Bigguy Rides - 2014 S10 Travels - Currently in Kyrgyzstan

Continued from above


I headed to Ross River again for gas and decided to pull in here

I met Neil and Judy and was treated to two wonderful people. If you get a chance, pull in and hear their story.


I learned that there was two days of rain forecasted and didn't want to attempt the North Canol in the wet, solo. I decided to go back to Watson Lake. When I came up, the Cambell highway was under construction with a pilot truck. With two days of rain, I decided to ride it as soon as I could in case it became too muddy and gets closed. It was evening when I got to the construction and was wet, mud everywhere and a mess. It was midnight with no pilot truck and no other vehicles. Some of the ruts were 2'-3' deep. What took 20 minutes a week earlier took over an hour to cross back.
Got thru the mud and mess and was back on tar. There was a lake and a boat launch area that I set up camp at. In the morning, I was able to wash some of the mud off at the boat launch. During this time, I saw a loaded R1200GS two up heading north. As I continued to clean up the mud and have breakfast, I saw the GS return to Watson Lake. I couldn't image going thru that mess two up. I was also happy I got thru when I did as I don't think the pilot truck would've let me go thru.
With rain forecasted over the next week, I decided to leave the area and go south for warmer temps and drier skies.

WOW! congrats on crossing off a big bucket list notch! (at least for me!)
I’ve done cross country with my KLR 650 and it was every bit an amazing experience and then some.
Hows the S10 holding up? Have you done a valve check? im at 30k so im wondering if I should do it soonish (im gonna wait until 50k i think)

Hi
Planning touring Stan. countries upcoming spring 2024.
my concern is oil changing in my way and I don’t want to carry oil along the way with me.
is there any Yamaha dealer or trustworthy shops I can get service while I’m there?
Or do have any advice for me.
I have Yamaha Tenere XT1200ZE (2021).

Lautarooo said:

WOW! congrats on crossing off a big bucket list notch! (at least for me!)
I’ve done cross country with my KLR 650 and it was every bit an amazing experience and then some.
Hows the S10 holding up? Have you done a valve check? im at 30k so im wondering if I should do it soonish (im gonna wait until 50k i think)

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Thanks!! As with most bucket lists, when you cross one off, 3 more are added...
I'm very detailed with my bike. Some say obsessive....
I got my bike at 5K miles. As with all my bikes, I remove air filter and apply silicone grease where the filter sits in airbox. I've seen too many times where some dirt can get past the sealing surfaces of air filter to air box. If dirt gets past, the valves open and close on the dirt and acts like sandpaper.
With that, I go a bit longer on my valve checks. The below are my notes of my initial valve check at 60,000 miles.

Intake in spec (.004-.006)
Exhaust tight. Should be .009 - .011.
#1 .008 #2 .005 #3 .008 #4 .005.
After adjustment .011, .011, .010, .011
Exhaust shims original 1.92, 1.94, 1.94, 1.89
Exhaust shims current 1.85, 1.80, 1.90, 1.75

My Tenere said:

Hi
Planning touring Stan. countries upcoming spring 2024.
my concern is oil changing in my way and I don’t want to carry oil along the way with me.
is there any Yamaha dealer or trustworthy shops I can get service while I’m there?
Or do have any advice for me.
I have Yamaha Tenere XT1200ZE (2021).

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Sounds like a fun trip. Maybe we will cross paths in 2024??
I would carry a spare oil filter with. Never know if something on the road could damage the filter and next to impossible to find.
I do my own oil changes so looking for a dealer is not an issue. I would recommend doing the oil changes yourself. The biggest reason is you have a dry sump engine with a specific process for checking oil level that many dealers do not understand. And any dealer in the stans have never seen a bike bigger than 500cc with no clue what a dry sump engine is.
I was on a trip in the USA in 2017 and stopped at a Yamaha dealer for oil change. The mechanic did not understand the process of checking oil level and asked me to do it. That was the first and last oil change I had done by someone else.
I use full synthetic oils and go 6,000-8,000 miles per oil change. As with my last oil change, I found a bike shop in Osh, Kyrgyzstan (Zoro) that I bought oil from. Then took oil to the place I was staying at. The guy changes oil on his car and I was able to borrow his drain pan for no charge.
If you are going to put a lot of miles on, I would be more concerned about rear end oil. I keep a liter of rear end oil with as that is a specific grade that is not always available. I like the Motul brand and is fairly available everywhere. The bottle has a built-in funnel that collapses into the bottle. Very helpful.

