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

[Kevin D]

Ride #2   121 miles   73f

I had my sights on today when I looked at the weather forecast earlier this week: Sunny and mild. Then I looked at the calendar and saw a midday doctor visit, rats!  9am is the optimal departure, post rush hour and all the kids are at school. Today was a 130pm departure because it had to be, and I was facing the school busses and afternoon rush. I took a couple driveway pictures and set off. The first thing I saw was the demolition crew beginning at Northville Downs. The 48 acre site is going to be turned into high end housing, crammed in as tight as will be allowed. The track is 80 years old and the last horse racing track in
Michigan. I went there when the AMA took over the track for half mile races. Corky Keener #62 was the hot shoe at Northville in those pre-Springsteen days.
 Anyway I went on Seven Mile road to its end at Whitmore Lake. Many docks are in but only a few boats. At Richmond field there is a Grob sailplane in position and the tow plane very near for a flight today. On through Hell, finally at Stockbridge MickeyD’s there are a couple motorcycles parked there: a Triumph Tiger covered with stickers, and a touring BMW. I spoke with the Triumph rider. The Tiger seat height is a bit lower than other bikes in its class, but at 5’9” or 5’10” he does use the foot peg for boarding. He has been to Alaska and the Arctic Circle on it but he’s only going to Grand Rapids today. He’s a Honda man, a CX 500 was his first bike. He has an Interceptor. The BMW rider was a quiet man and he left before I could chat with him about his bike, but it may have been a K1200GT. I didn’t even get a good look at it, but my first thought was brick not boxer with all the plastic. Sorry no pix.
 It’s time to bolt for home, but not before visiting Seymour road, Chelsea, Dexter and Huron River drive. Then cruise on Pontiac Trail, North Territorial, and blast on M-14 and I-275 to arrive home at 509pm.

 https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2024/02/08/northville-downs-michigans-last-horse-racing-track-closes/72472028007/

[RAFster122s]

Kevin, sounds like you had an interesting ride seeing some great things. I had an eye doctors visit and they dislocated my eyes and the optometrist who started with me, I see a group in the office finishing with the opthalmologist. He said that he wanted my prescription that we set in the office checked and I'm not sure why he did. Well there was a miscommunication and the handoff did t get notified and the secondary waiting room I was stuck in no one came for me. I had to ask if I could find a coke machine as my blood sugar started crashing and my hands started shaking around 3:45 and they did not. I hadn't dated lunch as I intended to stop and didn't have anything with me. No soda machine in the building so one of the girls told another to get me some chocolate. She brought me a fun size Twice. It was enough. I was surprised it was... Anyway...at around 4:30-4:45 they realized I had been patiently waiting and no one had done the reverify. Good they did because my vision wasn't anything close to the earlier script they had used. The astigmatism was different in each eye and I was getting ghosting and shadows as well as blurring. The cataracts in both eyes can be operated upon. But I had to reschedule for an appointment without dilation. My pupils are normally huge and they dilated me with two drops then I won't have hardly any iris showing, no joke. I'm very light sensitive. So what should have been maybe a 90 minute visit was 3 hours. I didn't get mad or anything, just watched others and spoke with a few, read some stuff and took some notes. So much for working on the bike this afternoon though. I stopped at a Popeyes for a chicken sandwich and had a Coke Zero in the car I put under a down vest so it didn't get hot, it wasn't cold but it wasn't over maybe 75 degrees, not what I would consider warm but drinkable. I can drink many Coke products at room temp but I don't have them that often. Soda is really bad for you. But hey, so is sweet tea... The Popeyes chicken sandwich is like $5.42 with tax and is a big chicken breast and I usually cannot eat it all. I was able to after stopping an exit early and it was 5:30 when I made it to Ina road heading home with all the rush hour and long stream of traffic headed across the Tucson Mountains to the valley below to various places after getting through corazon Pass and the finger of the Saguaro National Park West that covers a stretch up the valley and part of the Tucson Mountain range. The mountains aren't very high... 4000 or 5000 feet I think. They give me a section of mountainous road that is curvy twice for every trip outside the Sonoran  desert valley I live in... I enjoy the drive...some hairpins and a huge sweeping curve and lots of undulating and hilly twisty road. Fun on the bike or fun in the Mini Cooper S.

