Where did you ride today?

One of my favorite winter desert rides, Great Overland Stage Route (S2 Imperial Hwy), Warner Springs to Ocotillo Ca. Past Aqua Caliente Airport, where 30 years ago I flew Night Vision Goggle helicopter training missions. Then on to Yuma where I camped at the VFW.

Tom

Aqua Caliente Airport

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Yuma VFW

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I've been stuck in the house on Covid isolation. I went positive this past Saturday.
Yesterday midday it was warm enough to wash the bike inside my garage, but today I just couldn't stay in. The temperature was 40F. But I'm feeling great, so...I got out my new heated gear and took off for a bit.
I started off with a few minutes of low speed practice at the soccer field parking lot down the street... I'm improving but not quickly.
Then I thought I'd go for a putt. After a mile I realized I needed a different layer, I had the heated gear on, but there were some cold spots where there's no heat grid. I was wearing a ballistic shell over the Garmin liner. So I went home and put on my jacket liner in between the two layers I had used to start out. Solved the heat issue. But there's more.
I got about ten miles from home, in the woods between 2 tiny towns when I realized, there's a noise from my bike. Moaning noise from the front wheel. .
That noise was my cue to turn back, I am not about to press things. I haven't been riding in a lot of years and have just restarted last month. So I came home and ordered wheel bearings and bearing seals for my front wheel.
And then something good happened, I got an online notice that my pants to match my jacket had arrived. No more ski pants. I'd been looking for those pants for a month then I realized to just google things instead of searching stores I know of.
I'll be going back to work on Thursday. That's the 5 days for Covid. I'm a little old for a full time job, but it keeps me socialized, and away from the refrigerator.
Glad to hear you did ok with the Covid and used your good sense and turned back when you got warning signs from the front wheel. I am still getting my bike right after almost a year. My first Street bike and I have been off the two wheelers for thirty years so it's kind of like starting all over again. Stay safe out there! - BR
 
I rode to Cocoa FL. Today for a lunch with good friend @bstig60 then on south a bit more. Camped at Ortona south where the boats taking the shortcut from the gulf to the Atlantic lock through just west of Lake Okeechobee.

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lake Okeechobee view area.

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Janet and I really enjoyed your visit and the great lunch at Woody's BBQ. Glad you made it to your campsite before the cold front moved thru. Ride safe on the rest of your trip.
 
Took a ride with my oldest son to have lunch at Frank and Shirley's. They had some great pork tenderloin tips over rice. After filling up the tanks (ours not the bikes) we went past one of the largest phosphate mines on the East Coast of the U.S. to the shores of the Pamlico River. Snapped a little photo to share with my fellow ST riders.
 

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41F 5C, took a little jaunt to put some deliveries into my brothers house. Avoid those porch pirates.
Then more low-speed practice on the way back at the parking lot.
I have been watching low speed training videos from "Be the boss of your motorcycle" Guy is fun and a good teacher.
Gerbing heated gloves and jacket liner make it good. Pants came in too small. I have big butt pants on the way.
 
There was a BIG wind on Friday evening that had high gusts overnight. Winds of 37 mph with more than one gust up to 57 mph here in West Des Moines. We only had one small Christmas tree sitting on our front stoop blow over from it but my son up in Ankeny had 1/3 of his lights on the roof blow down and one string in the middle stopped working. So I rode up today to Ankeny to assist with resetting the lights and replacing that broken string. My son cannot climb a ladder very well. With me getting older it's also getting harder for me to climb up high but I can still do it carefully. No winds today so that was a big help. Temps were about as good as they will be for the rest of the month so it was a good day for it. Temps were around 45 F on the way up and had dropped to 43 F on the way back home. 22 miles one way to get there. 32 miles on the way back for a total of 54 miles. Used the handlebar muffs but did not turn on the grip heat (too warm for that). Stopped at the boat ramp for the Des Moines River on my way back and noted there was some ice on the water near the banks. Lows have been in the mid 20s F and highs around mid 40s F lately. Temps will trend a few deg lower next week and lower still the rest of the month. It may be January before the river ices over completely and is ready for ice fishing.
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I rode locally today with just enough mileage to crack 30,000 miles of riding this year. My 2021 Super Tenere is the workhorse since I sold my Yamaha Tracer 900 GT in July and my Tenere 700 last month. I am leaning heavily towards the purchase of a new/used BMW R1250 GS to back up my S10.
 
Just a few very short runs to the store. Temps were around 43-45 F. One trip was 2 miles that turned in to 4. The other trip was 3 miles that turned into 17. So 21 miles today just shopping. You'd all be proud of me. For the second trip I needed to pick up more than would fit the under the seat storage box without crunching the Lays potato chips into crumbs so I strapped on a milk crate and put the heavier stuff in that with my bungee net over it to hold it all in. The bags of chips did go under the seat for better protection. I hate it when my chips get crunched.
 
