Friday, January 15, 2010

New Riders, Old Bikes and Nagging Voices

First:  Shouting a "HI" out to DeeDee and Michelle!  Two wonderful ladies that spontaneously joined our motorcycle group outing the other night.  "Good Luck" and "Congratulations" to DeeDee who will be retiring soon.  I know you have so many fun and exciting ideas to fill your time, but I still think the motorcycle is realistic.  And such a great way to fulfull your idea of seeing the country....  Let me know...  ;-)


Here is a trike by Honda that would fit the bill and reduce your concern for keeping the bike upright.

There is also the Can Am Spyder.  I hear it is fun to ride, but be careful in the turns.  It doesn't lean...


And then, the wonderful little Vespa three wheeler...

Think about it, DeeDee.  Could be so much fun!!









Second:  The warm temps finally broke in.  For a couple days at least.  The thermometer was measuring 26F at 8:30, but was supposed to reach 61F by 2 PM.  Mr. Oilburner and I both had the day off and were expecting to take advantage and go for an extremely long ride.  Too bad the dentist had other plans.  A noon departure time, bike cleaning and transport didn't exactly scream long ride anymore.

Yes, I did mention bike cleaning.  Why?  Because Mr. Oilburner still hasn't taken his Sportster down to the dealer to get it on the showroom floor and that much closer to being sold and out of our hands.  If it were just a matter of washing and shining the thing up it wouldn't have been too difficult to have done last month.

Yes, the ice has been a little cumbersome.  But not a deal breaker.  Yes, the dealer being closed on Sunday and Monday isn't easy.  That leaves only Saturday to schlep it down there.  Because we all know that we can't get organized enough to get home early and transfer it before closing on the week nights.

The deal breaker so far has been the tires on the Sportster.  Just to emphasize how impromptu the purchase of the RT was Mr. Oilburner had just installed brand new upgraded sticky tires on the bike.  He hadn't even ridden the bike, beyond just around the block after install to make sure all the nuts and bolts were tight.  These spectacular new tires didn't even have 2 miles on them.  While there is plenty of discussion on new tires, are they slick or not, we have read enough and experienced enough to know that you need to be soft and gentle on new tires for 100 or so miles.  There have been too many stories from owners that drop their bikes right outside of the tire shop.  So we really wanted to scrub the tires in a little before taking it to the dealer.  We didn't want there to be any possibility that of tires causing a problem in a test ride.

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  It was a pretty day, Mr Oilburner cleaned the Sportster and we hit the road to finally scrub the tires in. The bike wasn't the problem.  The tires weren't the problem.  It was fitting our holiday happy butts into our cold weather gear that was the problem!  Wow.  I would say it was a stretch getting that zipper up.  But it really wasn't since the material doesn't stretch.  It sure wasn't a pretty sight no matter what.

So back to the wogging trail for me (wogging = walking + jogging, because some geriatric people are walking faster then I can jog... ;-) ), the tires are scrubbed in and the bike will be off to the dealer tomorrow and the rain and cold temps will be moving back in for a couple days.



Third: The annoying little voice in the back of my head has been nagging me that I still haven't finished my Savannah ride report for you.  I have been able to stifle that little thing by shoving chocolate or carbs at it.  Hence the zipper issue.  But now that little voice has moved externally when a friend from 8,000 miles away looks me in the eye and asks how come I haven't finished it and he wants to see pictures!  So I will make a promise to you now that I will get that last day finished up.  But trust me, you will be disappointed. The only excitement came from encountering the lovely inbred southerners manning the park office, the 4 AM "I slept too much this afternoon and now I can't get to sleep" tromp around the campground and the beeline back to Atlanta through very cold temps and rain.  And I took very few pictures...  But you will get an earful of what goes through my head in the excitement of some very long hours in the saddle on major freeways.  :-)

2 comments:

  1. Oooh, that vespa looks awesome!

    Love hearing someone living down there comment on inbred southerners. :)

    My captcha for this comment is rante. Somehow appropriate to the end of the post. :)

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  2. Yes, the vespa is so cool!! You can actually lock the front wheels together so they don't lever. Best when used on straightaways. But also means you can stop at a light and not have to put your feet down. Talked with a guy that had one and he absolutely loved it.

    As for inbreeding, I may be in the south but am not of the south. So I will be ostracized for even mentioning it. But the story is pretty good. Hope I can capture it well enough when I try to write it. But I do have a friend from the back hollers and she definitely speaks of it. ;-)

    OK...showing my own ignorance...please define rante?

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