Plated and Riding!

On May 20th, I finally had a chance to get my plate sticker and was finally ready to ride.  However, I wasn't aware of all of the extra fees associated with a bike transfer (it's been ages since I've purchased a used vehicle).  There was the plate sticker (obviously), but then there was the used vehicle package I needed to buy, a plate renewal fee (whatever THAT is), the tax on the purchase price, a lucky to be alive tax, a "I hate my job" tax, and taxes on all of those. :P


Yes, I am being a bit facetious, but man, the Government really loves to stick it to you, don't they???


Anyhow, last Monday I finally had a chance to go out for a ride.  The skies were a bit grey at the time (which wasn't a big deal).  As I left my street, a couple of big raindrops hit my visor (again, not a big deal).  Well, by the time I was about 5k out of town, the Heavens opened up and IT POURED.  And of course the wind kicked in at the same time - at one point it was raining horizontally!  So it was a very soggy, wet ride back home.  After I pulled into the garage and stripped out of my gear, guess what??  It got sunny again! :P


This past weekend I really got to stretch out my FZ's legs - my friend with all the FZ parts had a shiny pair of engine covers for me (yay!).  So I got to really get 'er going.  Man, this bike is so much fun after 7,000 rpm!  It takes off like a bat out of Hell!


However, I had an issue on the way down - my speedo stopped working. Well, since I was already 3/4 of the way down there was no point in pulling over or going back.  I'm now a pretty good gauge of speed in top gear, so I didn't get any speeding tickets there or back.


Once I got to my buddy's place to pick up the parts, I did a few tests - I took the speedo cable off and twisted the core to make sure it wasn't binding.  I then reattached it to the hub and ran the bike up and down the street with the speedo end off.  It wasn't turning.  So my best guess is that the hub gear was worn and it wasn't turning the speedo.  But in retrospect I wasn't pushing down on the speedo cable core when I was driving, so I don't know if this was the case for sure.  However, my buddy said this is usually the part that wears out, so I'm hoping that is the case - replacing the speedo would suck for many reasons.  Fortunately my buddy had a gear so I picked that up.


I spent the rest of the weekend packing - we're moving at the end of this week, so I didn't have any time to replace the hub gear.  I plan to do that this afternoon.  So hopefully that will fix the problem.