Two Wheeled Tales: Stupid is as Stupid Does

So I've been away from the blog for a few days, I will now catch things up. The elusive fork did indeed show up on Friday afternoon. I bolted from here faster than a two-bit thug splits a bad scene when the cops show up. Blasted over to the dealership, picked up the magic fork and shot home. I set to getting things wrapped up so that I'd be able to ride up north for the long weekend. Got everything on, looked good, rolled her out into the driveway, fired her up and let things come up to temp. Grabbed a fistful of clutch, eased her down into gear and rolled forward...for about a foot. Something was definitely wrong. The forks felt like they were flopping all over the place. WTF??? What did I miss? I shut her down, tightened up the risers (I'd forgotten to do that - Zig noticed they were loose) but still no dice. I thought maybe I could fight the forks for the ride up, and opted to take the bike around the block to see...nope, I hadn't gone 30 feet before I realized there was no way I could ride the bike. Dammit!

So I rolled it back into the garage. Time was tight and we needed to hit the highways and catch up with the crew from NY. So, with a sidelong glance back at the bike, I lowered the garage door (like a curtain on my plans), we threw our gear into my truck and headed off on four wheels.

The weekend itself was good. There were lots of laughs, plenty of stories, and a few tears shed for recently departed brothers.

Last night; it was back to the bike. The plan was to tear the front end off again and inspect the bearings and races - that being the only other thing I could think of. (The frame looks fine, so I think that its safe.)

Got everything opened up and was disappointed; rather than finding a bunch of flattened or mashed bearings, everything seemed good and solid. So I figured I'd take a break for the night (I'd already worked a 13 hour day before I even started in on the bike, and I was pretty beat). I'll have Zig come by today (since he's got a lot more experience with bearings), and have him take a look at them and lemme know what he thinks.

And then this morning something hit me - I don't want to say what it is because of how incredibly stupid it is, if that's what turns out to be the problem. If it is...I'll swallow my pride and write it down here for all to see and laugh at me. If it isn't the problem, well then, no need to expose myself to unnecessary ridicule.

I figure I might as well replace the bearings and races while I've got everything opened up, and then I'll make sure to NOT do what I did the first time I reassembled everything, and hopefully that will take care of things and I'll be rolling again.

Maybe then I'll be in a better mood. Hell, I might even come back and expound on the Labor Day trip a bit. In the meantime, here's one pic that I managed to capture this past weekend. Not sure how I did it, but it came out hella cool.