200,000 km on my bike on the weekend!

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ATTS said:
You should put it up for sale and state the 200,000km and see what kind of offers or responses you get.


Because he did what he should have, that makes him a nice man? I would just call that taking responsibility. Gotta love how the old man said he saw him there and knew he was there but forgot about him. I love hearing about old people driving and forgetting about things while behind the wheel.
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He was nice in that he completely owned up to it being his fault. Plus seeing a 70+ year old man try and push me on the bike to bump start it showed that he really did feel bad about it all. You could tell he felt like crap over it and followed me home to make sure I had no problems. It's hard to stay mad at someone when they make a mistake and acknowledge it.

..Tom
 
I don't mean to offend....and I must say I know nothing about your employment or family situation....but I find it almost inconceivable that you can put on 55000 km in a year. This would almost suggest non-stop riding from March to December, allowing for a few hours of work each day. Personally, I have a difficult time convincing my wife that a 200 km run on one of the weekend days is a good idea, and there is invariably some sort of payback involved. I was rather proud of my 3000 km from early July until last weekend when I put it away.
 
ABCarr said:
I don't mean to offend....and I must say I know nothing about your employment or family situation....but I find it almost inconceivable that you can put on 55000 km in a year. This would almost suggest non-stop riding from March to December, allowing for a few hours of work each day. Personally, I have a difficult time convincing my wife that a 200 km run on one of the weekend days is a good idea, and there is invariably some sort of payback involved. I was rather proud of my 3000 km from early July until last weekend when I put it away.
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for those of us that commute M-F, we put the KMs on.. simple.

I still managed 8,000kms this year, while only doing 3 or 4 long rides this summer. Most were 3-4 hrs, except the one trip to Ottawa and back.

For the *majority* of riders in the GTA, a motorcyle is a "sport" or "weekend warrior"/"fair weather" rider.
 
I've put on 10,000 with out commuting. Tom commutes and does the big trips too. You did AZ this year right Tom?
 
ABCarr said:
I don't mean to offend....and I must say I know nothing about your employment or family situation....but I find it almost inconceivable that you can put on 55000 km in a year. This would almost suggest non-stop riding from March to December, allowing for a few hours of work each day. Personally, I have a difficult time convincing my wife that a 200 km run on one of the weekend days is a good idea, and there is invariably some sort of payback involved. I was rather proud of my 3000 km from early July until last weekend when I put it away.
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When you ride rain or shine to work a fair distance, and use your bike for just about everything except picking up lumber at Home Depot, toss in 3 cross country motorcycle trips a year and it's doable.

I commute 50km a day and use my bike for everything and anything from Mar till Nov and have done 22,000km and counting this year. When I put the bike away next week I should be up to 23,000km. I have a family and rarely do any group weekend riding or join the guys in K-W on Thu, but if I did, that would add another 5000km easy. If I did 2 trips to the west coast and back add 20,000 more. See how easy it is?
 
ABCarr said:
I don't mean to offend....and I must say I know nothing about your employment or family situation....but I find it almost inconceivable that you can put on 55000 km in a year. This would almost suggest non-stop riding from March to December, allowing for a few hours of work each day. Personally, I have a difficult time convincing my wife that a 200 km run on one of the weekend days is a good idea, and there is invariably some sort of payback involved. I was rather proud of my 3000 km from early July until last weekend when I put it away.
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My work has me scheduled for 44 hours each week; but I am in retail and sometimes clients come outside of my work hours. I commute 58 km each way. On half way decent days my ride home is often double my ride to work. Today is the first day since March (or maybe Feb) that I took my car to work (and I feel like the weatherman tricked me as it is a downright gorgeous day in spite of the warning of ice on the road up my ways.) I did two major rides this year.. 5,500 km to the east coast and 10,300 km to the west coast. I think nothing of hopping on my bike and visting my daughter who goes to University in Kingston, or up to Wilberforce to vist my mom (and sometimes when heading up to my mom's I get sidetracked. One time I went to Wilberforce via Calabogie.) My 55,000 km did not include the four days that I flew to Alberta and did 2,000 km riding in the mountains with a friend on a borrowed bike.

I am fortunately now not married and with grown up kids I am not tied to the house. I will be riding more in the future.. my girlfriend LOVES riding, even in below freezing temps. I love riding big time.. In January I have training with work in California. My GF will come and I will add a week to the training and we will spend that week riding a bike up Highway 1 to San Franciso, then likely out to Arizona and back. I am already at the very early stages of planning a ride out to Alaska next summer. That could change but it's big on my list.


I very much love riding and want to do it all the time!

..Tom
 
I put 47,0000 kms on my fjr this year ( starting April 1 ) and really did not go anywhere in long distance trips, but I used it every day to go to work and somtimes used it for work instead of taking a truck. Living and working in Muskoka I used some pretty inventave ways to get to and from work as well. With only 171000 kms on the clock and no issues with the bike I plan to have many more miles on it, and willl ride it this THursday and Friday, SUnny and 9....

Good Going Tom
 
matthew said:
and what is the limit of an engine?
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At International truck our validation required about 1 million miles. The Suzuki XL7 SUV required 300000 miles, but it depends on the sample size......it was really less. A bikes requirement would be less still, but touring is an understressed condition so if that's what it is used for it could be quite different than the validation testing which is more aggresive.
 
