The Motorcycle Diaries, Speedometer Edition

900 miles on the Road Glide, with new handlebars, this past weekend.  What a difference!  Handles way better, and more comfortable.  Python mufflers sound much better (quieter but also less echo) than the V&H 450s that came on it.  Also figured out that with a beanie helmet I can hear the stereo pretty well so actually listened to some music.  I do turn it down when I pull into town since the volume is very loud on the freeway and I don't want to be that annoying loud-stereo-guy when riding through town.

One problem that I discovered (and fixed) is that the speedometer was off by over 10%.  The law says no more than 10% high, no less than 0% low.   Mine was 12 to 13% at highway speeds.  How did I find out?  Leading a group and they said I rode like an old lady.  I had the cruise set at 80mph, they said I was barely doing 70.  Fired up the GPS on the phone and sure enough, I was way off.

Easy fix, though.  Turns out the Dynojet Power Vision tuner can adjust the VSS speed sensor for you.  Since I figured out that the bike was about 11% high on average, I multiplied the VSS setting in the tuner by 1.11 and typed in the new value.  Theoretically it should be pretty close now.  I may go back and do some fine tuning, but now that I know how, it's pretty easy.

What was not so easy is that when I took the seat off one of the heated wires pulled out of the plug, so I had to put a new connector on that.  Actually really easy except that my electrical tools are all out in my trailer and I a) kept forgetting to grab the right tools, and b) put on a socket instead of a pin, like an idiot, so had to cut it off and start over.

Also having problems with the detachable tour pack hardware.  Lost another mount.  I have some spares but not spare screws so now it's a trip to the hardware store, plus the chrome magnetic cover is gone since it fell off with the mount.  I don't know what's going on here since I torqued and used Locktite so that's making me unhappy.  Two of the mounting posts and broken free earlier and I used JB Weld to fix them, but I'm not sure how that could have caused this current problem.  Might be time for a new set of plates, but they aren't cheap.

I'm settling in to the new bike though.  I've put over 3,000 miles on it since I got it in November, and that's winter riding.  Clearly I enjoy it enough to keep it so now the only question is "Does the Road King go away?"  A lot of memories on that bike and I tend to get attached to stuff.  No real reason to keep it unless I'm going to ride it though.