sprocket i/o

My 2003 BMW F650GS Dakar!

Since I was leaving town for 3 weeks of travel in November, I dropped my Dakar off at BMW Motorcycles of Atlanta. Not having solved the headlight issue surrounding my crash in September, I decided to have them take a look at it while I was gone. Since it was already there, why not have them perform my overdue 18,000 maintenance, swap in a 15T front sprocket, and install some new tires. Here was the bill:

PARTS
-------------------------------------
SCREW 5x20                      $2.00
BUSHING - RUBBER (3)            $3.21
TRIM PANEL - HEADLIGHT         $40.50
RIVET NUT                       $3.00
OIL FILTER KIT                 $16.00
BMW 10W40 MOTOR OIL             $5.38
FRONT FAIRING HOLDER BRACKET  $190.00
SHOP SUPPLIES                   $6.50

LABOR ($78.00/hour)
-------------------------------------
18,000 MILE SERVICE (4.5H)    $351.00
HEADLIGHT REPAIR (1.2H)        $91.00
MOUNT/BALANCE TIRES           $132.00
SPROCKET INSTALL (1H)          $78.00

TOTAL: $934.20

When I finally went to pick up the bike on Sunday, they told me the right blinker had a short in it. The technician said he didn’t work on it because I glued the orange lens onto the blinker assembly (it had broken in the incident). I was honestly quite annoyed, and told them that I delivered the bike to them with a working blinker. The technician then tried to tell me that it would still look like it was blinking correctly on the dash (not true). Well, in the end, I wasted 45 minutes and found that one of the leads from blinker assembly had been pulled out, and as a precaution against shorting out the bike, they unplugged the connector beneath the panel.

The bike is feeling really great. The levers have been tightened up, the headlight is now properly adjusted for the first time in my posession. With the 15T front sprocket, the bike sounds and feels much more like a dirt bike now, and the engine has to work a little bit harder at all speeds. Slow-speed maneuvering is much nicer is, and the bike doesn’t lug as much, especially when I take a turn too slowly in too high of a gear. In theory, the bike is slower now, but it still seems to have no problem going up to 80mph, but seems to be up around 6,000rpm when doing so now. The side effect is that at this RPM, the mirror vibration keeps things behind you looking a bit fuzzy.

Dallas’s 2001 Accord is in the shop this week getting it’s transmisison worked on, so she’s driving my Maxima around. I’m more than happy with this arrangement, since it feels great to be on two wheels again after so long without. Next time I will do my own maintenance on the bike however, since I could do a lot with $900.00.