The NAFO D-Tour

[Bustanut joker]

Well, I've got two hours to stock the beer fridge.. Better grab a jug of the crown too!

 

[yamafitter]

Arrived at Casa del Bust and Barry started feeding me Buds after a hot day in the saddle. I can no longer see the keyboard so I will have to finish this up tomorrow.

 

[yamafitter]

If This is Saturday It Must Be Owosso

We started out in the cool air coming off of Lake Superior but as soon as I started swinging away from the lake the temperatures started to rise. I stopped at a bakery to get pack away my jacket liner. I was in Michigan, the home of GM & Ford where nobody walks ...

I continued rolling through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and finally reached the Mackinaw Straits Bridge ...

I was now on a roll and stopped in at the Trading Post in Indian River. Sadly the restaurant at the Trading Post was turned into a MickyD's. The old restaurant had awesome homemade pies. It's a crying shame. There was no reason to hang around once the bike was gassed up and I was on a mission.

Back on the slab looking for the homing beacon in the window ...

I had arrived at my destination for the day..... Casa del Bust. I brought greetings for Barry from the NAFO meet in the Great White North ...

If your wondering Barry had been getting out of line again and Sheila had just given him a tun up with a poke in the eye.

After a long hot day in the saddle it wasn't long for the Buds & Segram's to take effect and I could no longer see the keyboard.

Later today we will be heading into town for a special edition of NAME THAT TIMMY'S.

 

[beemerdons]

I had arrived at my destination for the day..... Casa del Bust. I brought greetings for Barry from the NAFO meet in the Great White North ...

If you're wondering Barry had been getting out of line again and Sheila had just given him a tune up with a poke in the eye.

Excellent Work Sheila, but please don't let the job remain half done! Dot Bust's other eye at your earliest convenience, many thanks from your fine FJR Forum Friends!

 

[beemerdons]

By the Way Sheila, why can't you break the sick puppy of his habit of wearing your bikini panties and mesh stockings? Really Sheila, you've a goofy Twisted Sister there!

 

[BikerGeek99]

By the Way Sheila, why can't you break the sick puppy of his habit of wearing your bikini panties and mesh stockings? Really Sheila, you've a goofy Twisted Sister there!

That ain't right, Don. That ain't right in a whole lotta ways.

As the saying goes, there are some things that ya just cannot un-see.

 

[yamafitter]

All Good Things Come to an End - The Last Leg



It was too hot to cook last night so we decided to call out for pizza. We called RaYzerman19 but all we got was some lame ass excuse about the delivery truck having a flat tire and that Ray was out of pepperoni. Bust was not havin' it and told Ray he still expected 30 minutes or it would be free. That would prove to be a good trick from Ontario to Michigan but in the end we settled for a pizza from a more reliable source in town ...

In the morning just before leaving I thought it only proper that we help clean up after the partying the night before ...

It was then time for a SPECIAL EDITION of:

NAME THAT TIMMY'S

Hint #1 - There was an old retired guy sitting at the table in the middle of Timmy's. The reason he was sitting in the middle was because there was an old retired retarded guy sitting in the corner and no one wanted to go anywhere near him ...

Hint #2 - The Timmy's has WiFi and is therefore a few steps up the Evolutionary Ladder over Sudbury.

Hint #3 - As Bust told Ray last night, "Why wouldn't Owosso have a Timmy's - We have a Castle ...

Just in case you are starting to think that Barry is the only doofus in town we watched this fly fisherman catch a bridge...

Unfortunately the photo doesn't show it but the fly is wrapped up around the railing. I think the fisherman was using a rivet as bait.

Barry then wanted to show me the dam over in Corunna since he was impressed with some of my dam shots from British Columbia...

I'm calling this pretty lame for a dam. I had the itch to get back so at this point it was time to get over to the Bluewater Bridge in Port Huron before all the Sunday shoppers head back. There was a bit of a line up but for Sarnia it was pretty good only costing me about a 20 minute wait. I really need to get my NEXUS card and that is going to the top of my TO DO List.

I had one last stop before reaching home. Just outside of Woodstock I made a slight detour to go look up this guy...

I'm pretty use to seeing him in this position since this is how he spends most of his time at the Owosso Tech Days.

For those who have not made the ride to Owosso ...

It's Ray (RaYzerman19) who was helping out a friend that got T-Boned by another rider at an ST ride in Ohio. See Bob, you're not the only one.

I stopped long enough to touch base, have a drink and some refreshing watermelon before the itch to get home became too strong. It was back to the 401 and heading into Toronto. The weekend cottage traffic was building the closer I got but I had already made a decision to take the Toll Road across the top of Toronto since the heat and humidity of sitting in cottage traffic would have probably killed me. It ended up being an excellent choice with very little traffic.

