Bogieblog

Rolling and Welding

We dropped off WS's truck for some work before he left (see next post). The guy who does his work built a house not too long ago. He did a lot of the work himself and told WS that he should stop by and see the deck railing that he built. So, since the guy lives just behind his shop, we did.

Obviously, he did a great job. To make it even more amazing, he did all the rolling of the steel by a hand roller. His whole deck, which is so large that it has a hot tub on it, has the rolled design around it (the bike design is just in the one spot). He paid so much attention to detail that he painted the areas that would be the tail light and side reflectors red.

Every time I look at the pictures, I see new detail; I just noticed the "flame" pattern in the tank area. WS and I were duly impressed. The mechanic was really happy with WS's opinion as he highly values the opinion of an experience welder and fabricator.

Jeezem it's pretty bad when even mechanics have more creative expresion than I do!

Rolling in Different Directions

The Wonderful Spouse left early Wednesday morning. He and several other guys are riding down to Washington DC for Memorial weekend. they should have gotten to their motel, located about 1 hour outside DC, late Wednesday night. Then it is exploring the many areas of interest in the area (battlefields, homesteads of early presidents, etc).

Their trip is part of the Rolling Thunder tribute.

This is the fourth time WS has participated, some of the other guys go every year (some are Veterans). I went several years ago (I drove).

I am going for a short trip of my own. Friday morning (tomorrow) I will ride thru Vermont, to Fort Ann, New York. Then off to Lake George (also in NY), then back to Rutland, VT, where I will spend the night. Saturday is up in the air; I will do some riding in VT, then come back to NH via Quechee Gorge, then a meandering trip back home before nightfall.

I'll only put on 300-400 miles, but it will take quite some time. All roads are windy surface roads, along the mountains, that have a speed limit of 30-45 MPH. All but the first 35 miles (up to Keene) will be totally new territory for me as the operator of my own bike. Only another 30 miles or so is road that I've been on in any manner. Should be interesting and have plenty of spectacular views.

I'm hoping WS is enjoying his sorely needed vacation, I know I'll enjoy my mini-vacation!

Biker Wave

On the bike forums that I have frequented (Suzuki, HD, New Biker etc), a topic that comes up on a regular basis is the Biker Wave. Some people complain that others don't wave when they wave to them. Some complain that HD riders don't wave to other bikes. HD riders complain that metric bikers don'e wave to them - or that they do wave. Some complain that those that are 1%'ers don't wave, or claim that you shouldn't wave to 1%'ers if you know what's good for you. Then there is the whole, a lot of men don't wave to women riders. And, the women passengers are just too stuck up to wave to the riders.

In other words, a whole lot of complaining about something that really isn't important. If I see you on a bike or trike or scooter, I wave - if it is safe to do so and I'm not shifting or otherwise distracted. If someone waves back to me, great. If they bob their head, that works too. But if they don't wave, it doesn't ruin my day, and I really don't care. I don't wave to get waves back (this is not a contest where the winner is the one who gets the most waves), but to acknowledge the other rider.

on guy on the HD forum, has solved the issue of whether to wave or not, even if he is busy shifting gears:

Horse Power

Guess this gives a whole new meaning when someone asks how much horsepower his bike has!

 

 

Don't know where this originated from, but someone posted it to the HDForum.

Heat Warning

Although not as serious, this is life threatening for some; the temps on Monday are supposed to be in the high 80's or low 90's. Why is this life threatening? The Boston Marathon is Monday and for people around here, the temps are way higher than what they have been training in. First time runners may be too inexperienced to take heat exhaustion and heat stroke signs seriously, and those that have had recent health issues (colds, stomach virus etc.) may be weakend enough that running in the heat will stress them too much.

The heat is such a concern that not only have course officials decided to keep the race open an extra hour, they have offered deferment to those that believe they should sit this one out. Deferment will allow those people to run next year's marathon without having to qualify (or at least that is my interpretation).

"For many people, running the Boston Marathon is a once-in-a-lifetime experience," B.A.A. executive director Tom Grilk said on Saturday. "We don't want people to feel they have to run, because perhaps it's not the wisest decision under these conditions."

Monday will be the first day I will get to ride to work. The morning will be in the 50's (morning's have been in the 20's up till now). It may be raining early, but that's why I have gear. Definitely don't want to miss the warm riding for the afternoon!

Recent Doings

Friday when I got home from work, Harry was there. What a nice surprise! He and Heather moved to Indiana several years ago, and we get to see them only rarely (when they get up here). He had come to see his girls, so figured he would drop in. We took him to dinner and had a great time catching up. We are hoping to go see them sometime this summer.

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I spent most of yesterday helping WS at work. He had a job he had to go to in MA in which he needed a safety watch. I got volunteered. Got a little reading done, but not much else for the day.

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WS has spent most of the last several weekends working on BIL's bike to get it ready for sale. He is finally done after putting in massive time cleaning, buffing, polishing and affecting minor repairs (new battery etc.). He just came in 10 minutes ago saying he was done for good. Soon we will be selling it, but I wanted to share a few photos first.

Glad he has a wood stove in the shed - it has snowed most of today (lightly and it all blew into the woods), so he was able to keep his hands warm enough while working with the polishes.

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We haven't had very good weather; I still haven't ridden the bike because of the cold, windy weather. Next week the mornings are supposed to be in the 20's, and we are expecting rain every day, so no riding then either. Hopefully we get a decent rain out of it - we really need it.

Trigger Finger

We just finished up a pretty much record breaking week in NH. Most days, the high temp records were broken, if not shattered. Great riding weather, Mondya thru Thursday, by anyone's definition (Friday it only got to about 70, so a bit cool for the shorts riding type).

