A Farkle & family Sunday

Recently I purchased a farkle for my V-strom, not really needed but I have trouble trying to find the non-existent 7th gear all the time. While I usually stay away from the freeway, I sometimes find myself on it and then I start shifting through the gears to merge with traffic. I lose count of shifts and when I notice the tach around 6,000 rpms I try to shift one more time and there is nothing left. On the VEE, DL1000 there is an OD: Overdrive Light which lets you know you are in 6th. There is no OD light on the DL650 Wee. The only solution was to purchase the GiPro S04 with ATRE.


(HealTech, Gear Indicator: Advanced Timing Retard Eliminator)

It is designed to be a simple plug & play installation and from discussions on various V-strom forums, most intelligent riders can perform this operation in around half an hour, without having to remove the gas tank The digital display is connected to a harness whereby you remove your GPS: Gear Position Sensor and plug it into the harness AND another plug just goes where the GPS sensor used to be. There is one other wire where you connect to any switched +12V power. I decided to utilize the OEM plug for the factory heated grips which was not used. My heated grips are connected to another source. I visited the dealer to pick up one of these OEM plugs so that I would not have to splice into any factory harnesses and I noticed this Red Gladius for sale



I just thought that Trobairitz would be interested in the MSRP up here as a comparison to Oregon prices. No such luck, I left empty-handed. I decided that this being such a simple job I would just go down to EMS and have Ted connect the +12V switched power and I routed the LED display to the dash and pasted it onto the Tachometer face. I could always move it later to another position



I learned a lot today about the wiring of the V-strom. It was so simple that even I could do it next time. The most time consuming part of this whole procedure was trying to remove the Gear Position sensor from it's plug. You need hands of a 2 year old and a thin flat head screw driver to push those plastic wedge tabs in to release the two halves of the plug. In my case you have to remove the rear left panel to gain access

Suzuki retards the timing on the first 4 gears (1,2,3 & 4) to help with emission control. The ATRE function of this unit restores full power to the lower gears. There is not much power difference on the DL650, but it makes a big improvement to the DL1000. It also disables the speed limiter to allow you an unrestricted top speed



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Petrol report:



Give or take a penny, fuel in Vancouver is around $1.34+ to $1.33 / litre

At $1.337 per litre, this works out to: $5.06 per US gallon

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Another sunny Family Day has rolled around. I don't usually ride on Sundays so we were off to Squamish for Lunch. Squamish is a little town about an hour north of Vancouver on the Sea-to-Sky highway. It is surrounded by mountains and is a very fast growing community thanks to the Winter Olympics of 2010



It looks cold but it is warm in the sunshine, perhaps around 10°c . This is a favorite place for windsurfers later in the year as the winds are very brisk, today not so much



Nearly in the middle of the above photo you can see Shannon Falls which at 335 meters is the third highest waterfall in British Columbia



I would have to say that Logging is the main industry in this area.



For some reason I am attracted to this area. Everytime I come to Squamish I come to the Squamish Marina, to enjoy the view and snap a few photos. Today it was as if it were spring with warmth from the sun



A few miles further North in Brackendale we stopped to admire nature and the recent snowfall on the mountain



They have announced a new ski development near Squamish and there is lots of construction activity with new condos and homes. Some big box stores have just been built for the growing population. I pointed my lens to a slightly different direction and here is another mountain with fresh snow