293 Miles
We were able to get on the road at 9:10am. Prior to every departure, I went over the ST's fluids and rear. I'd spin the rear tire for any odd sounds or such. We hit I-64 quickly over to I-81S. Somewhere near, we saw this house for rent that was in the shape of a coffee pot. It even had a spout and and handle.
We rode through Roanoke to catch the Blue Ridge Parkway. As we leaned the ST slightly through high speed (55-65mph) curves, I noticed a humm coming from below but put it on the back burner until we got to the BRP. It was suggested to us to catch it in that area as north of Roanoke the BRP tends to get windy and congested, ultimately boring. We were tempted to jump on early but fought the temptation.
Wow, we live in such an amazingly awesome land. If you stop and think about it, we have everything in this land. We have the desert, the ocean and beach, the mountains, the cold, the hot, the dense forests, we are so blessed! I hope we never lose our freedom to where we cannot enjoy what we want, when we want it.
We rode the BRP for a few miles until I could not take the "humm in the turn" noise any longer, and pulled off on one of the first overlooks, Poages Mill Overlook, el 2035 ft. As leslie took a bench on the ground (and read her email as we had cell SIGNAL), I went to checking out the rear that I became so concerned with.
We put RiSTa up on the center stand and I felt the rear with my hand - "ouch! This rear is HOT!!". I felt itagain but this time I guaged it with a count "1, 2, 3, 4... Ouch" and removed my hand befure I burned it.
My mind instantly went to the fact that I did not add enough oil to the rear so I opened the fill opening and a little poured out. Oil was good but as a inspected it, I noticed very small particles of metal in the oil, almost as a few drops of graphite was added to the oil on the ground. "Great...".
I spun the wheel and sure enough, I could hear something, something I had never heard before. I KNOW that when I reassembled the rear, I rotated the tire and it was so smooth and perfect, and of course, quiet. Now I hear a kreeky noise as it was rotated. I could not hear it when the tire was rotated by the engine in 1st gear. We stayed there for about an hour to let the rear cool down. I tried to call Mark Frost but his line was busy for the duration - probably talking to his sweetheart in Wisconsin and I could not blame him. I called Brian Cescot, my local Orange County STOC buddy. He had never heard of a rear end noise and concurred that something was up with the rear although he did add that it would likely get warm riding 2 up (2 passengers). Leslie and I decided to keep moving and to let it lock up if it was bound for that. Atleast Honda would pick us up if we ended up on the roadside, thanks to the Honda Riders Club. Rear failure or not, she looked sweet...
We rode for another hour, weaving through the beautiful country before we pulled over and checked it again.
This time, the rear was so hot that I could not even count to 1. Also, the noise was still there but had NOT gotten worse.
We continued to ride until we hit a tourist attraction, Mabry's Mill. We put RiSTa up on her center stand and checked the keeky noise... still there but not worse. The heat of the rear seemed to be stable to the point of not being able to touch it to the count of 1. We decided to play tourist for a few hours and check out Mabry's Mill.
And listened to some good ol' fashion string music (I took to the guy on the far left, he played the harmonica) . It made me start doing the hillbilly-bop and could not stop it!
As we were getting set to leave, Leslie decided that she wanted an ice cream sandwich. Funny part of the story is that she had both ends of the wrapper open with only the middle remaining. The wrapper was not a paper one as many of us grew up with but a fancy, metallic plastic and it would keep binding up as she tried to rip it. She fought with it for a few minutes, trying to save the ice cream from melting at the same time.
After she finished it, she said "That was one of the worse ince cream sandwiches I've ever had!".
I had to ask, "Why?"
Because, I could not eat it by licking all of the ice cream around the edges of the sandwich!"
That was one of the funniest things I had heard in a long time because she was so right!
Funny in life when occurs isn't it? It's not what you have or what you do but how you do it that makes all of the difference in the world.
This was before the battle 'o wrapper...
When we were preping to get on back on the BRP, some ambulances flew by with their alert signals screaming. As we headed south on the BRP, we came upon an accident of a Harley bro. We prayed that they were going to be ok and recover quickly.
We cruised down a beautiful part of the BRP and the normal afternoon rain held off.
We rode about 50 miles on the BRP before we decided to pull off at another overlook and check the rear.
before we left, I tried to contact my Mark again. I shared with Mark the issues that I noticed this morning. In short, None of my thoughts were correct.
Mark said "This noise that you speak of.
-Does it sound like an old rocking chair kreek?"
"Exactly Mark!!"
"I don't know what that is but mine does the exact same thing. It can be completely silent when I put the wheel on but after I ride it for a little and check it, the kreek appears. I have not been able to figure it out Rob but appears to be normal. No worries there." Cool.
-The graphite in the oil was really the oil getting up into the moly 60 through the two breathers in the cup and pulling some of it into the rear. Cool.
-The temperature of the rear is completely normal. Mark, going through the desert in 105 deg temp believed his drivetrain became so hot that he could probably fry an egg on it. These ST's are amazing because they get so hot and only hold 6 oz of gear oil. I sure was relieved that I put Amsoil gear lube in it just 2 weeks earlier - nothing better. Cool.
-The noise in the turns... ahh, I stumped the guru, right? Nope.
"Rob, I had some Metzler tires that did that. What are you running?"
Metzlers. Cool. All of the fires that have gotten out of control in my mind throughout the day were all extinguished in seconds.
We chatted about getting to Leslie's sister's that evening or in the morning, afterall, we were only about 50 miles from Asheville. We decided to look in our hotel discount book for a hotel in the area. We found the Meadowbrook Inn (
http://www.meadowbrook-inn.com/ rating 5 of 5 in our opinion ), in Blowing Rock, NC since we were about 2 hours ahead of schedule. Relax and have dinner was in mind.
We called and Vicki at the front desk was so kind and helpful on the phone. As we rolled into Blowing Rock (
http://www.blowingrock.com), the roads became black topped with beautiful flowers and scenery. I thought we were in Mayberry.
We unpacked and hit their Italian Restaurant, Ciao Bello! for dinner. We sta down around 8:30pm. It was AWESOME food; all of it. Cheers!
After dinner, I went back to the room to rest and Leslie went for a walk through Blowing Rock. She came back to the room and told me how cool the town was. She took me on the scenic walk and we got some ice cream and returned to the room.
