Haunted Hitchhiker

Here’s a quick post showing how I rigged up my passenger for this past weekend’s Halloween Run. You’ve seen the finished product;

First off, I needed to secure it to the seat somehow. Fortunately, there’s a gap right behind me on the seat (it’s for a backrest), and I figured if I stuck a couple of sticks up the back of the costume, I could stick them into the slot.
Unfortunately, just having the two sticks floating freely allowed the thing to flop all over the place. Ok, let’s try securing the bottoms together. First, I whittled a wedge, drilled a hole through everything and secured it with a zip tie.

It was better, but there was still the potential for leaning…

Ok, I need to secure the tops of the sticks, too. A piece of strapping, a couple of screws, and I was in business.

I figured a beer can in this things hands would look pretty cool (I now know that wasn’t a bright idea). Anyway, finding that I’d recycled all my empties, I had to pound a fresh one. (Oh Damn!) I drilled a hole in the side of the can, and also through the bottom. Another zip tie, and I was good to go. (And just in time, as it was getting late, and the run was the following morning.)

(I did wind up running a thin bungie cord around it’s waist, under the green material and out of sight. I ran the ends down to the side rails and this thing was goin’ nowhere!)

Ride Hard, Take Chances…and don’t pick up hitchhikers!

2010 Annual Halloween Run

The morning dawned bright and clear…but cold! There’d been a bit of a frost during the dark hours, too. But no worries, sunshine and temps in the high 60’s were called for. Today was the Annual Halloween Run!

Arrival time was set @ 9am so at about 8:35 I headed out for coffee, bagels, juice, etc. Arriving back with minutes to spare, I quickly set up a makeshift table, complete with toaster! Check out this spread!

9:00 on the dot. Whew, just made it without a minute to spare. ‘Cause any second now, bikes are going to start rolling in. Yep…any second now. Ok, maybe “minute” is more accurate. Yeah; any minute now. Uhm…any hour? :-D (In folks’ defense, a number of guys had said they had stuff to take care of before they could get here.) Once folks did begin arriving, the mood quickly escalated into high spirits. Overall, the group seemed a bit shy with the coffee and food, but certainly not with the beer!

Oh yeah; I should mention COSTUMES! Since this is a Halloween Run, the call had been put out for folks to wear a costume, or a mask, or something in the Halloween spirit (Get it? “Spirit”? I’m here all week, folks.) Anyway, Matt went all-out, check this out!!

We were missing some of the usual suspects this year, but we had a few new faces to fill in the voids. I didn’t get any pics of them, but here’s a pic of a definite suspect; Christine, double-fisted, just like we like her to be!

Jumping ahead to 11 o’clock, we had 9 bikes lined up and ready (Yes, for those of you counting, there are only 8 bikes in this pic. Mike hadn’t shown up yet when I took it.)

Departure time arrived so we mounted up and hammered the short few miles to the rally point; Fusion 5. Pulling in, we exchanged a perfectly healthy green piece of paper for a flimsy white sticky one that we wrapped around our wrists. We were in! There were plenty of spots to park up close to the building, but experience has taught us to ride out to the large field in the back and pull up some out-of-the-way real estate. Not only does this afford us a great view of everything, but it also affords us the ability to enjoy our own road sodas at a much cheaper price than what’s being charged inside. So without further ado, let us adjourn to said road soda time…er…DAMN! I’d forgotten to pack road sodas!! What a farking rookie mistake!! Ahh, but not to worry, for this is why I hang with this crew. Not one, not two, but THREE of these guys had things covered, and proceeded to pull packed coolers out. And since they’d enjoyed my hospitality at the house, they were all too willing to let me enjoy theirs, now. Good times!

Oh yeah, I’ve got a couple more costume pics to toss up here. These were taken while we were out back in the field behind Fusion 5.
Greg, in his escaped-inmate garb.

Matt, with Chrissy.

Mike wears a full-faced lid so he can’t really do a costume, but he does attach a skeleton to his bike. Nice!

