Topic: 22 Rides in 2022 - Frank's legacy rides on!

[budman]

Nice pictures!   We got longhorns in Virginia.  I will take a picture next time I see them.

Please do.  Cattle is big business around here.  They're everywhere.  Even right outside my backdoor, but you don't see Longhorns very often.  I saw some back on Ride #25.  I posted a couple of pics.

[budman]

Ride #28 - 114 miles

I didn't plan on riding today, but the sun came out and the temp got up to 73F.  I looked at the forecast and there didn't seem to be better weather on the horizon so I figured I better get a ride in while the gettin' was good.

I think I covered one new road on this ride.  I wasn't in a rush, but I had a few things I wanted to get done this afternoon so I didn't stop for any pics.  I took the pic of the bike in front of the shop when I got home.  My landlord's sheep were hanging out close by when I got back, so I figured I would throw them in too.  They are Dall sheep.  The story he told me was that he flew his plane up to Alaska, roped a few in the wild and flew them back to Texas to start a flock about 30 years ago.  These are several generations from the originals he brought back.  The Rams have large horns.  They fight a lot.  They crack heads.  I can tell when they are near the house by the sound.  It's like watching gladiators or a demolition derby.  It's pretty funny when one of them gets knocked on his a$$.

It's supposed to be cold next week and I'll be out of town for a few days the following week, but I'm still hopeful I'll get to 30 rides.

[Terry in Australia]

I'm back! OK, so I was away interstate doing the Army Reserve thing for a week from the 28 Nov- 2 Dec, and was happy that last Saturday was a beautiful summers day. Unfortunately I managed to badly burn my left leg on the hot exhaust of my son's Royal Enfield 650 (pictures in the "Pissed Off" thread) and so decided to put off ride #35. Today (my first day of Christmas holidays, woohoo!) I woke up and removed the dressing before jumping into the shower and was very happy with it's progress (and very happy in general, I'm not going back to work until the 16th of January) and decided that a ride was in order.

Now I've been riding the CB750's and Triumph a lot, but my poor old Harley Sportster has been parked for way too long. I'd put a battery in it that I salvaged from my mate Davey's Police Special last year that wasn't good enough for that "Big Twin" shovel engine, but worked fine on my (much easier starting) 1200 Evo. I wondered how it was holding it's charge since I installed it 6(?) months ago, but it was fine, and as usual, fired up right away, it's always been my most reliable bike. I jumped on and as usual turned from Dr Jekyll to Mister Hyde, this really is a hooligan bike and I can't help my bad behaviour whenever I ride it. Street light drags, lane splitting, speeding (something I need to tone down, I'm expecting 2 speeding fines from a drive in my ute that went badly wrong when I missed two "variable speed limit" signs, doing quite a bit over the temporary limit, bugger it) and generally acting like a 22 year old, not a 62 year old. Oh well, it was fun regardless.

I stopped in a little town where these Christmas decorations were everywhere, and had to take a pic. After I did I looked at some of the signage and decided that as weird as it was, using dolls heads to decorate the figures was kind of creepy. Oh, well, it's but once a year.....

Sportster Saturday 10 December 2022 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I'd filled the bike up (5 litres) at the gas station near the storage unit, then after 55 miles filled up again (4.47 litres, not bad considering that I was hooning and saw "The Ton" on a couple of downhill spurts) then rode onto Broadford, where I stopped at my newest favourite bakery for a pie and a jelly slice. I ate it all, then felt like sh1t for a few hours after, that was way too much food for me. Was nice though.

Sportster Saturday 10 December 2022 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I waddled back out to the bike, fired it up, and rode like a maniac for the 40 miles home. Once again I swerved around a brown snake crossing the road, we had a pretty wet winter, and I reckon we'll have a bumper crop of snakes this year. He (or she) was a big one, at least 4 feet long, and I really had to swerve around it because it covered at least half the lane. I need to mow my backyard and clean it up, we have a creek behind our place and I don't want any snakes taking up residence in my back yard. A guy in Western Australia was asking me about some 1973 Kawasaki Z1 engine cases that I want to sell, so I went out to the garage and took some pics for him. I managed to find a set of Z1-B cases so don't need them, plus the 1973 cases are worth quite a few beans here, which will buy me more toys.

