Posts Tagged ‘Harley Davidson’

Harley Owners Group Rolling Rally: History in the Hills Day 4

Posted: June 21, 2016 in Motorcycle, Motorcycle Rides, motorcycle touring, Rally
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WP_20160619_18_06_53_Rich

Today’s HOG motorcycle tour started early.  We were on the road a couple minutes after 7AM (tomorrow will be earlier).  Pulling out of the motel parking lot we headed towards Natural Chimneys State Park, the first stop of the day.  

It took us a few days to figure this out but this HOG event is really an unstructured structured event.  You can go to as many of the stops as you want or none of the stops. You can follow the pre-planned routes or set your own.  We all just start and stop at the same location each day.  This day we chose to skip the State Park and go directly to the second stop the Museum of the Confederacy. 

On the way we had multiple animals try to kill themselves by throwing themselves at our motorcycle.  A rabbit, a squirrel, a blue bird, yellow bird, robins and a couple other critters all threw themselves at us, luckily they all missed by quite a bit.  

WP_20160620_10_45_40_RichThe Museum of the Confederacy is laid out in a fashion that walks you through from what leads up to the succession to the aftermath of the civil war.  In addition to the main museum there are several outdoor features including a “log cabin” built in 1832 and used as a home up until the 1960s. 

From there we headed to Lynchburg Harley Davison.  The Lynchburg HOG chapterWP_20160620_23_08_39_Rich was hosting us for lunch and we had to be there between 12 and 1.  I enjoyed the brat’s and thanked the HOG crew for their hospitality.  By the way, I now have yet another dealer pin for my collection. 

After lunch we remounted the Ultra and headed towards the National D-Day WP_20160620_13_18_32_RichMemorial.  The memorial honors all the soldiers, from twelve nations, that participated in the invasion of Europe in WWII.  As a retired soldier I can say the memorial was quite impressive and provide a poignant reminder of the cost of that invasion.  If you are in the area a few minutes of your time to visit this site would be a good idea. 

Debbie and I skipped the next stop, Foamhenge.  Turns out I wish we had not. Apparently the display will be removed in a couple months.  Oh, well. 

The last stop on this leg of the motorcycle rally, and our hotel, is the Natural Bridge Park and Historic Hotel.  The Natural Bridge is really a bridge with traffic running across the top.  Down below you can hike under the bridge and admire the vista in the same manner as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.  As part of our package we also got to view a light show projected upon the face of the cliffs.  About 10PM we were in our bed with dreams of the  next day.  

To see what happened on day one check out that post!

Harley Owners Group Rolling Rally: History in the Hills Day 2

Posted: June 18, 2016 in Motorcycle Rides, motorcycle touring, Rally, Uncategorized
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WP_20160618_09_14_54_Rich

Day 2 started with breakfast in the Hotel (Gettysburg Country Inn and Suites).  The eggs were……weird, all uniformly round and the same thickness. It was if they had come out of one of those automatic pancake machines.  The taste???…well with the three scopes of salsa I applied they were barley ok (Debbie did not like them at all). 

Our ride around the Gettysburg area started with a trip to the Jennie Wade house. ijustwant2ride.com Jennie was the only civilian who was killed during the battle.  She was shot dead while baking bread for the Union soldiers encamped around the home.  It was a stray shot that went through two doors and killed her instantly.  Her story was quite inspiring during and after the war, I highly recommend you take a few minutes to check it out.  

After our docent led tour of the Jennie Wade house we rode back to the Seminary Ridge Museum.  We did not get a chance to see the entire museum on day one and wanted to finish the tour.  There was a lot of neat history on display. 

Debbie wanted to have taco pizza for lunch but the local Pizza Hut does not make that kind of pizza so she was quite disappointed.  Subway was her second choice so that is where we went. 

ijustwant2ride.comAfter lunch we rolled out to Mr. Ed’s Elephant Museum.  If there is an elephant toy, figurine, picture, painting of any size it is likely in Mr. Ed’s collection.  In addition to the elephant museum, Mr. Ed’s is also a candy store with a large selection of old school and newer candy as well as homemade fudge. 

From Mr. Ed’s we decided to ride to Jack’s Mountain Bridge. It is your typically ijustwant2ride.comstandard covered bridge but, the ride up and over the mountain was a lot of fun.  Nice cruiser style riding with sweeping turns and quick elevation changes.  It was short but a lot of fun, we rode it twice! Make sure to check out the video of our ride over Jack’s Mountain.  

