And off we go

[loaded up with the Muñoz-Gomez family] We loaded up the bikes this morning and gunned south for the border. We had a 200+ mile day (a lot for us) in some stunning terrain. We went from 6000 feet to 2000 feet to 10000 feet to 4000 feet and finished at 8000 feet. We drove past the spot where Megan had crashed the year before, drove through and around 3000 foot deep canyons, and dodged boulders rolling off road cuts.

After having not driven the big bikes for 7 months, and after Megan crashing, we weren't sure how we were going to feel getting back on them. Would we drive 10 mph and overly cautious? Would we consider riding the bikes through South America not worth the risk? How would it feel compared to last year when it was all so fresh and new? How would the girls be after sitting in the rain for 7 months?

[chickens hanging out at the bottom of this xmas tree. Click on the image to see them they are cute.] Obviously, I can't answer all those questions just yet, but something strange did happen when we got back onto them. We felt relaxed. Sitting on the bike with unknown road ahead fell incredibly familiar and within five minutes of being on the road felt like we had never set the ladies down.

[Megan snapped this when I was working on the brakes. She's enjoying the view- the chicken- not megan] Now for technical part. Skip over this if you don't care about motorcycle maintenance. One problem did start to present itself about halfway through the day. My front brake started to feel a bit too "reactive." It was either off or full-on without a middle. Upon further inspection, I realized that it was actually grabbing slightly without being pressed which is sort of a bad thing. Driving with the brakes slightly binding for long periods of time could heat up the rotor, causing it warp which will certainly cause problems down the line. I bled some fluid out of the lines just to make sure there wasn't a back up anywhere, but this didn't help the problem. I pushed the pistons back and had megan pump the brakes. I went through this a few times to see if the pistons were stuck. This seemed to help a little but not completely. I went ahead and drove on them the rest of the day, but will need to take another look tomorrow. I think I will try to clean the pistons. There could be some road grime or corrosion in there that is preventing the pistons from recoiling. Another thought is that last may I had a mechanic take a look at the steering head bearing and perhaps the whole front end didn't get put back together exactly the same as before which could cause the brake to be grabbing the rotor ever so slightly askew. This could work itself out after a few days. However, it is strange that I didn't notice it in the morning but I could certainly attribute that to my excitement of getting on the bikes.

So here we are in Ipiales getting ready to cross the border tomorrow. Technically, our bikes are illegal in Colombia (their paper expired in June) so we are going to have to do some fancy footwork at the border to get us but not our bikes checked out of the country. It is all part of the fun.