As I was walking out of the garage I noticed my old Suzuki T500, which I'd pretty much forgotten about when I started on my Kawasaki Z1-B project. I wondered if it had any charge left in the battery, so turned the key and the neutral light came on. OK, I turned the fuel to "Prime", put the choke on, and it started on the fourth kick! I really must take it for a ride.

     

 

[RAFster122s]

Stay away from the bitey ends of those brown snakes and other snakes…
Why do you have the aversion to running over a snake? Seen a few snake take lunges at bikers as they passed, they must have been ticked off already…

[Alan F.]

Welcome back Terry, nice to see you out riding again. Heal fast buddy.

[Kevin D]

Terry, the brown snakes are the poisonous ones, aren’t they?
Have fun on that Sporty!

Budman, I encountered a Bighorn sheep on the hiking trail in Montana. The wife is up ahead 50 feet and she says to me, Kev do you see the Bighorn? So I’m looking across the valley, a mile away, for the Bighorn. Looking looking looking no Bighorn. Then I catch some motion on the left out of the corner of my eye. He walks out from behind the bush, in front of me 10 feet away and now I’m frozen…. I don’t know a freakin’ thing about Bighorn disposition but there is a reason they are called BIGhorn and with one or two angry steps he could send me flying across the continental divide. It didn’t turn out that way with me flying across the divide, the Bighorn sauntered on his way undisturbed, phew. I suppose the Dall’s are the cranky ones.

[ekpent]

Just a fun bit of trivia for Terry and others. The Sportster is the oldest model of motorcycle still in production. Born in 1957 the Sportster celebrates its 66 birthday in 2023. As the magazine article stated in 2022 it finally qualified for full Social Security and Medicare benefits !!    Congrats Sportster.

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Eric, and the good thing with Sporties (well, up to the latest all new inference) is you can compare them to the original Iron Head Sporty and see that they're all just basically an evolution of the original design. Out in my garage I also have a 1973 Sporty that hasn't fired a shot since I bought it (I need to replace the crank, I've bought one, I just haven't gotten around to installing it yet) it's the first model with a disc brake, but still has the brake pedal on the left and the shifter on the right hand side. They really are lovely bikes to ride.

Terry's XLH1000 14 Oct 2019 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[ekpent]

They passed a federal mandate/ law here in 1975 that Harley had to put the shifter on the left side.

[70CB750]

#20   I went to get a bag of coal for my forge.  It took me a while to find my way to Culpeper and back 

[ofreen]

Just a fun bit of trivia for Terry and others. The Sportster is the oldest model of motorcycle still in production. Born in 1957 the Sportster celebrates its 66 birthday in 2023. As the magazine article stated in 2022 it finally qualified for full Social Security and Medicare benefits !!    Congrats Sportster.

Too bad the XL is going the way of the dodo bird.

[budman]

Terry, the brown snakes are the poisonous ones, aren’t they?
Have fun on that Sporty!

Budman, I encountered a Bighorn sheep on the hiking trail in Montana. The wife is up ahead 50 feet and she says to me, Kev do you see the Bighorn? So I’m looking across the valley, a mile away, for the Bighorn. Looking looking looking no Bighorn. Then I catch some motion on the left out of the corner of my eye. He walks out from behind the bush, in front of me 10 feet away and now I’m frozen…. I don’t know a freakin’ thing about Bighorn disposition but there is a reason they are called BIGhorn and with one or two angry steps he could send me flying across the continental divide. It didn’t turn out that way with me flying across the divide, the Bighorn sauntered on his way undisturbed, phew. I suppose the Dall’s are the cranky ones.

