Sunday Ride for Brigitta, Sunset for Scarlett

It was Brigitta's turn for some exercise this Sunday morning, a bit windy but not cold.  Cloudy skies with gaps allowing the sunshine through every once in a while.

Headed south on Colorado Highway 83, through Parker, through Franktown and down some nice pavement with really nice sweeping curves keeping things interesting while the wind tried to push us outside our lane.

First stop was just past Castlewood Canyon, on a turn off from the state highway.  It was here that I realized I'd forgotten to put the memory card back into my Sony A5000 camera.  I had to make do with my iPhone 6's camera.

Continuing south towards the new preferred spot for posing motorcycles with Pikes Peak in the background:

Brigitta and I will have to return another day, with the real camera.  The telephoto abilities of the iphone 6 proved "lacking" today.

That evening, Scarlett (now much quieter since I reseated and tightened the muffler) and I motored towards the usual Sunset viewing spot.  Sunsetwx had predicted a pretty good sunset potential:

Warmer colors mean better sunset potentials

Things started in a promising manner:

As darkness fell with the sun setting behind the Front Range Mountains, I was starting to think that sunsetwx was going to be wrong this time about the sunset.

Then, the magic happened.  The light from the sun shone out fiercely from behind Mount Evans, casting a red/orange glow that looked like fire.

Soon, it turned into quite the light show, with Mount Evans being the main attraction.  

 Longs Peak was looking good as well

As the above light show developed, cars were stopping near me to take pictures; one idiot nearly got himself run over  by standing in the middle of the damn road taking pictures, in the deepening darkness, with cars coming at him.

I yelled at him, which apparently gave him a clue to his stupidity, he saw the cars headed his way, and he hurried back to his car.  Idiot.

Moron aside, it was a great ending to a nice day of riding.  A bit windy but apparently Monday is going to be even worse with Wind Warnings in effect for our area.  

Here's a video featuring the above pictures, hope you like it.

Front Range Prairie Sunrise

Woke at 5:15AM and still barely made it to the chosen spot in time to catch the brilliant colors of the nice Sunrise we had today.

Steve Williams of ScooterintheSticks asked for "more big sky" pictures recently, so here you go Steve!

As I started Scarlett up and got moving back towards home, I thought the engine sounded louder than usual.  Pretty soon, she was sounding like a Harley-Davidson, proclaiming that false claim: "Loud Pipes Saves Lives"!

I looked down and damned if the muffler hadn't come loose from the fitting where it mated to the pipe coming from the exhaust header pipe.  Sigh.

Stopped, got out the tools, loosened the clamp and pounded in the muffler, tightened the clamp and all was as it should be.  Ural quiet the engine was, once again.  :)

I'm guessing perhaps Randy didn't quite clamp down on the muffler when he put the engine back into Scarlett.  Oh well, easy fix.

Here's a short movie I made of the pictures taken this morning:

New Regulator in Town

New to me that is, a Voltage Regulator that is....for Fiona, my '99 Bural Patrol with the Beemer engine.

Beemer Airheads, as Fiona and Brigitta are known affectionately by the riding cognoscenti (don't listen to the K-Bike Riders, they're just jealous); are also known to have anemic charging systems.

280 Watts of electricity is what they  put out I believe and it's barely enough to power all the needs of the motorcycle and perhaps one extra electrical accessory.

The voltmeter I used on Fiona had always reported a maximum of 13.2 Volts when at charging RPMs (higher than 2000 rpm).  13.5 volts, I've come to learn, is basically "float charging" voltage used by battery chargers to keep a battery "topped up".

This 13.2 voltage, wasn't really enough to keep the battery charged up during slower riding and with frequent stops; especially in cold weather which is hard on batteries.

RichardM, Alaska Rider and Wrencher, upon hearing of me complain of this, offered me the voltage regulator he'd upgraded his Beemer to before completely upgrading his charging system with something even better.

The more modern, solid-state, voltage regulator from RichardM.

Note the small screw in the blue square.  You can adjust the output

from 13.6 to 14.5 I believe.

Its a Transpo IB301A  and its available for $19 +$5 shipping from Amazon here: LINK

or

You can get the Enduralast Version of this item for $29 + $5 shipping: LINK

For the BMW purists out there, the BMW part which I replaced (mine had a 12/83 date stamp on it), BMW wants $128 for one.  Just saying...

The regulator got here today and within minutes was easily installed in place of the stock BMW Voltage Regulator which was larger and less reliable and only apparently putting out 13.2 volts for charging!

Usually, the voltage regulator on an Airhead is mounted under the gas tank.  However, the previous owner of Fiona had displaced the regulator and a relay onto a bracket mounted on the bolt that secures the upper front support bracket of the sidecar frame.  This made it very easy to remove the old and install the new regulator.

 View of the old regulator in situ, it was wrapped in silver tape,

hinting it had been taken apart before?  Note its bulk.

The smaller rectangular box on top is just a relay 

far as I can tell.

 New to me voltage regulator installed, much smaller eh?

I fired up Fiona's engine and revved it up to charging RPMs.  I was getting between 14.2 to 14.3 volts!
Success!  About a whole volt more involved in the charging process, hopefully this along with cutting out the main headlight and sidecar running light; will help keep the battery charged up when doing frequent stopping for pictures in cold weather.

 Views of the cheap plastic cover used to keep water away

from the relay and the voltage regulator.

My thanks to RichardM for his generous donation of the voltage regulator!  Until I can really justify the expenditure of around $500 for an upgraded charging system with more output wattage, this will have to do.

One test ride later, I realized I had been getting the 14.3V in the garage because I'd disabled the headlight and sidecar running light.  Doh.  Still, at cruising RPMs I was getting 13.7-13.8V!  A gain of over half a volt and with peaks to 14V at one point in the ride.

I was even able to turn on the auxiliary headlights that came with Fiona and the voltmeter still registered 13.4V....at below 20 mph....good stuff.

Later on, I decided to turn the adjusting screw clockwise to increase the output.  I was only able to turn it perhaps 1/8 of a turn and then it stopped so I think I've reached the upper limit.  I started Fiona's engine and revved it up to about 2500 rpm and saw 14.5V after a few seconds.

RichardM recommends I monitor the battery's temperature, making sure it's not hotter than ambient temperature after a long ride.

Ash Wednesday Sunset

A pretty nice sunset for Ash Wednesday, Though I'm not particularly into the religious events associated with Ash Wednesday, it made for a good title for the posting.

First, it was time to catch the setting sun as it descended into the Front Range mountains:

Then a short ride towards the field behind the usual sunset picture taking spot:

 The rightmost mountain is Longs Peak