Arriving in LA and buying my bike

I arrived in LA and was picked up from the airport by my Guatamalan friend Jose. He´s working as a Trade Commissioner in LA to promote trade between Central America and the US. I met him in Korea and hadn´t seen him for 4 years so it was really cool to see him again. He turned out to be the best host I could possibly think of and I ended up staying several days at his place . I think Latin American people so far are much more hospitable than Dutch people, which is definately something I ´ll try to be more when I get home. Unfortunately, I´ve lost the first pictures of my trip so I don´t have a good one of him. So I took one of his Facebook. I picked one with lots of tulips to make all the Dutchies reading this feel at home:)

The next day Jose took me around LA to look at 2 different bikes that I was interested in. I had contacted both sellers online before and they were selling quite different versions of the same model, a Kawasaki KLR 650. The first potential seller was selling a stock model, with the only upgrade being metal panniers. "Panniers" are metal boxes to the side of the bike to put stuff in. The other seller sold a 2005 KLR 650 with a lot of different upgrades, like better suspension, heated grips and metal handguards. In upgrades, the second bike was way way better. The only two downsides were that it had "soft" luggage, which is basically a metal rack on the back of the bike with bags on it, and that it was a bit above my budget for the bike.

I ended up going for the second, because it was a much better value for the money and because all the upgrades make it much better for the trip that I´m making with it. John was basically preparing the bike for a trip like this, but needed the money for paying for his daughter´s college. (And I doubt his wife would let him go on a trip like this:) )

Additionally, John was a really friendly and funny guy who taught me for about 2 days how to do the maintenance myself.

Here is a list of all the modifications to the bike. This will pobably be very boring to almost all of you, but I like to record it for myself:

Doohickey
Valves every 3000
Supermoto fender
Maier Brush guards
Mirror perches to relocate mirrors off of the clutch and brake perches in case of a crash
Heated grips
Renthal hi bend ATV bars
Summers Racing fork brace
SS Brake line for the front
Front pads are about 6 months old
12 v socket
Eastern Beaver 3 fuse block
SAE plug for a GPS
Odysey Battery 1 yr old
Spare clutch cable already routed on the bike
Petcock modified so it is no longer vacuum operated
Safety switches all defeated
Super stock foot pegs
Custom lowering brackets (these do not sit below the frame of the bike so they are good to go off road) now fits a size 14 boot.
IMS shift lever
Front forks have progressive springs and Race Tech Gold emulators fresh oil this May.
Cogent Moab Shock for the rear (bought last Sept)
IMS 6.5 Gallon Tank
Small pelican box for tire pump and gauge where the charcoal canister used to be and a larger one on the rear rack for tools
New Chain ring 47t and sprockets 14t and 16t and a 520 DID Gold chain. These have been on since May or June
Relocated rear blinkers using lockhart Philips blinkers
Turbo City Sequoia Rack and Tourmaster soft bags
Wolfman Tank bag
Moose Skid plate
Dualstar brakelight , cost 80 bucks, it has a strobe effect for the first few seconds that the brakes are applied to get drivers attention. Works wonders.
Low Buck exhaust mod with HMF tip, sounds great!
Rear brake reservoir guard
KLX Needle, slide drilled out, airbox opened and snorkel pulled, works awesome.
Spare air filter, UNI
Mefo explorer tires, true 50/50 tire, lasts a long time. Will do everything but deep sand and mud. These are less than ½ gone.
Rim Locks front and rear
Headlight protector
Extra jets
Magnetic drain plug

Here´s some pictures of the bike and learning about the maintenance:

The bike without the seat:
John lived in a house in Dana Point in Orange County. His backyard was a steep hill and in the top of it he has a treehouse that overlooks his house and the town of Dana Point. Just before he finished teaching me maintenance-stuff we went there and he helped me plan my route through California and have a beer. He said I wasn´t allowed to buy the bike unless I put a picture of his treehouse on my blog, so here it is:

John, a beer and a map of LA:And the view from the treehouse:
All ready for taking off!



It was getting late in the afternoon and I still had a few hours to drive from Dana Point back to Jose´s house. I rode all along the coast where I took this picture which I really like, since it´s sort of the beginning of my trip (being on the motorcycle at least). On the left you can see one of those Baywatch towers, I´m not sure if it was shot at this beach though.