American Chopper

First 2008 Ride

Took the MC out for the first substantial ride of the new season yesterday. The weather was right on for armor and leathers. I did the run up to Nyack. Nyack was full of other riders, like bike week or something. Blame the weather.  I took 9W up with the Harleys, Palisades Parkway back with the sportbikes. It’s interesting to see how the cruisers stick to the secondary roads, and the super-sports prefer the highway. P Parkway is a great ride, nice moderate radius turns and relatively smooth pavement. A lot of police though, so you really have to watch your speed. Having said that, I hit an indicated speed of 105mph at one point. Rode out to the end of Peirmont Landing for the views of the Hudson. It’s pretty rad out there. An interesting little community where you’d least expect it. I wanna get out today too, but the pavement is still a little wet. Maybe later . . .

Wipeout!

I was run over by a dog. The dog was off its leash and running full speed down the sidewalk as I was rapidly descending the stairs of my stoop. I was taking Holly (my dog) out, and the other dog was going for her. The dog and I didn’t see each other, and the dog’s skull crashed into my right knee while in mid air before I had put it down. I lost balance, fell, and rolled over on my back and into the minivan parked on the side of the street. My knee kinda hurts, and I’m sure it will be bruised tomorrow. My right hip, which I fell on, is gonna be bruised too I bet. The dog seemed okay, a little stunned perhaps. Holly was fine. The minivan sustained no damage. The irony is that I had just finished a ride on my motorcycle and had been wearing “armored” pants minutes earlier.

Amber Lee & Amina Sade

Amber Lee Ettinger & Amina Sade at 58 Gallery for Hala Vintage:

Music: “Sister Caroline” by Pillbox, available on iTunes.

More motorcycle stuff

I put stiffer fork springs and a new Zero Gravity Double Bubble windshield on my motorcycle. Big improvement in handling at speed. Much more stable. Better in the wind too. Also noticed that a tight fitting motorcycle jacket is essential. If your jacket gets blown around by the wind, you definitely feel that you and the bike are being blown around. A well fitting jacket makes it feel like you are slicing through the wind, which is what you are actually doing. The wind can mess with you, don’t get me wrong, but you sure don’t want to exaggerate it’s effects. The front fork upgrade has made such an improvement on the bike I now want to upgrade the rear shock too. This costs more than a front fork upgrade. I am worried that once I spend the time and money to get everything just so, that’s when I’ll decide to upgrade to an entirely new bike altogether with a larger engine. But right now I am not lusting for more speed or acceleration. Just better handling at highway speeds and in the wind. Hopefully these suspension upgrades will give me this, and keep me from getting a bike with triple the horsepower.