Thanksgiving has come and passed, but the feeling of the holiday season remains. In the desert you don’t get much of a fall season. The temperatures start dropping at night, you might see a bit more cloud cover now and again, then “poof:” it’s winter and it’s cold. Because of this, you need to pay attention to the calendar and to the energy of people to really notice the transition into Thanksgiving and towards Christmas.
For me the transition of the season has more to do with coming off the road and finding temporary housing while I decide where to go wandering next year. I managed that, and have set up a little workspace, unpacked so I don’t have to fish my clothes out of a bag every morning, and am waiting for my notebooks to arrive in the mail so I can get back to work on my book.
I’ve also been taking in the sunsets. The desert definitely does some of the best subsets. Because you can see so far but there are also enough hills, distant mountains and ample scrub brush, you are given a rapid change in the landscape. As the shadows lengthen it matches well with the sky’s quick changes into oranges and reds and red-browns before the grayness takes over.
There’s many a spot for spotting sunsets, but with an 850lbs bike you don’t want to be far from pavement. That means there are far fewer spots to have a beer and a smoke and contemplate the mysteries of the universe while listening to your ears ring. Cue the DR650. I put fuel stabilizer in the tank and rode it several miles before I put it in storage last May, which makes sure stabilized fuel isn’t just in the tank, but in the lines and the carburetor.
Just the same, the thing refused to start. It would stutter and try to run with the choke on, but it wouldn’t idle. I tried draining the carburetor’s float bowl to get fresher gas in, but rather quickly stripped the end of the drain screw. Most people — even professional mechanics — don’t realize the Japanese use a slightly different style of screwdriver than the US, to fit a slightly different shaped screw. We call them JIS, Japanese Industrial Standard.
A regular cross-tip screwdriver (often called a Phillips) works in Japanese screws, but is ever so slightly off. When you run into a screw that’s stuck or work out you’ll want a JIS screwdriver, but they are usually about $50 for a set of 2-3, so I’ve gone my whole life just making due (if you know a place in the US that sells that at a reasonable price, lemmie know). I was pissed off that my easy job of getting the DR running was stymied, but I came with a friend and a truck, so all was not lost.
Back at the house I pulled the carb off and took it to a bench where I could get at the drain screw with a pair of pliers — ones with long handles for a really strong bite. It popped the screw loose and I gave it an extra shot of penetrating oil so it would be easy to remove next time, then ordered a replacement that uses a socket-head (often called an Allen screw).
Since the carb was off I gave the jets a quick soak and a spritzing to get any junk out of the tiny pathways machined into them. Without getting too techy, carburetors use impossibly tiny little pathways to let fuel trickle into the intake path and mix with air. A 0.013in guitar string is sometimes used to clean these pathways; that’s how tiny they are.
That means the tiniest glob of crap can disrupt fuel flow. It’s truly a miracle that these things work at all, let alone work reliably and predictably. Anyway, the carb went back on in a few minutes and the bike happily ran, idled, and revved without hesitation upon me blipping the throttle. The DR650 is not a high-performance engine, but it has a decent throttle response when things are tuned correctly (and no, they are not tuned correctly from the factory — to meet emissions they are set up far too lean and rev poorly).
And then?
The good news is the DR is running. The not-so-good news is that it still has a short list of things it needs. They are small niggles but some of it requires welding aluminum, which I don’t have the equipment for. However, none of that matters too much until the Chieftain is back to 100%. It’s leaking rear tire is on my last nerve, and plenty of normal service items are due, alone with some really deep-in-the-bowels type of inspections.
The DR650 is here to take up some of the slack while I put the Chieftain back into fighting trim.
The DR650 will let me take multiple days to get that work done, then the DR can take a quick break and have some of its neglect looked at. It got a lot of stuff while on the road in 2023, but it still needs that time-consuming “look after,” where you are ostensibly hand-cleaning the bike but are actually going bolt-by-bolt looking for missing or damaged parts, leaking seals, or worn out bits.
Best to get that done before the days get cold, which happens pretty quick in the desert.
The last thing of interest is Thanksgiving, but I was too busy enjoying company to take pictures. My friends Kevin and Gretchen hosted people for an early-evening meal and about 25 people showed up. I helped do some treasure hunting at the grocery store for cranberry sauce, helped set up the bar, and had a big plate of food and a few glasses of wine, then wandered a bit and chatted with friends old and new.
I did manage to dress up for Thanksgiving in what (for me) counts as formal wear. There may have been no tacos, but it was a feast just the same.
Kevin put on some sidecar racing footage from a recent event and it was nice to actually see old friends from my racing days out there at a track I was familiar with. It also gave me an excuse to use my now-useless wealth of knowledge about sidecar racing. I hung out long enough to help clean up a bit but never did remember to fill up a container with leftovers. For some, that’s the best part of the holiday.
That’s about it for now. In future posts I’ll have more to share that’s on-topic for the blog. While this is my personal blog, talking about myself and the minutiae of my life isn’t exactly enthralling to read or write. With the DR though I’ll be able to get out into the cuts, seeing some old cattle ranches and army outposts, old trails and battlegrounds, abandoned mines, and the living history too.
While Tombstone is a bit wallpapered over in a historical sense, there is a lot of history all around the town. This is true of other towns. Despite there being a Walmart and a row of fast food restaurants in it, Douglas has plenty of history. Bisbee too of course, with a downtown mostly built around 1900. There’s much to see in the towns as well as out down the dirt roads and up in the mountains.
I look forward to bringing a camera that doesn’t suck out to some of these spots ans doing some write ups on different pieces of old west history. While plenty of people know of the OK Corral and Boot Hill, few know about Slaughter Ranch or Soldier’s Hole. It’s all out here and it all helped form the area, and our understanding of Old West history.
Oh, and food. I’ll continue my search for the best tacos this winter. Since I’m right on the border I can check both sides, seeing what take northern Sonora has on the world’s greatest hand food. Bisbee did spring up a new Mexican spot while I was gone too. Their Red Chile Beef Burrito was on point, and I ripped through it like a hobo on a ham sandwich. I’ll be back on a Tuesday to try out the tacos.
Johnny Killmore 