Spring Tune-Up

OK, were gettin' close now! The weather here in Central Virginia is starting to warm up nicely and we just finished a pretty nice weekend with temps in the mid-60s. For those of you in this part of the country.... it's time to start riding.

With that in mind, I thought this would be a good time to remind you of some the things you need to consider before hopping on your bike and heading out to explore those first few warm days of Spring.

Let's talk about the bike first. Hopefully, you were diligent in the care of your battery and kept it topped off with fluids and on a trickle charger throughout the winter. I use a small, inexpensive charger that does a nice job of reading the charge level on the battery and administering a charge only when it needs it. I've used the same one for years and it seems to do a great job of keeping the battery in good shape. Your battery is one of those things that will take care of you only as well as you have taken care of it. If it ever runs all the way down, it's probably time to get a new battery as this has a terrible effect on its ability to hold a charge in the future.

One of the other very important things is to check the air pressure in your tires. I know that it gets talked about a lot at the beginning of each riding season, but it's something that I will "blow off" sometimes if the weather is nice and I am eager to get out there. DON'T blow it off! It's critical to the performance of your bike and can make a huge difference in the safety and handling. I remember going out for a ride one time after the bike had been sitting through a month or two of cold weather. I didn't take the time to look the bike over and just jumped on and took off. It was in that first fast corner that I felt like the bike was going to slide right off the road! After returning home it turned out that both tires had a mere fraction of the air pressure that was recommended in them and I felt like an idiot for not checking. I could have easily had an accident that would have been ALL my fault. So please, check your tires before you head out.

The other maintenance thing that is a must for me, assuming that you have been good about regular services on the bike, is the oil. No matter how long it's been or how many miles I've ridden during the Winter and Fall, I always do a Spring oil change. It's kind of like starting off the new season on the right foot. Your bike has been sitting there collecting dust in a cold garage and the oil has gone through many temperature fluctuations and probably gotten a little gunky, so think of it as giving your ride a fresh start for the season. It'll pay off in the long run.

The last thing that I would caution you about are the roads. In this area they use a lot of sand and salt when it snows and we did have a couple of good snows this year. That sand, and usually some gravel from people plowing their driveways, will end up in the road and oftentimes right in the corners! SO, until we get a couple of really good rains and the roads get cleaned off a bit, I would enter every corner with the anticipation that there might be something slippery there. When we lived in Connecticut, where it snows quite a bit and I used to ride a sport bike, there was another hazard that I should remind you of... the melt and refreeze. In the Northeast there are these rocky walls along the roads that leak water during the day and freeze at night. If you got an early start on a Spring ride, even if it was quite warm, there was always a good chance that you would encounter some ice on a shadowed road along the way.

Those are the most important things to remember before starting out on your first ride of the season. I'm sure there a lot more that I didn't mention, but these few are the critical ones in my mind.

It's warm enough to be comfortable and cool enough to make your leather jacket and your gloves feel like your best friends. The bike runs great at the cooler temps and the bugs aren't too thick. In my mind this is the perfect time to ride.

So get out there and start enjoying the weather and your motorcycle... and I'll see you on the road!
MotoRush

Beemer Memories

In 1991, after living in Ohio for a little over 30 years, my wife and I moved to Connecticut for some great job opportunities. My wife went to work for a Fortune 100 Company as a Marketing VP and I joined a well-respected marketing agency in Greenwich. It was a fabulous time with the economy in pretty good shape and my corporate clients spending money like crazy.

It was during that time that I got interested in BMW motorcycles. Although I had a good friend that had already gotten heavily into the Harley thing, I initially resisted for years and found myself equally entranced with the BMW motorcycle lifestyle. I'm sure a lot of you know that BMW got into the motorcycle business early on and created some really iconic motorcycles. And to this day, I would say that BMW motorcycles are still considered some of the finest motorcycles on the road, both from a technical and aesthetic standpoint.

So, shortly after moving to Wilton, CT, I set out to acquire my first BMW motorcycle from a wonderful dealership in New Canaan, CT. The shop was owned by two brothers that were knowledgeable and passionate about their business and over time became pretty good friends. It's an understatement to say that I spent quite a bit of time at the dealership. At one point I even talked to them about buying in as a partner in the business until they told me that, unfortunately, I would no longer have time to ride my motorcycle. That convinced me that I should continue to make money in my own field and just spend it at their shop every Saturday afternoon after my ride.

So anyway, in the cold of a Connecticut winter my wife and I went down and signed over a pretty good-sized check for a beautiful, pearl white BMW K100RS. It was a fabulous bike! It had two very good sized saddlebags that allowed us to pack for weeks at a time and was very comfortable for my wife and I, while still being very agile and sporty. It was an incredibly fast motorcycle on which I'm sure I never even came close to pushing the performance envelope. As a matter of fact, one year my wife got me a weekend racing class with the world famous Reg Pridmore and his son, Jason, at Watkins Glen racetrack in NY. That weekend I learned some of the skills that enabled me to scare the crap out of my wife for several years, before eventually selling that bike to get something that, as my wife described it, "wouldn't go so fast and lean over so far".

During that time, I purchased another BMW with the intention (or at least the professed intention) of giving it to my wife. She had gotten interested in motorcycles and had taken the Motorcycle Safety Foundation course and was well on her way to becoming a motorcyclist herself (a story for another time). I decided that an older boxer style BMW would be perfect for her, so I asked my father to do some research there in Ohio and see if he could find a bargain for me. Well, as usual he came through with flying colors. He called me one day to tell me that he had found a mint condition R65 (I'm a little fuzzy on the vintage) for a great price, so I flew to Ohio to pick up the bike and ride it back to Connecticut.

