Snowbird

My mom was invited to spend Friday at the Snowbird Ski resort due to something she does where she works. After work I headed up Little Cottonwood Canyon. I have to admit that even though I live only a few minutes from it, this is the first time I have ridden this canyon. There are lots of twisties and if you can do the speed limit the entire way up you can lean your bike over pretty far! I'd love to know how close my pegs were to scraping the road.


Here's a pic a few miles from the mouth of the canyon.

I took the curves as fast as I could with the vehicle in front of me, but it was fast enough and as I said, I leaned her over pretty good. On the way up I saw a deer on the side of the road which surprised me a bit as there were quite a few people around and it was broad daylight. Apparently she was used to humans for the most part. I wish I had taken a picture, but by the time it registered, I was already a couple twists away.

I arrived at Snowbird and found a parking spot, conveniently right next to my pickup which my mother had driven up. I stowed my riding gear in the cab and snapped the necessary picture showing the motorcycle at our destination.

The rest of my family had already arrived a few hours before and ridden some of the various rides that were available. When I got there I called my mom and she came out to meet me. We walked in and waited for Rosalie and Mathew to ride the Zip Line down.

It was a decent wait for them to get their turn on the Zip Line, but it finally came. Mathew is a little harder to find in this picture, he's ahead of Rosie and in the shadow of some trees, can you see him?

While waiting for them to take their turn, we watched many others ride the line and none of them screamed at the end. Rosalie on the other hand must have believed she wasn't going to stop and let out out a pretty decent one.

Dinner was provided for free by Snowbird and they didn't hold back. You know you are being wined and dined when you get nice crystal to put your free soda in!

Even Addison got to eat, although I don't think hers was near as tasty as mine :)

I don't really care for posed photo's, mostly cause it gives people time to object or hide, so I tend to take a lot of candid shots.



There was live music, and the view from the deck was really nice.

After our meal we walked over and boarded the Tram for a trip up the mountain. I've been on chair lifts before and they are not bad, but I wasn't a fan of the Tram. My biggest problem with it was it would sway back and forth and there was no railing or anything for me to hold on to, so I felt as though I'd fall over. I was really hoping to hike down to a chair lift at the top and ride it down, but unfortunately they were closed down, so unless I wanted to hike down a few miles of rocky trail, the Tram was it... I did give the hike down some consideration.



I think this has to be one of my favorite signs, I think it should be included in a scavenger hunt or something :)

Here's a bunch of pics I snapped from the top of the peak, in no particular order.

This just struck me as funny!

Here's some more pics from up top.

I survived the Tram ride down... ok I'm making it out to be worse than it was, but still. It was time to go, so we left. As Rosie and Mom were packing up the stroller I was holding Addison and making goofy faces at her. At first she had this puzzled look on her face that was absolutely hilarious, and then she started to smile a little, and then decided her hand would taste good.

Here's a few shots as I left, and a few on the way down the canyon.

Park City, Heber, and down Provo Canyon

The Wednesday after our postponed trip, I decided to do the Park City ride. School starts next week so I'm not sure when I'll have the time to just take off on a whim and I figured I'd better make the best of it.


I stopped off at Best Buy to get me some new headphones as the ones I had been using are buggered for some reason. I have yet to find the perfect set of headphones for use in a full face helmet, but I will!


I set off heading North on I-15 about 9:30 am, so no rush hour traffic. I had planned on taking I-215 up to Parleys Canyon, but the sign board on the freeway warned of lane closures on East bound 215 so I decided that I-80 would be a better choice.


The bike handled beautifully up the canyon and felt like she had plenty of power. I reached Park City pretty quickly and exited onto the Kimball Junction exit. At the next stoplight I decided to hang a left and fuel up at the Chevron and see what my MPG was. since it was a new engine to me and hadn't been run a lot, I wasn't sure how my fuel economy would compare to the previous engine, and being stranded without gas is something I try to avoid. While waiting at the light the bike unexpectedly died, which isn't normally a concern since I frequently kill the engine at stop lights to conserve gas anyhow. However she wasn't starting back up and I was getting concerned enough that I nearly hopped off the bike to push her through the intersection, but she came back to life.. not sure why but hey, I'll take it.


