It was great to spend some time with family, rethink some gear and packing, repair and upgrade the bikes and get the new horizon mindset. As the prep work for the trip has been winding down, we had a randomly cool encounter last night...
It was rainy and gray most of the day and after church we headed to downtown Dallas for some Middle Eastern food, then grabbed some coffee and talked for a while. There was a Kinko's across the street and we needed to copy some documents, along with make dummy driver’s licenses for our dummy wallets, so we walked over to the deserted office and proceeded to hog the print station.
As I waited, a lady walked in and I immediately thought "she looks like she'd ride motorcycles." We finished copying our stuff and walked out, to see the lady along with a guy wearing a Klim jacket and smoking a cigarette. We walked over and I said "You guys look like you'd be riders". He laughed and said "Yep - we're both instructors for Rawhyde BMW Academy". I laughed and said “I definitely understated that”. He introduced himself as Trev Richter from Colorado. They were both friendly and we chatted about our trip south. He said he had some connections he'd share with us for the trip into South America, and then pulled out a business card and told me to contact him. He then pulled out a card for the lady and said he wanted to brag on her a bit...
As soon as I saw the picture on her card, it dawned on me why I thought she looked like a rider… she introduced herself as "Erin Sills". I was a bit dumbstruck and laughed out loud at meeting the 20 time motorcycle landspeed record holder in person. She was very friendly and we talked about bikes for a couple of minutes, both of them inviting us out to Rawhyde for a class. I tried to grovel but was not allowed. Erin said her background of course was sport bikes and speed, but had recently gotten into riding adventure motorcycles and was enjoying it, despite the learning curve.
It was a fun chance encounter and seemed like a good omen for our leaving! We didn't think to get a pic together so I stole the images of them from the appropriate sites...
Erin Hunter Sills
Trev Richter
A couple of days later, after finalizing paperwork and saying goodbyes, Kim and I rolled out on a crisp sunny day towards south Texas. We had a few people to see and a few things left to do to the bikes before crossing into Mexico, but the adrenaline was pumping.
We rode south to Austin where we've been catching up with friends and staying with riding buds Tom and wife Mary Stewart, both long time riders in the Austin/Hill Country area. In addition, Kim decided she’d had enough tiptoeing the 1200, and an Ohlins specialist in Austin said he could shorten the rear enough for her to feel comfortable. Tom lent us his garage for the suspension work as well as letting us stay and hang around.
As it turned out, the suspension guru Roger Albert of Onroad/Offroad, had his shop nearby so that worked out well. Kim rode over in full gear and with the bike loaded, so he could do measurements and check the specs of the existing Ohlins before doing the rebuild and height adjustment. He is an engineer and true to form, I was dazed and confused after less than a minute into his explanations of the physics and voodoo of it all.
We returned to Tom's garage to tear the bike apart and pull the front and rear shocks, reappearing at Roger's place an hour or two later to drop them off. Having the bike torn apart at Tom's place guaranteed we wouldn't be booted out as quickly, and we got to spend some time with them and my long time friend Steve.
Steve let Kim use his schweet F800GS for a couple of days which allowed us to visit with our friends in La Grange, Texas while the shocks were being worked on.
It was peaceful and relaxing at their place, with beautiful weather and Kim got a chance to shoot some steel...
Our dearest friends Dan, Helen and their son Marc and dog Bella
Upon returning to Austin in the evening we rode around a bit, strolled Hipsterville (aka S Congress) and then hung at 6th St for some blues guitar and a slice of street pizza.
We picked up Kim’s thoroughly rebuilt, shortened and tweaked Ohlins from Roger (On Road Off Road Cycles in Austin) on Wednesday and began reinstalling them on Thursday morning. Our friends Tom and Stewart graciously allowed us to spread out in their garage for 3 hours. Thanks again Tom & Stewart for your wonderful hospitality and friendship.
The Master
The rear shock on the BMW is the easier of the two to install. The front requires removal of the gas tank and a lot of finagling, however the shortened shock made it a bit easier as well.
While Kim worked on her bike, I made some needed adjustments on Steve’s 800.
Our good friends and fellow riders in Austin, Tom, Stewart, and Steve.
Kim’s first ride with the rebuilt shocks and her feet are flat on the ground...... happy day!!
From Austin, we hit the road south to meet our friend Hank (aka Motohank) for a nice evening at the Pearl Brewery in San Antonio with a beer and burger.
Hank had a visitor at his shop in Dilley… he definitely had feelings for Kim’s motorcycle.
Mexican Stand-off
The buzzard wasn't the least bit interested in our Czech-inspired turkey & peanut butter soft taco, so I had to eat it (really missed the tuna and corn).
After the 18,000 mile trek to Alaska and back, my bike had accumulated mileage around 50,000 miles and the stock BMW suspension had worn out, surprisingly lasting longer than suspected. Hank is a Touratech dealer, tester and factory installer, and after my trip with him to Mexico testing Touratech’s new suspension system, I decided to go with them rather than Ohlins as on my previous motorcycle.
After a major ouch to the budget, they arrived and I was swept away with man-love immediately…
They were quite bit harder to get installed on my GS Adventure, especially the front, being longer than stock but after an hour or two I had them on the bike and was racing around the neighborhood. The bike sat taller and handling was much snappier, a major improvement in handling as well. Suspension wears out slowly and is hard to notice until you get on a bike with new suspenders. I was pretty happy despite the economic hit.