More than 500 miles + a little fun

Preface: I have a tendency to get a bit long winded, so bail now if you like. You've been warned.

This weekend I drove from northern Wisconsin to Northern Illinois for family obligations. For me, too long of a ride being all freeway, but not terrible either.

I found a Kawasaki dealer, which there are none near me, and needed a key made and had a few unsuccessful attempts elsewhere. I figured if anyone could make me a key, they could. (I've been known to lock my keys in the vehicle, while not a problem here, a back-up is always good measure. I'm still trying to stop trusting people and taking my keys out of the ignition. ) So I drift over to see if they can help. Indeed, a new key for five bucks and change, and it actually worked this time. woohoo. After stopping at the gas station across the road for smokes, and talking to some random dude (as is happening much more often since the bike) I head back. I pull up to a Stingray (C3, I think, no split rear window), and if you've read some of my other posts, my bike idles about 4-4.5 grand when warm. So the two guys in it look over at me, smile, talk amongst themselves, look back, smile, and rev it. (I'm guessing they thought I wanted to race cause it seemed like I was revving it, even though my RPMs were stable, but high.) So I decided f*** it, if they want to go, unprovoked (in my book), let's go. He spins away from the light, and I do what I can, without giving it everything (I'm still a bit scared to do that). I look back after shifting into fourth, and he is probably about 100 yards back (or a little more) and braking very hard and then turns. I dusted this guy, bad. Maybe he was just playing with me, I'm not sure, but if he wasn't, I smoked him. I was quite impressed with a 30 year old ($50) bike. I smiled the entire way back to my destination.

I was quite shocked that I beat the guy, let alone as badly as I did (assuming he was indeed attempting to drag race me). I didn't think that the bike had it in her, or that I had it in me, but in my book, the conditions ahead of me couldn't've been better. No traffic, no crossroads, straight as an arrow. I'm generally not big on racing. (I dislike street racing much more than I dislike dragging.)

Let me apologize for the use, possibly overuse, of parentheses. I write how I speak, and I speak with a lot of asides. I thought that for this purpose, my asides would be better served with parentheses, as they weren't vital information.

I welcome any comments, be it positive, "attaboys", congrats, etc or negative, dumbass he wasn't racing, don't break/bend the law, I'd smoke your little 750 . Say whatever you like. This isn't a story I can tell the girlfriend or mother, whom I was meeting, so I'm spilling it to my peers, even though nearly everyone knows much more about riding and these bikes, I like to consider you all my peers.

Other than that touch of fun, it was a mostly uneventful ride (good). But the left side (sitting on the bike) exhaust broke between the conjoined header pipes and the muffler/megaphone/whatever (right at what appeared to be a weld holding them together [both heat shields gone because they rattled and seemed useless]). I plan to try to weld this up this week. I hope it works, as it appears to be stock pipes, plus it's running a bit shitty and loud right now. Plus it'd be a basically free repair.

Completely unrelated but, I will say that where I live, basically zero HD riders will give the "biker wave", but in northern Illinois, much, much more of them did. (ask anyone you know [from Wisconsin] to say something positive about people from Illinois, and I would bet that they say "umm" followed by a fairly long pause. We don't generally like FIBs [f***ing Illinois Bastards] {nearly always tourists})

If you read this far, you deserve some type of medal. :lol:

P.S. I'm a programmer by day, so I'm fairly good about beginning and terminating my grouping markers. ()[]{}

Nice story, I like asides (I use them myself)...

You get an atta-boy! :laugh:

Need to make sure people still respect the speed of these bikes.

Had a similiar (but not near as satisfying)experience a couple of days ago. Waiting at a stoplight to turn left onto the main drag heading home from work, there was a lime green roadrunner right behind me. Always liked those cars and the guy looked to be about my age (gray hair) so I nodded in my rearview mirror...no response except a little rev. Headed toward the far lane on the left turn and the roadrunner takes the middle and guns it. Well, I wasn't going to put up with that s#%t so I twisted the throttle and shot past him. 'Course then I realized that I was doing 50 mph in a 40 in the middle of town so I backed off. He must have realized it too 'cause he just came even with me, looked, then pasted as I took a right.

I'd of loved to had really gone at it, but with the college students back in town, the police are hyper sensitive. Rats

Atta boy from me.

That's one of the best things about a bike - the great power to weight ratio. Would have been a different story if you tried to race the Vette on the open highway but what the hell - his car costs about 500 times what the bike did.

Never been too keen on driving really fast, but love to accelerate. The LTD does that just fine around town. Besides, a good thrashing every so often does the motor good (at least that's what I tell myself) as long as you know when it's time to back off. (ie before it blows up or you're remined of the limitations of a 30 year old chassis and brakes).

Keep safe.

You really need to do something about that 4k idle.......chris3

coppertales wrote:

You really need to do something about that 4k idle.......chris3

+1 on that.
Justyn, can you back the idle down with the adjustment knob?
If you can't, and it dies at normal idle rpm (1200 - 1400), then you probably have a plugged pilot circuit.
Oh, and I think the vette was racing...at least until he figured out what he was up against. Good on ya!

yeah you really need a super car to keep up with any decent bike, the power to weight for even our heavy old bikes in outstanding.