I pulled in at the Chevron and filled up, and found I was at 38.9mpg, and that's while going up a pretty steep canyon! I was very pleased with this and left. On the way back onto the main road I snapped this picture which shows some Olympic Ski jumps. It is my understanding that athletes come from all over the world to train here in Park City.

It's a little embarrassing but I ended up a bit turned around in Park City, but after a few unnecessary detours through road construction (in some cities you have to be careful where you go because you might be stopped and mugged by unscrupulous individuals, here in Utah you have to be careful because you might be stopped by people in bright orange gear picketing with signs that read "Slow Down, Men at Work " or "Road Construction.") I finally figured out where I was going and proceeded to go in the correct direction.

I found the freeway heading into Heber and proceeded to open the throttle. I don't know if it was the grade of the hill I was on or what, but I was in 5th gear with the throttle wide open and was only doing about 65mph. Not a big deal, just interesting to me due to some of the changes I made to the bike.

Heber is a small little town that is growing bigger. I passed through and headed on toward Provo Canyon. Just outside Heber I stopped and took some more pictures since it's pretty area and I'm told no one reads my blog, they just look at the pics :)

I wish I could have stopped on the way down the canyon to take pictures of the reservoir, but there wasn't enough room on the shoulder. Half way down I found a scenic pull off and took some more pics. Try and ignore that goofy looking guy in one of the pics, he seems to show up now and again... I think he may be following me ;)

Provo Canyon is a lovely place and if you are anywhere near it, I highly recommend riding it. I'll have to remember to come back in the fall!

After exiting the canyon I headed through Orem and returned to I-15. On the way back home I found a lovely little rain storm which wasn't too bad. I have learned that if it's going to rain I prefer it to be relatively heavy so that you don't get water spots on your face shield.

I wasn't quite in the mood to ride home yet and was mulling my options over in my mind when I was reminded of one of the requests on the blog for more pictures of my adorable niece... so I headed over to my sisters house for a surprise visit!

I encountered another brief rain shower... but arrived safely. Upon dismounting my bike I called my sister to make sure she was home and headed inside. We chatted for a bit and she treated me to a tasty lunch of Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and home made Tomato Soup!

I played with my niece and took a couple pictures.

For some reason when I went in I had left my key in the ignition and the lights on, so when I went to go home the battery was as dead as could be.... Bugger. I lucked out and my brother in law had a battery charger that just happened to have the same connection as the one I use so I just plugged it in. My sister was nice enough to give me a lift home and I returned later that evening to pick it up.

It was not meant to be.

I've had time to work the spare engine and it seems to be a keeper, at least no death rattles yet, knock on wood.

Tuesday Mike and I were planning on a ride, at first through Park City, Heber, and down Provo Canyon, and then we decided to change plans to just go up to Wyoming to a bar he knows that is supposed to make an excellent Philly Sandwich.

He came over around 10am and needed to have his rear brake spring reinstalled as it had somehow mysteriously come off... Gremlins!! It took longer to install than I expected due to some parts being misaligned, but about 30 minutes with a sledge hammer and crowbar took care of that. With the rear spring properly tensioned, I noticed the chain was in really bad need of tensioning and a good greasing.

We pulled the chain guard off and I spun the rear wheel a few times inspecting the chain. That poor chain was so dry that the links wouldn't flex properly, they were nearly locked in their slanted positions... not good. As I was starting to lube the chain up Mike asked "Is that line supposed to be there?" .... um what line? He pointed to a crack that had developed in one of the rollers (I think that's what it's called, it's the little piece that goes horizontally and is grabbed by the sprocket teeth.) I stared at it for a good minute trying to decide if that was good or bad and finally announced "Mike, I wouldn't even ride this bike home until your chain is changed out." Now Mike is a firm believer in the power of positive thinking, and though he is willing to overlook a lot of things that would probably bother me, this wasn't one of them and he agreed it should definitely be changed.

I did some calling around to check on prices and we decided to go to one of the local shops we tend to frequent, Wrights Motorsports. I think every single employee there owns and rides some form of motorcycle, and while that doesn't make them an expert on our old machines, at least they have a pretty good idea of what they are talking about. We picked up a new O-Ring chain and new sprockets. As always I couldn't resist buying a few tools that I always seem to be breaking.

We arrived back home and set to work changing out the chain and sprockets. The shiny new sprocket looks a little out of place, but that's ok it'll dirty up quickly enough :)

Mike is cleaning what looks like 30 years of built up chain grease from the sprocket area.

