Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Great Salt Lake - First Big Trip




My coworker bought a bike from our supervisor, a 1980 CB750 K, and I've been helping him get it rideable.




We decided to go for a ride after work out to The Great Salt Lake. For those of you who have never been to Utah, or never heard of this lake, it is one of the few landlocked lakes that is salty. It is so salty in fact that only Brine Shrimp (Sea Monkeys ;) ) can live in it. When Brine Shrimp wash up on shore they die and begin to decompose and it gets really smelly. There is so much salt in the lake that it's really not hard to float.




Mike and I rode out from work, and took Old Bingham road out. It was a little windy, but not too bad. For the most part my motorcycle handled well, but when we entered the town of Magna and started to decelerate my bike died. No big deal, pop the clutch and she's running again. I need to fix my idle circuit, it's too lean, which is what causes it to die like that.




We arrived at Saltair, which is a building on the shore of the Great Salt Lake. It has been flooded a few times as the lakes level has risen and fallen over the years. It's kind of a dump these days, but apparently back in the day it was quite the happening place, lots of dances and such held there.


We parked and checked the bikes. Somewhere during the trip the nut holding Mikes left footpeg on had come off and the only thing that had been holding it on was the pressure of his foot. Unfortunately we didn't have anything to repair it with on us, so we just slipped it back on and rode carefully.


On the way back home Mikes bike died a few times when we stopped, turns out his charging system wasn't working correctly. Good thing these bikes can be push started in a pinch, not fun when you are on a highway, but at least you aren't stranded. Apparently on the way home we were both nearly hit by some lady in a black car. I didn't know about it until we arrived at the fuel station to top off.


All in all an enjoyable ride.


Just as a reminder to everyone out there, please watch for motorcycles, there's a lot of us out there these days. We may be agile, but we're also fragile.