After a bit of time, the Call came in to fire things up. Hmmm…should I run to the woods and pee? Nah, I can hold it. Ha, man, was I majorly wrong! We hadn’t gotten halfway through the run before I was in absolute agony. I was looking for a place to pull over when thankfully a Dunkin Donuts came into sight. (Judging from the bikes in the parking lot, I wasn’t the only one in such a predicament.) Thankfully, the line wasn’t long at all and I was soon relieving myself of the built up pressure. Coming back out and looking far (far) to my right, I caught sight of the very last bike just rolling out of my field of vision. Ok, let’s get moving! Hopping onto the bike and firing her up, I sliced through the guys that were just milling around in the lot and snuck back out onto the road. Now this road was PACKED with all the cars that had been halted so the procession could pass by. Now that things had opened up again, there was a deluge of automobiles, all trying to make up for lost time. And being the sole guy on a motorcycle in the middle of that mess was not the best place to be!

After securing my re-entrance to the roadway, I quickly was upon a stoplight, and it was not green in my favor. No time to wait, I judged the passing traffic going left and right and shot through the first open slot I was presented with. Now I was on a curvy two-lane, twisting the throttle and bearing past the vehicles that lay between myself and my destination. (Most folks were very decent and, in looking in their rear view mirror and seeing a masked biker coming up hard on their rear, they put 2+2 together and realized I was trying to catch the run, and pulled over for me.)

Before too long, I found myself caught up with the ride, and found myself…Hey… I’m running the Sweep! Sweet! Hundreds of bikes in front of me and lil’ ol’ me is bringing up the rear. Yep, a guy could get used to…uh-oh… We came up to an intersection where one of the local constabulary was blocking traffic for us. As I eased on by him, he slid in behind me. Now that by itself may not seem so bad, but what I haven’t told you yet is that I’d rigged my bike with an additional bit of costumery (I can make words up if I want). See, I’d gone out and picked up this pumpkin-headed, scarecrow kind of thing and had affixed it to my back seat so it looked like I had a passenger. This passenger was facing backwards, too. Not too shabby, right? Well, it wasn’t enough for me, so I went ahead and secured a Bud Light can in its hand. It looked pretty funny, I thought. Right up until I had about 8 beers in me and a cop on my tail with his lights on. Let’s see. He’s either A) covering the rear of the run and couldn’t care less about my level of stupidity, or B); I’m getting popped. I’d sure love for option A to come true! But man, he’s right on my ass, and he’s not backing off at all. Could he really pull me over, out of the charity run, with onlookers watching? Let’s watch and find out what happens… After about a mile, he finally eased back and pulled off to a side street. Whew! Ok, the first thing I’m doing when I get back to the rally point is removing said beer can!

The last leg of the run was a 5 mile no-holds-barred hammering of Route 1. I don’t know what the route planners thought was going to happen at this point, but between the riders who were dying of thirst, the riders who were dying from overloaded bladders, or riders that were just looking to open things up for a change; it was madness incarnate. All three lanes were immediately filled with bikes flying up and down, in and around any poor cage caught up in the maelstrom. It was awesome! (Ok, in full disclosure, perhaps the front of the run was behaving, but back at the end, it was sheer madness.)

Finally pulling back into Fusion 5, I headed for the back lot again and found the guys pretty much where we’d been prior to departure. Everything was good! Oh no, no it isn’t; there’s only a handful of road sodas left! Not a problem – I jumped back on the bike and made a quick blast down to the corner store and we’re back in business with 2 full 12 packs. Ahh, more fun in the sun. (Tthe sun wound up being surprisingly strong this day I even wound up with a sunburn, not that that’s really difficult for my skin to achieve.)

Here’s a group shot, post-run (some of the crew was off peeing, or getting food, or getting themselves into some kind of trouble). Speaking of trouble, what the hell is Matt up to on the left?? Watch out Kim!


As we’re yukking things up and having a good time all around, one of the workers comes around and tells us “395 bikes pulled out of here today”, to which Flex says “Oh yeah? And how many of them made it back?” LOL, that got a good round of laughter.

As is always the case when you’re having a great day, beers start running short again. Not a problem, though – for we have an after-event to go to! Tweety’s birthday party! Ok, time to finish things up here and head back to my house to polish off the few remnants we’d left behind earlier this morning.