Tucson has a big glider club with a ton of fiberglass and other composite  gliders. It is an active club. They had photos of one of theeir planes tethered/tied down in an T hangar with one side exposed...wind was blowing at a diagonal into the hangar and they had a security/surveillance camera setup pointed at the glider. This one storm was blowing dust and rain and the glider was lifting off the ground swaying a little side to side a foot into the air. It was undamaged but it was wild to see the video which captured it flying with the storm...luckily like I said no damage and it was oscillating with the wind speed riding and falling but gently setting back down when the wind dropped low enough.
I don't think they intended for it to be doing that but at least they had enough stretch in the tie down rope or it was equally tied down at both wings and the tail so it didn't get out of hand.
Fun video to watch but I didn't save the link and should have...

Enjoying your rides and photos, bike and car is getting some attention lately. Once they fix a sunroof seal Thursday morning I will be taking the car off-line to change the timing chains and water pump and bleed the brakes. The power bleeder I ordered about 2 weeks ago was lost by the shipper and they are sending me another one. Guess it became 5-finger-discounted at the shipper, tracking never showed up after status of dropped off at shipper. They are making it good. Just delays me changing out a pair of rear calipers until car is down and adds a 1/2 day or day to the downtime.
Temps are ramping up to very warm. Here's this week''s forecast through Saturday May 4th by the AccuWeather app...
Hello summer!

[Kevin D]

David, I’m glad your day worked out. What are dislocated eyes?
I’m basically traveling the same roads looking for new things, or in this case, it’s my first visit this year. I worry for the nearby horse farms in the future. I see other new housing projects along the way and big box stores and semis and grocery getters will follow and that will be the end of my playground. I go to the oldest least traveled (safe and scenic) roads. I couldn’t tell you how old the Indian trails are. Much of Ann Arbor trail has been swallowed by urbanity, same with Pontiac trail, which reminds me that Dexter trail is very nice going west from Stockbridge. North Territorial is about 200 years old, still a favored motorcycle road, but for how much longer, I don’t know??

[willbird]

#8 66 miles, ran over to Defiance, Oh and back for an afternoon spin :-). 73F and sunny.

[lash]

Ride day #23. 190 mi/300km on a CB. Cilantro lime chicken for lunch and then the first ice cream stop of the year! Tomorrow and Thursday supposed to be rain so my 24 will have to wait a couple of days..

[newday777]

Ride day #23. 190 mi/300km on a CB. Cilantro lime chicken for lunch and then the first ice cream stop of the year! Tomorrow and Thursday supposed to be rain so my 24 will have to wait a couple of days..

Must be your stop was at Tim Hortons?
Fried chicken?

[lash]

I think so, cut up chicken breast on salad and rice, actually pretty good for an afternoon outdoor lunch.

[jgger]

Caution!!!!! Don't go anywhere close to lash, he is on FIRE! Great job lash.

The rest of you are starting to come alive now too, that is awsome, Frank would be proud.

I finally got a chance to take Eeyore the Magnificent out for a non qualifying ride of about 25+ miles yesterday and it feels like a new bike! I am trying out some Kenda tires and will be monitoring them closely,  I hope they work because the are about half the price of some big name brands, we shall see. Now I'm ready to start knocking off some more rides, probably can't catch lash, but we all gotta ride our own ride!

Here is the list of what I did so far, still need to flush the brake and clutch fluid. Plus I'm not sure I cured the fork cap/adjuster leaks but I'm in contact with Race Tec and they said they could fix me up. It is cool that they are only about 5 miles from where I liv, nice people too!

[jgger]

Well, I got # 13 done this afternoon, feels good to be back on the bike.

I got a real late start, but that was ok because I was planning just a minimum distance ride. Had a chance to try out Eeyore's new dancing shoes and the new used rear shock, what a difference! The bike holds a line so much better in the corners now, I'm going to have to keep reminding myself I'm an old man, so be careful!

