About Me

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Henry Martin spends his nights writing fiction and poetry, which predominately deals with the often-overlooked aspects of humanity. He is the author of three novels: Escaping Barcelona, Finding Eivissa, and Eluding Reality; a short story collection, Coffee, Cigarettes, and Murderous Thoughts; and a poetry collection, The Silence Before Dawn. His most recent published project is a collection of Photostories in five volumes under the KSHM Project umbrella, for which he collaborated with Australian photographer Karl Strand, combining one of a kind images with short stories and vignettes. He is currently working on his next novel narrated in two opposing points of view. He lives with his family in the Northeast.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Monadnock trails

Today, I ventured out on a little exploration around the region. Instead of taking the usual trails, my buddy and I decided to hit the powerlines and head out into the unknown.





Three hours later we were both pretty beat up and headed home.

I ended up having to pick the bike up twice: The first time, while climbing up a hill and getting stuck in a rut, the rear wheel decided to try get ahead on the front wheel. I ended up dumping the bike on that one, simply because there was no way to get my foot down on the steep slope. No damage to me, but the bike lost its only mirror.
The second time I put the bike on its sidestand on top of a giant boulder, only to see it tumbling down as soon as I got my foot on the ground. This time, the clutch lever became the victim. Well, no irreparable damage done to either bike or rider, and the little parts were well worth the enjoyment.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

KLR 250 Project: The Brakes from Hell

Ever since I started riding my lil'KLR, I've been longing for more braking power. Several Internet searches revealed that I was not alone, as the KLR 250 does not have the best front brakes available. Nevertheless, since I was not about to spend hundreds of dollars on a more powerful setup, I continued riding the bike the way it was and being cautious when it came to braking.

It wasn't until I spent 4 straight days on my BMW and then gone back to the KLR, that I began to suspect that something was not right. I mean, the brakes were weak from the start, but they seemed weaker than they should have been.

When I first got the bike back together, I changed the brake fluid and bled all air out of the system. This however, did not improve the brakes (or, rather, the lack of braking power). So, two weeks ago I started messing with it again.

First, I bled the system again, and found no air in the line. Then, I tried changing the pads, thinking that those could cause the issue. Still, there was no improvement. Next i swapped the brake line for a spare one I keep in the garage, but even this did not make any difference. Suspecting a bad master cylinder, I was about to order a rebuild kit, but then I tried crimping the brake line to see if the master cylinder leaked. It did not. Once the line was crimped (with a pair of pliers), the lever was rock-hard and did not go down regardless of the pressure I applied to it. This ruled out the master cylinder as being the culprit.

So, a good master cylinder, new line, new pads, and fresh fluid, and still no improvement. I bled the line again, and again, so many times that I went through 2 cans of brake fluid. I tried bleeding it at the banjo bolts, I tried lifting the caliper above the reservoir, I tried forcing brake fluid through the bleeder and pushing it back to the master cylinder...still, no matter what I did, it did not make any difference.

Finally, I decided to replace all  the crush washers at the banjo bolts. I took the line apart again, and went to my local dealership to get some new washers. Well, they did not have any. Off to the car parts store, where I acquired 4 new copper washers of the right ID (inside diameter). Unfortunately, the OD (outside diameter) was wrong as the car washers were slightly larger.
Not willing to wait for my dealer to obtain the correct washers, I decided to modify the car washers to suit my purpose.

At first, I was going to file the extra material away in a vise, but then I discovered that the ID was the same as the OD of a 1/4" socket. Since I don't own a lathe, I slid the washers onto the socket spaced on both sides with the old, properly sized washers for reference, and then I chucked the whole set up in my drill press. Holding a file against the spinning washers, I was able to change the OD on all four washers at once and still maintain their circular shape.

  After I got the washers to be the right size, I took them off and wet-sanded all contact surfaces with a 600 and 1000 grit sandpaper on glass surface. Here are the four new washers next to the old washer:
Then it was time to put it all back together, using the proper torque values specified by the manufacturer (18ft/lbs at the banjo bolts, and 18 ft/lbs for caliper to fork connection). Here is the master cylinder banjo bolt with the new washers:
Before changing the brake fluid (my third can), I wrapped the threads on the bleeder in teflon tape to ensure an air-tight seal.
Note that I cut the tape at the end of the threads, so it wouldn't seal the bleeding holes.

