Sidecaring on the Shelf Road

This past weekend, I had been riding on Skyline Drive, near Cañon City, Colorado.

To return home that day, I chose to head out of town along Raynold's Avenue which leads one North out of the city and after a few miles past Red Canyon Park and eventually, onto the Shelf Road.

This road, back in the mining days, served as a stage coach road between Cañon City and Cripple Creek.  It's rated as a 4WD road and while some portions are a bit rough, it's still quite doable by most motorcycles with a bit of ground clearance.

The road is packed dirt, lots of loose gravel and rocks abound and of course, there's the stretches of road with a high precipitous drop into the canyon floor below!

The southern half, closes to Cañon City, has the best views of precipices and you can see how the road was carved out of the side of the mountain.  The northern half is a narrow roadway through the canyon walls, and is the site of Window Rock (pictured below) among many other cool rock formations.

Quite the road to ride on a motorcycle, not a big deal on a sidecar rig as expected.  I've ridden this road before on my 1987 R80 Beemer, so use that as a gauge as to whether your motorcycle can handle it.

Riding the southern half of the Shelf Road

The above video was "stabilized" using youtube's utility, made the captions behave

a bit weird but helped with the shakiness of my camera mount.

 You can't miss the welcome center for Cañon City, just look for this fellow
in the above picture.

 Here's Yoshie at the start of the northern half of the Shelf Road

 Yoshie near Window Rock

 A closeup view of Window Rock

 Heading towards the backside of Window Rock

 Pretty rugged terrain eh?

Eventually, the Shelf Road takes you to the outskirts of Cripple Creek.  I got onto CO67 and headed through town and ended up in the overlook above the town where I took the below shot:

The rest of the ride was just slabbing it on CO67, negotiating the traffic jams in Woodland Park and Colorado Springs.  I-25 northbound was really jammed up so I bailed at the North Gate exit and used CO83 or Parker Road to get me home.

I am happy to report Yoshie did great, no issues with the new chain or sprockets.  A total of about 282 miles ridden that one Labor Day.

Hope you got some riding in.

Note: yep, noticed that dust spot in the upper corner of the pictures, thought I'd gotten rid of it but menu display items obscured it.  It is more pronounced when zoom is engaged.  Just used a vacuum cleaner to get the dust out.  Must be more careful how I carry the camera I guess.

Skyline Drive - Revisited

It was time to introduce Yoshie, my new tug, to the epic riding views of Skyline Drive.

Sunday was a gorgeously sunny day here in Colorado and the temperatures were nicely cool in the morning as I rode down the I-25 slab on Yoshie, my V-Strom Sidecar Rig, towards the Cañon City's Skyline Drive.

Yoshie's powerful 1 liter motor, coupled to the strongest drive chain that I could find, hummed along without protests at speeds reaching 80 MPH at times.  In less than two hours, I made it down to Cañon City and tanked up again.

Things had heated up a bit in terms of ambient temperatures but still, not so forbidding as to detract from what would be a great riding day.

Below are two videos I shot with my GoPro camera, the first one with the standard forward-looking perspective but from higher up than usual.  I'd cobbled together a camera perch of sorts for the occasion as I wanted you to get a good view of the narrow road that is Skyline Drive.

The second video is of the same road, but this time the GoPro camera was pointed backwards showing the view of the road I'd just ridden.

I was done with the filming shortly after lunch, and the temperatures had gotten a bit warm as I rode onwards to the Shelf Road.  This is a dirt road cut out of the side of the mountains that form the walls of a canyon.  It was the route between the mining in the Cripple Creek area to the railroad in Cañon City back in the day.

More on the Shelf Road in the next posting.

Yoshie continues to do fine as I test out the ability of the new chain and sprockets to bear the loads imposed by side car duties.

Roxborough Park with my family and Guanella Pass with Yoshie

A beautifully sunny yet cool day here in the great state of Colorado.  My family and I headed out towards Roxborough State Park, located on the SW side of the Denver Metro Area for a little bit of hiking.

