I rode the Spyder to Michael’s Reno Powersports on Monday. I needed to replace the caps on the master cylinder reservoir for the brakes. The diaphragms in the caps were leaking fluid. I’ve heard this is a common problem on Can Am Spyders. The fluid reservoir has sensors in each of the two chambers. If the fluid level drops by as little as a teaspoon, it triggers a warning light and the words “Brake Failure” scroll across the display screen. I looked up the warning light and written warning in the manual – it indicated that both warnings at the same time was triggered by the fluid level sensor. This seems like a dire warning but the brakes work fine.
I added fluid before and the warning stopped. After a while it came back on and then I saw where the fluid was going – it leaked past the caps and ran down the rear shock mount. I added about a teaspoon of fluid to each chamber and installed new caps. Job done!
From Michael’s I took a ride up Geiger Grade Road. This is a two-lane mountain road that twists and turns and climbs over Geiger Summit at 6,700 feet above sea level. Once over the summit, it’s a short ride to Virginia City. Virginia City sprang up in 1859 after the discovery of the Comstock Lode, the first major silver deposit discovered in the US. It’s estimated that as many as 25,000 people lived in Virginia City in the 1870s. Today Virginia City is the county seat of Storey County and about 850 people live there. Storey County has a population of about 4,000. Virginia City is another old mining town tourist trap today.
I took a walk along the wooden sidewalks and looked around. One of Virginia City’s claims to fame is it’s where Samuel Clemens – who was a local reporter for the Territorial Enterprise newspaper – first used the pen name Mark Twain.
Virginia City Mercantile
Wooden sidewalks
Bucket of Blood Saloon
Most of the historic buildings in town date back to 1876. The original town was destroyed by fire in 1875. Many of the buildings are saloons.
Click to enlarge and read the window signs
The Red Dog Saloon had interesting signs on a few windows – one third-story window says “Law Offices – Acquittals in Most Cases.” Another says “Bath House $1 with attendant.”
I didn’t stay long and didn’t go inside the saloons. If Donna were along we probably would’ve poked around in some of the shops, but she won’t be back from her trip to visit family in New York until Friday.
The ride back down Geiger Grade had spectacular views. I pulled off at a turn-out and snapped a couple of photos.
Snow covered mountains across the valley to the west
Reno/Sparks to the north
Tuesday morning I rode the Spyder to the Neil Road Recreation Center to play pickleball. To get there I went out McCarran Boulevard. McCarran Boulevard is a loop circling Reno and Sparks. Some of the cross streets intersect it twice. This can make directions a bit confusing. When I left the Sparks Marina RV Park, I went north on McCarran. I saw a couple of cross streets I recognized, but several miles later I realized I went the wrong way.
I turned around and followed the loop south, then west. I passed the intersection of Rock Road, then saw it again a few miles later. That’s when it dawned on me how I got turned around. I eventually found the recreation center in a seedy part of town on the west side of Reno-Tahoe airport. I played for a couple of hours on the indoor courts and had fun. The level of play wasn’t as high as Towerpoint in Mesa, Arizona, but there were some fairly good players.
The Spyder has been acting up lately. Once it’s fully warmed up to operating temperature, it develops a misfire at idle. Initial acceleration is rough until the engine gets to 2,500 – 3,000 rpm, then it smooths out. I haven’t seen a check engine light or any indication of a fault code. I thought maybe it was a tank of bad gasoline. But, I’ve burned through a couple of tanks of gas and the problem is still there.
Today I’ll pull the body work off of it and have a look. I’m thinking there’s a vacuum leak in the intake system somewhere. Hopefully I can find it and fix it.
The weather has been really nice – Monday and Tuesday we had high temperatures around 70 degrees. Today may be a couple of degrees warmer but still very comfortable. I’ll head over to the recreation center this afternoon for pickleball.