Winter 2015

I sure hope the riding season will not be as 'interesting' as the non-riding season.
We've had quite the succession of wild weather, and it looks like there is more on the way this weekend.
The weather man warned us about this last one and he was right on the button! 59cm!



The high wind polished the drifts to a near solid substance, then freezing rain added a nice little crust to the whole thing.
Then the plow guy didn't show up this morning, so it was a do-it-yourself event.



Could have thought a a lot of other things to do in the 4 hours of back and forth. Wouldn't have been that bad if it wasn't for the 4" of ice under it all. Remind me to spike the tires next year!

Yeesh!  Makes me feel a little guilty for the great weather we had for Bike Week last week... Here's a couple of pics from our short trip "up north".

Electric Harley


Busy Main Street


Enjoying The Warm Evening

Now who would have thought you of all people would pick up the best dressed man at Daytona 2015 trophy , ha ha

No sense in getting mad about it or anything... Just finished cleaning up after the last dump and it's b-a-a-a-a-ckkk!



Picture of the cool blue North Atlantic this afternoon...



Well... It's cool anyways, if not blue. Sea ice is to the horizon, if you could SEE a horizon!

Time to pretend to do some work in the home office... My furry co-workers say it's pointless though and I should play 'toss-the-fake-mouse' or something.



Good to see you've ventured 'up North' Smilo! Hope the weather extreme didn't put you off...
Any comments on the t-shirt? On one of the rides here a few years ago, there was a guy sporting a TT helmet. I quickly accosted him and asked 'who-when-where' only to find out he'd bought it on-line and has never been near IOM. I think I threw a doughnut at him...

I saw from the local show reports that you couldn't get anywhere near the electric Harley display. Not sure if people were laughing or in awe! Same thing at the Kawi H2R (?). Is it a bike, or a plane?
I'd love to go to the last 'local' show here, but it is a 5 hour drive (local ). Road conditions are... unh... 'unfavorable'.

I'll catch up on the internet I guess...

How do you spell KTM??

Dont get me started on them electric bikes , its all a load of crap at the moment they say they are the future , no chance in the for seeable future , and to put them up as a green alternative is pure bull , we are already having a problem producing enough electricity for normal everyday living never mind trying to use electric power for all our transport requirements , if you say that we want to replace the amount of miles covered by petrol driven vehicles with electric driven vehicles and we have no chance , time some one took a reality pill and stopped wasting money

... and how can you get exited by winding out a vacuum cleaner motor to 10,000 rpm? Electric vehicles here make me laugh when you ask where the defroster is! They are thinking of re-opening two old mines here. One is for coal (30 years full extraction reserves) and the other one was an old tin mine, but it has bits of stuff they need for batteries so now it's valuable again. I guess! Battery guts are pretty well controlled by China. That's a little scary!

The electric Harley was parked at the hotel.  NOT on display.  I believe a Harley person was riding it, though.  And it did seem to be "watched over" a bit.

Yeah, electric bikes (and cars) are intriguing "in theory", but battery technology isn't there (yet).  Nice to see it is getting enough attention for some development in that area.  If you could have a quick charge 200 mile battery that weighed 20 pounds or so, well, then you'd be on to something.

But, in the real world, no.  However, it was interesting to see the beautifully finished, handsome bike with "Harley" written on it.  I just wish they would make an internal combustion bike about the same size and style.  They obviously have the talent if the marketing people would approve.

I'm embarrassed, as we did NOT go and watch the 200 (or any racing) this year.  The race was just a big club race, with no big teams, and the price was the same, so I passed.

Just rode up, spent the night (had a hotel points deal) and had a "few" adult beverages and walked main street.  

Went to the Ducati/BMW/Triumph dealer the next day and sat on the Ducati Scrambler.  They had one at the big bike show in October, but could not sit on it.

Nice, but not well situated for two-up riding.  Maybe OK compared to a sportbike, but not compared to a "standard" like the Bonneville or the full-grown monster.

Too bad, as it is a nice bike at a good price point.  It does have some ugly, super cheap components on it, though.  But those could be replaced without a huge outlay.

No real comments on the TT shirt this go-around, except for one of the guys working on the house when I went to pick the bike up.  I always try to wear them to find like-minded folks and talk TT, but no luck this go around.

The Ducati Scrambler is one of the reasons I wanted to go to this weekend's show in Halifax. Rotten little kid is contemplating switching his Triumph Scrambler for the Ducati.
Wasn't in the cards though, both weather related event coming up AND a massive error at work will keep me busy for the next three days. No weekend for me.
We've had 3 'snow days' this week and it makes me wonder about retirement. Would want to have something interesting to do if I wasn't working 'for the man'. Go pretty crazy hanging around the house in the winter. Only so much snow you can shovel!
Of course, if I had a 150 HP snowmobile... Hummm?

You are welcome to the snow I hate the stuff first it's cold then it turns slippy then it turns wet , and the older I get the more I hate all three , don't mind wet if it's warm wet in a shower , hate to admit it but am slowly turning in to a softie

Well, we get some "extreme" weather here too, but I think J.P. definitely takes the cake on that one.