From there, it was off to Tweety’s birthday party, where we filled our bellies and still managed to squeeze in a few beers (and a few more after that. And of course there was more silliness to be had, too…

Maybe it’s time I traded my bike in for something sleeker…


As the evening wore on, folks began to disperse to their respective homesteads. After helping clean up a bit, I, too found myself heading homewards. Upon pulling into the driveway, there was nothing left to do but toss out the leftover ice from the cooler; a sure sign that you’ve done a good job with the beer supplies.

And that brings to a close the 2010 Annual Halloween Run.

Ride Hard, Take Chances...And Don’t Display Beer Cans On Your Bike.

Fluids Check

This is a follow-up to a prior post. A little over a week ago, I’d caught up with some buds at a bar down in Seekonk. This bar claimed to have 35oz drafts. Upon seeing said 35oz glasses, I questioned the establishment about these glasses’ actual capacity and was assured they were indeed 35oz. Needless to say, I was dubious of their claim and we decided that further verification was required.
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Fast-forward to yesterday; Michael and I were in possession of one of the aforementioned 35oz glasses. (We need not dwell on how this vessel came to be in our possession, that is not important to today’s post.) Now we just needed some liquid to test with. Thank goodness Michael had the foresight to pick up some beer, earlier in the day. I can assure you that the reason for the purchase of the beer was solely for this test. The fact that we’d picked up a 30-pack was merely an example of our thoroughness. We needed to have a large supply of testing ingredients in case our first (or second…or third) tests were inconclusive.

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Ok, let’s get this test underway! And yes, we know that three beers equals 36 oz, while this glass supposedly holds only 35. We were fully prepared to handle the extra oz ourselves. (In the name of science, of course.)
One beer poured in, two to go. Hmmm…that first beer sure did take up a lot of space!

Uh-oh…two beers in, and there’s really not much room left in there for the last one…

From the last beer, I put in enough to bring the level up to what would be an acceptable pour at a bar. And there was a TON of beer left in the can. Michael suggested I should pour it right up to the edge and see if I could get the 35oz in there. So I did, but there was still a lot of beer left in the can.

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In retrospect, this last pic was a bad one to take. I laid the can on its side, with the mouth facing up, so that the beer that was left wouldn’t pour out. But the pic makes it look like all three cans are empty. And while all three cans did wind up being empty shortly after this pic was taken (along with the glass, and along with many of the other cans), the fact is that there was still about 4oz left in the last can. (A better way to display this would have been to get another glass and pour the leftover beer into that one and have them be side by side. But hindsight is 20/20, right?)

Our experiment was complete; the claim of a 35oz glass is false. At best, I would say the glass would hold 31oz if filled to the very edge. But when you order a draft in a bar, rarely do they come that full, there’s often an inch or so of head (leave it alone, it’s too easy) on top. Taking that into account, we figured these drafts we’d been served were coming in closer to 28oz. 28oz!! We’d been cheated out of 7oz, each time!!

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We contemplated contacting the Attorney General with our complaints, but then realized that would probably entail explaining how we came to be in possession of the glass in the first place. And since we figured that was a bit of information best left undisclosed, we agreed to let the matter rest.

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This does not mean, however, that if we find ourselves in that same bar again, that we won’t recreate this experiment again!

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Again; all in the interest of science, of course.
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Ride Hard, Check your fluid levels.

Just A Common Soldier

Well folks, it's another late evening here at work (due to the annual budget season woes). Despite the heavy rain waiting for me outside, I've had enough and I'm gonna head on outta here. Before I take off, though, I figured I'd leave one more post for this week. Danno forwarded this poem in an email earlier this week and I hung on to it because I wanted to post it, but I also wanted to do some digging to see if I could find out who penned it. Turns out it was by a guy named Larry Vaincourt and his bio can be found here;

www.vaincourt.homestead.com/files/Larry_bio.html

Even though some of you may be familiar with this already, I wanted to get it posted. Here you go, have a good weekend.