Oh and I got a lot of comments about my hat from day one.  I was able to come up with a selection of statements for anyone that mentioned the hat (all in good fun), such as: 

Be careful or I will let the flying monkeys loose!

I have my eye out for my replacement.

I am a big believer in equal rights, there is a good chance a women will get the hat!

Whomever gets the hat next will have a hard time looking this good!

The highlight of the evening was being able to get rid of the hat! 

 

To see what happened on day one check out that post!

Harley Owners Group Rolling Rally: History in the Hills Day 1

Posted: June 18, 2016 in Motorcycle, Motorcycle Rides, motorcycle touring
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Ijustwant2ride.com

This year Debbie and I decided to try out the national Harley Davidson HOG Rolling Rally.  It has been occurring for the last seven years and this year it is close to home. The theme for this year is “History in the Hills”. 

The start of the rally is Gettysburg, PA and it end a week later in Oak Ridge, TN.  In between there will be the chance to stop at numerous points to fulfill the title of “History in the Hills”. 

Today was the rally registration sign in, a trip to a special event at the Seminary Ridge Museum and the kickoff diner. Our sign in point was Battlefield Harley Davison. It was well organized and took us know time to get signed in, collect our kit of items and talk with some of the folks who are participating in the ride. 

I do have something negative to say about Battlefield HD.  When have been here several times over the years and have always found the folks polite and friendly, willing to go give a hand.  Today that promise of the past did not hold course.  I had forgotten to check the preload on my motorcycles rear shocks and could use a pound or two of additional air to get a better ride.  In the trip from the house to Gettysburg I realized that I needed the additional air and thought I would be able to borrow a pump to add the additional pressure.  NOPE, the service representative said that someone had “borrowed” their pump in the past and did not bring it back thus they did not have a pump for me to use.  Hummm, a complete service center did not have a pump to add air to a motorcycle shock. 

After that we road over to our hotel to check-in.  NOPE, the room is not read, come back after 3PM. Oh and do not park your motorcycle in front of the hotel. We reminded not to park out front at least 3 times.  OK Country Inns and Suites of Gettysburg, I get it you don’t want us to park out front. 

So onto Seminary Ridge and the museum.  We have been to Gettysburg many times and have never been to this museum and plan to take the full tour on day two.  Today the HOG folks (the tour is run my RUSH LLC) had arraigned a special presentation for the group.  We were broke in 4 groups of about 40-50 people and had a round robin education on Civil War soldiers backgrounds and the 1st day of the battle, ambulance wagons, the Seminary itself and a demonstration of how Civil War soldiers formed and marched.  It was quite nice. 

After the presentation were over we rolled over to the Pike Restaurant for the welcome dinner.  The food was good and the folks we shared our table with were awesome.  We had two highlights during the dinner, I was chosen (because I pulled a small prank) to be the first to wear the “HAT”.  The hat is the stereotypical “hillbilly” had from the comics and shows like “Hew Haw”.  I was told that last year the hat was a lobster, so at least I do not have to wear seafood.  I get to pass the hat on to someone else tomorrow….. Let’s see who that will be. 

The other highlight was that we won a $25 Harley Davison gift certificate.  All said we have had a great day and are looking forward to tomorrow’s events.

New Motorcycle Tires! Trying something different.

Posted: June 16, 2016 in Motorcycle, motorcycle safety, motorcycle touring, Product Reviews
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WP_20160423_12_06_42_Rich

I just had new motorcycle tires installed.  This time I chose to go a different route then my normal Dunlop OEM tires.  I bought Pirelli Night Dragons for the Harley Davidson Ultra Limited. 

I did a lot of research on the different tires that are available for my motorcycle.  I looked at Michelin, Metzeler and other brands motorcycle tire stats, reviews etc.  I went with the Night Dragons as it was the only motorcycle tire that seemed to get better reviews in an area that concerned me quite a bit, grip in the wet.  As much as Iijustwant2ride.com love riding, it always seems to rain when we go out and a good “wet tire”, all things equal, got my attention. 

Now I do have concerns about not using the Dunlop OEM tires.  Those motorcycle tires are available at all Harley Davison dealers and would likely be in stock should a worst case scenario occur.  While it would not be optimal to run to different brands of tires on the motorcycle, I am sure worse things occur every day.  

