Stoopid

[DavidT]

Okay, so the Houston Valk group was meeting last, last Wed and I was running late (I would have wrote this up earlier but I was out of town last week).  I normally do a quick once-over when I get on my bike (two wheels, one wind screen, no puddles under the bike, etc, etc) before I head out but I was in a hurry.  So I hopped on, lifted it up, straightened the bars and thought "Hmm..that straightened out a lot easier than it usually does, must have parked on some leaves that blew into the garage", backed out, started it up, geared up and drove off.  Then I got caught in a pretty good down pour...with a pretty good wind.  Got to the meeting, had a good time and rode back.  When I got back to my house, and the garage door opened I noticed a big puddle of fluid right where my front tire was before I left.

I had blown fork seal on my last ride and merrily rode off on it again, into a thunderstorm.

Stoopid.

Moral of the story:  If you're doing something, anything, and the thought "Hmm...that's not normal" bounces across your brain, stop and check it out.  This applies to your car, your stove and any of the myraid of ways we humans have available to erase ourselves from this world.

Now, along these lines, where is a good place to buy a couple of fork seal kits and possibly some progressive springs (hey, while I'm in there I might as well tweak something)

[Dodis]

This sounds like it would be a great topic for a wrench party! Preferably south of Houston for me, I'm in Texas City.

I have a set of forks I want to rebuild with progressives before I put them on my Valk (To replace the f-ugly ones on there now). And, now I need to get busy on this, because my current forks are starting to leak, too. (Gotta find some 35mm film to hold me over...)

I guess I better finish ordering up all my parts to be ready, one way or the other...

[Rocketman]

Yeah, it does sound like one.  We'll have to have a different location for it, as Phyllis's barn is unavailable for a while, but that won't kill us.  Let us know when the parts are due to arrive, and we'll try to schedule one for as soon after that as we can.

Mark

[Tinman]

My wife made a statement that it would be cool to have a bunch of bikes parked around the house.
Sooo! I'm taking advantage of a Freudean slip....
Still working on the garage right now but it could be available as soon as a couple of weeks.
Mark? Want to set something up for a week or 2 out? Obviously not the 4th...

HOUSTON WRENCH PARTY!!![/color]

Well Manvel anyway...

[Dodis]

Well, wrench party or not, all the remaining parts have just been ordered...

Looking forward to the party though, have only met one VRCC'r so far, when I bought the forks, though I've dealt with several great people online so far. Need to remedy that.

And, with the target forks off the bike, I guess I may have to cage it to get there, it's a bit much to pack on the bike. But then, a few less steps to get into the forks too.

I suppose I could {{shudder}} trailer the Valk there as well, and do the fork swap at the same time. 

I'll be watching for more info...

Mike

[HayHauler]

Mike, if I am able to make it, I could bring my Valk and trailer over and take the forks(& other parts) over to the wrenching party.  I live in Pearland, East of 288 and Beltway 8.

HayHauler   

[Dodis]

Hey Hay  ,
Thanks for the offer! Already have a trailer and some local helpers, if needed, so that would save you a few trips this way.

Tinman has already offered to help me rebuild the forks before the party, so then I could ride to the party and still be able to do other work while there. Hopefully will have enough time after the fork rebuild to get them installed, along with my new Hondaline shield, and get some cleaning done under there as well, before the party. Still have plenty to do to catch up on overdue maintenance and detailing.

I checked my other emails before finishing this... I also have a set of Puror's dampers to install, so Tinman said that would be a good wrench party job, plus a thorough checkout of the rear end.

I will be getting with him before the party for the fork rebuild, so if you would like to see the fork rebuild as well, we could always use another hand to take pics.

Mike
mr_dodis YOUKNOWWHATTOREMOVE @yahoo.com

[HayHauler]

E-mail sent Dodis...   

Hay