After going through four reservoirs full of brake fluid, I was sure that there was no air left in the system. Then it was time to test the brakes. I'm happy to say that while the brakes are nowhere near as good as those on my BMW, the braking power has improved significantly.
It seems( with this KLR) that it is always some small, often overlooked thing, that makes the biggest difference. 

Monday, May 9, 2011

A short woods ride

This weekend I started on a house project that's been been on the to-do list for a long time: Strip the siding off, install Tyvek wrap, replace window trim, and nail the siding back on. Like with most projects things always seem easier in the planning stages,  but once underway, nothing goes as it should.
It was sometime between me destroying the second piece of 18-foot long Azek trim and the time I beat the hell of a fence post with a hammer out of frustration, that a buddy called.
"Lets go trail riding!"
I wasn't looking for an escape, but I needed to regain some sanity. So, I filled the KLR with gas, put my gear on, and hit the road.

We started off at our usual place and rode around for about three hours. Due to the recent rains, the trails were pretty muddy, but not so much as to make riding difficult. While the riding was good, it was too much of the same as before, so we decided to explore a new territory - powerlines. Here is a pic of my buddy descending a path on his ATV. (face removed for privacy reasons):

The going got tougher after a while, especially for me. I don't like feeling the front end coming off the ground on an incline, especially if the hill goes on and on without an end in sight. This is the one thing that makes me uncomfortable on the bike. We abandoned the powerlines and rode the trails to a place called Rocky Cascade, which connects two different trail networks. I did this ride last year on my BMW, clutching and climbing in the first gear all the way, trying to balance the heavy bike. It was much easier on the KLR. Riding in the second gear all the way, the light bike just bounced over the boulders and we cleared the cascade in no time.

After that, we decided to explore a different set of powerlines. The trail there is pretty steep, but manageable. At a valley between two hills, my lil'KLR met its match: A water puddle covering the stickiest mud I ever encountered. As usual, I slowed down a bit before hitting the water. This was probably the 50th water puddle I crossed that day - some deeper than others - and it looked like the easiest one of them all. The "puddle" was maybe twenty feet long and about as much wide, with only a few inches of clear water on the surface. So, as I said, I slowed down, downshifted, selected a  path, and rolled the throttle. A few feet into it the bike slowed down. I gave it more gas, but instead of clearing the puddle, my rear wheel started digging into the mud. The next thing I knew, the engine stalled, and I was stuck in deep, sticky mud with over then feet of the same ahead of me.
No amount of pushing and pulling moved the bike even an inch. Fortunately, my buddy has a winch on his machine, so there was yet a way out. As he was turning around to winch me, he took this picture. By the time we hooked the winch to my forks. I sank another 6 inches.
So, sitting there like a lame duck in a pond, I waited for the winch cable. When we finally got it working, it took four attempts to actually free the bike from the mud. I've never seen anything so sticky before.

Free at last, and after the wiring dried off, I was able to start the bike again (hurray for a kickstart), but my boots were full of yucky water. Needles to say, I was pretty tired from all the pushing, and grumpy because of the water in my boots. So, to change the mindset, we rode to the top of the hill to have a smoke break and enjoy the scenery.
After I got home, I set the boots in the sun to dry, took a shower, and went back to my siding project.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

A good NH day

Today, the Harleys descended on the neighborhood roads like flies on steaming pile of shit. I'm not sure what, or where, was happening, but towards mid-day, I grew tired of the constant rumble of loud pipes and short-sleeved, no-helmet riders passing through my neighborhood. There is a sharply curved fork-in-the road in front of my house, and while I live on a secondary road that hardly sees traffic, today was an exception. The chrome, the poses -- it was all show and no skill.

Elbows deep in soil (transplanting shrubs and perennial flowers),every now and then  I glanced towards the road, only to see yet another middle-aged weekend pirate in leather chaps. Don't get me wrong, I actually like some Harleys, but I appreciate neither the culture nor the price tag their bikes "require".

Mid-afternoon, having finished what I set to do, I needed to get out to enjoy some peace and quiet solitude. And what better way then to get on the bike and hit the kind of roads where I can be almost certain not to run into the poser crowd. Fortunately, those roads are only a few minutes away from my house.






I only rode for about an hour, but it gave me the much needed break from all the noise nonetheless.