Category Archives: Bikes

This category is shamelessly dedicated to my motorcycles. Neither bike is the fastest, biggest, most expensive, or prettiest motorcycle on the planet, but each has become extremely well-suited to me. If you gaze upon them and do not find yourself dazzled by their brilliance… so what. I didn’t buy them to please you.

Improving weather at Bar Harbor

After the monsoon-like conditions of the previous day, we went to sleep relieved by the weather forecast that the rain would be gone in the morning. It was with some consternation then, that we awoke to find that a light rain was still falling. A quick check of the weather radar revealed that we could be dealing with a light rain for most, if not all, of the day’s trip out to Bar Harbor, Maine. Yuck.
Continue reading Improving weather at Bar Harbor

Lifestyle dichotomy on the Cape

After a great evening with Barb Freeman, we headed off down the back roads to Cape Cod. We crossed at the Bourne Bridge, noting the horrendous traffic in the opposite direction from all those weekenders heading back to the mainland. Yuck.

Now on the Cape, we headed up the coast of the canal until we reached the Sagamore bridge, where we found route 6A and headed down the coast of the bay.
Continue reading Lifestyle dichotomy on the Cape

You know you’re lucky when…

You hit reserve (remember, the Cruiser is an old-school Harley with a carburetor and a gas valve) with the next service plaza on the Thruway 19 miles away and you know you can get 20 miles on reserve.

So, we cruise along with no real worries until the engine starts to stall again. I know the bottom of the tanks are curved and trap usable gas, so I yank on the brakes to slosh some more gas down to the carburetor. A sign for the service plaza appears ahead. Hallelujah! But wait, the sign says the plaza is still one mile ahead. Arrrgh!

We repeat the sputter-brake-run sequence another 15 or so times and glide into the service plaza and directly to an available gas pump as the engine quietly stalls.

We were laughing our asses off.

Lucky. Very lucky.

Night departure for New England

I had the Cruiser all packed and ready to rock when I was at work on Friday. I needed to get a few things done so I was unable to leave a little early at 3:30pm as planned. Instead, I escaped around 4:10pm and pointed the handlebars up I75 to pick up Karen and head east.
Continue reading Night departure for New England

2011 MAMMARY Run Wrapup

In the four days and one evening it took for us to travel to the 2011 MAMMARY Run and return home, we covered 1,548 miles. The following are the individual posts related to this trip:

This was a bit of a shakeout trip for the Cruiser since it hasn’t been on a long trip since 2006. I now have a long list of little things that require attention before Karen and I venture out on another trip on it.

Mitch and Kathy were, as always, excellent hosts and threw a great party. I’m already looking forward to next year.