Farmer Boy's: Hemet, CA

[alanmcorcoran]

Originally Posted by Sarris

Alan, here is the windshield I have on my GZ. I ordered a 17" tinted for the Savage 650. It's expensive, but a really good solid fork mounted windshield. Nothing to screw up here.

Sarris, just to make sure I don't eff this up, you are saying to order it with the Savage 650 mounting kit and it will fit on my GZ250 without any need for hacksaws, rethreaders or acetylene torching... right? I think I'm ready to take the plunge on it. If nothing else, it will make me look even more like a cop. Gotta shop for a flip up white helmet and I'm ready for Halloween.

[alanmcorcoran]

Originally Posted by BusyWeb

By the way, congrats your today's riding. Freeway ..... and 70 mph. I also got just little bit more speed on today's trip, congrats me too.

Thanks Biz. You, me, Moe and OC Hoosier ought to meet up in Malibu and go for a GZ cruise one of these days. I noticed you seem to be more comfortable on the
freeway. Perhaps you can share your secrets.

[Sarris]

Yeah Alan, it's the smallest diameter Suzuki mounting kit available, but you will have to wrap the fork tubes in a piece of rubber to snug up the fit as the Savage tubes are 2mm larger than the GZ, but this minor mod is fairly simple.

Or you could call and see if they now make a smaller diameter mounting kit, or maybe use the kit for a Honda Rebel.

Either way, no big deal.

[Moedad]

Nice ride! We saw the Farmer Boy's place on Lincoln last night. We went to a concert in Pearson park.

I've ridden a bike up Cajalco Road too. I used to ride the Corona Classic every year. One year I even rode my bike from here in Stanton, did the Classic, and rode home again.

Dang, you and Busy are getting me antsy. I need to go for a ride today.

Originally Posted by alanmcorcoran

Latest in a series of Socal tours.

The first Farmer Boys restaurant opened in Perris, California in 1981. By 1997, they had grown to eight restaurants, all in Southern California and the founders franchised their Fresh Burger concept. Today there are over 60, all still in Southern California. Today, we pay a visit to the one in Hemet.

[pbss:225ohgb2]http://s221.photobucket.com/albums/dd7/alanmcorcoran/farmerboy/?action=view&current=e0a6264b.pbw[/pbss:225ohgb2]

This was my longest trip to date. 110 miles round trip. In addition to the distance, I passed a couple of other personal milestones: took the GZ on the freeway for the first time, and broke 70mph briefly on a slight downhill out on the backroads.

The ride out began with the freeway. Moedad did an excellent job previously of explaining why the GZ is no good for the freeway. To summarize, the grooved pavement gives you a "fine" wheel wiggle, the road scallops give you a moderate wheel waggle and the wind pretty much blows you all around. Add the difficulty of maintaining anything close to CA freeway speeds, and you've got yourself a buffeted wiggle-waggle that is constantly being near side-swiped by the traffic. Fortunately, I only had to do 3.4 miles of it (each way) on my route.

There's a bit of city driving through Corona, but soon you head into the back country and there is a 30 mile stretch of Cajalco/Ramona "expressway." This is a really excellent motorcycle riding road. Most of it is well paved, there's some twisty, but it's not crazy, and there is a lot of lightly travelled, smooth back road where you have a nice view of Lakes Matthews and Perris (and can get a little aggressive with the throttle.)

I think I had a slight tailwind on the way out, I was able to sustain 65 plus for long stretches. I found that the difference between 55 and 65 is all body position. If I tucked in my knees and elbows and put my chin right on the speedo, I immediately sped up ten miles an hour. Hit over 70 down the backside of one of the hills.

I have a Farmer Boys near my office in Anaheim, and I'd never seen a second one until today. The Hemet one is bigger, better staffed and a lot newer than the one on La Palma. Had a dog, fries and a Dew before I headed back. Left at about 11:45 and was back by 3pm.

I was a lot more comfortable at 50 plus on this trip (well, everywhere but the freeway.) On the backroads I was very focused on keeping my eyes ahead on the horizon and doing the outside/inside/outside on the curves. No major eff-up this trip. I did leave my blinker on a bit too long a few times, and had a few shifting incidents, but overall it was pretty routine. Ass got a little numb, stood up at a few of the intersections to get some relief, but it's nowhere near as uncomfortable as riding a bicycle (which I have done along this same route.)

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by alanmcorcoran

(Does your Harley do better on the grooves or the grates? I've seen bigger wheels and tires on most other bikes, I'm hoping they remove the "holy christ, I have zero control" feeling that is endemic to freeway riding with the GZ.)

That feeling has more to do with tread pattern than with the size or style of the bike.
In general, a tire without straight grooves around the tire will be less prone to "follow" the rain grooves. The other side of that coin is that a tire like that may be MORE prone to wander around on a grated bridge.

[alanmcorcoran]

Originally Posted by Sarris

but you will have to wrap the fork tubes in a piece of rubber to snug up the fit as the Savage tubes are 2mm larger than the GZ, but this minor mod is fairly simple.

Inner tube rubber an acceptable material? I think I've seen this elsewhere, but what are the dimensions of the GZ tubes?

[Sarris]

Inner tube rubber is more than acceptable, but you'll probably need a couple of wraps because it's really thin. I used a section of radiator hose toward the inside of the fork tube (see photo below). Very easy to figure out when you put the mounts on. If you check the website, all the small mounting kits have the same mounting kit. (#15020 for Savage 650, Honda Rebel, Sportster, etc.)

As far as the fork tube diameter, it's either a 35mm or 36 mm, as the Savage 650 tubes are purported to be 37mm. But to be honest, I really don't have that answer, have a caliper to measure it with, nor is that info in any literature that I can find. Maybe someone on the forum knows.

It's a shame I didn't know you were interested, as I sold the same exact one (off my Sportster) for $125 on E-bay just a few weeks ago.

:roll:

Here's a photo of the rubber shim shown looking up toward at the bottom of the mounting bracket. It is the full length of the bracket and about 3/4" wide.

[alanmcorcoran]

Originally Posted by Sarris

Alan, here is the windshield I have on my GZ. I ordered a 17" tinted for the Savage 650. It's expensive, but a really good solid fork mounted windshield. Nothing to screw up here.

http://www.motorcyclewindshield.com/...windshield.htm

Sarris I went to your site. They still don't have a mounting kit for the GZ 250. I ended up going with a somewhat less expensive one that fits on the GZ without shims from Slip Streamer. It's a 16" clear. I'll take a picture of it when I get it on. It was about $214 with mounting kit and shipping. It's fork mounted.

[Sarris]

Super! I'm glad you finally got one, you'll really like having a windshield. Also, IMO, the fork mount is vastly superior to the handlebar mounts.

:2tup:

[Easy Rider]

Originally Posted by alanmcorcoran

It's a 16" clear. I'll take a picture of it when I get it on. It was about $214 with mounting kit and shipping. It's fork mounted.

I wish you luck. I hope you like it.
Fork mount is often more solid.....but not as versitile; that is, not as much range of adjustment and not as flexible as to mounting position either.
16" is pretty small. I got a 21" and it is barely tall enough.