Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Product Review: MotoJug hydration system

MotoJug is a universal on-board hydration system kit designed by ADVrider.com forum member "lacofdfireman" a/k/a Dave and his wife from Utah. You can order the bag and straps only for $50 (shipping included) or get the whole she-bang like I did for $75, which includes the tubing, tubing retractor and bite valve, everything you need except the water cooler, which would cost more to ship than for you to buy.  Click here for the full product description, photographs and ordering information.  Below I've copied and pasted a short review I recently posted in the ADV thread. Highly recommended!

"Lovin' my MotoJug so far. Had it out for a long shake-down ride over the weekend. Not only did it remain 100% secure despite my best cornering and braking efforts to induce movement, but the handling wasn't at all affected, which I was a little worried about ahead of time, particularly as I have a mid-sized bike. Mine is on the left as my exhaust would interfere on the right. I have the tubing retractor clipped to my tankbag so it takes a few extra seconds to deal with the tube when mounting/dismounting the bike, but it's well worth it in the heat. (When temps don't warrant carrying this much H2O, I may use the cooler as a waterproof storage device.) The bag, loops and straps offer many mounting possibilities, and everything is constructed very well. The price was worth it to me to have someone source and build the kit. I went with Dave's recommended $8 cooler but I had to get someone else to buy it for me so I could keep my claim of never having purchased anything at WalMart intact...well, sort of."

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"Iron Butt types: order two, but substitute a small funnel for the bite valve on one side, so you'd have both intake and output."


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Friday, July 17, 2015

A Job Worth Doing is Worth Doing Twice


A few weeks ago I get home from a long ride and find my left front turn signal dangling, the rubber mount having broken in half.  Hmmm, that's weird; wonder what caused that?  Impact with something? Someone bumping into it? Old age? No matter, I ordered a new left-hand mount right away, and being the smart guy I am, also ordered the right-hand mount, figuring that some day that one may fail as well and, if so, I'd already have the part on hand.

What I'd figured would be a 10-minute installation of the new turn signal mount turned out to be a sweaty, cuss-filled hour or more (thanks Kawasaki!), which would've taken someone with normal man-sized hands much longer (thanks genetics!). While I had the dashboard and windscreen off, I of course considered replacing the "good" mount on the other side, and, of course, decided against it because of the major hassle involved with the wiring I'd encountered on the "bad" side, and anyway, what were the chances the other mount would somehow fail or get broken anytime soon?  I fear the 95F and 100% humidity in my garage influenced that decision.


This is what I found at the end of a ride about a week later:



The good news is that now I know to an accuracy of about 200 miles the precise life of a Kawasaki ZR-7S rubber turn signal mount, and I've become twice as proficient at replacing them.  Yay for me. Freakin' yay.

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