ArkanSTOC

 People of all types and shapes and walks of life are brought together by a common love of motorcycling, and you can find "Ride to Eat" get-togethers, Bike Nights, and Rallies, year round through various forums such as Motocampers.com, Adventure Rider (Ride the World!), Two Wheeled Texans. Buying a motorcycle of a particular make or model or type, though, often comes with the wide, welcoming arms of a larger global online community, and the Honda ST1300 is no exception.

 The Honda ST Owners Community is one of the finest around, spread throughout all 50 states and around the globe, and it's almost a matter of pride for there to be an annual event (or two!) in as many states as possible. Hosted by locals who know the area like the back of their hand, the road recommendations are spot on, the restaurant suggestions are great, and people you meet will be some of the best you'll find anywhere.

 All that is to say, this is how I found myself scheduling time off from work to take a long weekend ride into the northern part of Arkansas, to ride roads I'd never seen before, with people I'd never met before. For five years running, ArkanSTOC has been held every September in the Ozarks, up near Eureka Springs, and it's gotten so popular that people put this on their calendar and book hotel rooms a year in advance.

 I left Austin Wednesday afternoon and rode through 98- 100 degree temps until I threw in the towel at Clayton Lake State Park in Oklahoma. It was hot, humid, and mostly miserable... Certainly not the best night I've ever spent in a tent, but it's hard to complain when you're not at work and have a full day of riding ahead of you when you wake up.

 Up early Thursday morning, I had my standard moto-breakfast of oatmeal and coffee and was on the road by 9AM.  I'd been in this part of Arkansas back in November of 2011, and I was eager to see the Talimena Byway again.

The mountains never disappoint

 The view from the Byway, the cool mountain temperatures, and the steady breeze chased away all memory of the previous day's heat. Following the Talimena Byway into Mena, AR, I stopped for lunch at the Skyline Cafe around noon. The Skyline Cafe is one of those small hole in the wall places that most folks wouldn't look at twice. There's a reason the old timers and motorcycle riders stop here though - the food is great! I had breakfast again: eggs over easy, home made corned beef hash, and home fries. With a full belly, I headed back out and down the road towards AR 28 and 27. These two roads took me through Russellville and dropped me onto Arkansas Scenic Route 7.

 There were storms on the way though, and I could see and hear their presence all the way up Route 7. Wet roads, heavy storms on radar, and the sound of thunder in the distance at every rest stop was enough to make me ditch my extended route and concentrate on getting to The Hub's campground so I could set up before the storms came. I managed to skirt along the edge of the storm front the whole way up, and got settled in. A quick run to the store for some adult beverages, and I was ready to hang out around the campfire and make some new friends until the heavy rains came.

 It took them a while, but boy, did they come. It rained all Thursday night, and all day Friday - so heavy that I decided to abandon my riding plans and partake of the free beer and story swapping going around under the covered awnings. It finally cleared up around dinner time for the evening's parking lot and campfire festivities. Speaking of dinner... I caved in to the craving and got the prime rib at Scooters Restaurant. I highly recommend it.

 Saturday morning greeted us with sunshine, mid 50s temperatures, and not a cloud in the sky. Perfect riding weather, so I took off with fellow Texas riders Andy, Fergie, and Taylor.

 We got in some great riding down 7, 123, and 16 before Andy's clutch went belly up near Clinton AR. After making sure Andy was safely off the road and waiting for AAA to arrive, I headed back to The Hub.

 With work on Monday and a long ride back to Pflugerville ahead of me, I went ahead and packed up, thinking I'd get down by the Texas State Line before finding a place to sleep. I hit the road heading South around 2PM, and took 7, 16, and 21 down towards Interstate 40. The thought of sleeping in my own bed was a pretty strong motivator - I made it in at 1:45AM, after riding a total of about 850 miles all day Saturday. You can view a track of my ride here - spotwalla.com/tripViewer

Labor Day Breakfast Run

 Finding myself with nothing to do and nowhere to be on Labor Day morning, joining some folks from Two Wheeled Texans for breakfast at The Monument Cafe in Georgetown seemed like the right thing to do. After a quick blast up TX 130, I was soon stuffing my face with fresh scrambled eggs and corned beef hash.  It was so good I forgot to take a picture!

 With breakfast finished, it was time to get some riding in before the heat of the late afternoon set in. Leaving Georgetown on TX 29 got me into rural Texas, where houses and buildings gave way to acres and acres of farmland.

FM 158 @ FM 971

 Someone once said that the "FM" in "Texas FM Road" really stood for "Fun Motorcycle", and I have to agree. Some of them follow property lines and have long straightaways with several sharp turns, while others were born of the wagon roads that folks in the country would use to go to town on Sunday. With little to no traffic, and fairly decent pavement on most FM roads, they make for great riding.

I found myself near Bartlett, Texas, so I stopped in to get a picture in front of the set for the TV show "Revolution".

The damaged building is fake, but it looks pretty realistic from the street.

 Sadly, the afternoon heat was getting worse and there were things that needed my attention waiting at home, so with about 150 miles done it was time to head for the barn.

Stick a Fork in Me

Yeah, okay, that was a bad pun...

Hmm, something's missing here.

Most motorcycles come with suspensions that are set up for a rider who is about 175 pounds, and well, I haven't seen those numbers on the scale in quite some time.  The ST1300 is no exception and comes under-sprung and too softly damped causing poor braking performance, limited bottom-out resistance, and harshness over high speed bumps.  While a lot of folks never notice these shortcomings, after spending many 8+ hour days in the saddle back in May, it became very obvious that I had to do something to the front suspension.

After researching the options, I decided to go with a non-progressive setup from Sonic Springs. Costing under $90 for a set of high quality chrome silicon steel springs, this seemed like a reasonable place to start - if the results were terrible, I wouldn't be out a lot of money, and reviews at ST-Owners were overall very positive.  I considered progressive springs, but after taking into consideration how heavy the bike is, and that there is so little suspension travel to begin with, I felt I would run out of suspension travel just as the heavier side of the progressive spring was being put into action.

Based on Sonic's spring rate calculator, I ordered a set of springs rated at  1.2kg/mm. This is a pretty vast difference from the stock springs which are rated at .860 kg/mm, and should support the weight of the bike with me on it much better. I cut my spacers at 140mm, giving me about 25mm worth of preload on the front end.  This will reduce the amount of suspension sag, or travel, that will be used up just to support the bike, leaving more active suspension available for riding.

To finish off the rebuild, I used BMW's 7.5w fork oil, set to a level of 125mm.  The general rule of thumb is to set fork oil fairly close the amount of travel that the forks have - the ST1300 has 117mm of fork travel - and I went slightly over that to help stiffen the front end up a tiny bit more.

With new fork seals, new fork wipers, Sonic Springs, spacers, and fresh oil installed, it was time to put the front end back together again.

It was then time to turn my attentions to the rear shock.  Honda was thoughtful enough to put a remotely adjustable preload module on the rear, and while it doesn't change the spring rate from being too low, it does help to offset some of the demand that us larger guys put on the shock.

To service the preload system, I removed the controller from the bike, and flushed it and the preload module with fresh fork oil. After reinstalling the controller the full range of preload options was restored.

Unfortunately, the rear shock is not user rebuild-able and I'll eventually have to send it off to a suspension specialist to have it upgraded. For now, I have to say I'm a lot happier with the suspension on the bike, especially when you consider that the total cost involved for the springs, fork seals and wipers, and fork oil was under $200 total.