Day: Apr 22, 2015

Hi there, everyone. It has been a long time since I did a road trip – two years. But now I am retired, I’m going to be ‘On The Road Again’ in 2015. Happy, happy, happy. As yet, the flights are not booked as there have been a couple of setbacks – one of them very sad. In March, Larry (Lawrence Klein) took his first holiday out of the USA; he went to the British Virgin Islands, and, tragically, lost his life whilst snorkelling. This is from the BVI Newspaper on 10th March 2015

Click on the image to enlarge for reading

Larry is the man who services our bike – along with his partner and long-time friend, Brian McCall. It was Brian who called to let us know of the tragedy.

Here are couple of photos I took when Larry was showing us around his new office in Lansing, Michigan.

RIP, Larry.

At the end of the 2014 trip, Jan left the bike with Brian for a full strip down service but Brian has had difficulty getting some parts for the bike. Brian’s latest update says,

There is clutch dust and oil everywhere inside the clutch chamber. I really can’t see clear evidence of a main seal leak but, will replace prophylactically. The clutch disc is in good but somewhat worn condition, original disc is 5.2–5.4mm, new = 6.0mm. If I could have been absolutely sure that all of the oil was coming from the oil fitting and been able to see the clutch plate from the outside I would not have done the clutch at this time. Inspection being impossible from the outside takes us down a different path. The fitting was loose in the threads as well as the hose being loose on the fitting. All in all nothing unexpected which is good.

It has been a stressful time for Brian; obviously, the loss of Larry was difficult but, as well as stripping our bike down, he has also been doing the same to his wife, Kim’s, Breva too. And he has to have both bikes finished before May 15th as they are taking off for their own road trip out west.

Hence we haven’t booked any flights – there is no point until we know the bike is ready. We hope to fly around the end of May, beginning of June. As Brian will have already left for own his road trip by then, he will arrange for our bike be stored somewhere so we can pick it up on arrival.

Once the flights are organised, we need to sort out bike insurance and travel/health insurance.

In addition, I need to buy a new motorcycle jacket, trousers and helmet; you may remember, Jan trashed all of mine last year – it was pretty sun-rotted and not worth hanging on to.

I’ll keep you updated as things (hopefully) come together.

Happy summer everyone – and ride safe.