Anyhoo, it was just a short run up my stomping grounds( Ortega Hwy)  to check a few things before I venture out farther in search of wildflowers and found a couple of things I'll need to address like the adjusters in the fork caps are still leaking. All in all I'm pleased with the bike after the work I have done. The weather was nice at about 84° f/ 29°c at the start. I did hit some rush hour traffic on the mountian on the way home, which I kinda expected with my late start so no biggie. Also since this was a shakedown run, I only took a few pics and no food.

Stats
   Start temp.     84°f/29° c
   Mid trip.          68°f/20° c
   Home.             70°f/21° c
   Total distance 55 mi/ 88 kms

[Kelly E]

I was finally got ride #1 in today. It was only 55 miles but it was great to be out. I took the 77' KZ 1000LTD, the more I ride this bike the more I like it. I stopped at Lake Goodwin Park for a quick picture.

[jgger]

Right on Kelly and welcome to the challenge! WOOHOO!

[Terry in Australia]

Well done guys, as your weather improves mine is going down the toilet, but that’s life. Hopefully I’ll get two rides in this weekend and get my BMW off Spotty’s bike lift so he can get some work done in his bikes  again. Those tyres look great Jim, I had Pirelli Angel GT’s on mine, apparently standard Angels weren’t the best because the GT’s had stiffer sidewalls for heavier bikes like the FJR. Fantastic bikes, I still miss mine, only downside for me was because I’m tall, the footpegs were a bit high, so I installed some highway pegs that one of the FJR guys here was making, plus the taller screen.

[BenelliSEI]

Well done Kelly!

[budman]

Ride #12, 79 miles.

Kind of a last minute decision.  I was planning on riding today, but have some work things that are beginning to pile up.  Still I really wanted to ride today.  It was cloudy this morning and there was some rain forecasted.  Then the sun came out and the rain forecast kept getting pushed back by the hour...and still is.  I calculated that there was nothing that I needed to do today that couldn't be done tomorrow and/or the next day.  Off I went about 3pm.  There were still clouds all over the place but never did the sun hide itself.  It was a warm one. Almost 90F, and I broke a bit of sweat.

I headed up towards Mason, TX, but cut-off and went through Castell and Llano, then looped back home.  Still, lots of wildflowers, mostly reds and yellows.  Very small groups of bluebonnets left here and there.  I wasn't expecting to see any.  In fact, as I drove to town this morning and didn't see any.

The dirt road pics were taken just outside of Castell, to the west.  I spotted all the red flowers so turned around and went back for the photos.  I only ventured down it a few hundred feet.  Llano county doesn't have a lot of paved roads off the main arteries.  It's a small population, so they don't sink money into asphalt.

Also, the cheap goggles I ordered from amazon arrived yesterday and I had to check them out.  They are just a tad bit too big to fit properly inside the opening of my Shoei, but that really wasn't an issue.  They just sort of wedged into the opening.  There was plenty of room for my glasses.  When I stopped for the photos on the dirt road I removed the rubber nose gaud from the helmet.  It let a little more air in, which was great on this warm afternoon.  All in all, the goggles worked pretty well and kept the bugs from pelting me in the face.  The noise level was dramatically reduced vs. the OEM visor.

The weather is questionable for the next week.  Mabe a little rain with the temps dropping again, down in the mid 40's in the early morning hours.

Congratulations to everyone, racking up the rides.

[newday777]

Looks like it was a great ride Bud.

[jgger]

We will see on those tires, Terry. Already they feel so much better than the Bridgestone Battleax S22, which I think are for a lighter sport bike. They were almost new when I bought the bike and I only got 6,000 miles out of then, and that was riding like the old man that I am. I will be measuring the tread depth about every 500 to 1,000 miles to see how they wear. We will see, these are alot stiffer than the Battlrax tires.

Nice ride Bud, it looks like the northern hemisphere is about to wake up and light up this thread.

[RAFster122s]

Congrats fellows on the rides... Terry you are in the mirror image of weather in the Northern hemisphere...
So, when fall hits us you will be springing into spring rides.

David

[Terry in Australia]

Well done everyone, wow, hasn't this thread taken off! The "committee" are madly working on ironing out the details for prizes/memento's for 2024, and we're only in the 4th month! More on that later.

