1989 Westy Makeover: GoWesty 2.3L Engine plus plus plus

[VdubVanner]

Now that I have some miles on the tires, I gotta say I really like them even in non-snowy conditions. They turned out to be quieter than expected and hold the road better than my Yokos which tend to pull to the right (even after alignment). I have less vibration through the steering wheel as a result.

Nice! I just have to wait to see what they do on snow and ice. As cheap as I am, I'm glad that I bought them. This way I don't have to worry about road conditions as much when I need to get to my cancer-related appointments. I did with the Yokos -- never knowing if a blizzard would be coming in and putting them in weather they weren't cut out for. The VanContact Winters will handle anything thrown at them.
_________________
"Fritz", a temperamental and unforgiving 1989 Westy that proudly bears his German flags and status as a member of the exclusive GoWesty Belly Flop Club.
1989 Westy Makeover: GoWesty 2.3L Engine plus plus plus https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

[VicVan]

Pretty cool you get to drive your van year round now!
_________________
'90 Little Blue Truck, 2WD auto, FAS GenV 2.0 NA (AVH)

[VdubVanner]

I drove my van year-round previously. I just made sure to pick my days out carefully. Now? No worries!
_________________
"Fritz", a temperamental and unforgiving 1989 Westy that proudly bears his German flags and status as a member of the exclusive GoWesty Belly Flop Club.
1989 Westy Makeover: GoWesty 2.3L Engine plus plus plus https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

[VdubVanner]

No worries? Well, actually I have a few but they aren't related to snow. We'll get to that in a minute or three...

It all began last spring and summer when I was roaming the Back of Beyond with Fritz and my folding bike. This was my final trip in September.

The folding bike fits nicely inside Fritzie so I don't have to dick around with bike carriers. Running miles over a one track (sort of road) and then weaving across natural prairie, I parked my folder up on the top of this rise so I could see it from a distance when out exploring. Eventually I lost sight of it.

I took off on foot to complete the journey and hit some riverside scenery. Off in the far distance is an old buffalo jump:

Cool clear water:

I almost felt like going skinny dipping but didn't since I was already in a great deal of pain and dead tired. Nope, I was looking back towards my bike perched on its pedestal in the far distance and ready for the ride back to the van which was parked about four or five miles away.

Unfortunately, when I hopped aboard the bike and started pedaling, I noticed the front tire was flat due to earlier falling down sideways when parked in the wind and having a few cactus spines go through the sidewall. Pumping it up did the trick until I got back to Fritz.

Over the course of the spring and summer, I'd managed to get tossed from that bike about half a dozen times due to extremely loose gravel that had been laid in low spots on the track in. During the lengthy fire ban over the summer, I couldn't drive in with the van, I had to pedal a long ways in instead. Hence the spills.

The worst one was in August when I was pitched off so fast and hard that I planted my helmeted head, shoulder, ribs and hip into the ground and thought I was done for. I was out there by myself with no one around for 20 miles -- as the sun was going down and the sky was darkening. Not a smart thing really -- especially when the two cancer drugs that I'm on weaken my bones and have "bone fractures" as side effects.

My tailbone was already killing me and I believed that was from simply sitting on my butt doing reports for weeks on end. Turned out otherwise: I had some X-rays run and the doc thought the cancer might have moved into my "S3" bone on the sacrum. Lovely! To confirm that, he had me go through the rigamarole of a full-on bone scan that involves getting injected with radioactive gunk then being slowly moved through a series of machines that look for "hotspots" and anomalies in your skeleton.

That tailbone pain turned out to be from a fractured sacrum and that big spill in August -- that took a month to get over -- left me with a fractured rib as well. Just to make things even more interesting, a couple of new cancer spots showed up on the scan.

What does that all translate to? A three to four month recovery period for my busted up sacrum to heal (and that's a best guess, especially since the cancer drugs are working against that happening) and more fun ahead once my oncologist gets his grip on me in a couple of weeks.

Was all that "kamikaze" riding worth it? I reckon it was. But then I don't have much in the way of brains. Will I be doing it again next summer? Not according to my wife and daughter.

I'll see how I feel next spring. I'm off the daily Advil now and hoping that the tailbone pain goes away. It was knocking me down so much I was having an hour to two-hour recovery siesta every afternoon in October. That ain't my style. I'm slowly coming back to life and taking slow walks of a mile or so each day depending on how I feel. If I don't fall on an icy sidewalk this winter, I might just mend up.

Wish me luck!
_________________
"Fritz", a temperamental and unforgiving 1989 Westy that proudly bears his German flags and status as a member of the exclusive GoWesty Belly Flop Club.
1989 Westy Makeover: GoWesty 2.3L Engine plus plus plus https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

[VicVan]

Man that sucks... Good jobs on walking everyday though! That takes some motivaiton, especially in this gloomy season.
Thanks for the pictures. It's a beautiful spot, sure must have been a nice ride and nice hike.
Take care!
JB
_________________
'90 Little Blue Truck, 2WD auto, FAS GenV 2.0 NA (AVH)

[djkeev]

When we were young and invincible no one ever explained to us exactly how hard getting old is!