JUST A COMMON SOLDIER
(A Soldier Died Today)
by A. Lawrence Vaincourt

He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast,
And he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past.
Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done,
In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, every one.


And tho' sometimes, to his neighbors, his tales became a joke,
All his Legion buddies listened, for they knew whereof he spoke.
But we'll hear his tales no longer for old Bill has passed away,
And the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today.


He will not be mourned by many, just his children and his wife,
For he lived an ordinary and quite uneventful life.
Held a job and raised a family, quietly going his own way,
And the world won't note his passing, though a soldier died today.


When politicians leave this earth, their bodies lie in state,
While thousands note their passing and proclaim that they were great.
Papers tell their whole life stories, from the time that they were young,
But the passing of a soldier goes unnoticed and unsung.


Is the greatest contribution to the welfare of our land
A guy who breaks his promises and cons his fellow man?
Or the ordinary fellow who, in times of war and strife,
Goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life?


A politician's stipend and the style in which he lives
Are sometimes disproportionate to the service that he gives.
While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all,
Is paid off with a medal and perhaps, a pension small.


It's so easy to forget them for it was so long ago,
That the old Bills of our Country went to battle, but we know
It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys,
Who won for us the freedom that our Country now enjoys.


Should you find yourself in danger, with your enemies at hand,
Would you want a politician with his ever-shifting stand?
Or would you prefer a soldier, who has sworn to defend
His home, his kin and Country and would fight until the end?


He was just a common soldier and his ranks are growing thin,
But his presence should remind us we may need his like again.
For when countries are in conflict, then we find the soldier's part
Is to clean up all the troubles that the politicians start.


If we cannot do him honor while he's here to hear the praise,
Then at least let's give him homage at the ending of his days.
Perhaps just a simple headline in a paper that would say,
Our Country is in mourning, for a soldier died today.


Ride Hard, Take Chances, Thank a Vet.

Do Not

The time had come to wash my riding gear – too many days of rain and road dirt had resulted in things developing a bit of a personality, if you know what I mean. I’ve washed this gear before, but I always got a kick out of the cleaning instructions on the tag inside the jacket. Of course I ignore these instructions and things have always come out fine. This time around, I snapped a couple of pics to share.

Here’s the cleaning instructions tag.



If you can’t make out what it says, there are basically a lot of “Do Not”’s on there:

Do not machine wash the outer garment.
Inner removable liner may be machine washed.
Maximum Temp 40C.
Do not iron.
Do not dry clean.
Do not bleach.
Do not soak.
Do not wring dry.
Rinse with care.
Gently sponge outer garment with a non-biological detergent.
Completely dry before storage.

Jeez – for something supposedly tough enough to handle interaction with pavement at high speeds, this stuff sure does sound pretty dainty. Besides, it says over on the right side of the tag that both the inner and outer garments are made from the same material (100% polyester). So how come I can wash one, but not the other? Who cares! They’re going into the machine!!

(First, I gotta remove the body armor – that stuff would stay wet for days, otherwise.)

I did put the dryer on “medium” heat and that seemed to be nice and gentle enough for the gear. Out it came; Nice and clean and smelling pristine!

Too bad it’s raining again today…

Ride Hard, Smell Pretty

Weekend Wrapup

Friday night, Matt and I hammered the highways in a northerly direction. Our destination? Bill D’s house in New Durham. Although, to be honest, we TRIED to hammer the highways. Traffic was anything but kind to us and we wore some skin off of our brake pads with all the stop-and-go. Eventually, though, we found ourselves pulling into the driveway of the aforementioned Bill D's house, and he had cold beers and a warm fire waiting for us on the deck. We pulled up a couple of chairs and let ourselves unwind and ease into the weekend mentality mode.
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A few beers later, I said my farewells and headed off to the house in Wolfeboro. The other guys were staying at Bill’s house, and their Saturday would be occupied with boating, dirt-biking and beer drinking. I was not so fortunate, I had work to do – the plan was to scrape and paint the deck. With any luck, I’d hoped to be able to knock that task out in one day. Matt was going to show up later in the afternoon and lend a hand, and then we’d kick back with beers and watch the lake.
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But, like everything else in life, things change. When I got up the next morning, I found that the hill leading down to the water was heavily overgrown and something really needed to be done about that. Switching gears, I put the painting stuff away and grabbed the loppers and shears and set to whacking the hell out of the overgrowth. 4 hours later (and my arms killing me), I surveyed the damage.

