After much swearing, a hurt knuckle and a little help from my trust rubber mallet, everything got back into place. Riding seems a bit better–not nearly as much herky jerky stuff going on at a steady slow speed.

Did the longest ride I’ve attempted so far that same weekend. About 140 miles in all. 120 of that was all on one tank–before hitting reserve. When I finally got gas it was almost exactly two gallons. Considering that almost all of that was at highway speeds, I’m pretty happy. Of course I managed the Crooked River run again.

In other news, Mellotron picked up a WR250R last week. It needs a bit of attention, but seemed to run well and had a couple of nice upgrades to boot. I’m sure he’s excited. Will be nice to have someone to ride dual sports with again.

I’m happy to report that the DRZ is just as much fun as I remembered–and that it seems to be holding the oil I dumped into it. Hooray. I ended up putting about 20 miles on the bike after all was said and done. Felt awesome to be out–if a little cold. Had to keep things someone tame as the time was about deer:30–can’t remember the last time I’ve seen so many out and about.

On a side note, I accidentally fired the bike up sans choke tonight and it lit right up and quickly settled into a nice idle. I think it’s about 45 degrees in the shop, so that ain’t too bad. The KLR never would’ve done that.

Also found out for sure when I need to be thinking about the reserve switch in the petcock after coasting to a stop at around 100 miles on the odometer since the previous fill. Guessing that’s about 1.7 gallons into the tank and the DRZ has a 2.6 gallon tank–which means I could probably safely go another 50 miles or so. Not bad.

Wanted to note this in the post, too. Good reference.

Riding the DRZ home Friday was the culmination of a three week marathon of full-on trying to purchase a WR250R or DRZ400 (or KLX250 for a short time–finally sat on one and decided it was too small for me). I financed the bike through my bank and it seems that nowadays people are a little wary of taking a cashier’s check from an out of town bank. Might have something to do with the warning right there on CraigsList about out of town people/banks/cashier’s checks. I must’ve contacted 10 separate buyers between the various Craigs sites and ADVRider. Found a couple who would take the check early on and then had the bikes bought out from under me. Almost bought a dealer bike, but they didn’t want to give me the right deal. I finally posted a “looking for a DRZ400/WR250R” ad on CraigsList and found the bike that way.

This one (as you can see in the photos) is yellow and although I didn’t really think I wanted a yellow bike, the color has grown on me. It looks much better in person (although that could be due to the fact that it’s practically new–with less than 2500 miles on it when I picked it up Friday).

I put a bit over 100 miles on it Saturday. Rode over to Prineville via Alfalfa Market Road, Reservoir Road and the Crooked River Hwy. There was way less gravel than expected in the canyon, so I rode a bit more sporting pace on the way back…but couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a few photos. Of course pulling off was also intended as a courtesy to the Harley rider who seemed to be having a hard time keeping his bike upright through the curves (there was some gravel there) with a big yellow DRZ in his rearview mirrors.

After retracing my ride back to Alfalfa, I detoured out Johnson Ranch Road and over to Powell Butte, then headed back via the Powell Butte Highway with a quick run up the Pronghorn Road–four miles out, four miles back on what used to be the smoothest, curviest road around. This year, though, I got a nasty surprise in the form of tar strips (snakes) sealing the cracked roadway. In the warm summer months these heat up and get really slick for the first year or so after being put down and I had a couple of exciting moments. Still, it was and is a worthy diversion–even now that you have to dodge the tar snakes–heck it’s almost a game (how fast can you do it while dodging snakes). It truly is more fun for me to try and ride a slow bike fast than to ride a fast bike slow.

After I got back to Bend, I stopped by the dealer to grab an oil filter and followed my ride up with an oil change.

Probably need to plan on doing another soon since the dealer didn’t have the Suzuki crush washers in stock so I just reused the ones that were on the bike. The bike has since been waiting patiently in my shop for the post-oil change ride that I usually try to keep short and have end back at the house so I can check the bike out again before taking it anywhere.

Might just have to ride it to work tomorrow, though, as I’m almost a full-week into ownership with only two rides on the bike–and that’s no way to treat a new bike.

Now we just have to get Mellotron a bike so I have someone to ride with. Maybe a new one of these? Frank, he’s on his way. No really…he’s gonna buy this time, I promise.

Have had lots of thoughts about what I’d get if I got the go-ahead. Fun things like this (in Eugene):

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Of course there are also nice new things like the Kawasaki KLX250SF (supermoto) I found in Hillsboro for the low low price of $3699. Those are really cool little bikes. It’d be neat to have something new again. And a new set of tires on it would make it dirt worthy enough to be fun here in Central Oregon. Best of all, I could probably talk a friend into buying one with me. That’d be fun. Of course, I’d need new gear to match the look of something like that.

Here’s a pic:

May have to forgo getting a second bike for quite some time as I wait for things to stabilize at the new job. At least the Troyka has regular forks and can be turned into a two-wheeler with a couple parts and a few hours of work. Hopefully the summer finds me back on two again.