The Zipsicle

We’re busy getting ready for another ride with the folks from STAR Touring and Riding Chapter 154 this weekend. This one will be another overnighter and the destination is Lillooet, British Columbia. The plan is to meet at Bob’s Burger and Brew in Burlington, Washington and then head north through Sumas, Washington where we’ll cross the border and point ourselves towards Hope, BC. From Hope we’ll travel northward to Lillooet where we’ll spend the night. In the morning it’s off to Whistler, BC for lunch and some sightseeing and then home through the Lynden crossing. We’re looking forward to this ride and the weather looks to be near perfect for the trip. I’ll have a few pictures here when we return.

Ride safe!
Zippo and Jax

Today we took the Zipsicle down to Skagit Powersports in Burlington, Washington where we helped our local Northwest Cascades Chapter 154 of STAR Touring and Riding run the monthly BBQ. Skagit Powersports kindly provides the equipment and food and we provide labor and a donation can and serve burgers and hot dogs to customers and visitors of SPS. Donations go to the “Feed the Children” charity which is just one of the charities our group supports. Here’s a picture from the BBQ – Jax is in the red blouse:

After the BBQ was done and cleaned up our some of the members in our chapter participated in our second annual “Progressive Dinner Ride”. This great event allows us to do two of our favorite things; riding motorcycles and eating! Our ride started at Skagit Powersports and we left for Jack and Betty’s house in Mount Vernon. As the crow flies it would have been about 15 minutes away. Our route took us closer to an hour as we toured the back roads. At Jack and Betty’s place we enjoyed delicious appetizers and salads. After eating and socializing we headed on another back road route to Robert and Lauri’s house in Glenhaven. Here’s we gorged on wonderful spaghetti and garlic bread and gabbed some more. Our last stop was back in Mount Vernon, again via a circuitous route. We were greeted here with our dessert fare; cheesecake and cookies and apple pie. Wow! What a great way to spend a Saturday. Here’s an image of the group (minus Jax who’s taking the photo). Zippo’s in the lime green jacket:

This ride is always terrific and we had a great time!

Ride safe,
Zippo and Jax

It was my birthday today (yep, that old!). I have the day off and Jax is getting ready for work, “Whatcha gonna do today?” she asks. “Work on the bike”, I answer. “Sheesh, I should have known!” she says with a smile…

After coffee and a leisurely kitty pet I wheel the Zipsicle out of the garage. There’s a couple of tasks I’d like to get accomplished today and the first one is a good excuse to wash the bike so I do. My plan is to install a new windshield bag I picked up online. It’s a Willie & Max Large TakeAlong bag:

Since this thing is going to mount on the inside of the windshield bracket I’ll need to remove the windshield in order to install it. This’ll be a good chance to give parts of the windshield, that are very hard to get to when it’s installed, a good cleaning. The outside has a good coating of bugs from our recent trip to Mt. St. Helens so I give it a good soaking and wash with a soft cloth and a good automotive soap. Eight bolts later and the windshield is off and I can clean the inside as well. After washing I use Lemon Pledge on it. Works great and leaves the windshield extremely clear (and it smells good, too!). With the windshield off I can give some of the other chrome parts a good cleaning too.

Mounting the bracket for the Willie and Max bag goes quickly and before too long I have the windshield back on:

I think this bag will be a good place to keep a few items handy, like my sunglasses and wallet. It’s very easy to detach and take it along with me if I need to when leaving the bike. With the windshield moved forward there’s enough room behind it for the bag while still being able to reach the key. Here’s the bag from the inside.

Next on the list of things to do is to move the cruise control pad to a location that’s closer to my hand. Here’s where I first installed it:

After reworking the bracket I remounted it under the left side mirror mount. This spot puts it very close to my thumb where it’s easy to actuate. A short test ride verifies that the new locations is going to be great. I love the cruise control! Here’s how it looks now:

…

It’s gotta be a great birthday when you can spend it working on the bike!

