What's good for
the environment, saves $$$$ on gas, and is loads of fun?
Yep! Motorcycles.
In July of 2008, I sold the Buell P3 "Blast" to my father.
Photo on right and historical on that bike below. I really wanted to buy an adventure touring bike or a motar something:
Super Duke, V-Strom, Uly, but the only ones available were the higher end models and beyond my budget. (I.E. monthly
costs exceeded my gas savings by riding the bike.)
And besides, 98% of all the
driving I do is commuting from the burbs and rides out country highways. So I started looking at all types of bikes.
I narrowed the search down to Honda because of their attractive financing rates - down to 3.99%! I wanted the up-right
seating position, so not a sport bike (crotch-rocket). I wanted more cc's than the Blast so I could accelerate out of
trouble on the highway. But I didn't want to give up much fuel economy, so I needed to keep the weight and displacement
down. So anything of the VTX size and up was out. What I settled on, as it turns out, was a low-ridding small
cruiser.
I ride a 2000 Buell Blast that gets almost 70 miles per gallon. With the high fuel prices over the last two years,
this bike has saved me more money than the bike cost.
However, like anything mechanical, eventually it's going to need maintenance. Motorcycle tires may only get 3000
miles - depending on how you ride and what kind of tires you want to ride on.
I guess this would be my dream bike. It's a 2007 Buell Ulysses. It's an "Adventure Touring"
bike with 1200cc's. Not quite a motar bike and not quite a street fighter. Doesn't that desert camo look great!
Love the bike. Hate the suit. Who dressed this guy? The Royal Imperial Armorer for
the British of the 1700's? The lower half is US military. The upper half is from somebody's PC, 21th-century,
safety committee! How idiotic! Camo out the bike and the put on reflective red and flourescent helmet and
vest!
Bike Mods:
Just before
my 2007 Appalachian Trail Section Hike, I put my motorcycle in the shop for some maintenance. They highly recommended I replace the exhaust system.
It was the source of some noises that we had initially thought was related either to my own work in replacing the rocker-box
gaskets and rocker-arm mounting plate gasket OR a stuck lifter. But it was the exhaust. The bushing holding the
muffler in place had disintegrated and the mounting band had worn into the muffler itself.
An advantage
to this modification turns out to be improved power. I don't have the dyno sheets, but the final tuning was done on
a dyno and I can really tell the difference. The other big differences with the new Vance and Hines exhaust are less weight, more ground clearance and A WHOLE LOT MORE NOISE. So much so that now I have to wear ear plugs
inside my fully enclosed helmet. (I've always worn ear-plugs with my half-shell, or when riding without a helmet.)
The push to
get the bike finished before I went on my AT hike is due to having a biker buddy drive my truck down, pulling his motorcycle
trailer with our bikes in it, to pick me up at the end of my hike. At that time, we would then both "ride the tail of
the dragon". The Tail of the Dragon is an 11 mile section of Route 129 that has 318 curves. "The Dragon" "eats",
on average, one biker per year. (As in one fatality per year) That's not to say the dragon is dangerous, rather
it's more of a statement about some of the dare-devils that challenge it.
The Tree of Shame pays homage to some of the hardware damage done by the dragon. Many of the parts are signed by the owner and are labeled
with the date fo the incident and the name of the curve that did it.
I've only been
back on two wheels for about two years after a hiatus of over 15 years of not riding. But I had no problems staying
safe on the dragon. With so many bikes and cars and LEO's around, it just didn't make any sense to exceed the 30 mph
speed limit. I never passed and I never got passed. Only once did I cross the center line, and that was when the
road ahead was clear enough that I could risk a look at all the photographers in one of the curve pull-outs. Once I
did drag my heel on the ground due to being low in the curve, but that was it.
There are at
least three outfits that take photos at the dragon. They post proofs online in hopes that folk will buy them.
Most folk do. I haven't - yet. But I probably will. I've created an album called Buell at Killboy.
Also seen in there is my buddy on his Kawasaki. The guest password is "davespix".
www.killboy.com Bowse the sight for some really neat bikes and other forms of motor-tourism.
Other photographer's
(deals gap) websites: 129picsZee Foto
The Fall Color
was awesome. The weather was perfect. The roads were in good shape. We rode Route 28 for about 50 miles
each way getting to and from the Dragon. That ride was almost as good as the Dragon itself. We went by a place
where the Appalachian Trail crosses the road, and not too far from that was the Hiker's Inn. A hiker hostel that caters
to AT hikers. We stopped there on the way back and although the guy who came out became civil when I explained that
I was an AT Hiker who had heard of his place and had just finished hiking almost to his place from Springer Mt., Georgia,
he clearly didn't like the idea of bikers stopping by. Must be some history and baggage there!
From the Motorcycle Movie Classic w/ Marlon Brando