Bigguy136 said:

Sounds like a fun trip. Maybe we will cross paths in 2024??
I would carry a spare oil filter with. Never know if something on the road could damage the filter and next to impossible to find.
I do my own oil changes so looking for a dealer is not an issue. I would recommend doing the oil changes yourself. The biggest reason is you have a dry sump engine with a specific process for checking oil level that many dealers do not understand. And any dealer in the stans have never seen a bike bigger than 500cc with no clue what a dry sump engine is.
I was on a trip in the USA in 2017 and stopped at a Yamaha dealer for oil change. The mechanic did not understand the process of checking oil level and asked me to do it. That was the first and last oil change I had done by someone else.
I use full synthetic oils and go 6,000-8,000 miles per oil change. As with my last oil change, I found a bike shop in Osh, Kyrgyzstan (Zoro) that I bought oil from. Then took oil to the place I was staying at. The guy changes oil on his car and I was able to borrow his drain pan for no charge.
If you are going to put a lot of miles on, I would be more concerned about rear end oil. I keep a liter of rear end oil with as that is a specific grade that is not always available. I like the Motul brand and is fairly available everywhere. The bottle has a built-in funnel that collapses into the bottle. Very helpful.

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Looking forward to meet you there bro.
most likely end of April early may i will be in Uzbekistan.
Probably I will take oil filter and some washers. I believe oil are available every were in Kazakhstan.
best wishes

I left Watson Lake and headed south on 37. A beautiful road.




Heading south, Hyder Alaska was next up. I rode my FJR1300 there in 2013 and parked under the Hydar, AK sign and a co-worker kept reminding me that I never actually was in Alaska since I just parked under the sign. With that comes this pic for Ross.


When I got to Hyder, it was the 4th of July and evening celebrations were going on. My bike felt weird like I had a flat tire. I pulled over but all felt good. It was the head bearings that got a notch in them. Winter project....

I was looking for a camp area and discovered there were several bears in the area. I asked a ranger guy about the bears and learned about Hyder and the bear viewing as the salmon come by. He told me I could go on a long road to Salmo Glacier overlook. It took about 45 minutes but I got to the top and had a perfect camp spot. Some pasta with parmesan for dinner and a view that just couldn't be beat.



When I'm on the road for a longer period of time, I start doing things to amuse myself like make a snowman to join my batman bear


In the morning, I saw a fork seal leaking. Not a big deal, a quick wipe around with a business card under the seal and all better but it was the first time I realized riding solo without a cell phone that something bigger could go wrong without anyone around to help. This helped me decide to keep going south back into the continental USA rather than back north after the rain passed. I did have a flip phone with but didn't have a phone plan that included Canada.


Road from Salmon Glacier overlook to Hyder

And 1 more pic from above


I crossed into USA at Washington. Remote camp spots were a bit different and required more searching.


The roads in norther Washington were way better than I was expecting. Being in the lower 48, my GPS was again working and I let my GPS guide me to the Going to the Sun highway (Glacier National Park).





I entered Glacier from the west and was one of the first times I had to deal with people and traffic. It was more than a bit difficult to have someone come to a stop in the middle of the road to see some Billy goat after all I saw over the last few weeks. All good, I'm on a motorcycle and can pass without much room.

looks like an amazing trip!!!

What camera are you using ?

Bigguy136 said:

Not to mislead. As the title says "currently in Kyrgyzstan" is the bike is stored there for the winter. I am back home in Minnesota doing the daily grind of work and family stuff.

With that, we are up to the fall of 2016 after a few weekend rides. With the cooler nights, I had a slow cranking motor and with some reading here, I did the Yuasa YTZ14S battery upgrade before winter and was happy how the battery performed in 20°F and it was time to bring my bike into my bike shop. And by shop, I mean my lower level of my house with unfinished basement.
I also have a real shop with mill, lathe, TIG welder and such but that is a 1 hour drive to it. Most of the work I wanted to do was just inspecting parts. One thing I didn't like was how the paniers were installed. They missed several spacers. Fortunate the missed parts were in the bag of spare parts so I just had to remove all of the loctite and install all parts as originally designed. I also switched all accessory bolts to JIS standard bolts. This would keep all bolt head sizes the same as the bike and fewer tools needed to carry with.
I installed the OEM heated grips, made a kickstand pad and moved the GPS mount from the windshield bracket to a tube I mounted to handlebar clamps.
I bought some soft bags to put on top of my panniers and aux fuel cells. This was my first trip without hotels so I brought about everything I could think of.

My "shop"
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What’s the bar that’s mounted to your bar clamps?

With Glacier National Park behind me, I was off to one of my favorite locations. Beartooth pass. On my way there, I found some nice back roads and remote camp areas.







I rode Beartooth on July 09 and was surprised to see as much snow as I did




And the summit

After Beartooth, I rode Chief Joseph over to Alt 14 and went thru Bighorn National Forest. I love the ride of Beartooth but I Alt 14 between Dayton and Lovell is my #1 choice in the USA because all the forest / ATV roads. Many areas to have a 1,000 acre private camp area.

