....onwards

 January 23, 2025...I watched my CRF drive away.

Sold it to a pleasant young local fellow who insists that it will be his "forever" bike...I wish him well and better luck than I had.
It's never easy selling a bike...especially one that I also thought would be my forever-bike...this one was nothing like the Sherpa or the "Funduro", I actually enjoyed the ride and the capabilities of this one.
It's just the maintenance that I wasn't looking forward to.

Now, my attention turns back to my original crush...my light-weight, easy to maintain, more smiles-per-gallon than any other bike I've owned so far.
Now that this sale is final, I've ordered the necessary bits to bring this one up to the task.
New sprockets, new chain, new air-filter, new oil filter, and most important; a new rear spring.
Work on the rear rack is progressing...I'm still on the fence as to how I feel about this "Man-racks"; it looks as though the alignment is critical, or you can't get the seat-bolts back into their respective holes! This may end up being a deal breaker for me, whereon I'd be back to fabricating a home-made alternative.
We'll see how things work out.

 

TW and personal update

 After trying to tweak the TW into perfect running shape and failing....I decided to order some new jets. The #31 pilot jet seems ridiculously small for this one, yet in my '09 it was perfect. But in this one, I have very little fuel mixture adjustment...if I close it to less than 2 turns, it runs rough, yet I can unscrew it to over 4 turns with no effect.
The #34 jet seems to be the right one...less than 1 turn runs rough, more that 2 starts to stumble...I currently have it set to about 1¾ turns out.

It took a few weeks for the parts to arrive, but that was OK because we were in Cancun for 10 days at the end of January.
Unfortunately, while I was trying to tune my bike, as mentioned above...I had injured my back which turned out to be quite severe. There were 2 separate incidents where I was within minutes of calling an ambulance, the pain was so intense. We came so close to cancelling our trip because of this injury, but I was bound and determined to give my wife the holiday she so desperately needed.
With the help of some prescription-strength muscle relaxants, handfuls of Tylenol and a back-brace, we were able to make our flight. I spent the majority of those sunny morning zoned out in a lounger by the pool, but was coherent by lunch time.
It's been over a month now and things have improved, albeit slightly...physio and stretches keep the pain at manageable levels.

I also started working on the rear rack for this one. It came with a "Man Racks" type and I am uncertain how I feel about it. Trying to mount the deck with plain old hand tools leaves much to be desired, but once the deck is mounted, it shouldn't need to come off.
The Man Racks uses the seat mounts as a securing point, which is good...but this means that I won't be able to use my magnetic seat mounting trick like on the '09. 

This remains a work in progress. I still have not sold the Rally, despite listing it on 3 separate occasions, changing the price and the ads garnering over 1000 hits.
Guess people aren't ready to buy just yet...maybe once the fair weather returns.