Topic: 24 Rides in 2024, Frank's New Years resolution that we can all enjoy.

[willbird]

Sunday May 12 number 12............
164 miles

Since I got my bike working after a 20 year nap I have been making bigger and bigger rectangles with home somewhere inside them :-). Sunday my rough rectangle was the outsides of many small rectangles I have ridden so far :-).





Been past this a lot, until Sunday I had not stopped to read the sign posted there, had no idea what encouraged somebody to create the setup.

[budman]

That looks terrific Bud.
Thank you for your efforts and sharing your skills.
There are 16 participating now since Jake C, CBJoe, and Andy 750 joined.
I will keep a close eye on the mailbox.
Lash, that should matchup with your GoldWing pretty well.

My pleasure.  They are all boxed up.  Tomorrow looks like it will be a great day for a ride to the Post Office and beyond.

[Kevin D]

Sunday May 12 number 12............
164 miles

Since I got my bike working after a 20 year nap I have been making bigger and bigger rectangles with home somewhere inside them :-). Sunday my rough rectangle was the outsides of many small rectangles I have ridden so far :-).

Very nice willbird. You are doing very much like I did 20+ years past when I brought my CB from a 20 year park. After I finished circling, I started going for the ends of roads and a typical ride today takes me on several of these: Hines drive, Seven Mile rd, Strawberry Lake rd, North Territorial.
 On my CB I have only been once to Adrian, and not beyond. A long ride gets me to Napoleon to watch the skydivers and ride on Sharon Valley and Pleasant Lake. Maybe our paths will cross one of these days. I have learned that the CB is not the limiting factor for my rides.

[jgger]

Interesting find Willbird, pretty cool what you can see when the destination isn't the only reason to ride. Thanks for sharing the pictures, too. I love it.

Jim

[newday777]

Stu/ PeWe……. That bikes is in my garage! Sean made it here yesterday and when I pulled out a world map and he traced out his travels, I was totally stunned…. His travel distances and stories easily rival anything else I’ve read or heard! So glad we’ve met! Pissing down rain today, so we may have a “shop day”. More pics later.

Good to hear that Sean made it to your place John

[PeWe]

Stu/ PeWe……. That bikes is in my garage! Sean made it here yesterday and when I pulled out a world map and he traced out his travels, I was totally stunned…. His travel distances and stories easily rival anything else I’ve read or heard! So glad we’ve met! Pissing down rain today, so we may have a “shop day”. More pics later.

He is flying with that bike!
He got the engine to work well!

I think he restored it last winter or year.
Cylinder, pistons and head job if I remember correctly.
Say hello from me, Per.

[PeWe]

#8  195 km
Really warm sunshine today. Hotter rays than normal!

So good to be protected by thick leathers, full face helmet with sun visor, leather gloves and boots!

Only one photo today. I had planned to shoot one fantastic view I missed yesterday due to traffic behind me.

I was prepared today, quickly stop and  shoot.
A very big and dark cloud stopped that plan

Otherwise the usual route in the countryside with refueling.

I watched the voltmeter most of the time to validate my last regulator adjustments. Worked fine, 14.5V just  before 4000 rpm.

I know that I cannot increase it to 14.7V as I tried for an AGM battery.

It can suddenly go wild to +16V as it did last year. I reduced a little bit too much after that.

With a voltmeter connected while roding it is clear that the regulator is not that exact and will change up and down.


Photo where nice flowers will be seen next month. Lupines in various colors.

[newday777]

Per
Are the white barked trees birch?

[willbird]

Sunday May 12 number 12............
164 miles

Since I got my bike working after a 20 year nap I have been making bigger and bigger rectangles with home somewhere inside them :-). Sunday my rough rectangle was the outsides of many small rectangles I have ridden so far :-).

Very nice willbird. You are doing very much like I did 20+ years past when I brought my CB from a 20 year park. After I finished circling, I started going for the ends of roads and a typical ride today takes me on several of these: Hines drive, Seven Mile rd, Strawberry Lake rd, North Territorial.
 On my CB I have only been once to Adrian, and not beyond. A long ride gets me to Napoleon to watch the skydivers and ride on Sharon Valley and Pleasant Lake. Maybe our paths will cross one of these days. I have learned that the CB is not the limiting factor for my rides.

I actually headed South from Adrian this rectangle, then through Swanton and east enough to head south through Neapolis out to Providence in order to head back West. 80/90 turnpike and the "new" 24 are a couple places I hit 80+mph....69 over by Fort Wayne is another one. I should run the whole "new" 24 one of these days. It is about 79 miles, I have not run the whole thing since they finished the new portion of "bypass".

Bill

[PeWe]

Per
Are the white barked trees birch?

Yes, we have plenty of them. Grow like weed  

[newday777]

Per
Are the white barked trees birch?

