a blog about motorbikes, bicycles, and the folks who ride them.
Limited edition t-shirt number 2 is available in our Cafe Press Online Store. It features Sully’s sprocket logo. Too bad we didn’t have it ready for Black Friday, the servers probably would have crashed. We like to say these shirts are “limited edition”, because, well, our audience is limited. If you are in the Tribe, click the link to our Cafe Press Online Store and throw down.
This is the “Sprocket” ringer t-shirt: available at Cafe Press.
Sully has come through with some designs, just in time for Black Friday. More will be added soon. Check out the limited edition Got Bike Boot Camp shirt at the Its All About The Bike Online Store.
Peace.
Awhile back, I made the announcement that we were working on some t-shirt and sticker designs for people in our Tribe. There have been countless times on moto rides, in the middle of nowhere in the west desert, you see an Alta snowflake sticker on a lonely road sign, someone had to put it there. Maybe a hiker or a climber, or another dualsport moto rider put it there. I thought it would be cool to have stickers to leave in all the random places I’d likely never get back to. Or how many times did we meet fellow dirt surfers and big bike touring freaks out on the Trans-America Trail who asked about our trip? We would always tell them to check the blog for photos and stories, knowing they would likely forget the URL. I am happy to announce that Sully has been doing more than just building choppers and cafe racers in his World HQ. Here is a taste for one of his first designs. Our online store will be up and running soon. Peace.
The garage is a lonely place without the bike. Today in Park City was amazingly warm weather. Great for riding motorbikes in short sleeve shirts. Not so great if the business you are in is skiing. Last Friday, Deer Valley Resort had all guns blazing, with fan guns blowing copious amounts of snow as far up the mountain as you could see. Today, it was 65 degrees and sunny. I see a pattern developing. This is turning out much like last November. There’s no doubt the snow will come, just a question of when.
The garage is empty, because I scrambled home at lunch and rode the KTM across the way to the local folks at Summit Honda. They don’t speak Austrian, but are nice enough and agreed to install a new Regina chain for me, since I don’t have the correct tool to replace the rivet link. While I was inside, my bike created quite a ruckus outside. There were four or five guys hovering, checking it out, eyeballing it, sizing it up. Summit Honda has a 2001 KTM LC4 they took in trade a while back (which I wrote about), with 1,700 original miles. Apparently they couldn’t sell it for awhile since they didn’t have the title, but have that all worked out and it’s back on the floor. It would be a sweet bike for someone looking for a good dualsport.
Finally, for all of those who are bored with my infrequent posts, occasional rants on cycling dopers, (all two of you, according to Dave Fields), I will start to post writings by fellow itsallaboutthebikers. Sully is on the hot seat. Let’s see what he comes up with. The pressure is on. Maybe while I’m in Boston for a consumer ski show, Sully will come through. If so, I’ll drink a pint of Guinness for every post he writes. Or three.
I embarked on some maintenance and repairs of my KTM recently, and came to the conclusion that this whole internet thing, you know, blogs, and forums, and email, and websites and all, it’s really something. I would have been lost without the online community on KTM TALK, a forum for KTM owners and enthusiasts.
The basic issue: when you replace worn out sprockets on motorcycles, you generally need to replace both the back and the front. If both get worn to to the point where they start to resemble shark’s teeth, instead of symmetrical triangular profile, then you probably need to replace the chain as well. On high-end racing bicycles, road and mountain, you usually replace the chain frequently enough to avoid wear on the front chainrings and rear sprockets clusters. A new Campagnolo front chainring on my road bike costs more to replace than both front and rear sprockets on my KTM motorcycle. Go figure. The lighter the part, the more you pay. Chains, on the other hand are cheaper, and you can make cool hippie bracelets out of old ones, which is nice if you are a hippie. Go figure!
Back to the motorcycle: Both front and rear sprockets looked like shark’s teeth, so it was time to do the job. I used an online parts finder at KTM Cycle Hutt to open up a schematic of my bike and order the part online. This is the same system the local chumpshow uses to find and order parts. The parts showed up in a few days, free shipping, and I was excited to rip into this project. The problem is, the front sprocket I ordered didn’t resemble the worn one that was on my bike. That’s when I consulted the community on KTM TALK. Ask a question, get an answer. It turns out there is a thing called a “dampened front sprocket” with a massive rubber bushing that sandwiches the metal sprocket. These are only put on new bikes as a sound dampener to ever so slightly reduce the operating noise inherent in these Austrian-made gas-powered rattlers. They also do not appear on the KTM online parts diagrams. The replacement sprockets do not come with the rubber, because, once the bike makes it into the good old U.S.A., why does KTM care if it’s a little noisier? Point is, if I didn’t have KTM TALK, I’d still be scratching my head wondering what to do about these two rubber pieces that look like cross-sections of a hockey puck. I’ve had great luck finding answers on ADV Rider as well, and it seems like the good resources there also cross over to KTM TALK. Just a heads up, y’all. The world wide intraweb thing is pretty cool.
What do two Utah ski industry marketing guys and neighbors do when it’s Indian Summer in a ski town like Park City, Utah, on November 1, with opening day less than a month away, and nobody is booking expensive ski vacations because the nation’s economy is in the crapper, and people are losing their jobs left and right, and a graph of the last 60 days of the swings in the stock market looks like a topographical map of the Rocky Mountains, and the only thing that can save us is a big snowstorm, and we’re not even really sure that will get people to start booking expensive ski trips to Utah? What if those two same guys drank a brazillion (that’s George W speak for a shitload) beers the night before while their kids were out collecting little bite size candies from neighbors and/or perfect strangers, which means doing anything productive around the house with a hangover is pretty much out of the question? Why, go for a single speed mountain bike ride in our backyards, in Round Valley, of course. Thanks, Jay, for kicking my butt and exorcising the liquid devil right out of my bloodstream. Let’s hope the temperature drops, the snow starts to fly, and that’s the last good and dry mountain bike ride in these parts until after ski season.
Jay Burke, holding the Round Valley Trail, Park City, Utah. Photo by Moto.