Great Day With Bikes

Today was planned for a week and a half depending on weather and whether my town DPW chip sealed my road. The chip sealing was postponed in July because of flooding rains, and again this week because of the extreme heat. Good for us because it is impossible to ride a motorcycle on 3" of loose gravel until it settles and mixes with the oil.

My fellow Goldwing rider wanted me to do an oil change on his bike. He had already provided me with the oil, filter, and drain plug gasket. The plan was to come over early, have a nice big home cooked breakfast to let the engine cool, then do the oil change, and go riding afterwards. Another couple we ride with asked if they could join us for breakfast and a ride so I said sure. Bacon, sausage, homefries, my farm fresh eggs, toast of all kinds, juice and coffee. I started prepping and cooking an hour earlier. Yep... ole Glypto does know his way around the kitchen, and I cleaned it all up as well as loaded and ran the dishwasher before heading out to the garage.

The air was thick and humid with temps climbing through the 80's and dew points in the low 70's. Gross. Since I have an oversized garage all the bikes were inside. Good thing because the skies opened up. It doesn't take much in the hilly area I live to squeeze moisture out of a juiced up atmosphere. The oil change on a Goldwing must be done on the sidestand for proper drainage, and since I don't have an elevated ramp to drive up on, it meant rolling around low on a creeper. The oil drain plug and filter are located behind the lower front fairing. Two pop pins, six hex head bolts, and some "wrestling" to wriggle it free. There is only a few inches of space between the garage floor and the bottom of the engine, so I use a shallow aluminum steam table pan to catch the oil. Then I dump the pan into a 4 gallon plastic jug I keep for transport to the town transfer station. Oil drained, a new aluminum drain plug gasket, and the plug tightened to the proper torque spec. Next came filter removal and draining, mounting surface cleaned, and a new filter screwed on and properly torqued. Finally the engine was filled with 4 quarts of Honda HP4S full synthetic motorcycle oil. Yeah, I know its stupid expensive at like $11 a quart, but I will not entertain cheaper unapproved alternatives. I have heard it all before about how its a waste of money. On big jap bikes, the engine and transmission share the oil, and I will not fuck up an expensive to repair machine by going cheap on oil. But hey you feel free. With the oil change finished, I pulled out the air hose and pressure gauge chuck so everyone could check tire pressure. Everything was set to go with the bikes so it was giddyup time.

 We did a 75 mile loop around Windham County. Once the earlier rain showers passed, the sun came out with a vengeance. There were some stretches of RT. 12 and RT. 169 that were out in the open with no shade that were really warm. The plan was to end the ride at the car cruise at Loos & Co.  at the corner of RT. 101 and 169, and get some lunch at Pizza 101. The car cruise was a bust because it was cancelled due to a previous request. A local home in the immediate area was hosting a wedding and asked for the cancellation to keep down traffic and noise. Oh well, we still got some grub and then headed for home. Because my house was closest, I peeled off from the group first and waved goodbye to my friends.