Topic: 25 Rides in 2025, Frank's New Years resolution that we can all enjoy.

[lash]

#54 is 133 km on a hot hot day! 30c!

[Terry in Australia]

Well I'm slowly getting used to being retired. I took the VMax out again on Sunday for a 90 mile thrash. It's going great, but for some reason I can't lower the idle speed from 1500 RPM. The idle screw actually fell out as I'd wound it down so far, all the choke rods are fully home, the carb insulator rubbers all look good, but it feel like one carb butterfly isn't closing properly, because it sounds like a big single at idle and when I twist the throttle it sounds like a big four again. Only a minor issue, but I need to sort it out.

Anyway, that was ride #17, cold, windy and horrible.

VMax Sunday 22 June 2025 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

On Monday the wife asked me what I was going to do and I said I'd love to go for a ride, but that I froze on Sunday, so I'd ordered a heated vest on Amazon. She reminded me that I'd bought a heated vest last year (du-oh...) and brought it out for me. I was surprised that the power supply was still half charged. Anyway it was much warmer on Monday so with the vest (not switched on) under my bike jacket and my heated gloves (not switched on) it was much more pleasant. I've had a chest infection for the last couple of weeks which is pissing me off, but I don't feel sick, I just hack up some big loogies.

Anyhow, I took the VMax again, I can understand why VMax owners love these things, the acceleration is phenomenal. A lot of older bikes get to the stage where cranking on the throttle just makes them louder with not much acceleration, whereas the VMax will rocket away like a raped ape. The only place I can legally get away with this is when merging onto the freeway, and so chose the freeway for the ride back after jarring my back badly on a couple of big pot holes on the backroads I'd been riding. Still no stops for food, but I made a pizza when I got home, and it was very nice. Ride #18 down, if the weather is nice tomorrow I'll sort out my carbs and do ride #19.

VMax Monday 23 June 2025 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr   

[Kevin D]

Ride#9   63 miles

Well, I got a ride in today. It wasn’t nearly what I had hoped for, but it was way better than nothing.
I trusted the blue skies forecast early, showers much later. I left the house about 930, quick stop at the bank. I parked where I wasn’t supposed to for the nice photo with the Stella d’oro lilies and the flowering yucca.
 On, westbound down Seven Mile road, at the building project there are some units framed on the NW corner, one square block framed. The NE corner is a beehive of civil work, lots of digging for sewers, survey stakes all over, no foundations yet.
On down Seven Mile road all of the horses are out enjoying the day and there are a number of students working on their equestrian skills at OakenShield equestrian, but I don’t see Thorin, or Shadowfax, only the future horse lords at work.
 Past the lake and on to the traffic circles, a gasoline tanker leads the way, there will be no challenging slalom, at least the tanker goes north and I’m onward to Hamburg and Strawberry Lake. The sky is still blue above me when I felt the first raindrop, going onward there were more drops and the cars coming the other way  have their wipers on. The sky is darkening, I’m soaked, and I’m not nearly to the worst of it, so I decide to turn back and a couple of miles later I’m out of it, So I stay on the sunny side, eastbound, and call it a ride.
 Arriving home, I checked the radar and lightning map, and think I made a good choice.

[PeWe]

# 18. 317km ride.
Weather OK for a ride. 12 days since last time. 23-26*C

First ride with a new battery. I need to adjust the regulator to give a little more to the AGM battery. +0.3V would be fine to reach rhe 14.5-14.8V area.

A ride along my usual roads.
The flower power road is between Säter and Smedjebacken. The church is in Ramnäs.

No food stop. Ate at home after the ride.
 I had to eat bbq leftovers, pork and lamb steak plus a fat spicy sausage before going bad.
Made fries in oven and a simple tomato cucumber salad with Greek Feta cheese. A cold beer was fine. It was a rather warm day.

[ofreen]

Nice pix as always, PeWe

[BallAquatics]

Rode south to Williams Vintage Cycles in Xenia Ohio again today.  The weather has been brutal.  Might be the hottest day I've ever ridden.....

[PeWe]

Nice pix as always, PeWe

Thanks, Greg. This is a good part of the year where masses of flowers are standing by the road.

[Kelly E]

I got home yesterday from our 5 day ride. We covered almost 800 miles total. The first day was 260 miles over Hwy 20 the North Cascades Highway and we got to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant in Winthrop. The next 3 days we did scenic loops out of Wenatchee averaging around 120+ miles. On Thursday our old asses were a bit worn out and the weather was iffy on Hwy 20 so we came home on Hwy 2 which is only 150 miles.
Overall it was a great trip. We tried a different hotel since the Quality Inn turned into the Meth Head Inn and were very happy with the change. The rooms at the Red Lion are big, quiet and the staff was very helpful.

This trip makes 9 rides total for the year. My Dr is going to give me an extra month between infusions after the one on July 9th to let me heal a little since my numbers have come down so quickly. That should give me a chance for an extra trip this year.

[ofreen]

Nice ride, Kelly.  Great riding through all of that country.

[PeWe]

Nice ride, Kelly.  Great riding through all of that country.