It isn't really hard, but it does take a little time, and unfortunately by the time we were done it was too late for us to ride to either of the destinations we had thought of. Oh well, I was perfectly fine with this, as there is little doubt in my mind that it was only a matter of time before that chain gave out and at best stranded Mike. There will be other rides, I have no doubt.

Mixed Blessings.

After determining that it wasn't the oil pump or an easy fix I had some decisions to make. I nearly bought another engine that was known to run. Then, there was the spare engine I had kept from the build. The biggest problem with the spare engine is I had never even opened the dipstick to see what the oil looked like, let alone whether or not it would run.

After considering my options I decided to risk it and put the spare engine in the frame and cross my fingers it either ran or would be an easier fix than the Hari Kari success story. I put the spare engine on an engine stand so I could clean it off and check what I could before trying to start it.

All the work and help I gave Mike came in handy since he was more than happy to give me a hand getting the engine loaded and washed.

It's not too hard getting the engine on the stand, and it makes it TONS easier to work on since can rotate it like a rotisserie chicken. Some elbow grease, a couple cans of engine degreaser and a few hours of work had the engine looking pretty good. The paint on the casing is pealing and it doesn't look really cherry, bit it's better than no engine.

I started taking the bike apart in preperation for the engine swap.

When I removed the carbs, this is what I found.

That is the intake side of the engine, fuel/air mixture is supposed to go in there, nothing is supposed to come out that way. I was admittedly very surprised to see this, and for a minute or two I was very puzzled as to where that metal had come from. The trail of metal continued all the way back to the pods on the other side of the carbs. This is the side of the carbs that is attached to the air pods.

It was a pain to clean the metal shards out of the carbs, and even worse to clean out the pods.

I took off early a couple days of work so I could get the engine swapped. Mike was nice enough to come over again once he was off work. Before he came over I was able to get the buggered engine out of the frame using a ComeALong mounted to the ceiling of the garage.

The buggered engine was put on a dolly and I loaded the spare engine onto the ComeALong. Mike was still at work and I needed a hand steadying the engine while it hung suspended, so I asked my little brother to lend a hand. Thanks Mathew, it was much easier with your help as usual. We got the spare engine mounted into the frame, and I started hooking things back up. Rounds about then Mike made it over and started helping me reassemble things.

OHHHH no Mike, you've been framed!!!

Working in a hot garage by yourself is boring, so the company is always appreciated.

We put the bike back together far enough to test the motor. I hooked up my external tank and fired her up. It took a we bit of doing but she fired up pretty easily. She ran pretty smoothly, but after a few minutes of running she started smoking out the exhaust pipes. It wasn't too terrible so I did a vaccum sync on the carbs. I had added some Seafoam to the engine oil to help clean the engine's internals. After the carb sync we changed oil to some fresh oil. Unfortunately it didn't stop the smoking.

I arrived home from work a few days later and went for a ride. The new engine seems to work really well and is a bit quieter than the one that chewed itself apart. The smoking is more intermittent right now and I'm not sure what is causing it, but I'm not super concerned.

I also started taking the buggered engine apart to see what the damages were. Here's some pictures, I'll let you judge for yourself.

Here's the spark plug from cylinder 1. Wonder if I can regap it ;)

When I got the valve cover off, the valve retainer (thing that is circled) was on top of the valve, so I initially couldn't see any damage. As you can see, it snapped off.


I was thinking of putting a stake through the engine, but decided against that course of action, so instead I posed for this picture.



Hmmm, that's not a good thing. The ticking noise I was hearing must have been the valve shaft chipping away at this piston. I really wish I knew at what point a hole had been put into the piston since the bike ran for a couple hundred miles with ticking noise.

The exhaust valve is snapped off and all that is left is the bent shaft. This is what I'm guessing ultimately punched the hole in the piston.

Even the cylinder sleeve is chewed up and beyond repair.

Even the bottom and sides of the piston took a beating.

This poor machine really tore itself up before giving up. I somewhat suspect that had the hole in the crankcase not occured I might have made it back to Salt Lake on the bike. I will never know for sure the exact timing and sequence of events that brought about this amazing amount of destruction.

With the spare motor running, I'm pretty happy. I'll just fix this engine up with some modified pistons that will make it into a 750cc engine and go from there.