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While demonstrating zero interest in riding her own bike and only a little in pillion, my wife’s brother (major HOG guy) delivered a 1978 Honda XL75 to her. On June 30th he and I strapped it onto the motorcycle lift with the rear tire not touching and ran her through the operation thereof. She immediately began researching all things about riding, and signed up for the first available beginner class and DMV written test appointment. Manual choke, hand clutch, foot shift, separate front and rear brakes with hand and foot … imagine all the foreign things there are to learn. Next was a month of my driving what eventually got named “Piglet” to the unused school parking lot where she […]
We are trying to build expertise and confidence on our motorcycles, particularly Missy on Piglet. To this end every-other-day outings are the pattern we are shooting for. She is officially in rider training mode which requires direct supervision on all her street rides … until she smokes the written test she has scheduled for mid September. Initially I was tagging along on our snowplow, the Polaris Sportsman without the plow until next snow season. She was running under 25mph on those trips and the Sportsman was happy at 20, 15, or whatever she felt like at the moment. As her skills and confidence grew, so did her speed. The Sportsman can easily top out quite a bit faster than […]
Today we took our longest ride to date. Our destination was Lake Como. Taking Old Darby Road to Lake Como road accumulated 18 miles on Piglet’s odometer. Missy handled the combination of pavement and gravel road like a veteran. Neither of us have any love for the uneasy footing gravel provides. Her thrift store biker outfit now includes a BRIGHT, reflective backpack. She is taking all the new rider instructions quite seriously and making darn sure she does her part to be seen… by semi-attentive auto drivers. Mostly I follow at whatever pace she finds comfortable, but upon reaching Lake Como Road she asked me to take the lead rather than chancing a wrong turn through the multiple choices […]
It is now official. The diminutive 1978 Honda XL75 Melissa’s Harley-loving brother (owns several HOGs) gave her is now known as Piglet. The three of us find the moniker amusing and appropriate. She has even affixed a Piglet sticker to her motorcycle helmet. The photo to the right jumped in front of me this morning. I think it captures the essence of Piglet, though it would be quite a bit better if the big brothers on either side were HOGS rather than a BMW and a Suzuki. Perhaps that photo will show up here someday… but it won’t be in my garage as I am not likely to go for anything heavier than my BMW. […]
The month of practice paid off. The oldest person in the class rode a motorcycle older than most of the students in last weekend’s training and examination sessions. She successfully passed the driving portion of the Montana state licensing exam to qualify for an “M” endorsement on her driver’s licensing. Both days of class were SCORCHERS. They were also very long for a retiree … heck, they were long for everybody … long, mentally stressful and physically tiring. I arrived in time to witness and record all but one of the tests. You can see bits of them in the video clip to the left. I also managed to roast in my multi-layer riding pants, boots, and ran through […]
While my last post was about a long-ago Sunday morning ride, the tradition lives on … for fifty years or more. As far as days of the regular week go, Sunday is a good one for sharing worshiping the blends of man, machine and roads that sport bikes or touring-sport bikes meld into a cosmic beauty that only the bikers can understand. Recollecting a rather famous one from the 1970 Northern California somehow triggered finding an ongoing one in my neck of the woods in the here and now. I joined my first Sunday Morning Breakfast Club (SMBC) ride on July 29th. It was EVERYTHING I HOPED FOR… and more. I rode quite a bit farther downstream to the starting […]
I woke up quite early that Sunday as was normal for me. I considered quietly creeping around my sister’s house until she got up around 11, which was normal for her. The drive from Palo Alto to Santa Rosa would change from mundane to ugly by mid-day were I to delay my departure. Instead I unzipped and opened the driver’s side of my tonneau cover, tossed my bag into The Speedster and headed out before the traffic woke up. As I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge on this glorious summer morning I decided to enjoy Highway 1 instead of plodding along the northbound freeway. With the crack-of-dawn absence of traffic, the windy coastal road would add no time, but tremendous […]
This month has been most remarkable for the introduction by Missy’s ‘little’ brother of a “new” 1979 Honda XL75 into our household … and a new motorcyclist along with it. While visiting him as he and I took Idaho Star’s ENHANCED STREET SKILLS course, he set his ‘big sister’ on this 174-pound motorbike hiding in the corner of his garage full of Harleys. He and I agreed it was an excellent fit, subsequently hatching a plan to move it to our garage and turn her into a motorcycle jockey. We began her orientation ride July 1st in the Darby High School parking lot with Bruce and I coaching. Since that weekend, I have been coaching solo. She completed her […]
It is officially Bitterroot motorcycle riding season. Tourist bikes have been exploring up and down The Bitterroot River on Highway 93 for most of a month now. A skosh tardy in getting my bikes where I wanted them for this season, I started a little behind the early bikers, but not too much. Right at the top of my 2023 bike ride bucket list was a reconnoiter of Highway 38 between Grantsdale and Phillipsburg, Montana. It is right in my neighborhood, lightly traveled and reputed to be quite scenic. I was also warned repeatedly by people who have been there, done that, to explore it on my more maneuverable, agile Dr Zee (350 pounds) rather than jumping right in […]
I got the Valentine One installed and windshield remounted Monday afternoon (July 10, 2023), then took the Patrol bike on a meaningless meander of the local twisties. I finished that ride by picking up a cooking pot my wife left at a Monday potluck in the other direction. I filled the BMW up with fuel before and after, returning 44 mpg with quite a bit of overtaking, some to triple digits, a couple climbs up both sides of 7,014-foot Lost Trail Pass from the Bitterroot River 3,500 feet below, powering out of too many lovely curves to count, then running the ‘downtown’ errand. The result was a very nice 117 mile 2 1/2 hour break from the nose-to-the-grindstone yard-and-shop-work fuddy […]
1979 Honda XL75 and new rider … more than 20 years its senior My brother-in-law has over 35 years riding, and tinkering on them, now with a stable of Harleys. There was this little Honda training bike taking up valuable garage space until his vertically modest sister sat on it during a recent visit we made to his house. He did a thorough mechanical restoration, added rare bits to make it street legal, then delivered it to his sister. He, she and I have been working on rider training for about a week now, starting with a bike strapped down, rear wheel in the air. As you might understand, kick starting, left foot shifting, left hand clutching, separate front (right […]
There seems to be a common thread in the motorcycle community that transcends all the different types of bikes and riding styles. Choppers, cruisers, sport, touring, dirt, racing, scooter, townie, trails, vintage … We may disagree significantly on how a bike should fit and function for us, but we agree on this main point. All of us find riding them to be theraputic. Riding a motorcycle is similar in that way to painting, making music, skiing, shooting, meditation, dance and so many other activities that require the full employment of our minds. There simply is no space in the conscious mind for whatever troubles or trivialities of life may sometimes bother us, once we get into the zone. The […]
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