Us, our bikes are still in storage. We are supposed to pick up mine today. Great - it will be 50, and possibly rainy. Then, next week will see lows in the 20's (19 for one morning) and highs in the 40's - not riding weather. However, that doesn't really matter - I wouldn't get to ride even if the temps were the same as this week. In fact, I most likely won't ride my bike home today - WS will be doing the honors.

I've been fighting a case of Trigger Finger, in my left hand middle finger since early January. It not only hurts, it has severely limited my range of motion, made it impossible for me to totally straighten OR bend my finger, and sometimes the pain keeps me up at night (expecially when it "locks" and I have to use the other hand to get the finger to open up). It finally got so bad that I went to see the doc on Tuesday, and saw a hand orthopedic yesterday. Got a shot of cortisone at the orhopedic's, which is usuually a successful treatment (and a shot, in the palm of the hand, is NOT, unpainful - and no, they didn't give a topical numbing agent).

Unfortunately, the shot hasn't seemed to make any differenced, except when my fingers were numb, and I couldn't move them at all yesterday afternoon. Unless it kicks in at some later date, I will be looking at surgery.

My whole left hand is shot, from the elbow on down. Maybe they can just give me a bionic arm and I'll be all set

Short Takes For March

After a record warm day, I put out the hummingbird feeder. While watching the news, they had a picture of a ruby-throated hummingbird at a feederin NH, so I decided that I better put mine out. I have never put it out this early; usually toward the end of April.

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Spent the day repotting house plants. Will have pictures next week.

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Had 3 evenings last week that we didn't start the woodstove. Also, didn't start it until evening last night, and may not start it tonight.

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Attended the town meeting yesterday from 9 AM until 2:30 PM. We approved a new ambulance, and the submitted town budget (after adding 1k for maintenence for the police cruiser to cover issues that arose a couple of weeks ago). The selectmen did a great job keeping the budget fairly flat, so we didn't find much to complain about. We did have a long debate on a couple of items added by petition; one of which passed, and one that didn't. All in all, a typical town meeting for Deering.

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It will be really nice this coming week, temperature wise. Unfortunately it is so muddy that there is no sense in us getting the bikes out of storage. Just have to wait it out for a while more.

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WS did bring BILs bike down from the storage unit out back. He thought the tire was flat the mud bogged it down so much. But, everything was fine, so he spent the afternoon washing it and starting cleaning up the rims. Once it is all cleaned up, we will be putting it up for sale.

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The laptop has suddenly (as of this typing) started having trouble with the space bar. So will close out this post, shut down and see if I can clean it out.

Hope everyone had as nice a weekend as we did!

Winter Riding

This looks like what Jimmy someone we know would do:

Thanks to whomever posted this to HDForums.

Party Time

We went and visited the bikes yesterday. You may, or may not, recall that we store our bikes at the dealers so that they are in climate controlled location where they can do the maintenance and keep the batteries charged. Where we store them (Heritage Harley Davidson - just to give them a plug) has a winter storage party for those who, you guessed it, store their bikes there. Each person who stores a bike gets an invitation to the party, and can bring another person with them. Previously, I have gone with WS, as his guest. This year, we each got to take a guest; I took SIL and WS took Kenny.

The Winter Storage Party is always fun. One of the activities they have is an indoor poker run. The premis is to visit 5 areas of the store, draw a card and whoever has the best poker hand at the end of the day wins a prize. I was doing well, with 4 clubs (2, 3, 5 and Jack - where the heck did the jack come from?). Then my luck ran out as I drew the 4 of spades. WS got a pair and SIL got two pair. The winner at the end of the day got 4 kings with an Ace high. Lucky guy.

They have a chili cookoff too. Employees bring in crockpots of their best chili, the WSP goers sample them and vote on their favorite. In addition to chili, there are cheese and meat platters as well as vegetable platters. Salsa anc tortilla chips are availabel too. Along with good food, each invitee and guest gets two tickets for drinks (beer or wine). There is also water and soada available.

Every year they run some sort of presentation or demo. This year they held two seminars on Screaming Eagle performance parts. We attended the second seminar which consisted of a slide show narrated by the Service Manager and his best dynotune tech, along with special presenter; Screaming Eagle President (or Vice President, I am unsure which). They also had displays set up with techs ready to answer questions. for those that done't know, Screaming Eagle performance parts are what are developed and used on the HD race team bikes (NHRA, AHRA etc). Some of the parts are street legal, others aren't. By attending this presentation, not only did you get to learn some cool stuff while gathering knowledge that may help on deciding on upgrades for bikes, but also each participant was given a ticket for a special raffle drawing at the end of the day. They were giving away three items: Stage 1 high flow air cleaner, Super Tuner, and big bore heads.

At the end of the day are the raffle drawings (each attendee and guest got a ticket for the general raffle when signing in), prize giveaway to the poker run winner, and announcement of the chili cook off winner. Kenny won a t-shirt from the general raffled. During the Screaming Eagle seminar drawing, WS won the air cleaner, which is worth about 1/2 the cost of storing his bike, so he made out pretty well.

I meant to take pictures of the bikes (as I did last year), but forgot. Suffice it to say, it looked like they were in good company and were getting treated well.

It was good to get out and relax, meet new people, talk to techs, eat food and win prizes. This morning WS had to get up and go out to one of his jobs to try to correct some issues. He won't be having any fun, it was 2 degrees when he left an hour ago, the wind is not quiet and the temps are supposed to only get up into the teens (yes, he will be working outdoors). He is bundled up, but still, it won't be fun. I'm glad he got a chance to de-stress yesterday before having to go out today!