Advertisement
Published: February 1st 2010
For the past few months I have been planning a number of major upgrades to the Shadow. I have been taking small steps towards turning this once calm little around town bike into a real Long Distance rider. The steps I have taken this weekend, with the help of friends, has gotten this LD Shadow a little closer to a comfortable long distance rider. I ordered a
3 gal. racing fuel cell from Jaz to replace the little 1.6 gal. milk jug aux. tank that I mounted on the rear luggage rack last year. I also ordered a set of
Hyper Lights from Cycle Gadgets . I went with the upgraded version that also acts as running lights. The last thing I hoped to get done this weekend was to clean up the rat’s nest of wires that I currently have under the seat by installing a fuse block.
01-29-10
Before leaving this morning I am glued to the Weather Channel. The coldest wettest storm that we have had in years appears to be blowing in just in time for my big weekend at the beach. Before I get the go ahead from my wife she has to be sure that I will be safe and luckily it appears that
the really bad weather will be a few hours behind us and will stay for the 30th and clear out before we head home on Sunday the 31st. Yes you did read right, we! Cindy is going to spend the weekend shopping while Jeff, Jim and I work on my bike at Jeff’s house. No she is not riding on the back of the Shadow for this trip, she is following me in her Explorer.
As I pulled out of the driveway, at 11 am, I saw some big dark clouds to the west of us and am very happy that we will be traveling east. We head out Hwy 378 through Sumter, SC and made our first stop at in Turbeville. For twenty years we have taken this route to the beach and have past by this little restaurant called the “Chat-n-Chew” and have never made the time to stop. This time I pulled in and had one of the best burgers and home fries that I have ever had. This was a real find. The restaurant was very warm and inviting and the staff was extremely friendly. Next time you are riding near Turbeville, take the time
to stop by, you want be disappointed.
We arrived at Jeff’s house a little after 2:30 in the afternoon. The sun was shining and the temperature had warmed up to a nice 46 degrees. After dropping the bike off at Jeff’s we headed over to the Patricia Grand Resort on Ocean Boulevard. We got a very nice room with a sitting area, kitchen, king bed and full bath for only $31.00 a night. You have got to love going to a resort in the off season.
After touching base with Jeff and Jim we drove over to the Bass Pro Shop, did some Alec shopping and then went to get an early supper. During supper the bad weather started rolling in.
Back at the resort we enjoyed a nice dip in the hot tub before retiring to our room for the night.
01-30-10
This morning I got up bright and early to be greeted by very cold weather and near freezing rain. I made a quick run to the Pancake House and brought Cindy back a nice warm breakfast in bed consisting of pancakes, bacon and eggs.
At 8:45 a.m. I meet Jim on
the curb outside of the resort and we were off to Jeff’s for a day of turning wrenches. Jeff had to take his son to a school sporting event and would meet us later in the day. I even turned some wrenches this morning. I soon found out that I am much better at taking things apart then putting them together. By lunch we had removed the old tank, gotten the new diamond plate mount (which Jim designed and had built) affixed to the existing luggage rack and had a good start on running the fuel line to the T that had been installed with the milk jug aux. tank. We did have to make a run to Napa because the fuel line that was used to install the small white tank the year before was much too small.
We meet the girls for lunch at the Fire House Grill and then got back to work on the bike. The girls went back to punishing us for having fun and continued to spend our money. We worked on the fuel line and tank until about 3:45 and finally got it set up like we liked. I bet we installed
and uninstalled that thing three or four times. But the finished project was well worth all the work.
It was time for another coffee break. Did I mention that it is below freezing outside and that Jeff’s garage has no heat? After we finished off Jeff’s coffee we got started on installing the Hyper-Lights. I was originally going to use a bracket I had purchased to install them on the license plate mount. I felt that they should be more secure and we decide to install them under the new diamond plate tank platform instead. You guessed it, off with the tank we had just installed so we could drill some holes in the platform to install the lights.
After that it was pretty easy. We removed the taillight assembly so we could get to the wires and then just followed the instructions. One hour later we were reinstalling the Jaz fuel cell and were ready to test it all out.
This is when we had our one and only problem show up. The quick connect that we installed under the seat was in the way and the seat would not go back on the bike. The
only fix we could come up with was to remove the quick connect. This meant removing the fuel line and replacing the section with the connector in it. We could not find any place on the bike that we could get the connector to fit and work properly. This means that the tank will have to be a permanent fixture to the Shadow.
When we finally got all this worked out it was time to meet the girls for dinner. The fuse block would have to wait until my next trip to the beach. Probably sometime this summer.
After a nice dinner we made it back to the room by eleven and I was dead tired. It was still raining and the temperature was holding in the 20’s. I was worried about my ride back to Eastover in the morning.
01-31-10
I woke up a little after 8 a.m. with the sun shining thru the window. The beach looked warm and inviting. However, when we went out for breakfast we found out different. The temperature was in the mid 20’s and there was ice spotted on the roads. I asked for a late checkout in hopes
that the roads would improve for the ride home.
We checked out at lunch and then hung out at Jeff’s until almost one. When I hit the road the day had warmed up to 34 degrees. I will say that the ride home was very cold but I made it without incident. The only ice I saw was on a bridge just west of Conway, SC.
Once home it only took me about forty-five minutes in front of our fireplace to get the feeling back in my hands and feet.
Another great adventure taken on the Shadow and I am looking forward to many more.
Total mile ridden = 257
Advertisement
Tot: 0.394s; Tpl: 0.021s; cc: 23; qc: 131; dbt: 0.1895s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
Ray King
non-member comment
Time for some heated gear!
Good write-up, Alec. Sounds like it's time for some heated gear. You will be glad you did! Thanks for the review of the Chat 'n Chew. I have seen the sign pointing to Turbeville on I-95 for years, but never had a reason to check it out. Now I do! That looks like Jim Bain in the last pic...