1. What tools/spare parts did you bring? Not too much. Tire repair kit, air compressor, extra oil (it uses some), ratchet with 10-17mm sockets, allen wrenches, tire pressure gauge, electrical tape, scissors, razor knife, fuses, cigarette lighter digital volt meter
2. You mention at the end of the slideshow that you were never in fear for your personal safety, but did you ever fear something like, "holy hell, if I break down out here there is a good chance I might die..."? No. I was with Louie when his bike broke down, and the first pickup truck that came by offered to take the bike the 24 miles north to the first settlement.Then I hear that a cargo truck took him and the bike 75 miles back to San Felipe, where they helped him to find a mechanic and refused to take any money. You hear about gang-on-gang violence on TV and tend to see the whole place as lawless, but this was about my 10th trip to Mexico, and I have always found them to be the kindest and most human people you could ever hope to meet. And when I laid the bike down in that stream across the road, I looked up and there was a truck full of Mexican cops right there! I don't know how it happened because I never saw any cops while I was riding. But just as I thought "I hope I can pick this thing up," they picked it up for me, walked it across, waded through and told me where the least-slippery track to take was, etc. They couldn't have been nicer. 3. How many miles are on your buddies bike? I thought beamers were supposed to be really reliable. Was it one issue that kept repeating or multiple issues? It was a 2002 with 30K miles. Since I was on a 1996 with over 60K miles, you'd think I'd be the one breaking down. The bike actually started acting up in New Mexico. The word from the mechanic was that it was a combination of the starter solenoid and a connection at the ignition switch. Why his "fix" resulted in it getting towed back to him 50 miles down the road again I'm not sure. Next was a chain that was so stretched out that he had a link removed. That got him back to the US. Then I heard it was chain, sprocket, and back wheel bearing. In August, I rented a BMW F700GS for 3 weeks and really loved the bike. I seriously thought about buying one for the trip, but I became convinced that my bike could make it, and that turned out to be right. The guy who rented me had a whole barn of Beemers, and I asked him about general perception of reliability of beemers, and he just laughed. I saw a ranking of reliability a while back on one of the motorcycle websites, and they had BMWs and Harleys tied for like 8th place. No. ! went to Yamaha, with Honda and Suzuki tied for 2nd. 4. At the 1:39 mark, what exactly was going on with those ladies? More specifically, can you forward me any and all high resolution photos you may have of the incident so I may investigate??? You know, I take most of my pictures with no zoom because the only thing I can see in daylight when I try to frame a shot is my own nose reflected back at me. I crop later. So I didn't really see what was going on while I was taking that shot. I looked at it later and thought "what exactly was going on with those ladies?" like you. "Girls gone wild," I guess. Glenn -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/nighthawk_lovers/6564b535-e5fd-4a09-aa13-6168544d793f%40googlegroups.com.
