Germany, and especially Frankfurt, reminds me more of the United States than anywhere else in Europe. Like Portland (Oregon), Frankfurt has a distinct balance of fast-food chains and health-food stores, bars and green spaces, cars and bicycles. The style and quality of both beer and food is pretty similar between the two as well. The cuisine emphasizes meat and potatoes, and is often fried. The beer here seems to also favor quantity over quality.

My experience here has been an interesting contrast to Bruxelles as well. Whereas the Belgians try to introduce inefficiency in every step, the Germans try to banish it. I see this constant contrast not only in taking the subway system, but also in the dining experience. After my battle with the ticket dispenser for the public transit system here, I also think the Germans try to introduce complexity wherever simplicity is possible. This completely explains BMW motorcycles.

Lowlight of the day: Dropping a 50-cent piece into a pile of wet pigeon feces, and having to retrieve it to satisfy an exact change requirement.

There are an awful lot of cool things to stop off and visit in between cities, so we’re dedicating the next 3 weeks to wandering around Europe. Surprising to myself, we have managed to pack up everything into just the luggage that came with the motorbike: two laptops, 2 SLR’s, books, games, first aid kit, and a weeks worth of clothes. We should be staying in hotels with internet access, so I hope to post some photos soon.

Looking outside of the window, it’s going to be a rainy start! See you in Frankfurt!

I spent my day today doing a ritual which repeats itself every four months: scheduled maintenance day. Every 6,000 miles, the F650GS maintenance schedule recommends you check a bunch of things, but most importantly it’s time to replace the oil, oil filter, and air filter. With my bike being a single-cylinder thumper, parts are bound to shake loose or go missing as I discovered today:

Removing the body work

The F650GS is a mess of plastic fairings. In order to change the oil, look at the battery, and look at the air filter, you have to remove a total of 16 bolts. In a car, it’s normally just one.

While removing the body work, I noticed the bottom left fairing screw was missing. It’s not the first time it’s gone on vacation, so I already had spares in stock.

Changing the oil

Changing the oil on the F650GS is a messy 3-stage affair: remove the upper drain bolt, remove the lower drain plug, and then remove the oil filter. The first thing I noticed while loosening the upper oil tank was that the bolt in the top-left was missing entirely:

I called my dealer to see if they had them in stock, but it seems that they had to order them from Germany. WTF. It’s just a simple torx plug. Well, if my bike ran fine without it, what’s another week of waiting? Oddly enough, the spacer was still there.

The lower drain plug provided no such drama:

However, when I installed the bash plate back on, I noticed this bolt was completely loose, at the point of falling off. I’m not sure what the screw did other than hold the rear shock to the engine case, but it was easy to tighten it. The space was however so cramped enough that it took me 15 minutes to remove my socket wrench:

Air filter

Now that I have the right screw head for the air filter, removing it was no problem:

The airbox was completely soiled in oil, as it has been every time I have done the 6k maintenance. I scrubbed it out with some paper towels, and renewed the air filter using the K&N cleaner and oiling kit.

Wiring in the Zumo 550

One overdue item was to remove the rats nest of wiring I installed two years ago for some external lights that I never used:

I hijacked the battery terminal connectors from a battery charger I killed, and spliced in the Zumo 550 connectors with the help of a pair of pliars and some electrical tape. Unfortunately, the GPS stays on even if the engine is off. This GPS is really slick with it’s bluetooth integration, voice synthesis of the street names, and the ability to play MP3′s:

Power testing

When I warmed up the bike before the oil change, I heard a strange metallic rattling. I decided to worry about it later, so when it cropped up again after I put everything together, I used my ear to hunt for it. It ended up being this heat protection plate mounted to the catalytic converter pipe:

Chain cleaning & tightening

Ever since I put the 17″ front wheel on, I’ve been putting off cleaning the chain. I just could not get the bike up on it’s center stand, and cleaning the chain on the side-stand is just an exercise in frustration. I e-mailed John (indigoid), and he assured me it’s entirely doable, it just takes an extra tough of effort. Sure enough, it went up without any issue!