The scrambler is a great bike, and I'm sure Ducati will sell the heck out of them at that price.  It just seems a little compact for even short-distance two-up riding (there might be mods to fix this someday)

I find it interesting that they are kind of pitching it as a sub-brand.  Kind of like Toyota/Scion here in the states.

I wanted to post a picture of this year's Bike Week "crazy high-dollar chopper style of the week".  The old long-fork, wide back wheel, billet things from the last couple of years were nowhere to be found.

The trend this year?  "Big Wheel Baggers".  Distorted versions of Harley Road King style machines with distorted "bags and trunk" and a huge, penny-farthing style front wheels.

I didn't take any pics, but found one on E-Bay for an example (search "big wheel baggers")...

I just dont get things like that they just dont float my boat at all , I can see the engineering skill that has gone in to it , but why would you , it cost thousands of pounds/dollars to build and lets be honest to do what ?? to be a show bike/ornament try ride it and the only one I had a go on was one of the most uncomfortable heaps of junk I have ever had the displeasure of throwing my leg over , no for gods sake keep them at your side of the pond

I'm baffled.  There is some work that goes into them for sure, but whatever the "current trend" is, becomes available in kit form pretty much.  There were dozens of bikes that looked nearly alike.

The bike in my pic is on sale on EBay at around $68K... Er.  OK.

While there are bike "artists" that do amazing things, these are mostly kit bikes where somebody tells you what you want to be in style this year and say "look at me", asks what kind of custom paint job you want, and charges you an arm and a leg.

Not my cup of tea either, but it is part of the event.

That said, cafe racers are slowly catching on too, so there were some pretty cool bikes (by my standards) too!

Couldn't get many pics, though, as they were mostly being ridden!

I remember watching some guys at a Harley ride during the 'HokaHey' ride a few years ago. (Scam ride across the US 10,000 miles in 10 days or something for a prize that was never awarded... weird). Anyways... the ride was from a parking lot that was about 15 feet below street level so the 'bikers' had to turn 90 degrees and go up a slightly steep drive from the lot to the street. 1/2 of them scraped their side bags so badly they left about an inch of fiberglass on the road after a dozen had gone by. I have pictures somewhere, but they're blurry. I was laughing so hard I couldn't hold the camera steady!

I had a go on one feet forward arms reaching for the sky the wind blast was so bad that anything above 45mph was uncomfortable, venture up to 60 and in my book was getting dangerous, to me ride one of them and what you are saying is look at me I am in to PAIN , no sorry just not for me , and what gets me is the builders of these things are that good at engineering why on earth don't they put their expertise to better use building something more practical

Some sport bikes can be equally overdone for their use and as impractical (if a bit more functional for going fast!).

As far as the actual form of the bike, I'm less grouchy.  As long as I don't have to ride it, whatever floats your boat.

I think what annoys me at events like these is the poser/style of the week aspect.  If I saw only one bike like the one in my pic, the guy who had it probably built it, and you could at least talk to him about why the big front wheel or whatever.

But, when you see many, mostly alike, it loses any attraction.  They have the big wheel because that is the thing to have, and they have straight pipes and an ear-bleed level stereo (another trend this year see the speakers on top of the "bags" in the pic).

It is just a generic "gold Rolex with extra diamonds" sort of thing.  Next year they will be riding something else.

I agree about the sports bike being uncomfortable but they are designed to be raced , so at least ridden them things are just there to be ornaments, they just don't do it for me , but at least I did try it once , I didn't just condemn out of hand

Yeah, I agree. Just sayin' that the "crap bike" aspect isn't as annoying to me as the "clueless poser" aspect.

I think you have more chopper-riding experience than myself!

Agreed about the 'clueless posers'!
Followed a Harley (not ALWAYS necessarily a Harley, but mostly Harleys ) Anywayss... This guy was riding a faked up 'stock' chopper with the high bars and the little seat and the fat tire, and the low bags, etc... etc... He was steadily in the left lane (fast lane here, Eddy) at about 10 km under (5 MPH, Smilo   ) the limit.
Refused to move over for anybody even when the right lane was empty. Had a 3 car back-up behind him, and they eventually passed him on the right (wrong side, Eddy). I hung back about 15 car lengths, just to see what would happen or see him get killed.
Morbid, eh?
He NEVER pulled over, so I too passed him on the wrong side and continued on. He was completely oblivious to the evil eye I bestowed on him. Believe it or not, he pulled in to the same restaurant parking lot about 10 minutes behind me and immediately started talking to a bunch of like-mounted buddies.
He was telling them about his 'run' back from the ferry, and how he'd really 'hammered' it along the highway and how the bike was a real 'beast' at THOSE speeds.
I walked away imagining the conversation he would have the next morning at the accounting firm. Impressing all his Lexus and BMW car buddies.
Ahhhh... I'm just jealous I don't 'drive' a REAL bike... Like the Harley guys do.

There are only two good things about a Harley to me one is the sound , I have always loved the sound of a twin , being a sixties boy , and the clubs over here they are a very active bunch ride outs all over the place and do a hell of a lot of charitable stuff fair play to them for that