Yes, we have plenty of them. Grow like weed

👍

[BenelliSEI]

Stu/ PeWe……. That bikes is in my garage! Sean made it here yesterday and when I pulled out a world map and he traced out his travels, I was totally stunned…. His travel distances and stories easily rival anything else I’ve read or heard! So glad we’ve met! Pissing down rain today, so we may have a “shop day”. More pics later.

Good to hear that Sean made it to your place John

Stu….. His starter was making some terrible noises. Found an old one in my stuff and we replaced it today. Much improved!

[Kevin D]

Ride 6   135 miles

The weather forecast was super, so I put thoughts of mowing away and dressed for motorcycling.
I made it out this morning at 11:30, first stop at Northville Downs to check on the demolition progress. They’re taking the horse barns down but you can’t get a camera on it. The grandstand is the biggest piece remaining and it won’t be long. They did a ceremonial groundbreaking today for the new project, the old project is still standing.
 On down Seven Mile, I started getting those sweet sniffs again and I stopped at Rushton for a photo of the honeysuckle. There’s no shoulder on Seven Mile, the cars fly, you don’t dare stop. At least on Rushton I’m protected by a stop sign. The flowers are small but numerous. I don’t know how long the blooms last, a week or two?
 At the end of Seven Mile is Whitmore Lake and the Whitmore Lake UMC owns the corner property. The gates are always open. I made a panoramic photo but I can’t shrink it enough to post. Most of the boats are in the water, but they will all be in for the unofficial start of summer, Memorial Day, and Labor Day is the unofficial end.
 Almost home, I stopped for a train in Plymouth. There is always a train in Plymouth, and when they go around the wye, it’s 5MPH, so as to NOT derail. Many folks steam while waiting, I take a photo. The
GE ES44DC locomotive has gets 4400hp from its V12. There are 3 locomotives on this train, but the third isn’t  working very hard. The fuel tank holds 5000 gallons, 73 feet long, 70 mph top speed, I think built in Erie, PA
 Last stop at Shell for a reload of VPower. Sonny gave me a gift card and I broke it out today. 2.8 Gallons @ $4.39/gal gives about 47 1/2 mpg.

[BenelliSEI]

Stu/ PeWe……. That bikes is in my garage! Sean made it here yesterday and when I pulled out a world map and he traced out his travels, I was totally stunned…. His travel distances and stories easily rival anything else I’ve read or heard! So glad we’ve met! Pissing down rain today, so we may have a “shop day”. More pics later.

He is flying with that bike!
He got the engine to work well!

Per…..Will pass that on!

I think he restored it last winter or year.
Cylinder, pistons and head job if I remember correctly.
Say hello from me, Per.

[newday777]

Stu/ PeWe……. That bikes is in my garage! Sean made it here yesterday and when I pulled out a world map and he traced out his travels, I was totally stunned…. His travel distances and stories easily rival anything else I’ve read or heard! So glad we’ve met! Pissing down rain today, so we may have a “shop day”. More pics later.

Good to hear that Sean made it to your place John

Stu….. His starter was making some terrible noises. Found an old one in my stuff and we replaced it today. Much improved!

👍
I was thinking it might have been the starter clutch

[The Lone Builder]

Hey folks,

Thanks for keeping track of me; I feel a bit guilty at not contributing more since everyone has been so helpful and kind. I will try to do better 

The blog is nearly up to date, and thanks to Stu and John’s assistance the bike’s gremlins have been repelled.

Oh, that reminds me; I was given a Gremlin Bell a few days ago. It might be a Harley thing, so for those that don’t know, it’s a little bell, that must be given to you – you can’t buy yourself one – and you hang it on your bike to scare away the road gremlins. It’s now hanging from the cable guide near my horn.

[BallAquatics]

Ride safe Lone Builder!

I squeaked in ride #21 today.  51.4 miles on the Yamaha XJ650 Turbo, very cloudy and looking like rain at any minute.  Sorry no photos as I was hoping to make the loop without getting wet Lol.  I just made it too!   

Google maps says it's 49.8 miles, but my speedometer says 51.4.  In reality it's probably somewhere in between....

[willbird]

Ride safe Lone Builder!

I squeaked in ride #21 today.  51.4 miles on the Yamaha XJ650 Turbo, very cloudy and looking like rain at any minute.  Sorry no photos as I was hoping to make the loop without getting wet Lol.  I just made it too!   

Google maps says it's 49.8 miles, but my speedometer says 51.4.  In reality it's probably somewhere in between....

I have already driven out to somewhere, say Cleveland, and seen it as xxx miles on the odometer. Then gotten gas, reset trip odo and driven back and had it be more miles due to being in the other lane of the turnpike and the radius being larger or smaller than going the other direction :-).

[lash]

Thunderstorms yesterday so no riding but today I had to go out for cat food so ,what the hell, might as well go for a ride! #36 for 139 km around the dam and 3 road construction detours.

[budman]

Ride #14, 112 miles.