You think those young virile athletes are tough?
Oh heck no!
That 80 year old walking next to you endures many more daily hardships and suffers much more pain. That 80 yr old is made of far tougher stuff!

Dave
_________________
Stop Dead Photo Links how to post photos

Ghia
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=392473

Vanagon
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=6315537#6315537

Beetle
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=482968&highlight=74+super+vert

[VdubVanner]

[VdubVanner]

[4Gears4Tires]

I figure the spills are just part of the price of biking. It just comes with the territory. I have had quite a few really nasty ones but I keep going back for more. But I feel pretty strongly you are using the wrong tool for what you are doing. And even in my mid 30s I feel the injuries accumulating, I wouldn't want to be taking serious spills later in life. Especially not 20 miles out in the middle of nowhere.

One thing that would really help your stability is larger tires, both in diameter and width. Your bike has 20 inch tires. They're skinny and the tread is meant for pavement. Front suspension would help a massive amount. And the riding position is not great for loose surface stability either. Literally everything about it is wrong for gravel roads.

If you're really in love with that style of bike, you can get it as a fat tire ebike with front suspension. Fat tires are a lot harder to spin due to the weight and they weigh more, but that's where the electric motor comes in. It will be a lot more stable and enjoyable on back country roads. This one even has a small spring in the seat post, which reduces pedaling efficiency to be fair, but also makes your butt more comfortable on bumpy surfaces. https://www.amazon.com/Electric-Folding-Removable-...5&th=1

I don't usually go road riding, but when I do I wear padded bike shorts. They help a ton.

---- Need a bike rack or remove the front tire and store inside ------

My recommendation goes further into the $$$$ territory, but just something to consider. Here is a pretty decent name brand ebike that has decent components and it's going to be something you can have serviced and maintained. It does cost 2.5x the price and it doesn't fold, but this bike is tailored to the riding you are doing.
https://www.giant-bicycles.com/us/roam-eplus-sta

And this would get my non electric recommendation, definitely use padded shorts though. But a dedicated cross country bike is going to be really comfortable and take you many miles. There are full suspension XC bikes, but this one is a hard tail, which has better pedaling at the cost of some butt comfort. You can get full suspension XC or trail bikes with suspension lock outs, but the price starts climbing pretty rapidly. This one is a really solid bike.
https://www.giant-bicycles.com/us/xtc-slr-29-2

I love bikes, feel free to drop me a PM if you want to discuss them.
_________________
'87 Syncro
Ferric Oxyhydroxide Superleggera Edition

[VdubVanner]

Those skinny tires are 2-inch up front and 1.75 in back. They can go over anything. I have an '86 Kuwahara mtn bike that I have tricked out with 2.25" tires but the fact remains that the gravel "pits" that you hit suddenly are like sand traps to golfers: you'll likely get tossed at any rate. With Stage 4 cancer and a limited amount of time to ride into the future, I won't be wasting money on any other bikes or likely taking a chance on so-called better bikes. I fall next time in one of those traps and I could break my back instead of my sacrum and end up in a wheelchair. The cancer drugs are slowly eating my bones away i.e. osteoporosis. The one drug I'm on is notorious for instigating bone fractures being three times as likely as a placebo to help crack something in your skeletal system. The joke and reality amongst prostate cancer patients is if the cancer doesn't kill you the drugs will. Sad but true.

At this point, I'm just trying to mend my busted butt and face the cancer that appears to be spreading earlier than expected.
_________________
"Fritz", a temperamental and unforgiving 1989 Westy that proudly bears his German flags and status as a member of the exclusive GoWesty Belly Flop Club.
1989 Westy Makeover: GoWesty 2.3L Engine plus plus plus https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

[4Gears4Tires]

[VdubVanner]

Young 'un, you need to read up on what riders did back in the eighties on so-called "skinny-tired" mountain bikes. Start with a book by Nicolas Crane called The Great Bicycle Adventure. Read the first comment below the text about this classic ride: https://bikepacking.com/routes/great-divide-mountain-bike-route-gdmbr/ . Brothers Mike and Dan Moe who pioneered the route -- or an approximate version on the Continental Divide -- were on early 1980s mountain bikes with knobby 2.25" "fat" tires: https://www.adventurecycling.org/blog/the-mighty-moes/ .

Their tires look something like my Schwalbe Smart Sams: https://www.schwalbetires.com/bike_tires/off-road_tires/smart-sam (mine are set on Ryde Andra rims with upgraded smooth-as-silk hubs: https://www.cyclingabout.com/the-best-rims-for-bicycle-touring/ ). I deliberately chose to ride my folding bike in because I knew that if I fell, I'd have no top cross bar to worry about and I'd be closer to the ground when thrown off. Us old guys who have ridden a fair bit think of these things.

