Spring Arkansas Trip Report

I got back from my annual spring trip to Arkansas Sunday night. Over all it was pretty good trip. We didn’t get as much riding as we have in past years, but it rained a lot.

My bike Dagmar acts as dominatrix when it comes to breaking in my body each spring, especially if I haven’t spent enough time on her during the winter months. There is some leaning and pressure on my hands when I ride her. She is one heavy girl and it takes a little hand force to push her into the corners, a lot more then my GS Pig. Its worth the extra effort because Dagmar is a speed queen and solid as a rock once she is down. She comes out of corners fast and has a sexy voice. The slight pain is my thumbs is all but disappeared now, and after a couple days my shoulders were not as sore as they had been on Tuesday.

Randy was in truly good form. He rode great during the entire trip which is pretty amazing when considering Randy nearly died in December and was unconscious for nearly 5 weeks until mid-January after some very serious arterial problems. His rehab goal was to ride his new 30th Anniversary BMW R1200GS and he has now achieved that in the magnificent fashion. I was worried about him for the first couple of days of the trip, but those fears quickly went away. Randy is one tough son-of-a-gun.

Loyd had a big tear-down on his GS before the trip to fix a weeping main seal, replace the clutch, and to have some tranny work done. We were concerned when we started the trip because his GS clutch did not disengage completely. He got a new clutch from Siebenrock (http://tinyurl.com/5uov7w9). We were worried at first it might have been put in backwards, but after a few hundred miles Loyd said it was working fine. The new clutch was shaped different then stock with overlapping plate pieces like the scales on a reptile. We figured the entire clutch plate might have been a bit thicker then stock and just needed to wear off some of the rough edges on the overlapping plate pieces. Loyd road the whole distance down and back plus a few hundred more in Arkansas.

https://picasaweb.google.com/brion.hase/ArkansasTripApril2011#