Satisfied with the carnage I’d created, I busied myself with yard cleanup and landscaping upkeep. And that’s when I saw the tree. The tree that had apparently come down earlier in the summer and taken some wires down with it. The same tree that the town had cut out of the wires and then left in my front yard. Sweet, thanks for that treat, guys! Let’s see what I have for tools here…ok, I have a saw, but it’s not a chain saw (damn). It’s a hand saw. But not just any hand saw, it’s a hand saw for making doll houses or some other equally small task. Here’s a pic to show you the hilarity I was faced with. Don’t worry Mr. Tree, there’s nothing to fear from this little guy.
By the time that task was completed, my mind was beginning to switch into “relaxation and beer” mode – and that’s when the text came in; Matt had a family issue pop up, and had to change his plans. Bill and the other Matt were headed back to Mass this afternoon and now Matt had to head out as well. I contemplated just hanging out for the night but said screw it. I cleaned up, managed to catch up with those guys on the road, had a beer and a bite with them, and then we all split the scene.

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Arriving back home, I caught up with McCarthy and the crew down in Seekonk. Pulling in, what did I see parked and waiting? Hey there, you look familiar!

Yep, it was my old Fatboy, and I'm happy to say that Big Bill has left the suicide clutch setup on there and loves it.

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Now by this time, it’d been a long day and I was only going to have a couple of beers and call it an early night. But when I got inside, I found a surprise waiting for me; this place has 35oz beers! Well now, I’d better only have one, then!

Whoops.

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Anyway, needless to say the evening wore on much longer than I’d planned and by the time I finally got home, it was rather late and I was rather wiped out. But not a problem, because it’s only Saturday night and I could rest up on Sunday!

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Or…I could get the guys together at a bar and catch the Pats game! (I’d like to go with Door #2 please, Alex.) But this wasn’t to be just another football-afternoon-at-a-bar scenario. Ohhhhh no. This was to be a grand event! The bar we went to has these things called ‘towers’. They serve the same purpose as a pitcher of beer, but these things take that concept to a much higher level. They hold 6 beers, have a frozen tube inside (to keep the beer cold, obviously), and have their own little tap! Sweet! Yes please, we’ll take one of those.

We’d barely gotten things underway when we were informed that Coors was doing a promotion and that for every Coors Light we bought, we’d get a free one. Even further; this covered the Towers, too, and if we bought a Coors Light tower, then we’d get a free one, too. Hmmm…this really puts us in a quandary. We hate Coors Light, but we love free beer! Well, we’d better give it a try. What’s the worst that can happen? Well, we were all reminded just how much we hate Coors Light (and it explains why they have to give the stuff away). It took some serious mind-over-matter will power to choke that crap down, but we managed. Thankfully, our waitress was aware of our distress and eased our pain by quickly restoring us to our beloved Bud Light. (We must have looked especially pained because she brought us two!)Look - smiles all around, once again! Yes, yes; Bud Light to the rescue! Throw that Coors Light stuff in the toilet (back where it came from!).
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The rest of the afternoon was spent in this manner; cheering our Pats on to another victory (sorry King), and doing our level best to wipe out the bar’s supply of towers.

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Needless to say; there was no resting and relaxing done on this day. It was another long day, but certainly well worth it. Great guys, Great times, and (mostly) great beer.

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This weekend goes into the “good” column.
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Ride Hard, Take Chances

Chasing Shorts

So the Shayne run was this past weekend (see following post - you get two for one today). Something else happened on Saturday morning that I left out of that write-up because this needs more detail than just a simple mention, but I didn't want to take away from that event. So here you go...