+3
Must be extra convenient on those bikes made for nice tours.

[Kelly E]

Nice ride, Kelly.  Great riding through all of that country.

+3
Must be extra convenient on those bikes made for nice tours.

Sport touring bikes are awesome for multi day rides. I can carry stuff for 5 days in just the saddlebags. For a 700lb bike they are really fast and handle great plus I don't get wet riding in the rain as long as I don't have to stop for long.

[Kevin D]

Excellent, Kelly!

[willbird]

#37, 64 miles. 6-28-2025. Rode over to Defiance and grabbed some Panda Express takeout and rode home. Nothing photogenic.

Bill

[lash]

#55 today 58 mi. nice cool overcast day but no pics.

[Kevin D]

Ride #10     100 miles    74f depart     84f back home

Today is the day I’ve been waiting for: moderate temperatures and no rain in the forecast, and the weatherman was right! Just to be sure, I made the earliest start that I could, which turned out to be 9am. I’m usually not riding on Saturday, but today the weather was so right that Saturday could not be ignored. I was having a good run at the traffic circles but I took a right at the last circle up towards family. I was diverted to play a game with my granddaughters who put a sound whipping on me, haha. After a couple hours of the whipping I made my escape and took an alternate route to Dexter for lunch. There are some big changes coming to Main Street: a condo development and a new fire station/sheriffs office, but no change to the ten foot stone arch bridge under the RR.
 I folded my jacket, unzipped my tail bag extension, and packed the jacket inside for the ride home. Lots of sport bikes around Plymouth, I heard there was a big event at the BMW dealer. I found the ditch lilies blooming on my way out of Plymouth.
 The Honda didnt miss a beat all day.

[Alan F.]

Ride #4 for me today, 117 miles. I met up with Stu and Andy at Stu's shop around noon and spent some time admiring his handiwork before heading out to lunch nearby followed by more cool, curvy roads. Then back home through mostly New Hampshire, I'll get my bike inspected before my next ride, I promise....

[lash]

What a great day for riding! +27c and low humidity. Lots of bikes out, tomorrow is supposed to be hot and humid with thunderstorms. Sold my 1972 cb and going to drop it off for the new owner tomorrow morning. slowly thinning the bike population. #55 at 416km.

[newday777]

#10 today as it was a beautiful perfect day to ride, took off for church at 9:30 it was 69°F, headed back home after church and saw a gold 750 go wizzin through town so I followed along not having seen this 750 before, I kept trying to get closer and he kept twisting the throttle more! Finally caught him at a stop sign as I tooted the horn, and it was Andy750 on his orange K2! So we pulled in to my place together and found Alan F already there. After yaking for 20 minutes we headed to the Molly Stark Tavern for lunch....none of us pulled out our phones for pictures, sorry.
After a good time talking and eating we got back on the road and I lead them over some of my fav roads, over hill and dale, I had a total of 82 miles today. 79°F for a high. It couldn't have been much better. Great weather, good friends and some great twisty roads. Andy had to be back home for 5 ish and he says he made it.
Thanks guys for a great afternoon together.

[BallAquatics]

Ride #10     100 miles    74f depart     84f back home

Nice ride Kevin!  Looks like that car is about to lose a bicycle.....

[willbird]

#38, 6-29-2025. 110 miles. Rode over to Trader Joe in Fortwayne, IN and rode home. Nothing photogenic :-). Nice day though, on the hot side.

Bill

[Kevin D]

Ride #10     100 miles    74f depart     84f back home

Nice ride Kevin!  Looks like that car is about to lose a bicycle.....

uhoh! Sometimes the brave ones will pass side by side through the opening…. The Prius bike looks like it may fall off irrespective of reduced side clearance! I asked one of the carhops how often does a truck get stuck and she said it’s a regular occurrence. About 4 miles bypass to avoid the stone RR bridge.

The stone arch was built due to a pedestrian fatality in 1887 of a Mrs Warner, who was crossing the tracks to visit her son when she was struck by the Michigan Central Limited Express.

https://aadl.org/aaobserver/18619

[PeWe]

19# 103 km. I could not miss the sunny not too warm weather and screaming yellow fields that also smells good.

Bike looks a little bit stretched with the wide angle lense

[newday777]

19# 103 km. I could not miss the sunny not too warm weather and screaming yellow fields that also smells good.

Bike looks a little bit stretched with the wide angle lense

You could add another set of pegs to carry a second passenger on that stretched out seat. And how much more gas does that stretched tank hold now!
😁

[PeWe]

19# 103 km. I could not miss the sunny not too warm weather and screaming yellow fields that also smells good.

Bike looks a little bit stretched with the wide angle lense

You could add another set of pegs to carry a second passenger on that stretched out seat. And how much more gas does that stretched tank hold now!

A family bike with that seat!

[newday777]

19# 103 km. I could not miss the sunny not too warm weather and screaming yellow fields that also smells good.

Bike looks a little bit stretched with the wide angle lense

You could add another set of pegs to carry a second passenger on that stretched out seat. And how much more gas does that stretched tank hold now!

A family bike with that seat!