My plan to mail the dog tags to Kevin today came together.  I ended up leaving later than expected, due to a Zoom meeting I had forgotten about, which also meant I had to come up with a shorter ride plan.  I was hoping to head north, but ended up going south.  I left about noon and was going to take the long way around to the post office in Fredericksburg, but 5 miles in I realized I had forgotten the dog tags!  I turned around, grabbed the dog tags and ended up taking a faster route into town.  I dropped them off at the PO and continued to head south to my favorite taco joint in Kerrville.  It's been a while since I've been there.  I haven't even been to the one in Fredericksburg yet this year.  Hopefully that will change soon.  The manager has probably been wondering what happened to me...maybe not.

Anyway, the taco joint closed at 2:00, but I got there in plenty of time.  Tasted great, as always.  I headed to Comfort for some gas and then to the Old Tunnel State Park.  It's probably been six months since I've been there.  I read one of the plaques that said the tunnel is home to 3,000,000 ringtail bats from May to October.  I could see some flying around in the tunnel.  I took a video but they are hard to see.  Another plaque said the largest colony of bats on the planet was at Bracken Cave, near San Antonio.  Its' about two hours away from me.  20,000,000 bats!  That's also the record for the largest colony of mammals on the planet.

While I was at the Old Tunnel I took a little hike down the trail to walk off the tacos.  I snapped a pic of an agarita bush with the red berries and picked a few to snack on.  These bushes are all over the Hill Country.  The berries are edible.  There are bunch around my house.  I've been eating some on my daily walks.  They are tart, semi-sweet and a little bitter.  The old settlers made jam/jelly out of them.  The Indians collected them and dried them out to eat during the cold months.

It was a great day for a ride.  Warm, but not too hot.  Clear skies and no wind.  Still lots of bugs though.

I'm sure Kevin will begin mailing the dog tags out promptly.  I kept one of the 24, but I won't carry it with me until I hit 24...unless I end up being passed up by someone.  In that case I guess I'll be sending it off to whoever earned it.

[Kelly E]

I have to go get more Cyberknife radiation treatments for my stage 4 prostate cancer. It's a very focused radiation beam to treat 3 cancer hot spots. Two in my ribs and in one of my vertebrae. I'm hoping to still get my rides in this year. The large area that was treated in 16' is still in remission.

I did get my 3rd ride in on Friday. I did a dozen miles on the 81' GS 1100E and 47 miles on the 77' KZ 1000LTD. I had to switch bikes because the GS clutch started slipping, a buyer was going to come up on Saturday but luckily he had to work.
 We told him we are putting in a new clutch and he still has first claim to the bike. It also gave me a chance to figure out the tick on cold start. For some reason the tach drive in in the valve cover was the source of the noise. I took it all apart and carefully reassembled, thankfully the tick is gone. Not sure what it was but happy to have fixed it. Nothing worse than trying to sell something that makes some kind of noise on cold start.

This GS is half of my Sportster fund. As soon as my buddy Terry the machinest finishes the 74' CB 550 head it will get sold for the rest of the Sportster fund. It's a bucket list bike that I've wanted since I was 15yo so it's now or never. Maybe I'll be able to finish up riding a Sportster, that would be awesome.

I will probably be looking for an 00' to 03' Sportster 1200 single seat with cast wheels, dual front discs, possibly an exhaust and some factory hotrod motor parts. I want one that I can make handle great. I've ridden one set up like that before and it was a blast. Because of my light weight bikes with a lot of torque are really quick. 

[jgger]

Kelly,best of luck for you with the procedure,  sayin' a prayer for you! Hopefully not much down time after, so you can concentrate on your 24.

Bud, happy for you on getting out for a ride, those pics look nice. I keep threatening to build a bat house for my backyard, very misunderstood critters.

Dennis, I always go by the odometer because Google doesn't take meandering into account!

Lash, awsome job on the ride count! You're my hero.

[BallAquatics]

I have to go get more Cyberknife radiation treatments for my stage 4 prostate cancer. It's a very focused radiation beam to treat 3 cancer hot spots. Two in my ribs and in one of my vertebrae. I'm hoping to still get my rides in this year. The large area that was treated in 16' is still in remission.

Kelly best of luck with the radiation treatments.  I had 44 targeted radiation treatments over 9 weeks back in 2017 and it did the trick for 6 years.  Cancer was back last fall.  Now on a 3 month schedule of injection therapy that seems to be working.  Have an appointment this morning and hoping for good blood work results.

Dreary rainy day here so no riding until later in the week.....

[Kelly E]

Thanks guys 

I ain't no quitter, I'll get my rides in one way or another.

[BenelliSEI]

Sean is off to visit “Lash”. The next Belfast is a bit east of his place and then Sean is headed back to Niagara Falls and down into the USA. Wonderful visit, I set off with him and did enough miles to log #4! We added a set of case savers to his bike and replaced the starter motor. Fantastic visit; I’m convinced that nothing will stop him!