I don’t know anything about them either.  The Dalls are scared of me.  If I move slow I can only get about 25 feet from them.

They were up by the house this morning.  I was watching them.  They’re pretty entertaining.  The Rams have a fascination with my shop building.  They bang on it with their horns.  They were all hanging around in a huddle waiting to piss each other off.  I ran them off and watched.  Then they started cracking heads.  I wish I could upload a video.

[scottly]

Sadly, once again, I have no real ride report, as the weather has been cold for the last month, as well as a couple of inches of snow yesterday morning. However, since there is often a mention of food, I thought I would contribute a local delight: a shredded beef and bean burrito served enchilada style with chile verde sauce, and sour cream on the side, and the obligatory bag of tortilla chips and salsa. These suckers weigh a full kilo, as pictured! My stomach isn't as small as Terry's, but I still spread one out for 3 or 4 meals.
 

[RAFster122s]

Looks tasty Scott! Good you are able to get a good meal, several, out of it...spreading the cost out a bit.

 Eating out has gotten quite expensive and trips to grocery very expensive too!

Saw an article that the usual crowd of 5 most popular national fast food chain restaurants had raised their prices about 11.9% in the past year with two outlets to that list. Burger King and Wendy's who had price increases of just 2% and 35% respectively!
It spoke of how big companies like McDonalds would negotiate advantageous pricing for their products to control their costs and have savings for themselves, yet they were in the group that averaged the 11.9% increase in prices.

How does Burger King hold their price increases to just 2%?
It was interesting or thought provoking article.

I haven't been on my bike much since the weather averages much colder in the mornings when I would often ride and since getting a new pair of tires to replace the damaged runflat tire. Didn't transition my gear to cold weather riding gear and more rain and some health stuff kept me off the bike. Moved bike around the house to do something and it started and ran fine. Went to restart it to put it away and it would not crank. The colder night temps and accidentally flat lining the battery a couple time this fall accidently leaving the park lights on when I thought it in off position in bight daylight the battery didn't like. So, I pushed the bike into the shed and locked it up and haven't pulled the battery to bring it inside to try and nurse it back to health
I need to attend to this... We had an overnight low temp of 29 last night and repeat of that is forecasted tonight. Hard freeze warning.
It is odd I have always thought that even after sunrise the temp drops to the overnight low after the sun has risen and it is full daylight.

Kind of like when you are out in nature on a cold day and wind is blowing and you stand next to a tree or your back against the tree under the false assumption the tree trunk will protect you. Physics says the wind speed around the tree actually is a bit faster...
So, if you back is against the tree it won't have convection cooling going on, but the rest of you will be exposed a little more.
A bit simplified, but overall accurate.
Wind chill only affects living things, not objects. The freezing fog this morning affected everything though...

[PeWe]

It would be fine to ride around there and stop for a Tex-Mex at a cheap and good enough place

[Terry in Australia]

That burrito looks magnificent Scott, I'd be more than happy to have that 4 four or five meals in a row. The weather since my last ride has sucked, cold and wet when it should be hot and dry, so my first week of annual leave has consisted of logging into my company laptop each morning to do 12 compulsory annual training courses, 10 of which have absolutely no bearing on my job, so were just a fcuking waste of time. In the afternoons I'd log into the defence system and earn some tax free dollars working on my Army reserve (Airforce) project. Today was just as bad but I needed to do something different so I did a little work on my truck as I'll need it for hauling some rubbish to the dump over the next few days as I clean the place up for our annual Christmas Eve BBQ.

I believe that the weather will improve over the next few days so I'm gonna use it to do the cleanup, and hopefully I'll have a few days left over to do some rides. Next Tuesday the power company is turning off the electricity all day from 9am to 3pm, I've checked the weather map and it looks good, so I'll take the opportunity to go for a ride. I doubt if I'll find anything as nice to eat along the way as that burrito, but any day out on a bike is a good day.  

