calibrated to the microphone; I did not think that it was accurate.
Finally, I had a pair of DOT knobbies that I was going to put on the bike, but ran out of time to get them on. The tires that came on the bike, I learned later, were soft compound motocross tires.
That is it for now. Stay tuned to read what happened.