End @ 67,243 (108 miles)
Got up early & left at about 0630 to meet Kermit at Cracker Barrel in Spotsylvania – just south of Fredericksburg proper. He beat me there, naturally, by enough time to finish a cup of coffee. We joked about how he always orders “black coffee” and the waitress always asks “do you want cream or sugar with that.” It’s that Brian Regan routine – every time.
He mentioned – for the second time in three or four conversations – the idea of riding the full length of US 50. It’s about 3,000 miles from Ocean City MD to Sacramento CA. I’ve considered that trip several times, including when I rode to Montana for the MOA Rally and decided to ride on the Lincoln Highway as much as I could. Maybe we should start talking about doing the trip in a serious fashion, maybe in the spring or fall of 2026. Not the dead of summer. First off, Kermit’s retired, he can travel any time. Second, the Rally is in June and I’m busy with the a semi-annual editing contract as well. Third, it’s f***ing hot in summer and thus, summer is f***ing miserable. Maybe May or September. It’s still plenty warm everywhere and maybe a bit less rainy most places. There are also fewer families on vacation because school’s not out. We’re so conditioned to travel in the summer, to think of summer as vacation time or time to travel because of being and then having kids. That needs to stop. Both of us are empty nesters and can travel more or less whenever we want to.
After breakfast, I stopped at Morton’s (Kermit went, too) to get some parts and look at summer gloves. My REV’IT! gloves are starting to fall apart – I think I’ve had them three or four years, so I’m not upset about it. However, when I tried to replace them with REV’IT! gloves from Revzilla, I discovered they changed their sizing conventions and even their biggest gloves no longer fit me. But I didn’t want to take a chance on having to keep sending stuff back, so I decided to check out what they’d have at Morton’s. BMW’s summer glove doesn’t have knuckle armor, just an extra layer of leather. Held’s gloves were the same. Klim’s summer gloves don’t have the longer gauntlet like REV’IT!, but it was long enough to just barely get over the wrist bone that sticks out. The Induction model is made with the finger seams on the outside, which I imagine makes them a lot more comfortable on long days or when the hands get sweaty. I got a pair of those in 3XL for $140. Everything is so expensive!
I got valve cover gaskets and an air filter for the R 90/6 and ordered an oil pan gasket. They called me later to tell me they found one in the back, so yay them. When I get to 67,500 I’ll do a full service, that will be the first video I make at Morton’s.
Agenda:
1) Create list of torque values and fluid amounts needed
2) Don’t forget to take the beauty bottle I got for the gear oil
3) Re-torque head stud nuts (engine must be cold)
4) Check & adjust the valve clearances (engine must be cold)
5) Engine oil & filter
6) Drop the oil pan and check for sludge; clean & replace. (Ordered a gasket scraper from Amazon, didn’t have one of those.)
7) Transmission oil
8) Final drive oil
9) Swingarm oil
10) Synch the carbs (?)
I’ll have to take it up on the trailer since the stud/valve stuff has to be done with the engine cold. It’ll take too long for the engine to cool down enough to do it, and it’ll be too hot to change the oil right away. 10 minutes or so in the parking lot should do the trick for the oil, probably less. Also, I’ll need to figure out how to use my carb balancer I got a few years ago.