[scottly]

Looks tasty Scott! Good you are able to get a good meal, several, out of it...spreading the cost out a bit.

 Eating out has gotten quite expensive and trips to grocery very expensive too!

The burrito costs $14.40 out the door. Hmm, I think I'll get one today!

[jgger]

So Terry, be careful with that dump trip. I can see an Aussie version of Alice's Restaurant on the horizon!

[Terry in Australia]

All I could remember about Alice's Restaurant was the line "You can get anything you want...." Jim, so I made the mistake of googling the lyrics. I forgot that Arlo Guthrie's "bit" was some very long, rambling stories set to music. Alice's restaurant wasn't where Alice lived or worked, Alice lived in the bell tower of a church, and Alice and her husband Ray were a bit lazy with garbage disposal so Arlo and his buddy took Alice's rubbish to the dump, but it was closed, so they threw it over a cliff, but the local police officer, Officer Obie found an envelope with Arlo's name under the garbage, so Arlo and his buddy went to court and were fined $25 and had to clean up the rubbish, but that story wasn't about Alice's rubbish, or the police officer, or court, but was about the draft, and so it went on.... I just watched Arlo singing(?) Alice's Restaurant, and rather enjoyed it, but I'm easily distracted, according to my wife, mother, and every person who ever met me.....

This morning the wife wanted to go to Costco to buy a ham, because she bought one for Christmas last year and her sister liked it. I had to go with her to pay the annual membership, because we rarely shop at Costco and by the time we decide that we need something at Costco another year has passed, and it's time to pay the membership fee again. Anyway, the membership fee was $60, the ham was probably $20, but somehow the trip cost me $540. Ooops.... Oh well, the litre of Canadian Club whisky (whiskey?) I bought for only $54.99 is doing a good job of keeping me calm.....

We got home and put everything away and the wife asked me if I was going for a ride, and I thought, "Why not?" so jumped in my little Subaru and headed over to the self storage place. I haven't ridden the Triumph for awhile, so to ensure the battery doesn't die over the summer months, I hopped on it and did my usual pie run.

Rocket iii Saturday 17 Dec 2022 2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

The last time I was there I ate too much and felt sick for the next couple of hours, so today I just had a pie, but bought a couple of huge "YoYo" cookies to take home, one of which I demolished for dinner.

Rocket iii Saturday 17 Dec 2022 4 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Anyway, #36 is done, it was a great day, really nice to ride in warm, sunny weather, just for a change.

Rocket iii Saturday 17 Dec 2022 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr 

[budman]

Warm, sunny weather…I miss that.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to hit 30 rides this year.  I have to run out of town for a few days.  When I get back next week the temp is supposed to dip to 13F.  Hoping it warms up the day after Christmas.

[Alan F.]

Stockbridge, MA is only 154 miles from me. I might have to ride out there sometime.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/alices-restaurant

[jgger]

Well, there ya go Allen. That could be one of your 23 rides next year, if we are still honoring Frank.

[PeWe]

I look forward to 23 rides next year if that will be the goal.

I'm sure Terry will continue with his good initiative with a thread for Frank that started a ride thread for CB SOHC and min 100miles.

Terry's thread for all bikes and less miles.
A 50 miles ride can be a really good ride and easier to make, with or without joints issues and time.
I think many of us get hip joints issues before 60.

[70CB750]

#21 - Black Jack 

107 miles. I took some pictures of long horn cows in Virginia but I might need to get back there with better camera.

[70CB750]

#22  101 miles.  I went back to Hume to take pictures of those longhorns.  Yesterday they were too far in the field and my phone pictures sucked.  So I took a big camera today but longhorns were not in that field anymore.  Luckily I found these two boys and they were happy to pose for me. 

It was some ride today, 39F.  When I got home I was not too sure I still have toes - and I hit the bottle of rum right away.

Happy to report - all my toes are still attached and working as expected.