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Crossing fingers the person who has come forward works out the way you wish. I found this site late, but having met you and so many others from here....I have come to love my friends here! Such good people.. and.... This is the only site I've found where positive human values are evident with all who live here! It's a pleasure to know you.... and all of the Venture riders! Prayers Up for your health, Don!

Don't know how long it will last but I'm going to ride while I can. I was looking at a BMW K1600 Grand America but the more I read, the less I wanted it. A lot of great features but it has known and verifiable stability issues. So much so that they have it speed limited to. just over 100 MPH. That wouldn't bother me really but further reading confirmed that the stability issue actually. reared it head at much lower speeds. Turbulence from trucks, grooved roads, etc. So I decided against it. BMW has actually discontinued that model. Then I almost pulled the trigger on. a 2016 Indian. Roadmaster with the stage 3 kit. That means bigger jugs, cams, throttle body, and more. Sounded nice but the owner was the second owner and he had no idea who did the stage 3. Was it Indian or some aftermarket kit. He had no idea. What really turned me off was the heat. I have to tell you the truth, I have NEVER felt so much heat coming off a bike of any brand. It was brutal. Then I did some more research and found that some people actually have blistered right legs from riding them. I decided against that one also. So, I went back to something I owned before and really liked it. The Harley Road Glide. This one is a Harley certified (meaning another year of warranty after the factory warranty expires). It is a 2022 Road Glide Limited with 11,000 miles on it. It has the 114 engine and definitely feels much stronger than any of my previous Harley's. All the bells and whistles.

OK folks. Here's the deal. I'm sorry that I haven't reported back sooner. I've been to some doctor appointments and they are working on my one eye that still works. It is NOT a detached retina but is a retina problem. I don't understand all of this but I have fluid between the retina and another part of my eye and it shouldn't be there. They are trying to get rid of it by injecting my eye with something or another. Hopefully this will work and they can save my vision but when I asked if I was going blind, they could onl.y tell me that they were doing what they can. I have to back for more injections next week. So, that's that. So needless to say, I have a lot of mixed emotions. On one hand, I've sold the trike and figured my riding days were over. On the other hand, riding is about the only outside hobby that brings me any joy at this time and I'm thinking that I should take advantage of any time that I have. That being said, I'm thinking that I should pick tip a little bike to knock around on. I've actually made an offer on one and it looks like he may accept it but we are going to talk on Monday. It's just a little BMW K1600 Grand America. Only 160 HP but it should do for short rides. Anyway, my thoughts are all over the place right now so this story will be continued later.

OK, not my first rodeo. I've done the checks, swapped coils ( Have 9 on the bench to pick from ) checked the grounds, voltages, pressure sensor, pick-up coils, etc. all seem OK. All spade connectors are clean and tight on all the circuits. Kill switch, side stand switch etc. OK. New plugs and plug wires. I'm down to the TCI box. To my horror the pics from the threads relevant to TCI repair, seem to be gone. I think I want to try the repair, change out the diodes and probably some caps and the power transistors. Without those pics I will not know what is what. I did the repairs of the instrument cluster board and had great success. The relevant observations: The bike ( '83 ) has a perfect idle, even heat on all pipes but stumbles and looses power on the road. Spark is barely visible in the shop and when cranking in the shop, the first and sometimes the second spark are hot and bright. By the third revolution it has degraded back to wispy red/blue. Even with a fully charged new battery and two battery chargers on the battery, to prevent voltage drop, the spark degrades. Some help with pics and information would be awesome as I can't go forward without them. That means I can come up with $20 for diodes but the Igntech is kinda out of reach even though it is still available.

Finally making some progress on the '88. She has had lots of plastic repair with Plastex, great product. She has been painted with the finest Duplicolor paint and clearcoat that Autozone had available, It has been painted with a really good $29.00 Harbour Freight HPLV paint gun. Three coats each. I do have a few electrical problems that are holding me up. The Pass System powers up, but that is all. (error code E2) I found this, ( ) and will begin working on it soon. The wind picked up once I started painting, go figure, got a little trash in the paint but I think it came out alright. The pictures have a lot of dust but that came after it cured and will come right off.

I thought I remembered a topic in here called "What did you do on your Venture today?" On Saturday I rode 576 miles from Palatine, IL to Norton, VA. On Sunday I rode 586 miles from Norton, VA to Palatine, IL. Got a hair up my fanny to go and I went. This may be the last time I do something this stupid but I enjoyed the heck out of it. I rode the interstate mostly as the question was, "Can I make it there and back in two days?" Kentucky 15 through the Cumberland Mountains was beautiful, 55mph and no potholes or traffic. Not sure how many miles but I was in the hills from 8am til noon. There was a big yellow dog on one long sweeping left hander that was just standing in the road staring at me. My '08 RSV, the SofaGlide, handled it perfectly. I couldn't have asked more of my pretty, gray Yamaha. The whole time in the mountains that I wasn't stopped for gas I was in 4th gears doing 55mph. The whole time I was on the prairie that I wasn't stopped for gas I was in OD with the cruise set at 75. Simply fantastic. What did you do on your Venture today? B The SofaGlide on Bart Campton's Mountain Parkway 150 past the Welcome To Virginia sign on Rte. 119

Purdy, hope you can ride it for a very long time.

Yamaha Royal Star 1998, black and chrome. 11,665 original miles on 6-10-2023, original owner. ME 880 Marathon tires with ~1,000 miles. Use non-ethanol recreational gas whenever possible. Garage kept with Yamaha cover daily. Heated storage in winter. Extra windshield. Extra seat (custom Corbin). Extra exhaust pipes (Jardine slash cut). Yamaha shop/service manual. Stebel horn (and original horn). Yamaha rear back rest. Yamaha saddlebags. Yamaha handlebar pouch. Yamaha winter storage stand. Yamaha lower wind defectors. Various Yamaha chrome pieces. Yamaha chrome rear fender storage rack. SAC luggage case. SAC duffle bag. Two Shoei XSP helmets with cases and extra face shields. Two sets of rain gear (used once). Two black leather riding jackets. Two pairs of black leather riding chaps. Wife no longer interested in riding for ice cream. Collectively, $5,000 (wife not included).

Note to SELF... A properly tightened main jet looks exactly the same as one gently finger tight, that unscrews and falls to the bottom of the float bowl to jam the float.

Sorry to hear of your health issues. This site was the first I ever joined and is still my only forum because of the values you’ve instilled into it. I wish I had the knowledge to assist in keeping it going but I’m pretty technologically inept.

If you didn't know, the site was down for a short while today. I am still fighting spammers though I have managed to block the majority before they ever post.. Since the first or middle of July, I have caught and banned over 2000 spammers from the site. Many of them are coming from China, India, and Russia. The reason for the short outage today is that I tried some new software that would block those countries but unfortunately, it caused other issues. So, I had to remove it but have now come up with another solution and hopefully they are now blocked. I will have to keep a close watch and see if there are also other countries that need to be blocked. It's a shame because very rarely there is a real rider from one of these countries but unfortunately there are way too many spammers there to make the very occasional member worth the risk.