When I dropped back to the 401 on the east side of Toronto it was stop and go traffic heading into Toronto all the way from Pickering to my town of Bowmanville (about 25 km). Very fortunately for me I was going the other way and traffic was relatively light. I pulled hte bike into the garage, stripped off all my hot sweaty riding gear, put the bike up on my lift and dropped the oil. Tomorrow it will get some fresh dino juice and I can start getting ready for lederhosen shopping in the Alps with BeemerDons.

Here was the last leg of the trip...

In total over the 25 days I covered 14563.6 km (approx. 9044 miles) and have now been to the mostly northern part of Alaska you can reach on a motorcycle (Deadhorse / Prudhoe Bay) and now the most southern part (Hyder). I can cross the Northern Cascades ride off my Bucket List and I added Idaho, Missouri & Illinois to my visited states list. Next time though I'm trailering out, the flatlands put me to sleep.

And that's a warp. Hope you enjoyed the ride report and I'll be calling in from the Alps next month.

 

[dcarver]

Now I really don't like you.

Hugs n' Kisses

:****:

Lucky Bastard!

 

[user 28803]

Woohoo! I'm glad you made it home. Great RR; thanks for sharing.

 

[Bugnatr]

Very nice Bill. I've enjoyed you writing and pictures this whole trip.

Looks like I'll have to add Timmy's to the bucket list.

 

[Bustanut joker]

Well I have one thing to say aboot me legs.. They may be as white as bungies but they are whole lot better looking. And my eye?? Well I'm just taking a few practice shots to toughen it up for when Barb and Tyler decide to kick my ass for no reason.

Gurls can be bullies to ya know.

Bill the townsfolk have been really good to me @ timmys. They never sit at that table and if by chance they are when I walk in? They rush the door like a bunch of puppies to the food dish.

Good times and a great report

 

[Bungie]

Well done Bill. Next we meet drinks on me for keeping me entertained when I should've been earning my pay.

BTW, the 407 is expensive and worth every cent.

 

[escapefjrtist]

Great wrap up Bill.

Thanks for taking us along on the ride adventure!

--G

PS -- How's that front tire holding up?

 

[Intech]

Excellent ride report Bill. Glad to see you are home safe. Quite an adventure.

 

[BikerGeek99]

1 ride report with 2 visits to Casa de Bust, AND you survived 'em both?

Epic.

:lol:

Good stuff, Bill. Glad you're home safe and sound.

Looking forward to the Alps report!

 

[RaYzerman19]

Bill this is another fine RR and I am disappointed I couldn't make the trip out there as we had originally planned. It was great you called from Casa Bust, and awesome that you could drop in on the way back to Tranna (I'd call it the Big Smoke, but Sudbury owns that title from years back). Good to see you home safe and sound. Looking forward to the Alpine adventure tour.

 

[Bungie]

Bill this is another fine RR and I am disappointed I couldn't make the trip out there as we had originally planned. It was great you called from Casa Bust, and awesome that you could drop in on the way back to Tranna (I'd call it the Big Smoke, but Sudbury owns that title from years back). Good to see you home safe and sound. Looking forward to the Alpine adventure tour.

Tranna = Cdn. CowTown.

 

[bbdig]

Great report Bill. Can't wait for the european report to start up. Wish I was going on that one.

See you at Nerds :yahoo:

 

[Bustanut joker]

Well done Bill. Next we meet drinks on me for keeping me entertained when I should've been earning my pay.

BTW, the 407 is expensive and worth every cent.

Agreed Steve.. I bet it saved an hour of sitting in the 100 degree temps last time through. Well worth the money in saved time.

Oh Ray?? I need directions to yer new digs..

 

[yamafitter]

PS -- How's that front tire holding up?

I need to thank both you and Barb for the tire since it actually held up very well.

Here is the new rear tire I got in Kamloops after 8100 km (5000 miles) ...

It's flat spotted some from coming across the flatlands but there is still life in that tire.

The front is also holding up well ...

I did some math and this is after I added another 4651 km (2888 miles) to Barb's tire. I'm thinking that is good enough for NERDS since Stowe is only a day ride from my place.

I did have some pretty good clunking going on in the front end after I let Andy help with the installation of the All Balls Tapered Bearing Kit for the Steering Stem. I decided to pull things apart and see what was going on ...

I didn't even need a wrench to take the steering stem nuts off. Small wonder there was some clunking going on under braking. This job didn't just get Bungied up. It jumped up a few quantum levels to being Andy'ed up. I surprised the front end didn't fall off and get reported on the news ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcU4t6zRAKg

I re-read the Installing All Balls thread and McGyvered up my own castered nut wrench from the biggest socket I could buy from Canadian Tire...

Air tools are a wonderful thing. I then retorqued everything according to the thread and also torqued the handlebars back on the triple clamp this time ...

The front end will not fall off and the environment is now safe.

I also went out and picked up some oil ...

I had been running full synthetic but after talking with the Jeffs in Calgary I just can't justify the extra cost in my mind. There's a lot of oil changes in that pail for the cost of one oil change before. I just need to give the bike a good bath now and it will almost be ready for NERDS.