Missives from the 6th Floor

The front fork seals failed (, and after reading the service book, I decided to take it to a local independent shop. While they had it apart, they discovered that the fork bushings ($20/side) need doing too (they neglected to tell me that 'till the bike was back together and I was standing there to take it home - but we're working that out).

It's also leaking a bit of oil from the valve cover seal ($30), and a bit of coolant from the gaskets where the ingress and egress cooling lines meet the block ($1 each). Oh, and the front brake pads ($25/side) are at 15% and the front rotors ($320 OEM/ $225 after-market per side) are close to their service limit and should be renewed soon.

And I've probably got less than a thousand miles before it'll need a rear tire ($250-ish).

The labor to replace the valve cover gasket and coolant seals would have been 6.5 hours at around $100/hour.

Cha-ching.

I have front pads in the garage, and I ordered the various gaskets and seals. The valve cover seal is time consuming but should be pretty easy, and the coolant gaskets look easy too, though draining the system can be a bit messy.

Part of me is thinking it's time to see about selling the Trophy and buying something newer, but the other part of me knows that an R1100RT or K1300GT would cost way more than I'm willing to spend...