I've really been enjoying the perfect riding weather that's came late this year. I changed my oil this morning so it was time to run it in a bit. I left here from Pensacola to go eat in St. Bernard LA. at "The Fish Shack". It was great fresh seafood. The plan was to ride 50 miles south of New Orleans then find a camp somewhere. Well I made it down to Venice LA. even crossed the Mizziippee by ferry boat and got a splash of water in my face. Tasted just like Minnesnowta water. I was still enjoying the ride so I just hung a U at the end of the road and it was only 287 miles back to my comfy bed at home. So you know what happened. It was still 70 degrees when I pulled into the garage around
7:30.

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Well, since you asked....(and I know it isn't an ST trip, but what the heck....):

I set off from the Disaster Central Workshop in Windsor, ON (right across the river from Detroit, Michigan) at about 7:30 AM on Sat. Oct. 13 in a frosty haze. My '76 Yamaha XS650 Standard, Lucille
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started - somewhat reluctantly - but she soon settled down to that nice steady loping sound that we love about our XS650s. The engine oil temperature on my Dogbunny thermo-dipstick was way down in the "low" zone. Frankly, I had so many layers of clothing on and my faceshield was misted so badly, that I couldn't bend over far enough to read the number. Therefore, I avoided revving to try to prevent caving in the sump screen. The skies were totally overcast and threatening and as I rode past the puddle that always seems to form at the end of our driveway, I noticed a skim of ice on it. Hmmmm...at that moment, I had three distinct thoughts:
  1. WOW - those weather reports must have been a bit optimistic about the temps around here;
  2. What the heck am I doing? I'm in my 7th decade and I am going to ride several hundred miles with two other similarly aged chaps on 40+ year old motorcycles in THIS kind of weather - just for fun? I must be an even bigger idiot than many people say....
  3. OK - so, its a bit "fresh" outside. What the he!! - I'm a Canadian - aren't I? We are the Frozen Chosen - not like those wussies who don't ride after Labour Day.
Anyhow - on the way out of town I stopped for fuel and then got going to my first waypoint at the home of my riding buddy, Lakeview, near Chatham, ON. The distance is around 45 miles on nice secondary roads and at first, it went fine. Then, around 10 miles from his place, it started to rain - just a bit - but it doesn't take much rain at those temperatures to make you danged chilly. Fortunately, the rain stopped after a few minutes and I soon arrived to find Lakeview's bike and gear set outside his shop. Now, he was wisely ensconced inside where it was warm. He kindly invited me in to thaw and after a few minutes, I was OK again. We went back outside and - HALLELUJAH - the sun was out! Any temperature rise was purely ceremonial - but it FELT warmer and that was good. I put on my rain pants and that helped keep my upper thighs dry and warm for the remainder of the day - quite comfy actually!

