I got out this morning and went to the office. I had a schedule of 8am training and had to be set up on conference calls and remoted into the servers/workstations early. The morning rush wasn't bad and I rode through 635 without problems. I got on 75 going to Plano and really no problems to mention. Other than the typical Mexican and Redneck contractors which migrate their way to Plano to work on lawns and renovate homes, traffic was nice and the weather was perfect. All in all, it was nice and the Bird was running good. As I exited the highway, I heard a "clunk" from under the bike. I could feel the clunk through the bars and knew it was worth looking into. I came up to the redlight and the bike was running good, but the clunk still bothered me. As I left the light, all through first second and third gears I heard heavy knocking. As I shifted into 4th to see where/if the noise stopped, it went away. I pulled the clutch in and started slowing....with no noises. Hmm. I got to the office and had to jump in the building to get started, so I didn't have time to check it further....it would have to wait. At noon, I had an appointment to take my broke down Jeep to the shop, so it was back to Mesquite. As I left the office, the noise wasn't there and I'd forgotten about it. As I was coming down 635 into Mesquite, I was reminded about the noise by a heavy, hard, loud clunk which this time was like hitting something in the road. Uh oh! I got to the house to get the Jeep and got off the Bird to see what it might be. As I checked out the back end, I noticed the chain somewhat loose. It would seem Bjay was trying to tell me something, but I didn't listen. I thought about the time since the last adjustment and it was when I had the tires put on....about 2000 miles. That wasn't that long ago to make the chain that loose. I went on to put the Jeep in the shop and get it fixed. After I got back to the bike, I tightened the chain a little and called to order another one. I went out riding the bike and the adjustment didn't fix the clunking noise. I finally thought back through my maintenance and remembered I also hadn't lubed that chain since my tire install. Whoops! I looked back at the chain with the aspect of what I'd just revelationed, and as suspected it was in bad need of lube. I went down to the motorcycle shop and picked up a new can of lube and went to lubing. After that, NOT A PROBLEM! No strange noises. No knocking. No nothing. Just smooth riding and good running. I'll be in the shop in the next week or two to replace that chain now! That was my fault! Dumb dumb me didn't realize how much I was riding and didn't keep tabs on the condition of the bike.
