More bad news

Nothing to do with mpg, though; I just had some serious problems.

The first thing this morning I noticed that the brake light came on and stayed on when I turned on the bike... after a few minutes worry and work I discovered it was not a big deal... the adjustment screw had vibrated and rotated until it was keeping the brake open; when I screwed it back in and tightened down the nut, everything worked fine.

Then I got a late start (caught up with some computer work) and wheeled out of the motel around nine a.m. After riding out of Klamath Falls, I passed some beautiful lakes and ascended onto a high, flat plateau that went on and on, surrounded by pine trees. I came up to the Collier State Park and Logging Museum and stopped to take a few pictures. They had some great items, huge steam driven sawmills and skidders, old wooden horse and oxen-drawn equipment (including an amazing wagon with solid wood wheels cut from a radial section of wood...)

I cleaned my helmet as I had ridden through a cloud of bugs and was liberally spattered. It made me feel really good about having a full face helmet I can tell you!

I rode on into Chemult and stopped to check fluids and topped up pretty much everything including air in the tires. Had to take the time to explain to several more bikers exactly what I was riding.

Then things went downhill. Suddenly as I was about forty miles out of Bend, my computer started crashing. It would go blank, reboot, come up with gibberish, and reboot again. The voltmeter also stopped working. My oil temperature meter was reading about ten degrees higher than usual.

I pulled over and couldn't fix any of it. Someone pulled up in a van and offered to help, but I explained that the smoke was normal for my diesel, and that I was just having electrical problems which wouldn't affect the running of the bike. So he left and I got back on the bike and rode on into Bend with no working instrumentation.

I caught sight of a Harbor Freight tool store and went in and bought a $7.99 multimeter, which told me the battery and electrics were fine (over 13 volts on the battery, 12v everywhere else.) So it wasn't a battery failure. I had already ruled that out, because while the computer kept rebooting and the voltmeter wasn't working, the oil temperature meter continued working fine... and if the battery had been dying, the oil meter would have started blanking out as well. And all other electrics (including the 35w headlamp) had behaved normally, throughout.

So I decided at about 2.30 pm that I was staying in Bend for the night, and rode till I found a cheap motel near a restaurant. I parked the bike and unloaded.

Once I had my laptop computer up and running, I decided to try and reinstall the Veypor firmware on the Veypor computer and see if this made a difference. Luckily, I had brought the USB cable and power supply for the Veypor, so I was able to connect it to the computer and redownload the firmware... and sure enough, when I put it back on the bike, it was working normally again.

Bottom line... I'm back up with a working computer. Not sure what went wrong, but it appears to be good for now. I still don't have a voltmeter, but with all other electrics working I am assuming it is a bad wire (when I first started working on the voltmeter, one of the wires had come loose. I reconnected it but it still wasn't working, so I am betting that a bullet connection is loose somewhere, but as these are taped up I think Ill just try getting another day's ride out of the bike before trying to troubleshoot the voltmeter again. It's not a necessity.

I was afraid I'd have to wait in Bend until CMW shipped me a new speedometer cable (and it might not be the cable, either; it could be an internal break in the speedometer or in the hub housing)... looks like I'm good to go in the morning. So long as the computer works, I don't need the speedometer. Of course if the computer starts crashing again...

I have the battery tender trickle charging the battery as insurance, and tomorrow, I ride.

I'll leave pictures till another day, or maybe later tonight... I need a break.

So why was the oil temperature meter running higher? Two things, I think; when I got off the bike at the Harbor Freight store in Bend, I realized just how very hot it had gotten... I think it might easily have been the hottest day so far for my ride. The asphalt in front of the bike was so soft I could nudge it with my boot... and the other reason, was that with no running speed counter, it's quite possible I was riding a little faster than usual... At any rate, everything else seems normal... keeping my fingers crossed.

Oh, and with no working recording device, I've lost 40 miles which can't be calculated into my mpg figures. I didn't stop for gas today (I was waiting till I got into Bend) so I'll refuel tomorrow.