12.31.2011

Happy Holidays Edition 2011

So, once again time has flown.  Honestly, this entire year has been on speed. It seems like just a couple of weeks ago that I was out in Utah and that was actually a year and two months ago!  Some of the days have seemed eternally long, but the months flew past this year like one of those old cartoons where the wind blows the pages of the calendar away in quick succession and you can see the seasons rapidly changing out the window next to it.  So, what can you do?  My best answer is to hang on tight and try to enjoy the ride- even with the rain, snow, winds, pot-holed gravel roads, and crazy drivers that don’t even notice you’re on the road with them.

12.27.2011

A Cold Winter’s Ride

Choose your todays carefully.
Now, I’m sure that I wouldn’t be considered very “hardcore” by anyone’s standards.  I don’t like to ride in the rain or the snow if I can help it.  Super heat, high winds, and sore bottoms are also never the funnest part of a ride….but sometimes the need to go for a ride outweighs the negatives.  Sometimes you just need to say- today is a good day, because I get to go for a ride.

The fall, Michigan ride my dad and I took, really was a freak of nature this year and the last good weekend of the year.  It was a golden citadel of perfectness laid before us and I’m glad we couldn’t resist its siren call.  Nice riding opportunities have been scarce since that perfect weekend- we’ve had rain, bits of snow, and seriously depressed temperatures (though not as cold as many of you must face yearly), basically an almost complete lack of nice riding opportunities.  I have sneaked a few chilly rides into work and a brazen, cold, wet, late run to fill my tank up for winter.  Winter is so depressing when you have to wait around to ride.

10.19.2011

Locking Lips for Life

The Kiss of Life.
I came home from class last night and my lips were swollen and they hurt a bit.  Checking the mirror I noticed that indeed my lips were swollen and I had the added bonus of bruising.  Great, that’s going to look good for the next few days.  More bruising had shown up this morning and I contemplated the reality that this was the best lip action I’d had in a very long time.  Feeling a bit pathetic and distraught I thought-- Bummer.  That’s a real shame.  Then my reality chip kicked in and I remembered why my lips were actually worked out in the first place. 

10.17.2011

Today’s Office

Today's Office: 2000 Honda Valykrie 41,000+ colorful travel miles
(aka The Perfect Late Fall Ride)

So what happens when the planets align, your job gives you time, and the weather cooperates to its fullest?  Well, you get the perfect motorcycle weekend.  It doesn’t happen all the time and on every trip there are things that don’t quite seem to work out, and that’s normal, you just roll with it.  But when it’s perfect, it’s sublime.  Actually I was trying all weekend to come up with the right word- fantastic, great, gorgeous, and perfect were just not good enough.  The best I could do was “glorious”.  It was a glorious weekend.  I could almost hear the Heavenly choirs singing a Halleluiah chorus.

9.21.2011

When Life Pulls an End Run Around You…

Ah, Wyoming...and now I have long hair
I cannot believe it is already nearing the end of September.  First off, no, I haven’t died and no there has been no terrible accident in my recent past.  This year has just been rather un-motorcycle travel worthy for me. 



So, excuses/explanations first-
Winter just wouldn’t leave.  We were still getting snow here and had sub-freezing temperatures and ice until the end of May this year.  Within a couple of days of Hell having been frozen over (yes, there is a Hell, Michigan, and yes, it does freeze over – often) it suddenly jumped into the mid+ 90’s (F).  How crazy is that?  The really big down side is, 2 weeks into August, the temperatures suddenly dropped into the fall temp zone- 60s-ish (F).  Now it is mid September and I’ve had to watch out for some ice a couple of mornings and wear liners in things (gloves, jackets, pants), just to go 6 miles to work.  I fear that winter is trying to round the corner early and smack us in the face.

4.19.2011

Spring Brings out the New Bikes, Even if it hasn’t Sprung yet

My brother just purchased a new bike a month ago, a Kawasaki Vulcan Vaquero. His weather hasn’t been much better than ours (actually they got a lot more snow than we did this year). He sent me a link to this promo-video for his bike. I liked the promo a lot. I was happy to see a company actually marketing- well, properly. Instead of some awesome, slick stunt dude power sliding their new dresser touring bike on a street in So-Cal, with bikini-clad babe cheering them on for their manliness, they actually took the bikes out touring and filmed it. What a unique concept. The video was enjoyable, especially as I looked longingly at the garage where my bike is housed, through a haze of blowing snow.

Of course both of my brothers were as anxious to go out riding there, as we were here and they got a cold, quick break and took it. Hopefully we’ll all be riding warm soon.

How do you handle non-riding weather? Spikes? Fortitude? Re-watching your On Any Sunday tape for the hundredth time?

It's been a while, maybe this year, after everything has warmed up a bit, I'll be able to take a ride with them.

You can share and show us your ride if you would like. If you send a picture, make sure to include your name, location, and type of bike to chaco _ kid @ hotmail . com (minus the spaces of course- nobody like spam).


4.18.2011

Is it Spring or Isn’t it?

It’s been a wild and wacky weather month or so. A little worse than normal: sub-zero one day, 50 the next; 30’s one day, 80’s the next; then right back down to snow, sleet and ice for the umpteenth time. Michigan has always been a bit contrary, but this is ridiculous. Everyone is sick, because we can’t seem to adapt as quickly as the local weather.

On the upside I have been out twice over the last six weeks. A 60 degree ride around the lake (which had to hold me over for almost another month while we got more snow, ice, and rain, and then last weekend, a week ago. It went from cold and rainy, to 83 on Sunday. We obviously had to go out. We would have chomped at any bit we could get a hold of. Bonus points because my nieces were in from out of town and I got to take one of them out for their first ever motorcycle ride. It was really fun. Of course then it got wet and cold again. I even had to scrape snow off of my car this morning. (Yes, picture a very sad face, not unlike my puppy when I leave to go to work.)


There have been signs of spring. Signals that winter is being politely requested to smeg off, just not fast enough. They have been holding the rider’s certification classes over at the local community college. I’ve been in that class, when it was mid-march and 30-40 degrees out. This class had it made a few weeks ago. They couldn’t have had a better weekend. However, a similar class this weekend, though devoted and in rain gear, not quite so much.

The buds are trying to burst, the motorcycle is trying to escape the garage, and I am trying to find a weekend trip in my near future, so that I can enjoy spring and relish in sunny, floral embrace.

To those of you suffering needlessly like us- I feel your pain.

To you rotten buggers in those better areas of the country that have been riding in sunny 70-80 degree weather for the last couple of months- well we salute you as brethren, with the flying finger. (Yes we still love you- really- it will pass.)

3.07.2011

Time Flies When you Hibernate

This is my desk at work.  My dad just gave me this picture of me on my first big street bike, which I loved (I’d always ridden dirt before).  My Yamaha Virago 1000 in burgundy and sparkling orange cocktail, my dad and brother, Ken, had matching bikes (only theirs were in pearled cream with dark green).  Those were the days when we started going cross-country together, on our own bikes with dad, rather than switching off trips on the back of the bike with him.  I’ve been back and forth out west and up and down the east on that bike, and then I got my Valkyrie and found out in many ways that bigger is better.  My dad ran off a copy of the picture and framed it for me “for work”.  I don’t know if he was trying to remind how long it had been since I’d last had a ride or if he was trying to remind how long it had been since I’d last blogged about it.  Either way - point taken.