Today's Ride

[Carl La Fong]

Well, with Sunny SoCal gripped in a heat wave, what a better day for a ride. I, and the other motorcycle hooligans in my club, rode to Malibu, then north to Oxnard and visited a car museum. Malibu was beautiful, the fish and chips were great and the beer was cold at famous Neptune's Net. The museum was small, but had a lot of nice cars. The ride home was fine until I got to the San Fernando Valley. It had to have been 105-110 degrees. It was like riding into the gates of Hell. My temperature stayed at 212-215. This was really the first test of fire (literally) for the home made water pump. It has always performed flawlessly in 80-90 degree days, but I have always wondered how it would do if it really got hot. Did just fine. The radiator didn't puke, nothing melted except my face.
I think I'll park the bike until the weather breaks. Too hot for this old guy

[Iron Maiden]

Sounds like you had a great time and congrats on the water pump!! I am also glad to hear your temps got that high because mine will do the same and I always get a little concerned when I see 210

[GordonBH]

Would love to ride those SoCal temps, it is only in the high 70's here, my newly fitted (on 190 off 185) fan switch doesn't know what it is and precisely switches on at 205/210 and off at 180 (which actually is fine for me).

To cap it all I woke last Wed. to the highways dept laying millions of tarred chips on the road outside my house. It's a cheap fix for them but I daren't take the bike over the loose chippings - they are only about 1/4" pieces and sticky. I already have one small hole in my drive belt from one of those!

I'm going to fix up extra shielding for the belt to get it out and along the street to the main highway. It'll look crude but should stop the little devils getting on to my belt and I can ride my Hoss.