New Tail Trunk

I still don't have the panniers on yet, but a couple of days ago my new tail trunk was in at Wildwood Sports. I went and picked it up and it sat for a couple of days.

The instructions looked pretty straightforward, so I thought I'd install it this morning before work. Unfortunately, I'd downloaded the wrong instructions and they didn't go with the mounting rack. As soon as I got home from work, I grabbed the right instructions and thought I'd get it done quickly. As my luck would have it, the bolts included with the kit were a little too short.

Fortunately, Mrs. HAL and I had some other stuff we needed to do out in the world that would take us close by a Canadian Tire. We stopped in there on the way home and picked up some longer bolts and a few washers for good measure.

After we got home, Mrs. HAL gave me a hand and after drilling two holes (gasp!) in the KLR's luggage rack, the new trunk is now installed. I forgot to take my camera out with me and the light is kind of crummy now, I'll try to remember to take some pictures tomorrow.

The trunk seems to be quite sturdy. I wouldn't trust it to hold up to a couple of lumberjacks with crowbars, but for the most part it seems like it should hold a lot of, say, groceries or clothes, that sort of stuff. It also (barely) fits my helmet - it's going to be great to have a place to stow my helmet when I'm in a store or something!

So that's the exciting news. In other news, it was a beautiful morning, +7C with somewhat clear skies. I say "somewhat", because there was a lot of dust just hanging in the air. It looked kind of like fog but made the sunlight look a little strange. I got out of the house a little earlier than normal and thupped off to the Safeway for gas. Today was the first time I put gas in the KLR since I put it away for the winter. Ended up getting 5.7L/100km or 49.6MPG. Not too bad for old gas and spending so much time warming the bike up twice a day.

Oh, I forgot - I have other exciting news, too. I've been working on my trip whenever I've had a chance, and I've got all of the campsites, hotels, B&Bs, ferries, and whatever booked between here and Port Hardy. I've also got more than half of the sites on the way back booked. I'm very excited about how things are coming together!

Safe riding!

Odometer reading now: 9362.5km

Distance since last fill: 19.6km