I won't be going down again either -- not on that track. I'll be sticking to paved trails if I do any biking in future. Off-road, I'll be walking in with my loaded Burley Travoy/Travois so I don't break my back next time: https://www.rei.com/product/807561/burley-travoy-urban-bike-trailer . The upgraded model is on sale at the moment and would be a good buy: https://www.rei.com/product/171930/burley-travoy-bike-cargo-trailer . Skip the additional fancy Burley bags, though, and just use a thrift store 30L daypack strung up on top for extra storage. Works for me.
_________________
"Fritz", a temperamental and unforgiving 1989 Westy that proudly bears his German flags and status as a member of the exclusive GoWesty Belly Flop Club.
1989 Westy Makeover: GoWesty 2.3L Engine plus plus plus https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

[clamay]

I am sure 4Gears meant no disrespect. He, like the rest of us, just want you to stay safe while you fight your battle with cancer. Keep up the fight. We are all pulling for you!!
_________________
91 Carat, automatic, GW 2.2, GW EFI, Peloquin TBD

When you come to a fork in the road, take it. --Yogi Berra

[VdubVanner]

As a bit of a mtn bike historian, I was just trying to show what passed for high tech back in the day. That's the stuff many of us oldies rode on and still ride on. His generation is being sold another way of doing things. The destinations remain the same but the prices are higher. My sincere condolences go out to 4Gears4Tires for his recent loss. My wife lost her Dad before she hit 30 and that left a big hole in both of our lives.

Thanks for pulling/praying for me. I need as much of that as I can get especially since the one drug I was banking on for a couple more years of "free riding" is obviously crapping out on me already.

Oh, well, I'll see what my oncologist has to say about it in a couple of weeks.

Cheers!
_________________
"Fritz", a temperamental and unforgiving 1989 Westy that proudly bears his German flags and status as a member of the exclusive GoWesty Belly Flop Club.
1989 Westy Makeover: GoWesty 2.3L Engine plus plus plus https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

[4Gears4Tires]

[VdubVanner]

[Red Ryder]

[Jake de Villiers]

Way to hang in there, Wayne. Give 'em hell!

I love your attitude and hope things improve for you.
_________________
'84 Vanagon GL 1.9 WBX
'86 Westy Weekender Poptop/2.5 Subaru/5 Speed Posi/Audi Front Brakes/16 x 7 Mercedes Wheels - answers to 'Dixie'
@jakedevilliersmusic1
http://sites.google.com/site/subyjake/mydixiedarlin%27
www.crescentbeachguitar.com
www.thebassspa.com

[VdubVanner]

Thanks Jake! I've dialed back my walking a wee bit so I don't disturb my "busted butt" too much and started the Advil again so hopefully the fracture naturally glues back together again. Still napping in the afternoon and laying around trying not to move too much the rest of the time. What a lazy life I lead now. Not a bad lifestyle for the cold winter months ahead https://www.countryliving.com/life/a41187/what-is-...yle-trend/ . Yup, sweatpants and a cozy plaid blanket to snuggle under and rest. Sheer pampering!
_________________
"Fritz", a temperamental and unforgiving 1989 Westy that proudly bears his German flags and status as a member of the exclusive GoWesty Belly Flop Club.
1989 Westy Makeover: GoWesty 2.3L Engine plus plus plus https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0

[VdubVanner]

Adding to that pampering is some serious video watching:

https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/25-000-Miles-to-Glory-Blu-ray/PRD39EKB8WVG6XI

Yup, that $4.75 price is in CDN with FREE shipping!

South of the border the price goes up a couple of bucks:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/25-000-Miles-to-Glory-Blu-ray/55330847 or

https://www.walmart.com/ip/25-000-Miles-to-Glory-DVD/55330833 .

Mine was at the door in less than two weeks. Speedy FREE delivery for a VW van video. Coooool!

Worthy of an Oscar for Best Picture of the Year? Nope but it is a great documentary and filmed extremely well. What's not to like: It's about traveling in a '67 VW van -- breakdowns and all -- and is cheap like Borscht. I had to get a few for Xmas prezzies. There's a book available that goes with it: https://www.amazon.com/25-000-Miles-Glory-Friendsh...amp;sr=8-1 .

In an effort not to "bust my butt" again, I added a boot/shoe with IceFX soles as shown here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-boot-test-1.6252613 . Hopefully, they keep me upright in winter conditions. The spikes, coils etc that go under the foot are hard to walk on for distances and I'm going to try these new soles out as a first line of defense.

Mark's Work Wearhouse in Canada handles a number of insulated winter boots or shoes with IceFX and I went with these since they're free of laces (slip-ons, if you'll pardon the pun): https://www.marks.com/en/windriver-mens-rundle-ice...dth%5D=REG .

Just like my winter tire treads!
_________________
"Fritz", a temperamental and unforgiving 1989 Westy that proudly bears his German flags and status as a member of the exclusive GoWesty Belly Flop Club.
1989 Westy Makeover: GoWesty 2.3L Engine plus plus plus https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=...mp;start=0