Out With The Old (year), In With The New (year)

Those of you on Facebook have seen my posts already but for those that haven't; I was afforded the rare treat of being able to ride not only on the last day of the year, but also on the first day of the new year.  I don't think the weather has evern cooperated like that before.   The temps on Tuesday were in the low 20's, and on Wednesday they were only a couple degrees warmer.  Still, between the two days, I managed almost three hours of riding, so that's not bad at all.   I skipped out of work early on Tuesday (New Year's Eve) and shot home, grabbed the bike, a bunch of quarters and a towel, and hit the streets.  The skipping/hesitation problem is definitely much, much better, with only a hint of it now and then.  Oh yeah; I put a Santa hat onto my helmet and folks going in the opposite direction seemed to mostly get a kick out of it.  Either that, or they were smiling because they thought I was mentally handicapped...which we all know that I am.   After about an hour and a half, it was time to wash the salt off, so I wrapped up my route in such a way as to hit the local outdoor car wash.  I plopped in my quarters, selected high pressure soap wash, and off we went...

After I'd finished with the soap and switched over to the high pressure rinse, I began to wonder how the water was going to react to such frigid temps on the pavememt around me, as well as on the bike itself.  I got my answer soon enough; as I went to wipe the bike down, any surface that wasn't part of the engine, power train, or exhaust, was so cold that the water froze up almost instantly (when I was drying it).  Equally as fast; the water which the towel did absorb, also froze, and soon I was wiping a frozen towel across frozen layers of water.  Fun stuff!

After that, it was home to the garage, then off for a very-long/late evening of celebration. The following day, I managed to make it home by early afternoon and proceeded to roll the bike out again.  It's tradition!  Gotta go riding on New Year's Day!  (I'd tried to get others to go but the only one who expressed any interest was McCarthy, but his schedule was too busy and he wasn't able to make it.)

Rolling out to different streets than the ones I'd ridden the day before, I brought my cheerful and happy Santa hat/helmet with me to brighten the days of a whole new group of people.  I even got some horn toots and waves - nice!

I managed to find a couple of nice twisty roadways I hadn't ridden before, and while I had to go a bit slowly this time around, due to the sand, once summertime gets here, I'll be sure to come back and really enjoy them.

And that's about it.  Oh - the hesitation problem came back somewhat when I was out yesterday.  Makes me wonder if my ECU is just bad.  I may wind up putting a power commander on the bike and just bypassing the ECU altogher.  *Sigh*  More money (but it's still cheaper - so far - than buying a new bike.)

Anyway, the riding I managed to squeeze in is probably all I'll be able to do for a while.  We're in the middle of a Nor'Easter right now...well, not quite in the middle of it yet...the worst is still to come.  But it's been light-snowing all day long and I'm sure the commute is going to suck.  Hopefully we'll get a ton of rain within the next week or so and I'll be able to get back out there (but I'm not holding my breath).

I hope everyone had a fantastic and safe New Year's!

Ride Hard, Take Chances...and wear silly hats on the bike!