More Repairs for Umarang and Finding a New Mechanic Shop

It's been an expensive last three months or so.

Tire cupping evidence on the front wheels led to the replacement of the front shocks, which were apparently toast.  Only got about 30K miles from those shock absorbers since they were replaced back in July of 2023.  It was pricey.

Of course, the tires were also due to be replaced after the trip to the eastern half of the country, so that was another bunch of money for six new tires.  Still, one can't really skimp on tires eh?  

The windshield was replaced due to the cracks I'd lived with for quite a while having grown too long.  $250 deductible, the rest covered by insurance.

Today, September 10, my new mechanic shop (way less costly) finished work on replacement of the front end ball joints/tie rods/tie rod ends.  My old previous mechanic shop had noted the work needed to be done, but had provided a costly estimate.  An estimate that almost resulted in me disposing of the motorhome.

Also had the transmission drained/refilled (almost 8 qts) along with both the inner and remote filters.  They also pointed out to me that the RV has a transmission oil cooler!  Never realized that.

Luckily, the offer I made to "give it away" wasn't accepted in time and I was able to gracefully withdraw it.

Shopped around two other spots and found a less expensive option and my new mechanic shop.  They're not really a shop per se.  They're a mobile repair service specializing in heavy trucks/equipment.  Marshall's Equipment Repair LLC.

They were recommended by a neighborhood friend who's an accomplished gearhead.

Roy and his son Dalton, are very knowledgeable about repairing vehicles and Fords especially.  They answered my questions freely and in great detail, taking time to explain concepts to me related to the work done.

Inspections were free as opposed to the other two shops.

They came in at the lower price as their overhead isn't as much as established shops of course.  That and their labor rates were quite reasonable in comparison to the other shops.  

Here's a short video of one of two sets of ball joints that were replaced.  They looked pretty rough and I'm quite confident I was correct in getting them replaced now vice a few thousand miles down the road.

So, for now, Umarang the VRRV remains in the family.  Not sure what this upcoming camping season will look like right now, we shall see.

Sold Yagi, the Yamaha TW200

 2026, it's turning out to be a year for many changes as forks in the road of life have become evident.

The TW200 had become unreliable to me for quite a while now.  Yesterday,  she started to have charging issues again and it looks like the replacement stator has failed.

One of the forks in the road I mentioned above is whether to keep a motorcycle-centric blog going.  It hasn't really been one for the last couple of years or more with RV camping and non-motorcycle exploration and travel being more the norm.

So, I sold her to a guy in the neighborhood who likes to work on cars/motors and then resell them.  

Sure, I could pay a dealership to fix her but I wouldn't trust her for solo riding, which is what I do.  Also, being at least 20 years old, the dealer wouldn't even look at her without a $330 deposit due to her age.

Due to age and miles, not much money to be had but oh well, I think I got my money's worth over the last 7 years or so.  Had I not found a buyer, I would have been donating her to the Gary Sinise Foundation I think.

Turns out, the previous post's pics of Yagi will be the last for the blog, only fitting I suppose.

Here's some that show some of the awesome places Yagi took me to:

Note:

Got her in 2019 with 7500 miles on the odometer, sold her with 24,500 miles.

Boondocking near Grand Lake, CO

August 16

Martha and I left home for a short 4-5 camping trip in the Arapahoe National Forest National Recreation Area near the town of Grand Lake.

We were barely starting to climb the foothills west of Denver on I-70 when the decision was made to unhook the towed Honda CRV as the RV was struggling to maintain 40 mph!

We didn't want to strain the engine/transmission and it had been the plan to unhook before Berthoud Pass Rd further on anyways.

Thus, we drove separate vehicles all the way up to the junction with US40 and from there North to Winter park, Fraser, Tabernash and Grandby.  We were shooting for this first camping along county Road 4 AKA Stillwater Pass Road.

We met up at the junction of US40 and US34 which takes you to Grand Lake and thence to the western entrance to the Rocky Mountain National Park.  (Our primary goal this trip).

After a bit of driving around with the CRV, we found ourselves a site damn close to where we had left the RV parked!  There were more campers that we had expected so we had kept going further and further in, in the end ending up less than a quarter mile from where we left the RV. 

All's well that ends well.

It's a nice, single rig site and no possibility of someone thinking there's room for more as opposed to a couple of group sites we'd seen before.

August 17

We spent most of the morning touring the Western half of the Trail Ridge Road parkway. Stopping at the Alpine Visitor Center for Martha to get her stamp in the Parks Passport book. 

It's the highest visitor center in the US Park System 

We managed to climb to the top of this incline:

Yep, that's the visitor center down there:

A little further east from the visitor center there's another good spot for pictures, it was quite popular: 

Here's a view of Mt. Baker from Coyote Valley:

We toured the Village of Grand Lake in the afternoon, nothing significant to report, just another tourists trap town in the mountains.  Nice, but meh.

I rode Yagi, my tw200, a couple of times up and down Forest Road 120, The longest Ride being about 17 miles round trip. The charging system kept working as hoped for, so perhaps the latest round of fixes will do the trick in terms of the sporadic no charging conditions. 

As you can see, the area is barely starting to recover from the massive fire that hit the Granby area years ago. 

August 18

Mostly overcast skies basically convince us to return home a day early. Martha left in the CRV a few hours before I did as I was doing some chores on the RV. 

Redleg's Rides 20th Anniversary - The Stats

 Part 3 of the 20th Anniversary Series of Posts.

The 20th anniversary was on Thursday, Aug 13.

First, the blog stats as reported by Google.  I've my doubts as to some of the numbers and you should know I tend to respond to comments so the number of comments should be halved.

These were the stats on Aug 13

I've also managed to publish 3230 posts!

Now for some of the more interesting, at least to me, stats.

Miles ridden over the two decades on 12 different motorcycles.  Back in Dec 31, 2023 I had figured it out to be (roughly) a total of 238,563 miles ridden.  That works out to be a bit over 9 times the circumference of the Earth in 17 years and on nine motorcycles.

Since then, with an additional 3 motorcycles, I managed to only accumulate another 5424 as of Dec 31 2025.  The grand total as of the anniversary is 243,987.

Didn't even make it to a quarter million millions.  I proved to be such a slacker.

Camping Days

In 2016, at the halfway mark of the two decades, Martha convinced me to buy a Class C Motorhome to "extend the range" of our explorations via motorcycles.  Uma, the VRRV (Vehicle Recovery RV) was a 2006 Jayco Escapade motorhome built on a Ford E450 Superduty Chassis.

We bought her with 20,200 miles on the odometer and she just went over 128,150 miles or 107,880 miles while under our ownership.  Pretty sure we've gotten our monies worth though scads of money have been spent on travel expenses, repairs, gear and what not.  Most of the expense is fuel money, as she only gets 8 MPG on a great day, it's closer to 7 most days.

Uma being over 20 years old, she's beginning to be a bit of a money pit in terms of repairs.  We'll see what happens in that regard.

Don't miss part 1: the motorcycles and part 2: the moto-blogger fellowship