Ride safe
Zippo and Jax

So, now you’ve got your bracket made, where do you put it? I designed this bracket to fit on the upper engine bolt on the right side of the bike. This is the same bolt used for the upper right mounting point of the Yamaha engine bar. This bolt is installed with red threadlock at the factory so you may find it a bit of a challenge to remove. I used the correct size allen wrench and wore a work glove on my hand to protect it in case the wrench slipped while I was exerting force on it. I also recommend covering the tank to protect the paint job on your 1300. and finally, I’d recommend using blue threadlock on this bolt when reinstalling it. It’s not a bolt you want falling out as you cruise down the road! Here’s an image of the horn mounted with the new bracket:

As you can see, the horn mounts on the outer end of the bracket and should just clear the tank and engine bar. Mounting the horn in this location keeps the horn up out of the road grime and water it would be subject to if mounted down nearer the road and it also provides a clear path for the horn to sound off when needed.

In a day or so I’ll show you just what you need to wire this baby into your system.

Ride safe!
Zippo & Jax

Fellow riders are blown away (so to speak! ) when we sound off with our Stebel Nautilus horn. It’s rated at 139db making it loud enough to catch the attention of that cager on the cell phone drifting into your lane. Many have commented favorably on how I have it mounted so I thought I’d show how to do it here. First, I’ll show you how to construct a bracket for the mount. Tomorrow, I’ll show how to mount it, and in a day or so I’ll show you how simple it is to wire a Stebel Nautilus horn into your VStar 1300 and what you’ll need to accomplish this task. Doing this yourself will save you a bunch of money, give you a nice feeling of accomplishment, and it really is very easy to do…

I bought 3 feet of 1 inch by 1/8 inch aluminum flat bar from a local hardware store for just a few dollars. You can make the bracket a bit stiffer, if desired, by using 1 – 1/8 inch wide flat bar, too. Three feet is much more than we’ll need for this project but the extra can be used for brackets to tilt your windshield (the subject of another entry). Cut off about 5 – 1/2 inches and round the ends and corners with a file or grinder. Drill a 3/8 inch hole about 3/4 of an inch end from each end. The finished product should look similar to this:

Once this is complete we’ll make a couple of simple bends to turn this into a “C” shape which will easily fit into the space at the top of and behind the stock Yamaha engine bars. Make one bend about 2 – 1/2 inches in from the end. Make the other bend about 1-1/2 inches in from the other end. The aluminum flat bar is reasonably easily bent with a small vise of a couple of large crescent wrenches. When finished it will look something like this:

There should be around 2 inches between the legss of the “C” but none of these measurementrs are very critical. And, for the cost of the flat bar, it’s no problem to do some experimenting and see what works best for you. When you’ve got it the way you want it you can paint it with some black aluminum paint, or polish it with some aluminum polich or just leave it as is.

Tomorrow we’ll mount the horn and bracket on the bike…

Ride safe!
Zippo and Jax

I get a surprising amount of email from VStar 1300 owners who have found the Zipsicle website and actually stopped to check it out. An email I got today was from another 1300 owner asking how I mounted the Gorilla Cycle Alarm on the Zipsicle. I enjoy answering these questions (especially the ones I know the answer to) so I responded with how the details of how I mounted it.

On my bike, I put the main alarm unit just forward and to the right of the rear wheel inside of the wheel well. I used a couple of large (and strong) zipties to hold it in position on the frame there. It has lasted and worked well in that location for almost (the odometer will turn today) 12,000 miles. As I live in the Pacific Northwest, many of those miles were through some rather, ahhhhhh, “humid” conditions!

The Gorilla Cycle Alarm works well and does everything they say that it will. The 2-way pager remote is a nice feature and also works well. The alarm is very loud when it’s set off, as I’ve learned when I’ve forgotten to disable it before opening the trunk or sadllebags. However, in all the times I’ve set it off, I’ve never had anyone come over and ask if I was supposed to be getting into the trunks or saddlebags so I can’t say that it will prevent your bike or gear from being stolen. Just one more way to keep the honest people honest, I suppose.

Ride safe!
Zippo & Jax

This is the first test post to our V-Star1300 travel page. Only 27 more days ’til we leave on the Zipsicle for a 4,000 mile vacation trip… Thanks for visiting!

Zippo & Jax