While cleaning the chain, I noticed that it had a little too much slack in it. Adjusting the chain on the F650GS is a particular pain because you have to line up the indicators on the left and right swingarms pretty close to exactly:

For the first time, I used Motorex 622 Chain Lube instead of my regular Motul Chain Lube Road. The Motul was completely invisible, but put a weird feeling coat on anything you accidently sprayed (such as your hands). The Motorex is white and foamy, which while it looks a bit weird, makes it easy if you are over-spraying things.

Coming up..

I have a few outstanding things to do maintenance-wise, but I’m waiting for parts. I’m overdue a refresh on the fork oil (waiting on a new o-ring), and brake fluid change (waiting on my speed bleeders to come in). I’ll most likely get it done the next weekend. Until then, it’s nice to have everything buttoned back up:

She could sure use a wash. =)

I got off the highway and headed north on Moreland Ave, and as soon as I was stopped behind traffic, my bike sputtered and died. I said to myself “No way am I out of gas after 10 miles!”. I tried to restart the bike several times, and you could hear it trying to get a spark, but to no avail. There was a biker on a Goldwing behind me who said “Sounds like you’re out of gas!”. I agreed, and as soon as the lights turned green, I duckwalked my bike down the hill to the nearest gas station. Filled the bike up, and it started right up without a problem!

I get to another stop light, and the bike quits again. I mash the starter a few times, but the engine just wheezes, so I pull over onto a nearby sidewalk. This time I turn the bike off entirely with my keys, and restart it… the engine purrs like a Thumper should. “How strange!’.  I pull back into traffic, and at the next stoplight, it dies again. This time though, when I turned the key off and back on, the lights on the dash were dim — I had drained my battery.

I get off the bike, and push it to the nearest parking lot — the Best Buy about a mile south of the Vortex. It’s amazing how light a 500lbs. motorcycle is when you are annoyed and embarassed! I didn’t have Young’s phone number on my cellphone, so I called up Chris to share the good news. Chris and Young show up shortly, and we attempt to recharge the battery from Chris’s car. Meanwhile, Young and myself look for the stalling culprit.

Like a car, a motorcycle only requires 3 things to run: A battery to get started, fuel, air, and spark. We attempted to start the bike while plugged into Chris’s car, but it still would not yield. To us, this meant that we needed to look at air and spark, since fuel should no longer be an issue. I had changed the spark plug only 500 miles ago, and cleaned the air filter at the same time. After inspection, we decided that the spark plug was good, but the K&N air filter (and airbox) was filled with oil, which could cause oxygen starvation (and lack of spark). On the F650GS, if you ever tip the bike, or overfill slightly, the airbox gets oil into it, which sticks to the air filter.

After reseating the spark plug and cleaning the air filter as best as I could without proper tools, the bike started up! Eureka! We unhook the jumper cables, start the bike again, and the bike doesn’t start. Looks like the AGM battery I bought from BikeBatts last year is a bust. After some discussion, we hunted down the local Autozone with the help of Google Maps Mobile, and plonk down $70 for a Magna Power CB12AL-AFP battery.

Sadly, most motorcycle batteries do things old school style: You get to mix the acid in yourself, and at least once a year must top it off with distilled water. You must also hook up an exhaust tube so that any acid overflow that occurs during riding is disposed of properly. I solved all this by buying the AGM battery last year, but here we go again. After filling the new battery with acid, we have to wait an hour for the chemicals to mix properly, so we walk down to the Vortex for a bite to eat. We got there around 10:30pm, so most of the folks there for bike night had left already. The burgers were good and the company was even better, but I was feeling antsy to get my bike up and running again.

After eating, we got back to start the initial charge cycle for the battery. The manual calls for another hour, so we went on a search for caffiene. The coffee shops around were closed, so we got some energy drinks from the Kroger just before closing time, and just hung out and shared stories. This is what a guys night out was all about.

30 minutes later, we get tired of waiting, plug everything in, and the Dakar starts up like nothing ever happened. The original battery exhaust hose isn’t reaching far enough, so we use the one that the battery came with, and just poke it out into the back of the front tire mud flap. We headed home, and that was all I had to say about that. Until the next morning, when I saw what happens if you don’t have the battery exhaust port routed properly:

All of those ‘stains’ were caused by the battery acid on a 30 mile ride home. I took the time the next morning to properly clean the K&N filter, as well as the bike, and she’s all pretty again:

I can’t wait for the next guys night out!