Wilsons Sandbox

Just thought I'd throw some KLR and dual-sporting content up here. My 2000 (A14) just rolled over 44k miles, 20k of which are mine. I use the bike as a daily driver and only get off the road very occasionally - not often enough! The dirt bike ergos, relatively light weight, and high seat height make it a great urban commuter. I know some guys think that's a waste of a good KLR but hey, it's motorcycling, and keeping one more cage off the road. My current set of tires are the Kenda K761 and I've been very pleased so far. For the money they work great, as well as the set of Scorpion A/T they replaced at half the price. The front took a while longer to scrub in, and was much more loosey goosey at first than the Scorpion, and after 5k miles has the sawtooth effect going on big time but still corners and stops as well as ever. The rear has 6k miles and has just gotten to where the shallow center grove is gone. First time I've had a rear outlast a front, and the wear is all from braking, not cornering or running on gravel etc.. The front Scorpion lasted 12k miles, so I may go with a different front tire next time. Since I'm old and slow on the dirt (and the street!) I haven't had a problem with the Kendas. The grooves are wider and deeper than the Scorpions, so may give marginally better performance in the loose stuff. I'm not a skilled dirt rider and my technique is largely focused on pain avoidance these days:) For you L.A. and Inland Empire riders, the closet place I've found to ride off road is the Lytle Creek area. Rocks and large gravel at the end of the paved road, then dirt fire roads later on. You can ride clear up to Wrightwood if you can figure out the route. http://g.co/maps/gxkyb https://picasaweb.google.com/116400403409443624294/LytleCreek2092008# I recently installed a fan switch per that hand-drawn schematic in the FAQ. Works great. If you anticipate that you are going to be in a situation where the temp is going to climb you flip on the fan and the rise in temp never happens, for example stop-n-go or exiting the interstate after a high speed run. I noticed a big drop in mpg after the weather cooled off so am considering adding the Thermo-Bob this winter to keep the motor from running so cool that mpg suffers. It's like it never warms up fully on my 5 mile commute or running around town. -- ian http://www.scarletfuries.com http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Scarlet-Furies/121218125931 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]