After 2 months I finally decided to give her a sponge bath.
She was clean when I brought her home and she sleeps in a garage at night so the only dirt and dust she gets is from my daily commute. Well, we had some rain this week and she had a few water spots on her, plus I wanted to pull off those nasty Yamaha emblems that were on the gas tank.
I just used some Windex and a rag to clean most of the body, seemed simple enough and meant I did not have to get wet.
I took a hair dryer to the emblems and after they warmed up a bit it was easy to peel them off. I used Windex with the towel and some elbow grease to get the sticky residue off the tank.
Here are some pics of the work.
Nice clean tank:
Here is what the emblems looked like before:
And a random shot of her parked the other day while meeting up with someone for work.
You are right its a sweet bike; however, I want a bike that I can ride. I know the current owner woulld cry if he knew that he took that much care of it to only put 2800 miles on it in 20 years and I put 3000-5000 in one summer.
You are right its a sweet bike; however, I want a bike that I can ride. I know the current owner woulld cry if he knew that he took that much care of it to only put 2800 miles on it in 20 years and I put 3000-5000 in one summer.
Good find for a collector tho!
Who cares what the previous owner wants or feels, if you buy it to ride it, ride it!
Put in the big boy nitrous jet last night. Heading out to the track here soon to see my first 8 second pass. With this much nitrous, I should be able to get in the higher 8.80's... if I have enough gear on my bike.
My dream is for insurance to not be so bloody high. If I was under my own insurance (rather than my parents), it would be worth a brand new CBR every year.
So a week ago I planned and went on my first pleasure ride on the weekend with 2 buddies.
If you know me from other posts, I bought my FZ1 as my first Street Bike back in September and have been riding her as my main commuter when it is not raining, which here in San Diego is most of the time.
So finally I got around to planning a non-work ride with one buddy who has a fat boy HD and another who has a Husky 650 super-moto style bike. (not exactly sure what that style is called.)
So it began on a Sunny and warm Saturday afternoon. The three of us chose Alpine Brewery, in Alpine, CA as our meeting place. For me this is a 62 miles ride on the freeways. For my friends they were a bit closer since they both live further south in San Diego County than I do. After some delish BBQ (I had the Dry Rubbed Baby Back ribs fresh from the smoker) and a pint of their nelson IPA we decided to get our ride started.
We had about 15 more miles of Freeway before we hit the S1 Exit off the 8 freeway in East San Diego County, and along the way noticed the 72 degree weather near sea level was quickly dropping. Once on the S1 it was about 10 miles of some great twisties as we climbed up Mount Laguna. I was smart and brought along a sweater to go under my jacket and puled off at a vista point along the climb to put it on:
What you are looking at is a southern view from about 5500 feet above sea level. The furthest mountains you see in the picture are probably in Mexico. You cannot see the ocean at this angle because of the hills to the right, but it is normally in view from some other spots. As you can see this area is more lush since this mountain is the divider between the coast and the Desert that stretches all the way into Texas.
Back on the bikes we popped up and over the mountain top which peaks at 5805ft above sea level, and is more of a flat topped hill near the top. On the way down the north ridge we pulled over again for a quick photo-op. This is about 28 miles since our lunch stop. At this point we are looking North-East, and as you can see the mountains drop off like a cliff about 4500 feet down to the desert floor, and about 40 miles further east the desert goes below sea level in a number of places.
From here it is a mix of down and up with plenty more twisties throw into the mix as we head north to Julian, known for its historic downtown (cowboy style) and plethora of Antique stores. Also it is known for its Julian Apple Pie Company. HOWEVER, knowing that the town would be full of tourists on such a nice Saturday afternoon, we opted to pass through town and stop at the bigger production store and restaurant in nearby Santa Isabel.
I enjoyed a nice crumble top Raspberry/Apple pie slice and a cup of hot coffee. Things were warming up down here now that we were out of the elevation, if I had to guess it was in the mid to upper 40's near the top of the mountain.
This was our last place to chat since once we headed west to Ramona we would be splitting up to make our ways home. This spot was about 62 miles from Alpine, so far I had traveled half the route on Freeway and half on 2 lane twisties.
After leaving Santa Isabel we were now on a much more heavily traveled road so the speeds slowed and we just got in line with the rest of traffic that was heading down out of the mountains. I turned off at Ramona and headed due west while my buddies continued south towards San Diego.
At this point something magical happened. I was able to go down the canyon from Ramona to Escondido with no one in front or behind me and enjoy about 10 miles of back canyon riding while focusing just on the ride. The rest of the way home was uneventful. In total I clocked 167 miles for the afternoon.
I have one thing to say about my FZ at this point, The stock seat on a Gen 1 is horrible for anything longer than an hour of riding. Other than that I had a blast.
Looks like fun Klure! I miss my bike already, but I never had the chance to go on joy rides. It's something I would like to do with the Mustang, but who knows if that will happen...
You have some beautiful country to drive down there in SoCal! Very nice pics as well!
I did not notice a loss of performance, but I am sure there was one since the bike is not jetted for 5000+ elevation. You really start to notice jetting issues above 8000 feet.
I have my FZ700's carbs off right now since im upjetting my pilot jets, and I have a terrible ethanol gunk build up. Im running them through an ultra-sonic machine soon.
My bike Triumph Trident 750 '93.........rat/cafe'............it's used but rocks, not a speed machine but its not about how fast I get there for me,all about the journey..
Personally, I love cafe racers. So a Triumph Thruxton, Norton Commando, or a Ducati Sport 1000 are some of my choices. Right now though, since I've never ridden a bike before, I'm looking at a Honda CRR250R, or a Suzuki TU250X as my first bike. I also love Aprilia's too!