We set-off for London - another 75 miles or so - to pick-up RobinC who had also (unwisely?) accepted my foolish invitation. That ride was a bit tougher as we started out on the big 6-laner Hwy 401 to avoid plowing through the city of Chatham. The 401 is the busiest highway in North America according to many sources, and so Lakeview and I had to goose the two old '76 XS650 twins up to around 65-70 MPH against a substantial east wind to "keep up with the Jones". The bikes did OK and the sunshine helped light the way for us quite nicely. In London, I resorted to my iPhone nav system to get us to Robin's home where his bike was out waiting for our arrival. There we hatched the plan for the day:
  • I had to hit a pharmacy for some bandages (I got a dose of poison ivy pulling a downed tree off the Tail of the Dragon roadway on the Vintage Yamaha Rally trip two weeks ago and the raw skin on my wrists was getting chewed-up by the cuffs on my gloves) plus we needed to be sure to have a safety pee (we're old duffers 'ya know...);
  • then we would take the twisty scenic route down to Port Stanley which is a beach town on Lake Erie for a hamburger at Mackie's famous beachfront diner and fun emporium.
Here are a couple of photos of the three bikes (one with Lakeview himself) at the plaza where we did the first set of tasks (and thanks Robin for gently applying the dressings to my poor old wrist). NOTE: the Tim Horton's in the background - did I mention that we are Canadians? Check out Lakeview's very tidy red 1976 - kick-only bike and Robin's beautifully polished '77D...and of course...dear old Lucille with the three-tone striping (very 1970's) in all her scratched and dented glory.
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After all of those preliminaries, we headed out for Port Stanley and what a great ride it was! The temperature had gone up considerably (possibly as high as 10 or even 11C - which is about 50 deg. F) and so we three Canucks were all toasty warm. We rode south through the Railroad City of St. Thomas, ON where Ford used to build all of the big Crown Victoria police cars that are used by coppers everywhere in North America (that Talbotville Ass'y Plant is now, sadly, closed).
St. Thomas is also where P.T. Barnum's Jumbo the Elephant died in 1885 as a result of being struck by a Grand Trunk Railway freight train. It really was a terrible tragedy - here is a contemporary artist's conception of the accident. Apparently, the circus people were using the railroad right of way to move their animals from the paddock to the performance area and a train came along unexpectedly.
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After St. Thomas, the road became narrower and more twisty (fun!) and ran through some pretty little villages and forest country until eventually, the countryside opened up as we headed west across Elgin County toward the Port. However, the wind had now switched direction and was strongly from the west (our direction of travel). Nonetheless, we really enjoyed the twisty roads and even found an old gas station for another bike beauty shot.
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...or two....
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During this part of the ride I would estimate our average ground speed at about 55-60 MPH but our air speed was closer to 80-85 MPH as the wind was danged strong. It sure felt like we were doing "the ton". Anyhow - all was fine with the bikes and my thermo-dipstick was staying steady at just about 200 deg. F. I was delighted with Lucille's performance - after the recent re-build, she has tons of power and sounds nice and quiet with those Porsche elephant's foot adjusters from Air Cooled Specialities. In fact, all three bikes ran like tops the whole day and Lakeview got first-kick starts just about every time.
We soon arrived at the pretty little town of Port Stanley - one of many such towns along the north shore of Lake Erie. Port Stanley is named after Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby who visited the area in the 19th century. Incidentally, Edward was the father of Frederick Stanley (16th Earl of Derby) who became the Governor General of Canada and donated the first Stanley Cup (the National Hockey League championship cup) in 1893.
The town has a beautiful sandy beach and is very popular in the summertime as Erie is normally quite warm. This year, the lake reportedly hit 80 deg. F (around 26C) which for a large freshwater lake in Canada is pretty danged warm. Of course, the south coast of Lake Erie is formed by our good friends and neighbours in the US - perhaps the high levels of "energy" presently occurring there accounts for the warm waters....
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Here is a typical Port Stanley summer scene - and please note, it did not look like this on Saturday.

The lifeguards were brunettes this past weekend.

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At Port Stanley, the typical bill of fare is beach food and so we hit the most prominent location - Mackie's Diner - which has been there since 1911 (well over a century). Three burgers and assorted fries (no relation), onion rings and poutine (aka Quebec-style heart attack-on-a-plate) were downed and it all tasted great! A couple of people quizzed us about the old bikes which is always fun too.
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Mackie's is a very bike-friendly place with dedicated motorcycle-only parking (to avoid stupid arrogant little twits who knock over bikes with their stupid flipping VW Golf GTI pseudo-sports cars...sorry - DAMHIK).
Here is a shot of the three XS650s safely sited in the Bike-Only lot and behind the windows are picnic-style tables so that riders can keep an eye open - just in case.
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You may note that there were NO other motorcycles that day....perhaps they went elsewhere or perhaps they stayed home where it was warm and toasty.
Anyhow, after our meal, we sat around and chewed the fat for a little while but soon, the open road beckoned once again and so after saying good bye to RobinC who rode back home to London, Lakeview and I headed west along the lake shore road and got to his place in the late afternoon. I then carried on to Windsor - figuring I would be low on fuel when I got home. In fact, I went on reserve about 6 miles from home right in front of a gas station so I filled up and toddled back to the DCW in good order.
All-in-all it was a wonderful day with great riding buddies and three superb old bikes.
When I put Lucille to bed, I had covered 323 miles. Here is a map with our approximate route laid-out in yellow hi-lighter.
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Amazingly, Sunday was an even nicer day (who could have known?) and I put another 110 miles on Lucille doing various vital and important "errands" in Leamington, Kingsville, Amherstburg and points there-abouts etc. for a total of nearly 450 miles this weekend.
Cheers,
Pete
Like the 650 line ups here is mine back in the day..

 
Took advantage of record high temps today for a short (200 miles) ride. The Mississippi is still iced over, but thawing. Came across Iowa's first schoolhouse. And another roadside historical marker.
 

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My Granddad designed and built a concrete block house back in the '50s on a 26 acre parcel of land on the bluffs just a few miles south of that school house. Been there many times when visiting. Used to go to his house what seemed like almost every weekend when I was living in Keokuk. About the same time you were living there @docw1 ;)
 
I went to the Damascus House the last two mornings. We've had a lot of snow here, followed by heavy rain and much warmer temperatures.

So I'm heading to the Damascus House yesterday and the road is flooded. No sweat, says I. A car comes from the other direction with a bow wave of at least 3 feet high and four feet to my side.

No sweat. I'm standing on the pegs and I move to the side of the road. My bow wave now shoots up over my helmet, about 8 ft in the air!

I wish I had pictures.

Chris
 
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