As David said, as it warms up on in places I'd rather be, it's cold and wet here. I woke up at 5am to drag myself off to work at the old salt mine. I thought up as many excuses to stay home as I could and realised that I've used them all so far this year, so I climbed into my old truck and drove off into the rain.

It turned out that most of my "Team" had made excuses to stay home, so fcuk it, I left work at lunchtime as I decided that had a mental health issue (I had the need, the need for speed, well, as fast as a 250 dirt bike with 17 BHP is capable of...) and took the DT250 for the 86Km (54 mile) “Maiden voyage” and I’m very happy with the ignition, it solved the “Missing and farting” issue and happily cruised on 100 KPH (60 MPH) @ 5500 RPM. I found some dirt roads, and being that it had been raining (I also had an opportunity to test out my $30 Amazon winter gloves, which sh1t all over my "Joe Rocket" winter gloves which were way more expensive) there was no loose dust, and the "Trials" type tyres worked well, not that I was doing any motocross style riding, I'm too old and damaged to risk damaging myself some more.

DT250 Friday 19 April 2024 1 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Not quite as happy with the charging system though. I checked the battery voltage before I left, with the engine off (12.65V) then started it (first kick) and checked it again, 14.4V. Idiot lights and blinkers nice and bright, excellent. 60 Km (35 miles) up the road the blinkers were much weaker, but the engine was still running fine (riding with no lights on) so I turned for home.

Still ran well all the way home. Got home, put the volt meter across the battery terminals with the engine running, 12.95V. Gave it a rev, no difference. Hmmnn. Going to check all the wiring again tomorrow as I took the old girl over some pretty rough roads so it’s possible that one of the connections on the rec/reg have fallen off, but if everything looks good, I’ll be contacting Rex’s. Happy that the engine is running so well, and I won't criticize British electrics until I make sure that I haven't cocked something up, but glad that it was still daylight when I got home. Ride #16 down, hopefully I'll get the BMW out this weekend and get #17 done.

DT250 Friday 19 April 2024 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[PeWe]

It is too cold here too, Terry.
Maybe better after May 5 ...

[Terry in Australia]

Ha ha, yeah, I admire my Nordic brothers who seemingly enjoy weather that would drive me bat sh1t crazy Per, I can’t handle just a few months of less than 25 deg C weather. No matter, not long now mate and you’ll be burning rubber and wolfing down delicious food, and posting here.

I’m glad that I’ll have the BMW as my back up bike (and maybe the newly acquired KZ750 in a month or two) for my planned “ride to work” bikes, I remembered that I’d bought some factory heated grips for the BMW years ago and never got around to installing them, so I might see if I can find them and install them, when winter hits and it’s 3 or 4 deg C at 5am, I’m sure they’ll come in handy. The BMW is also a lot quieter than the DT250, so less chance of the neighbours killing me, which is always a good thing.

[PeWe]

Frosty mornings, ice cold winds. Winter jacket, keep head warm. I should have  used my russian type of fur hat (ushanka) today when I went to my job today by bicycle 06:00 am.
Went back home just before lunch. So a GT with PC is close.
(Popcorn)

At lunch time here and my thermometers show 2.7 vs 2.7C.
I have to be happy about the plus sign prior the numbers.

Lets see if I can get +15C and sunshine soon after May 5.
Not in sight yet.
Timeanddate.com

I really need greenhouse effect asap. If that should happen we'll hopefully get spring and summer, not only boring winter and fall.

It seems to be a band around the equator that get summer. North of lat 45* look bad.

Munich has +7*C ....double as we have.

I have over 23 rides to do.
I usually document around half so more riding weather days.

A pic say it better. A few hours ago.
My temp west of Stockholm has increased from +2C to 3.
+50% in 3 hours must be a hefty climate change!?

