Old Toll Road ride and repairs

[Cabrito]

Went for a little midweek ride yesterday with my friend Sean.

We were going to ride Bartlett Springs but.....

Started out with his rear brakes catching on fire near Oakville. Pads installed incorrectly. All the rubber on his caliper melted.

He had to do a field fix to get us to the cyclegear in Santa Rosa for some new pads.

Not to be foiled we still made it a fun ride.

More later...

 

[Mr Pepsi]

How exactly do you install pads incorrectly?

 

[Cabrito]

How exactly do you install pads incorrectly?

That's a good question.

I think that somehow the inside pad was improperly seated in the clip/spring thing causing it to drag on the rotor. I've done it.

 

[Cabrito]

That was one of the first dirt roads I went on. :thumbup It was neat, but some of those low-visibility turns that have almost no shoulder and a cliff on the side made me a little nervous.

The same day I took Old Toll, I also did Ida Clayton/Western Mines and Fish Rock Road, along with a few side trips. For anyone who hasn't done those, I'd say that Western Mines is pretty similar to Old Toll, and Fish Rock is nice and mostly easy, though there is one spot with a hairpin turn and some loose rocks that I had a little trouble with (I was more of a newb then and had non-DS/knobby tires though). You can comfortably do all three in one day, and then take 1 down to Bodega if you're wanting to do a nice tour of some fairly easy dirt roads near Sonoma County.

I remember your ride report. Thanks for reminding me about it. That is totally doable in a day and I would like to run it like you did one of these days.

The big difference between Ida Clayton and Old Toll is that Ida is mostly down hill (or up depending on your direction) and the dirt section is only a few miles.
I think Old Toll / Highland Springs is 15-20 miles and it's only the beginning of it coming from Hopland that has those tight turns. It's actually pretty flat and wide for a lot of it.

Fish Rock is also a lot of downhill. I think I know that part you're talking about. In May my friend lost it in the turn when he hit the loose stuff and his throttle lock somehow got stuck. He ended up launching his bike off the turn and we had to haul it up to the road. This is a pic of his bike over the edge on Fish Rock lodged between the trees..

I'm going to finish the ride report when I get home. It was too hard to post with my tablet..

 

[Banjoboy]

Shame 'bout them brakes. (I alwayz spin the tire ta make sure it turns, & stops after mount'in a wheel, or fix'in mah brakes.) You may have ta try it again. :teeth

That was one of the first dirt roads I went on. :thumbup It was neat, but some of those low-visibility turns that have almost no shoulder and a cliff on the side made me a little nervous.

The same day I took Old Toll, I also did Ida Clayton/Western Mines and Fish Rock Road, along with a few side trips. For anyone who hasn't done those, I'd say that Western Mines is pretty similar to Old Toll, and Fish Rock is nice and mostly easy, though there is one spot with a hairpin turn and some loose rocks that I had a little trouble with (I was more of a newb then and had non-DS/knobby tires though). You can comfortably do all three in one day, and then take 1 down to Bodega if you're wanting to do a nice tour of some fairly easy dirt roads near Sonoma County.

Like this? :drool

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[Cabrito]

Shortly after we had the brake issue we discovered my friends GPS wire had come apart so we fixed that when we fixed the brakes.

Next we slab it up 101 to get to Old Toll Road.

While we were on the long steep up hill section I noticed that the temp gauge was pegged at the Hot mark. Uh Oh...

We were communicating with our Blinc bluetooth headsets and I ask how his temp was and he said it was in the middle. That is were mine should have been..

Time to stop and check it out. Hey! There is a fuse in there! Um... It's my Stebel horn fuse..

Of course I never did my fan fuse relocation.. But from what I could tell my fan was not coming on. Checking the Coolant reservoir and that's full.. Good.

After a while my bike cooled down and since we were done with the uphill section and I didn't feel like taking apart my bike to get to the fan fuse we headed out.

Here we are taking a break in the Shade.

 

[Cabrito]

Shame 'bout them brakes. (I alwayz spin the tire ta make sure it turns, & stops after mount'in a wheel, or fix'in mah brakes.) You may have ta try it again. :teethLike this? :drool

I'm not even going to mention the shop that had just installed his new tires for him last week. You would have thought they could tell that the brakes were dragging. But maybe he screwed with them after the tires were mounted. (he took the bike in and dropped it off for the tire change)

The day before we left I'd noticed his rotor was all discolored like it had over heated and I asked him about it. I knew he had been having an issue with his brake not working properly. He said that the brakes were all squared away and I took his word on it. I should have taken a look-see for my self.

Trust me. After we got the new pads installed we checked it out and the tire rotated freely and it stopped. His caliper needs to be replaced though. Or rebuilt.

My friend is also a total noob in the dirt so I wanted to take him on something tame like this road.

 

[rodr]

Nice report.

But... do KLRs always have that much trouble? :laughing

 

[Cabrito]

Nice report.

But... do KLRs always have that much trouble? :laughing

heh-heh... Yeah right?

I don't want to jinx myself, but that's the first issue I've had like that in 12k miles.

Turned out that the fuse that I thought was for my big horn was actually indeed the fuse to the radiator fan, and it was indeed blown. It didn't look like it when I checked it, but I swapped it out anyway. My fan did start working again, and the bike was fine for the rest of the ride. One nice thing that Kawasaki did was put a spare right next to it inside the fuse holder.

Oh, and I made a short little video.