Temperatures were in the mid 50s on the ride out to the park, it was quite brisk but bearable.  I'd neglected to put on my jacket liner you see, when we'd stopped for gas for both Yoshie and my wife's SUV.

We got some good parking at the park and we set off for the Fountain Valley Trail, which was rated the easiest hike of the trails open to the public.

 One of the rock formations visible from the park's visitor center

 Martha and the boys, at the start of the hiking

 Above and below, some of the more interesting rock formations

visible from Lyon's Overlook

 On the return portion of the Fountain Valley Loop, these standalone rock 

columns caught my eye, below you can see the boys 

"enjoying" the hike

We were done with the hiking just short of Noon and I took my leave of the family, they headed home and I headed towards US 285 via the C-470 slab towards the settlement of Grant and the southern end of the Guanella Pass Road.

Yoshie rode along just fine, at or above traffic speed with no issues; her driveline thrumming smoothly below me as we climbed and descended the hilly portions of US285.  She powered up the inclined portions of the highway with just a slight twist of the throttle and it was quite the pleasure to have that ability once again.

The beginning of the Guanella Pass Road near Grant is packed dirt with stretches of washboarded dirt and clusters of small rocks poking out from the dirt surface.  Yoshie settled into a brisk but not fast pace as traffic was light and she make light work of the uneven terrain, potholes and loose sand and gravel accumulations.

After a few miles, the road becomes nicely paved with some rough spots all the way to the top of Guanella Pass.  I made it to the top of the pass on or about 1:30 PM and parked Yoshie by the side of the road near the summit parking lot.  There were a lot of people at the summit, all doing some hiking and generally enjoying the good weather.  It was perhaps a bit "cool" at the top but nothing remarkably cold.

The requisite picture of the pass sign

Note: that dark blot was some debris on the lens which I didn't notice  at the time.

A view of the nearby mountain peaks from Guanella Pass Summit Parking Lot

 Far off views to the North I think

 Yoshie waits, patiently, to resume her effortless riding

I retraced my route back down the mountain towards Grant, not much to report except how effortlessly she handled the occasional rough terrain and how she drew every cager's eye that we passed along the way.

I took US285 all the way into the Denver Metro Area and soon was home without incident.  I am happy to report that in over 350 miles of riding since I installed the new chain and sprockets, there has been zero detectable chain stretch, no klunking noises endemic of said stretching and just mile after mile of riding smoothness.  Oh, and 42MPG!

Yoshie is on the road again.......

The stronger type 530 (16,000 lbs Tensile Strength) chain from Sidewindersprockets arrived (finally!) yesterday.

I set about installing it as soon as I got home and got a verbal run-through the procedure from my Rounder friend in Texas, Ken Phenix.  I would be calling him several times during the process to "make sure" I wasn't about to bugger up this expensive new chain, his patience and sage advice are most appreciated.  Thanks Ken!

The first step was to remove the old stock chain (with a mere 8800 lbs tensile strength).  I used my brand new angle grinder (how did I get along without this tool, I don't know).  Below you can see the first rivet ground almost flush.  I picked a random link to break the chain at:

Below is the result of less than 1 minute of grinding, did I mention I love this angle grinder? 

Next, I broke out the chain breaker tool I got from HarborFreight, I had also bought a combo 

chain breaker/chain riveter from elsewhere but figured for the price, have a dedicated tool

 I positioned the tool's working end on the now rivet and just simply turned the 

hex shaped cap with a 17mm wrench, presto, the chain was apart.  

 With both chains cut, I laid them next to each other to measure chain stretch

on the stock chain (lower one in the picture above).  As you can see, it had stretched by one

link length apparently.  Each rivet is a link.  The new chain was 120 links from the supplier.
Note how much "beefier" the new chain is compared to the 525 chain.

