New to the forum: 2013 Touring in Nevada

[Ygransom]

No just a stock Touring. The site assigns a ranking based post

 

[hoopla]

Welcome Wild Bill, from Maine. Hmmm, we have snow and Ice till mid April usually, today it may hit 60 degrees, just a tease!

Hoopla

 

[Wild Bill]

Are you sure about that being an OEM Triumph retrofit?
It sounds like just an after-market option the dealer is selling
I may be wrong - just seems very unlikely to me that Triumph would sell an option like this. (if so it must have a Triumph part number?)

I went down and looked the thing over yesterday. You were right, @DEcosse, turns out it was not Triumph, it was aftermarket made by ODX in Taiwan. Had a lot of French/English printed all over it. Claims 4000 lumens both high and low beam with a total of 8000, input power 36watts. 30,000-hour life. $79.99. I might try it out. Anybody had any experience with this? I prefer to not fry any delicate parts again. Appreciate your input and advice. Wild Bill

 

[DEcosse]

Honestly, you'd be better served with a complete LED lamp module (including Lens, Reflector etc) - and especially since your OEM is already compromised anyway.
Check out some recommendations across various threads on this forum discussing LED Headlights - the best is JW Speaker, but they are quite 'spendy' and there are some decent lower price alternatives.
(since the Touring main headlight is only one, vs the Pair on Roadsters & Classics, so not quite so big a hit, I would probably spring for the extra for a JW Speaker - even a non-adaptive is going to be a nice improvement and since you don't ride much at night, the adaptive with its associated cost is probably not necessary)

 

[WildBill]

I went down and looked the thing over yesterday. You were right, @DEcosse, turns out it was not Triumph, it was aftermarket made by ODX in Taiwan. Had a lot of French/English printed all over it. Claims 4000 lumens both high and low beam with a total of 8000, input power 36watts. 30,000-hour life. $79.99. I might try it out. Anybody had any experience with this? I prefer to not fry any delicate parts again. Appreciate your input and advice. Wild Bill

Insert the theme from Twilight zone...Same name, same bike...Are we living in parallel universes?

 

[Boog]

Hello Wild Bill and welcome from Virginia. I too had my headlight cover melt when I was letting it warm up and still had the bike cover draped over the front of the bike. I posted online my displeasure and a fellow Rocket rider sent me his old one for the cost of postage. Good luck with your replacement.

I retired from Navy Fallon back in 2004, loved riding in Northern NV; not so much down in the south though. I never did find out why they say Hwy 50 up north is the loneliest highway though: I was always at peace there with me and my thoughts...

 

[Navigator]

Hello Wild Bill and welcome from Virginia. I too had my headlight cover melt when I was letting it warm up and still had the bike cover draped over the front of the bike. I posted online my displeasure and a fellow Rocket rider sent me his old one for the cost of postage. Good luck with your replacement.

I retired from Navy Fallon back in 2004, loved riding in Northern NV; not so much down in the south though. I never did find out why the say Hwy 500 up north is the loneliest highway though: I was always at peace their with me and my thoughts...

Did you retire out of NAS Fallon Boog? I attended Strike U there in the mid-90s, the Joint Targeting School. I'll be riding 50 again this year. I'll start in Sacramento, cross the Sierra Nevadas, up along the east shore of Lake Tahoe, on to Carson City and then east to Ely and north to home. Typing out that route just now has brought back some fond memories. I love the ride from Sacramento to Carson City and will probably stay in South Lake Tahoe overnight.

 

[R3TK]

These people who own the site said I have to introduce myself. Okay.

Hi All, this is Wild Bill. I don't know how or when that name was planted on me; it was unjust and slanderous. But it cruelly stuck somehow against my complaint. I've been riding since I was 15, my first bike being a $35.00 ring-ding Yamaha YL100 twin, the smoky 2-cycle kind where I needed a handful of plugs in my pocket to make it home - clean plugs in my left pocket, fouled plugs in my right, oily pocket, permanent grease under my fingernails, and a bug-spattered, sadistic grin on my face. That was 48 years ago, and most of that hasn't changed, at least inside. I'm still that kid having the time of his life - only bigger and more expensive, which I found out does not necessarily mean a greater happiness quotient.

I rarely ever sell anything; I buy what I like and hang on to it. I'm a maintenance freak - this has endowed me with a small collection of bikes from 1967 to present - all in perfect condition - that I ride almost every day, thanks to the excellent motorcycling weather here in Nevada 364 1/2 days per year. I'm originally from northern New England and never going back - rotten weather except between July 4th and the 18th, and September 6th. Yeah, you poor snowbound guys and gals, I feel your pain. Har!

Yesterday, I was performing minor maintenance on my 2013 Rocket Touring, flushing and refilling the antifreeze. When I was finished, I started my bike up and let her idle to operating temperature to make sure everything was functioning well and I had no air pockets to bleed off. Everything went well, and I was about ready to shut her down when I noticed the headlight seemed to have steam on the lens. Nothing unusual after a flush and fill, so I took a towel and wiped it off; only, it did not wipe off. The lens was MELTING!! In all my life I have never seen anything like this! I shut the bike down, but too late. The lens was toast. A new one goes for $220.00 from Bike Bandit - pretty stiff for a piece of clear plastic, not even fluted. Even more compelling, why would it do that, and will it happen again? BTW, the light was on low beam, and cannot be turned off when the bike is running (another bureaucratic attempt to save the unsaveable). It was all of 60 degrees F ambient temperature, and there was no heat source near the light except the light itself. I bought this bike almost unused in 2014 and have had no troubles with it whatsoever.

Welcome Wild Bill! Firstly well done on owning a Rocket and well done for joining the intelligence/madness of this forum! Don’t worry - if you have any queries on God’s own motorbike the rocket, don’t hesitate to ask! You may get an answer eventually, but along the way you’ll come across amazing cross section of humanity... we’re here not just to answer your bike/technical queries, but we can help with everything from personal/Dear Abbey queries, through to resolving the big questions in life, like is Nat69’s Girl really blonde, or just putting on a front to fool us all (thread: pics and quips). What I really like here is you can start off with a well rounded query, and end up talking about is 43 really the answer to the meaning of life!

 

[TURBO200R4]

bummer we did not solve the meaning of life
now i forget what the question was

 

[HowardRoark]

Just wanted to say hello to another local Rocketeer! I came from New England myself, Boston. Welcome and I'm sure I'll see you on the road!