ABCarr said:
Personally, I have a difficult time convincing my wife that a 200 km run on one of the weekend days is a good idea, and there is invariably some sort of payback involved.
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I can't remember the last time that I went out for a "ride" (not running errands) and didn't put on more than 200km. So do you also allow your wife not to do anything that she likes doing since it seems you aren't allowed.
 
Tom is a fine rider, and a good example to us all.

I feel privileged when I can ride with him, and amazed when I can keep him in sight after three curves. If, perchance, I manage to ride with him again in the spring, I will bring him a genuine Florida orange as a tribute.

He can slow down and get it when he wants it. :cool:
 
Tom is a fine rider, and a good example to us all.

I feel privileged when I can ride with him, and amazed when I can keep him in sight after three curves. If, perchance, I manage to ride with him again in the spring, I will bring him a genuine Florida orange as a tribute.

He can slow down and get it when he wants it. :)
 
V-Tom said:
I am fortunately now not married and with grown up kids I am not tied to the house. I will be riding more in the future.. my girlfriend LOVES riding, even in below freezing temps. I love riding big time.. In January I have training with work in California. My GF will come and I will add a week to the training and we will spend that week riding a bike up Highway 1 to San Franciso, then likely out to Arizona and back. I am already at the very early stages of planning a ride out to Alaska next summer. That could change but it's big on my list.


I very much love riding and want to do it all the time!

..Tom
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I have to admit it....I'm a little envious. Nice going, and enjoy.
 
v-tom said:
thanks!

Here is tonight's freezing rain pic, just after i pulled into my garage:

freezingrain.jpg


the roads weren't too bad, but my riding suit was frozen solid and i had to work at keeping ice from building up on my faceshield. May take my car to work weds.. First time since march.

..tom
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that "frozen" wee strom picture is insane! You have to send that and your odo pic to suzuki in canada and japan!
 
V-Tom said:
Of course I remember you.. how is the bike doing? I still haven’t opened the hand cleaner! I work Saturdays so that kind of limits my Saturday riding (apart from to work.)

I had two on the road "crashes". The first was a few km after I turned over 120,000 km. I made a right turn into a side street and didn't see a van making a left into a side street,. I locked up my front wheel and laid down the bike. Apart from some scrapes no real damage to the bike. My fault entirely!

The second (and hopefully last) was around 140,000 or so KM. I was heading down a back road (gravel) and came up to a car that was going slowly. It was after dark so i knew my headlight were very visible. As he slowed down I did as well. Now, I am very paranoid about cars slowing down and not signaling because they usually follow with a U-turn so in that case I generally stop behind them and honk my (very loud) horn until they signal. Since it was dark and he pulled to the right I thought i was safe and started to accelerate. He turned left right in front of me.

I don't think I hit the car but did lay down the bike and did about $700 of parts damage. He was an older gentleman in his 70's and immediately owned up to it and took responsibility. (He said he saw me but forgot i was there once he realized he had passed the address he was looking for.) It was hard to stay mad, especially when he tried to push start me (my clutch broke off so the interlock stopped the starter from working.) Bumping didn't work so I hot-wired the clutch switch and rode home without a clutch. I had the money for the parts in my hand the next business day. All in all things could have been much worse so I felt pretty lucky that day.


..Tom
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I completely forgot about the hand cleaner! The VFR was new to me a few days earlier, 2008 with 3500kms, just turned 17,000kms last weekend so I have put 13,500 on since. That is mostly Sundays with the Streetsville Sunday Rides and the occasional other local ride, one weekend to Parry Sound , one extra long day Peterborough.....but no real touring,no commuting. My weekday rides took me to Burrito Boyz!
I put about 25,000 on my Bandit 1250 last year, had an unbeleivable hard time to sell it with 30k on the clock! Most of the other 2007 Bandits had between 5,000 - 15,000 km on them so by comparison mine was extremely high milage! The 2008 VFR had 3500km after 3.5 seasons so whats that telll you? Not surprisingly (to me anyways) the guy who I bought it from replaced it with a ... Harley Vrod with 800km on it and it was 3 years old!! Thats either a few 'parades' or a lot of 1/4 mile runs, (I suspect parades) Good to catch up thanks for sharing your crash stories! Stay safe, hope to see you out there on the road. Im off work now till Monday..hope to reach 20,000km before xmas!
Oh yeah my commute is Oakville QEW rush hour to Toronto, so I don't ride the bike, feel too much like a target for the road enraged cagers!
 
Stewart said:
see what your bike can do when you take it to rosey toes? nice work tom!
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Ted has done a great job with my tires, chains and those bearings. fortunately he hasn't needed to do anything else on my bike. Best thing he did was show me how to make my chain last.. my last chain was replaced at about 75,000 km and had some life left. My current chain is over 54,000 km with no signs of wearing out.

..Tom
 
gwelfmike said:
I put 47,0000 kms on my fjr this year ( starting April 1 )
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Way to go!

Sometimes it's hard to explain to people why I ride so much. My manager at work simply doens't understand and think I'm a total nut case for riding all the time. I simply love it and would rather ride my bike than be in a car. I'm sure I will get some decent riding in this weekend. Right now I am close to 201,000 km.

..Tom
 
Ken VFR said:
I completely forgot about the hand cleaner! The VFR was new to me a few days earlier, 2008 with 3500kms, just turned 17,000kms last weekend so I have put 13,500 on since.
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Ultimately any riding is good riding! Different riders have different ideas of what riding is about and that is fine. I'm fortunate that I can ride so much and that I enjoy every minute of it.

..Tom
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