 Next, I threaded the new chain above and below the swing arm and loosely around

the front sprocket.

 Chain threaded, it was time to remount the rear wheel with its new

sprocket (purty ain't it?), above you can see the start of the 

axle insertion.

 With the axle fully forward (I had previously retracted fully the chain tension

adjustment screws), I took the ends of the new chain and hung them on the

rear sprocket to check link counts.

I would end up cutting off the excess at link 8 from the end of the chain.

 To hold things in place while I used my spiffy grinder again, 

I used a simple zip tie as you can see above.  

I also used a sharpie pen to outline the rivet

to cut off .

Again, using the harborfreight chain breaker above, it was simple

to "cut" the new chain's excess links off.  It was a lot harder to take

the rivet off the new chain, much tougher construction I guess.

 Above you can see the chain ready to receive the master link

I made sure at this point the chain was as tight as I could get it by hand.

I also made sure it was routed onto the front sprocket!

 You have to grease the masterlink's rivets for proper lubrication

Also make sure you've the included o-rings in place before riveting!

 Took me a few minutes to line up the outside plate.  Had to use vise

grips to get the rivets to "hold" enough to allow me to position the 

chain riveting tool without the outside plate falling off the rivet ends.

As you can see above, a few turns and the chain was "whole" once again.

 The chain riveting tool has the above component to ensure when you

apply pressure you spread the top end of the rivet by "dimpling" it

Here's the masterlink, I made sure the plates were lined up

and that things still moved freely.

As the chain was complete again, I used it along with the big screwdriver blocking the rear wheel spokes, to secure the front sprocket mounting nut with a little bit of blue Loctite and a big wrench.  Torqued it down to specs and proceeded to the rest of the components.

I started re-assembling the front sprocket cover and the slave clutch cylinder back onto their locations on the tug.  Things went in too easy.  You see, I forgot to release the clutch lever which I'd bound (per the service manual) in the "engaged" position prior to initially removing the clutch slave cylinder.  This is done to prevent pressure from pushing out the clutch cylinder's piston over time.

Turns out, you don't have to bind the clutch lever, you use zip ties or a small c-clamp to keep the piston from coming out.  I know now, dammit.

Anyways.  I forgot to release the clutch lever before re-installing the slave clutch cylinder, so when I tightened things down, it caused the actuator rod to move and mis-align the clutch plates!  Aaaarrrrgggghhhh.

I didn't know what I'd done at this point of course, just that the transmission was stuck in neutral.  Bled the clutch circuit thinking perhaps air had gotten into the system, no joy.  I went online to the stromtrooper's forum and after some searching found that this was a pretty common occurrence for wrenchers who a. forget to free the clutch lever or b. insert the actuator rod at an angle.  

Fortunately, there was a posting with instructions on how to realign things.  You access the clutch plate through the oil fill hole on the right side engine cover.  Carefully, you insert a large flat screwdriver between the outer clutch basket wall and the clutch plate, engage the clutch lever which allows the screwdriver to go down a bit further, repeat until you see the clutch basket wall and clutch plate "engage".  Work the screwdriver blade free and this will allow the "self-adjusting" clutch to mate up once more.  Victory!

I took Yoshie, now with engageable gears, out for a quick test ride around the block.  Gears worked fine all the way to third gear (couldn't go faster in the neighborhood), no klunking

It was quite late 10:30 PM or so by now, so I just left things as they were in the garage and went in to get some late dinner and rest a bit before hitting the rack.

This morning, I checked and secured all related bolts and nuts.  Put away my tools and after a quick crossing of the fingers, headed out for a longer test ride.  I had her up to 85 mph for a few miles on the expressway and she did great!  

What a learning experience, I really hope this chain and sprockets hold up to the strains of sidecaring.  If not, Yoshie will continue under my care as a two-wheeled steed.

Today's Sunset, a reward for my efforts from the Motorcycling gods