Today was perfect, after cleaning a dead spider out of the fuel line and tightening the carb I was ready to go (thought it was tight last year, but when I when to hit the choke, it moved!) 75 degrees and sunny.
I rode on U.S. Route 6- once the longest continuous road across the U.S. until they decommisioned the section near the CA border and the west coast, and heavy truck shortcut between the Ohio turnpike and U.S. interstate 90 for the first three miles and then took the first available road east into the boonies and Pennsylvania. BORDER CROSSING!
There are a lot of these roads around here....some are even paved. This one divides Ohio and Pennsylvania. Most lead to nowhere, but they used to go from giant farm to giant farm.
I rode on these secondary roads for almost three hours. I did quite a bit of pedaling, amazing how quite it is after the bicycle motor (even one with TWO mufflers) has been shut off. One slightly unschedualed stop since the carb was finally tight and the weather was not humid the engine was very rich, breaking into a 4 cycle on any cruise setting, or down hill. I popped the top off the carb (only very slightly advanced from the Chinese variety) and moved the clip up one notch. The next 10 minutes were spent trying to get the slide/spring/clip(s) back together. Man, is that spring strong, not like most carb slide return springs. At this point I was hoping the setting was right, or at least closer.
I got on the bike and while it needed a very small provokation from the choke, it fired up and ran SUH-WEET! A nice rich two cycle on the cruise, and a even, smooth two cycle when on a pull. Not to mention I was getting better fuel mileage- around 200 instead of the 150 or so I was getting with the very rich setting.
This photo is about 45 miles later, and within a mile of my house. It's another typical road....about a half mile in the distance is U.S. route 6, lots of fast heavy truck traffic awaits for the last 2200 feet.
Yes, this road is only about 15' wide...
Total distance? About 45 miles, a few tablespoons of fuel were left when I motored down the back yard at 2 mph to the back garage.
Today was a good day.
The end.