Black Hills / Bighorn / Yellowstone Tour 2011

[lancylad]

Cheers ...Now I am revved up already for the spring to arrive.. just got to put this engine back together!!

[squarefour]

So the snowmobile suit I bought for the tour, and carted around without ever using, has finally seen use. It's great for motorcycle rides in 45° weather. Apparently nobody else in L.A. has a snowmobile suit, because this popular biker hangout was deserted Saturday morning. Sorry, no pic of me in the suit, but I looked cool, honest.

[locost7018]

More Pic's of the cafe racer please (and spec's). I want a cafe thumper sooooooooo baaaaaad!!!! Russ

[squarefour]

Its just your usual DR650 running gear and engine bored out to 780cc, in a rigid flattrack frame, with a BSA Victor tank and a moped seat suspended by a 7-castoff coilover:) It's got about 50hp with a torque peak at ~4300rpm, and weighs 265lb. It's what I've been tinkering with for the last year or so.

More pics and details here-

http://www.chopcult.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5142

[locost7018]

They won't let me view pic's without joining. 780cc?????? Do you have any cylinder wall left? Cool bike though. Russ

[squarefour]

They won't let me view pic's without joining. 780cc?????? Do you have any cylinder wall left? Cool bike though. Russ

 

Oh that's right, that sucks. PM email and I'll send some. Cylinder's resleeved, so there's enough steel but not much aluminum left.

[slomove]

Sorry to report that my Seven has been badly neglected since summer. The broken front wing is not fixed yet and to not look stupid I removed the other one too (for now). But this weekend I finally got around to wash off the precious South Dakota and Wyoming dirt and bugs, at least.

 

Major reason for the neglect was a build project for a CNC machine (I follow in Mazda's footsteps here). I can not drive that thing but a lot of fun anyway and I promise to repair my Seven for the next trip.

 

http://youtu.be/HsAlAmrAPUg

[rzempel]

My car, too, has not been driven much. After the tour, I think I only drove to the dyno day and following Blat. After that, I tore out the leak-prone cooling system and repaired it properly with a cooling rail, alloy tubing, silicone hoses, and t-clamps. I also discovered the reason the fan switch was leaking--a previous owner had installed the switch by drilling a hole in the radiator and twisting in the switch; no bung, no real threads, no clamping surface. Amazing that it lasted as long as it did.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I set out on a nice Saturday to test the new system...only to find out my alternator had died. Fortunately I have a good alternator/starter rebuild shop nearby, so it was an afternoon repair.

 

On Sunday, I headed to the mountains for a test. The coolant stayed a constant 180 on the way up, and going down with very little engine load I had a steady 160 in the frigid mountain air. I'm much happier with that state of affairs, and feeling more prepared for another assault on Beartooth Pass. :-)

[Alaskossie]

With my wife's assistance, I have put together a 2012 monthly calendar featuring Slomove's 2011 Black Hills Tour, which was USA7s' "official" national tour of the year.

 

I used the Apple publication services, and the result is (if I may say so) a fairly professional-looking calendar. (We did the same with my 2010 Seven drive from Colorado to Alaska, and scannon and some others can attest to the nice appearance of those calendars).

 

I had intended to use a number of the photos that various Tour participants had posted on the USA7s site, as well as my own photos. However, their resolution as posted was insufficient for Apple's calendar purposes, I didn't have specific rights to those photos, and I was running out of time to obtain high-res originals from these other folks.

 

So I used all of my own photos in high resolution, which cover the majority of the Tour fairly well. Since I rode shotgun during much of the Tour, I was well-placed to shoot photos while on the move.

 

The calendar is titled (admittedly, somewhat presumptuously), "USA7s 2012 Calendar," and is subtitled, "Black Hills Tour July 9-21, 2011." Recognizing that one month of 2012 has nearly passed already, my calendar is a 13-month calendar.

 

This calendars cost me about $19.00 each, not including postage from me to you. Since publication is "on demand," I would be pleased to offer these calendars to all 2012 Black Hills 2011 Tour participants, and to all other USA7ers, for US $25.00 each, which will include postage to you. I'm not intending to make anything on this, but want to cover my postage costs if possible.

 

Please let me know if you want one of these calendars, as soon as possible, and provide me with your mail address. Payment can be made to me by PayPal, at the address tmeacham@gci.net

 

I'm hoping that this calendar will bring back some good memories for Tour participants, and might inspire other USA7ers to put together or participate in similarly ambitious tours in the future. Thanks, Gert!