[RAFster122s]

Ran into some Germans enjoying In N Out burger the other night, I stopped for a cheeseburger before returning home. They were from Bavaria and Munich. One couple sitting adjacent to me the young lady was telling the guy across from her what to do with something I gave them and being bold I embarrassed her saying I can tell you two are married as she is telling you what to do...
They weren't married or engaged but had been seriously dating and were at university. The whole group got a great laugh out of my comment and they told me I was the 2nd person whom had made a similar observation about the couple. The parents and sister quickly told me they were married or engaged yet. She was super embarrassed turning bright red and then she started telling him something like see, others think we are married. I turned to him and said, such pressure already... And smiled he gave me a wink and said yeah...
They were both studying aerospace and she was attending to get her master's degree in aerospace. He had switched from mechanical engineering to aerospace.
I enjoyed interacting with them...I showed them the warm up we were seeing and they were going to be in the area for 10 days. I switched my AcuWeather app to C from Fahrenheit so the temps made sense to them...
I've attached both for your enjoyment...or so you can hate me...your preference...
A few days ago they were not anticipating the RI and cool down late next week. Right now pretty much all of May is in the 90s which is typical Tucson AZ weather, unlike last year we went into the hundreds by mid May with few days in the 90s after that...last year was brutal. But it was 3rd year of El Nino and a peak solar cycle has been giving the planet some bizarre weather and hot temperatures...
All the northern lights we have been having very far south and the southern lights at far latitudes than normal are all a product of the suns solar cycle. All the extra solar energy plays havoc with communicStions and affects the magnetic and weather systems around the globe too
 But that doesn't fit the narrative pushed that we are seeing this all because of global warming...so you aren't hearing much about the solar cycle...
It impacts lots of stuff because that solar flare is influencing lots of things more than just the planet's magnetic Field's protection.
A peak solar cycle also affects temperatures.

"What did lower solar activity 500 years ago cause?
One historical long-term correlation between solar activity and climate change is the 1645–1715 Maunder minimum, a period of little or no sunspot activity which partially overlapped the "Little Ice Age" during which cold weather prevailed in Europe." - Wikipedia

[Kevin D]

PeWe, i see that you have one ride in. I’m sure there’s many more to come in spite of currently cold weather. I knew i had seen that appetizing pita and veggie sandwich here, I just had to go back a bit to find it.
Kelly is at it, also Benelli, and jgger is back at it. Willbird and newday777 aboard. Terry has the Yamaha rolling, and Bud is on his way.
Terry Dennis Bud jgger lash in double digits? I should go back through the thread and see how many are participating, only 18 pages and 480 posts to review.

[Kevin D]

4/18   Ride #3    82 miles

Slow start again.I did my 80 miler to Dexter. Started and finished at the Shell. Whatever old gas is left has been diluted 3 times and it wasn’t any problem anyways. I ran on reserve for a while to pull off the bottom of the tank. Best price $4.39/gal for VPower at 8mile/Merriman. I circled Northville downs, there’s an 8 foot barrier blocking viewing of most demolition inside, when they start on the grandstands that will be visible and obvious, I might have a decent photo to show.
 I ran the REVER/free a bit to get a handle on the elevation and I found 934 ft tops, 750? lowest, hey this is Michigan. Maybe I could get a bit higher if I searched it out.
 Lunch at A&W, it’s a destination for riders, vintage cars. While I was eating there was a lot of noise from the road, then silence, then a man yelled “I thought that sign said thirteen-nine”. So I walked over to the road, to the vintage railroad underpass, and the sign said 10ft 9in, and the roof of the semi-trailer was very close to the sign and it was jammed into the underpass for a long time.
 The one lane stone arch underpass was built about 1890 to carry The Michigan Central Railroad over Dexter-Pinckney road after a fatal accident involving a prominent citizen. Nowadays it carries Amtrak trains at high speeds and NS freights at lower speeds and the stone arch underpass is a community landmark so don’t mess with it.
 The return ride home was nice, and uneventful.

[jgger]

That must have been an interesting thing to see. I have often wondered how difficult it is to extract a stuck truck like that, they must be wedged in there pretty tight. Maybe flatten all the tires and yank it back out. It sure is a good Winnie the Pooh impersonation though. I'm thinking that driver needs to work on his reading numbers skills, or maybe where he is from it is common to confuse a "10" for a "13" .  After all it is only a yard ( just short of a meter) different!

Congratulations on ride #3 Kevin, you still have plenty of time to get all 24, and so do others who are just getting started. Heck I got a very late start last year and managed to get 23+ in 6 months. Riding season is just getting started for all you ice cave people, right?