Well, as fate would have it, the weather took a turn for the worse on the way back to CT, and it wasn't long before I was limping along on one cylinder (I later found out that one of the carb diaphragms had ruptured) trying to follow a small sliver of dry road in a snowstorm and high winds. To illustrate this point further, I will tell you that I passed several tractor trailers that were blown over on the side of the road. That was one of many times over the years that I have questioned my sanity!

But, one of the greatest memories I have of that trip is calling my friends at the BMW dealership in New Canaan and telling them about my problem with carburetor. In the midst of what was probably some pretty major whining on my part on the phone, I remember the one brother, John, telling me that if I got home alive (I think he was just kidding at the time) that this would be one of the most memorable trips of my life.

I have thought about that many times over the years, and for those of you that look for some kernel of insight to take away from these ramblings.... here it is. You don't usually remember the perfect trips where everything goes right. You are much more likely to remember more clearly, and in some cases more DEARLY, the ones where everything goes wrong and you got through it... either alone or with someone you care about. I could write a thousand stories about all of the crazy, fun, wonderful things that I have done and been a part of in my most fortunate life. But the ones that will always stick out in my mind are the ones where I was faced with adversity of some kind and overcame it. And, I will always remember who was at my side when I did. Those are the truly great memories to relive and retell.

So, that being said... get out there, take some risks, create some situations that look pretty hopeless and then figure out a way to overcome them. That's where the true joy of life (as well as some pretty great memories) is waiting for you.

See you on the road!

MotoRush

Motorcycles and Camping... the (almost) perfect combination.

Let me start out with a request to any of you that are reading and following these blogs. We want to hear your stories or at least have you comment (with some personal perspective) on mine. "Carson" recently added a comment about taking his then girlfriend to a church function on the back of his motorcycle. What a great visual to imagine a young lady showing up in her best Sunday dress with a black helmet on the back of a Honda 450. I could see it as he described it. I know a lot of you guys (and gals) have some pretty incredible stories from your past that involve motorcycles. Please share them even if it's just a short note and the type of bike you were riding. It's amazing how just the description of these old motorcycles can bring back wonderful memories of our past.

For example, the first bike that my parents let me purchase was a Suzuki 250 X6 Hustler sometime in the early 70's. It was a two-stroke smoker that ran like a bat out of hell (when it ran) but, unfortunately, it was a mechanical nightmare and leaked oil like a sieve. So much so that my girlfriend's father would not let me park my bike in their driveway for fear of a massive oil spill on par with the Exxon Valdez. Although I probably only had it for a year or so, I will always remember it as being (by far) the worst motorcycle I have ever owned.

My parents, who already thought I was crazy, loaned me the money to buy it knowing full well that I could never afford to keep it on my salary as assistant grill cook at the Captain Kidd Drive-In Theater in Kettering, Ohio. I distinctly remember making $1.35/hour back then and often wonder where the minimum wage champions were during my tenure at that lovely establishment. All that aside, I have fond memories of my experiences with that motorcycle (it's funny how your mind conveniently forgets most of the bad stuff) and although I would never want to own one again, it was suitable for a 16-year old kid with motorcycles endlessly circling through his brain.

Which brings me to another quick story involving motorcycles and camping. Now I have been very happily married to an amazingly tolerant woman for over 26 years. She is not only a beautiful, smart, funny woman, but she happens to be my very best friend and the person with whom I choose to do most of my crazy hobbies. SO... it was with little hesitation that I suggested we go camping on our motorcycle sometime in the early 80's. At the time we had a Yamaha 750 Twin that, although it was considerably larger and more powerful than our previous Yamaha 550, it was still not the most comfortable bike for a long haul on the highway. Add to that very little experience packing a motorcycle for a weekend camping trip, getting lost along the way and ultimately ending up in a lousy campground and you have the start of a memorable (for all the wrong reasons) camping trip.

You can imagine my wife's disappointment when we pulled into the campground, very close to dark, with a sore bum from riding all day and proceed to pitch our measly excuse for a tent on a rocky, sloping hill. It was not pretty, but it was certainly memorable. What I remember most is a lousy night of sleep on the hard ground and, even at that young age, barely being able to walk the next morning.

Well, the trip was originally scheduled to include a tour of the town the next day and visiting some of the local artists . Ultimately, it did not include any of these. Instead, we got up and, without a word, proceeded to tear down our sad little campsite, load up the bike and head for home. On the way home, my poorly packed bike threw off our tent and ground cloth somewhere on the highway and when I mentioned it to my wife upon arrival home, I'm quite sure she merely shrugged as if it was meant to happen. I will always wonder whether she, at some point, reached behind her and casually released the poorly secured bungee cord holding our camping gear to the bike. Either way, it was a rather inauspicious start to my motorcycle camping career.

Now, leaving all those memories behind where they belong... we have since become quite the capable and comfortable motorcycle campers. With the additional knowledge that can only come from personal experience, we are now fully stocked and prepared for nothing less than a sumptuous, gourmet experience whenever we hit the road. With our trusty Harley-Davidson Road King and our Trekker Trailer in tow, we now carry with us all of the luxuries befitting a well-traveled, adventurous couple. The trailer allows us to carry all of our equipment, bedding and food without sacrificing an ounce of handling or performance. The 12-volt plug inside allows us to charge our cell phones or keep our cooler running cold the entire trip. Luxury is probably not strong enough a word for such amenities on the road, but we have certainly gotten used to it.
After getting almost ten inches of snow in Central Virginia this week, you can be assured I will be out in my shop this weekend making sure the battery is charging properly and everything is ready to go at a moment's notice. My experience has been that Spring is always the best time to go camping in this part of the country. The bugs are still asleep and the nights are cool enough for snuggling instead of sweating.

I don't know about you, but I feel a trip coming on... and if I start now I may have everything ready to go by the time the snow melts:-)




See you on the road.


MotoRush