Saturday morning, I'm running some quick errands to the post office and the bank. Turning into the post office, I pull into a parking spot and find neutral with my foot. Just as I go to let go of the clutch, I happened to look at my instrument panel - no illuminated green "N" indicator lamp. Damn - good thing I didn't let go of the clutch. (But man, it sure felt like I'd hit neutral!) I eased things down into first, then nudged back up into neutral...and still no green indicator lamp. Odd...I wonder if the light just blew out? Oh well, I'll worry about that later, too much to do this morning. I shut down and headed in to take care of the mail business.

Coming back out, I fired things up, shot a glance at the instruments - still no green light. Oh well, off to the bank. Pulling in, shutting down, I found neutral (still no green light) and killed the bike. Inside to take care of the money business and back out to the bike. Fired her up, rolled out and passed a cop on the side of the road. Ok, no worries, I'm not speeding, right? A quick glance to my speedometer....uh-oh...that's when it hit me that not only did I apparently not have my neutral indicator lamp, but I didn't have any insturmentation at all. Damn. Well, here's hoping it's just a blown fuse. I'll be home in a few and can check it out.

Back at the house, Zig arrived and we pulled out the manual, as well as accessed the fuse panel. Sure enough; a blown fuse. Sweet! That's an easy enough fix! We grabbed a spare fuse, popped it in, and hit the ignition. Bam. Blew the fuse. Crapola! Well, I don't have time to mess with this thing now, I'll have to give it a whirl tomorrow.

(Here's what a dead instrument panel looks like when you're flying down the road in the middle of a run. Granted, I was able to tell what time it was, but nothing else.)

And this brings us to "Tomorrow". I pulled out the service manual again, studied the wiring diagrams for a while, then set to opening the fairing up to see what I could find.

Nice - this doesn't look simple on any level...

I stood there for a second, hoping the bad wire would stand up and wave to me, saying "Hi Dave, here I am!", but the reclusive bastard opted to remain hidden, instead. Ok, well the first thing to try is to yank all the connections and put a new fuse in. Then start connecting things again and see which one blows the fuse. That'll tell me what line/harness to start investigating.

As I began to unplug things, I found myself slightly stymied by some of the bracing in the way. I contemplated pulling some bolts, and that's when I realized the brace (an anti-vibration brace) was broken.
Hmmmm, well that changes everthing! Because if the brace is broken, then that means things are bouncing and rubbing up against things they shouldn't be! And, in looking a little further, I found the same brace, on the other side, was also broken! Now we're getting somewhere!

So, placing a hand on the inner fairing and working it foward and backward, I looked for wires that were coming in contact with metal of any kind. Sure enough, I found one! Ha, I was excited as all hell as I reached in and lifted it up to my eyes...damn. Definitely has signs of wear, but it hadn't worn through. Ok, keep looking. Ok, nothing more on this side, lets try the other side. Bammo - there it is. Holding up the wire, I could see a glint of copper poking out and winking at me. (It's tough to make out in this pic, but it's just above the electrical tape.)
I wrapped it in electrical tape and positioned it in a way that it would be well away from any metal. Then, fingers crossed, I hit the ignition. Damn! Still dead! That means there's another...wait...what are the odds of there being two shorts happening at precisely the same time (ok, it's a possibility, but not one I wanted to entertain). And then it hit me; Hey Dumbass, you never replaced the last blown fuse! A quick visit to the spare fuse collection, and voila. Ok, try the ignition again. Success!! Whooo-Hoo!! Ok, let's start getting things back together.

It was during this process that I noticed the other braces (the horizontal ones, just under the speakers) were also broken...

Damn. Well, I'll replace the two small, horizontal ones, but I'm going to look into rigging something up to remedy the other, vertical ones (I'd thought about making a tab that I could bolt the two broken pieces together with, but Steve K. says he Mig'd his and it worked fine so I may take him up on his offer to Mig mine for me).

Once the fairing was all bolted back into place, I thought hey, maybe it'd be cool to run without a windshield...Nah, not so much. Besides, Snoopy doesn't look very comfortable sitting up there all alone with nothing guarding his back. Ok, windshield goes back on.

And there you have it; a successful "short" story. (And a word of caution to you guys out there with fairings - it might be worth it to open 'em up and check your braces.)

Ride Hard, Take Chances