Good to see the fork seal fix is holding after 1,000 miles.


And my last night camping in North Dakota


I got home and realized I opened pandora's box on this trip. No more tar roads and hotels on my FJR.
I was gone for 3 weeks. I never stayed in a hotel and never at a paid campground. Zero hot showers and majority of all meals cooked myself.

I had some catching up to do around home and took a few weekend rides to test out some ideas for future camping comforts. I didn't do much for pics. After what I saw in Canada and Alaska, northern Minnesota forest roads just didn't look worthy of taking photos.

Lautarooo said:

looks like an amazing trip!!!

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Thanks!!

Cycledude said:

What camera are you using ?

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I had a point and shoot Canon A480 and a Nikon D3400 with 18-55mm and 70-300mm lenses. Most pics were taken with Canon because it was so easy to take from my jacket pocket and use. Half of those pics were taken when on bike at speed.....

Kenpurachicken said:

What’s the bar that’s mounted to your bar clamps?

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It's a piece of Aluminum Ø1.00 bar. I didn't like my GPS being mounted to the cross tube on windshield mount. I felt I would be adding more weight than Yamaha tested for and over time, I could crack my upper fairing mounts. I also can use it if I need to hook the bike for lifting.

Bigguy136 said:

I had a point and shoot Canon A480 and a Nikon D3400 with 18-55mm and 70-300mm lenses. Most pics were taken with Canon because it was so easy to take from my jacket pocket and use. Half of those pics were taken when on bike at speed.....

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A point and shoot camera is probably a better and easier option on a bike, I think you’re more inclined to take photos.
I currently use a Sony mirrorless, with a few lens options, which can return some really good, high quality images. On the road though, I can’t always be bothered to get off the bike and unlock the top box to get it and I don’t think I’ve ever actually swapped the lenses over, on the road. I’m also not convinced that bumps, vibrations and shakes that come with long riding trips, are good for advanced cameras.That’s the reality for me.

I’m seriously considering a high end pocketable P&S.

Boris said:

A point and shoot camera is probably a better and easier option on a bike, I think you’re more inclined to take photos.
I currently use a Sony mirrorless, with a few lens options, which can return some really good, high quality images. On the road though, I can’t always be bothered to get off the bike and unlock the top box to get it and I don’t think I’ve ever actually swapped the lenses over, on the road. I’m also not convinced that bumps, vibrations and shakes that come with long riding trips, are good for advanced cameras.That’s the reality for me.

I’m seriously considering a high end pocketable P&S.

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I agree 110%. It was a pain pulling out my Nikon, remove protection and installing a Lense. It was just easier and much quicker for a P&S. It was very easy to keep in left jacket pocket and use when riding. There are so many pics you want to take and if I pulled over for every photo, it would double/ triple my trip time. I would install wrist strap with camera in pocket first then pull out and use. If anything happened, I could let go of camera and grab handlebar without loosing camera.
In future posts coming up, I switched to several different camera options.
For 2024, I think I will get a used Samsung S22/ 23 as I heard the camera is very impressive. Anyone have opinions using this phone for pic quality?

Living in Minnesota, I have several months of no riding. First on the list was new steering head bearings. I did this when I got home because the bike was terrible to ride as it was. Having a machine shop, I made some custom aluminum parts that would install the head bearing outer races.


Bike was feeling better and I was thinking 2018 will be a bigger year and needed some mud protection. 1st up was a new shock with shock sock/cover.

Work being done in my home lower level. Good thing for no wife saying otherwise....


Springtime 2018 and bike is ready. I also added fork socks.


Memorial weekend should be a good time to visit Beartooth Pass.
I left work Friday at 4:00PM from Monticello (just north of Minneapolis). Riding 5 hours gets me to a remote camp spot I stay at a lot. There are bee hives on the backside of the trees. A great start to the riding season with this being my first camp spot of the year.


Saturday around noon I'm seeing my welcome sign


I was on the north side of Beartooth and found a few side roads to play on.

As I got up in elevation, there was a road closed sign. All good, back down and find a camp spot. This should work.


In the morning, I took 72 around the east side of Beartooth. I found more side roads that I played on.


It was a bit rainy but all good knowing my suspension was more protected. Only problem was my wheel didn't want to turn. With greasy road and locked up wheel makes for an interesting morning.


A bit later and roads got nicer.



I thought I would try riding Beartooth from the south side. I got to the road closed sign but there was a gap wide enough for a motorcycle. That told me only cars were not permitted??





2018 was a memorable time for me. I've been to Beartooth 10+ times but never like this. A great start to the season with bigger plans to unfold.