Boondocking along Rampart Range Road - Pike NF

 It's been quite hazy here in the stoner state, due to wildfires both in state and without. The mountains of the Front Range have barely been visible most days from my home neighborhood or anywhere on the Front Range really. 

To give you an idea, here's the view of pikes peak from my campsite. The first picture is without any post processing to eliminate the haze, the second picture that dehaze function was used and still you can barely see the mountain.

About 18 miles away

Same pic but dehazed

This morning, thanks to RichardM, I gained further insight and knowledge about the function of a accumulator. Suffice to say, that I had completely misunderstood the leaking reading I had gotten from it. 

You see, I thought it was air leaking through a failed diaphragm or seal. It was in fact a leak caused by water getting by somewhere in the system!

Now that I understood, and with guidance from RichardM, I set about finding this small leak. Fortunately, it was not any of the Pex fittings, nor any of the faucets leaking a little bit. 

I noticed, while shining the light about the compartment that housed the water pump that the valve that one has to open to allow city water into the tank didn't seem quite fully closed. 

It turned very slightly as I applied more pressure to close the valve. The periodic (every minute or so) mystery cycling of the water pump stopped. I waited for 30 minutes, no spurious cycling! 

After 1 hour of silence, I refilled the air reservoir and the accumulator and it seemed to be holding pressure!  Dare I hope? 

So far everything seems to be working, so it's not a failed accumulator diaphragm it was a very slow leaking or rather not fully closed valve. 

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and reading books, time well spent.

Campsite altitude: 9288 ft.

Humidity: 9%

Temperature at 1300 hrs: 84° F.

Saturday, August 8

I woke to 62°F outside, nice and cool.

Here's my view of Pikes Peak in the early morning before the heat haze and current wildfire smoke hides it.

Pre-dehazing

Post-dehazing

Sunrise, through the pine trees was briefly "OK".

I went riding, mid-morning , just checking out the trails nearby and verifying that Yagi,  my TW200, was charging its battery as it rode along. At first, it was looking good,  I was seeing 13.1 volts on the meter that I had installed recently to verify charging. 

However a couple of miles later, I noticed that she was at 12.4 volts and it would not climb higher even that higher rpms.  Dammit.

I got her back to the campsite, checked the wiring once again and thought I had found a loose connection on the charging circuit.  Went out on a test ride and she would not climb past 12.6 volts while riding, ergo she wasn't charging.  Dammit.

Some more fiddling with the wiring, another test ride, and this time she died on me while riding along the trail!  In disgust,  I pulled over and looked things over again.  Finding nothing, she did start again and I rode her home and put her back on the cargo rack.

As the 20th anniversary of this blog approaches, my feelings toward motorcycling have been winding down in terms of enthusiasm and will to put up with mechanical issues. 

Not only is Scarlett, the Ural Patrol sidecar rig, down for the foreseeable future due to parts availability from Ural (major issue found while Final Drive was taken apart for what I thought would be just replacement of worn components); but now the TW 200 continues to fail me with electric issues. 

Electric issues which are intermittent at times and very frustrating not to mention not building any kind of trust in her to get me back home each and every time.

So I am not sure what will happen with my remaining motorcycles as the 20th anniversary of this blog approaches. Stay tuned.

Back Again to Rampart Range Road's Dispersed Camping

Finally got Uma, the VRRV's most pressing issues repaired.  The last repair was replacing the front shock absorbers as they were toast according to the mechanic!

Being almost 20 years old, it's not surprising stuff is wearing out.  After all, we have put more than 105,000 MI on the motorhome since we got it.  The new shocks had been replaced sometime ago, but the tire cupping issue I saw on the old one tires dictated new shocks.

Anyways, I decided to do some short term camping, to test everything out again.  Probably just for a week unless I find it more enjoyable than expected.  I left the cesspool that is the Metro Denver area just before 8:00 a.m. and by 10:30 a.m. I was at the site and setting up. 

I have used this side many times before, it works for me and so far there has not been a lot of vehicle traffic. I expect that to change as the weekend approaches. 

As you can see in the pictures, sunny with very little clouds if at all.  The temperature is 82° f as I write this, but there is a nice cool breeze blowing through once in awhile.  The humidity is a nice 18%, quite the change from the eastern half of the country. 

Encountered a minor issue in the afternoon, the accumulator for the water pump had failed.  I kept hearing the water pump cycle on and off without the water being run. After some troubleshooting I saw that the accumulator was not holding air pressure. 

The particular model I have requires operating PSI of 30, but repeated attempts to air it up with an air compressor failed.  That condition, the manual says, to replace the unit. So one is on order and will be brought out by Martha on Tuesday.

In the meantime, water still flows when required. But the water pump cycles a lot more than normal since the accumulator is not online. I have to shut off the water pump when not using water to not hear the pump cycle on and off.

Colorado Day 2026

Colorado, as a state, turns 150 years old today.  Funny how the state doesn't make a big deal of this....oh well.

Here's a compilation of pics taken in the state while riding/camping.

New Tires for Uma

 I've got to be more thorough when it comes to examination of my tires on the VRRV.

Last week, I'd noticed an unusual wear pattern on the RV's front tires:

Notice the tire thread portions that are darker?  I did too. 

So today I took the RV over to the tire alignment shop early to have them look to see if I needed to remove the cargo rack for the motorcycle.  Yes, it would have to come off but before it came to that, I asked to look at the strange wear pattern.

The tech said nope, a front end alignment won't fix that.

So at least I was saved the trouble of removing the front rack!  I then drove over to my mechanic in Parker and he pronounced the problem as "cupping".  The wear I saw happens when the shocks involved are getting weak and not maintaining full contact with the ground for the tires, allowing them to "skip".  

Sigh, I got an estimate from the mech and headed home.

Once I got home I went to get better pics of the cupping and discovered this:

I wonder how long that had been there, hence my statement that I have to be more thorough!

Yep, not good and definitely unsafe!  A quick call to the nearby Discount Tires and they arranged for six new Michelin 225/75R16 tires for a decent price.  Not only that, they were in stock and said to bring the RV over!

I hurriedly removed the TPMS sensors and drove over.  Less than 2 hours later, it was done and I was a bit poorer but now safer.  I'll have the two front shocks replaced with beefier shocks next week, then Uma should be fully ready again.

New tires were out on at 127,780 Miles, the odometer read 89,900 the last Uma got new tires back in Feb 02, 2023, so I got 37,800 miles out of the Toyo Open Country A/T tires that I got from Discount tires in Tucson, AZ before going to Baja, Mexico later that month!

6000 miles from now, I'll have Discount Tires rotate the 3 yr old spare tire into the mix.  That's another thing I had failed to do, regular rotation of the tires, no more!   Especially since Discount Tires will do it for free since I bought the tires from them.

So, I got lucky, in having spotted the problem before it became a blowout.  Don't be like me, check your tires thoroughly.