The wife and I will be leaving soon on a 2,000 mile vacation ride so I am sure we will get to try these motorcycle tires in the wet and dry!  I will post a more in-depth review when we return.

Rolling Thunder 2016

Posted: June 5, 2016 in custom motorcycle, Motorcycle, Motorcycle Rides, Rally
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2016 DAV Rolling Thunder Raffle Motorcycle

2016 DAV Rolling Thunder Raffle Motorcycle

I am not sure, as I have never heard any official numbers, but from my perspective attendance was way down over Rolling Thunder 2015.

Normally, starting from the Wednesday before the event, I would start seeing motorcycles headed inbound to Washington.  This year, even through Saturday afternoon, there was little thunder in the area.

Almost every motorcycle dealership in the Washington metro area has some form of pre-event the Saturday before the actual Rolling Thunder parade. Debbie and I attended the pre-event at Fort Washington Harley Davidson.  This dealership is also the Harley Owners Group (HOG) “pin stop” which leads one to believe that there would be a large crowd, as there has been in the past.  Not this year, I was very surprised at the lack of numbers at the dealership.

I make it a point to wonder around the parking lot to check out the bikes and license plates.  This year there were, of course, a lot of motorcycles from the east coast nearly every state from Maine to Florida were present. A couple plates from Texas and one from Montana were the furthest western representatives.  On the international front Canada contributed bikes from Quebec and Newfoundland.

On the way home we stopped at the Jukebox Diner in Sterling, Va.  It was a quite enjoyable meal.  The restaurant is a hat-tip to 1950s in theme and our server, Erich, was having a lot fun with his customers.

Sunday morning, the day of the Rolling Thunder parade, I decided to support my local HOG chapter with the staging for the ride to the Pentagon.  We parked 373 motorcycles in Frederick Harley Davidson parking lot. That was down from 2015 and way off the 750 staged during the 25th anniversary of Rolling Thunder.

Next year is the 30th anniversary so maybe the numbers will return to the norm.

5 Motorcycle Things that interested me this week!

Posted: May 24, 2016 in custom motorcycle, Motorcycle, Motorcycle racing, Motorcycle Rides, motorcycle touring
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Britain’s First Female Motorcycle Wall of Death Star Yvonne Stagg

Smallest motorcycle in the world?

Bike Shed Motorcycle Club Paris 2016

A town’s forgotten motorcycle history!

Ride 50 at 50! 3 Amigos from Britain go to the US to ride the Lonely Road!

Motorcycle Safety Technology

Posted: May 13, 2016 in Motorcycle, Motorcycle advocacy, Motorcycle news, motorcycle safety
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With May nationally recognized, in the US, as Motorcycle Safety Month I thought it might be an interesting idea to look at the future.  What are some of the safety features that might be appearing for motorcyclists in the near future?   

One place to look is the safety features in the automotive industry.  A lot of safety features have already crossed over from cars to high end motorcycles, think ABS, and those features are working their way into becoming standard features in most bikes.  So what is the next big safety feature to cross over?  It might be one, or all, of these: 

Honda-blind-spot-detector-patent-1Blind Spot Monitoring – Honda, BMW and others are working on migrating the technology to motorcycles.  Honda recently requested a patent for a system of camera and millimeter microwave transceivers to help the rider know what is in the blind spot.   

Heads Up Displays (HUDS) – Multiple developers are working on this technology.  One of the more famous is Skully and their smart helmet. Some of these products are already out there but at higher end price points.  In a year or three I expect these costs to go down. 

BMW-Motorcycle-SOS-Intelligent-Emergency-Call-01Emergency Accident Notification – Think “On Star” here in North America. BMW has a big push to introduce their “SOS System” which, similar to a car, is made up of multiple sensors and a mobile phone connection. There is also several other products that connect to your phone via a fob or other device, but I think the BMW system is the first one I have seen integrated into the bike itself. 

Additionally, I think we can expect more trickle down technology to get to the average person’s price point.  As I mentioned above ABS is appearing on more and more motorcycles and in some parts of the world will even be mandatory.  So what other safety features or items might make to the point of ubiquity and reasonable cost for motorcycles?  How about:

LED lights – Yes they have been around for a while, but they are not yet on a majority of bikes.  In a few more years I think all new bikes will come with LED lights. I recently put all LEDs on the back of my bike.

Adaptive headlights – These are the headlights that move a bit to help you see while cornering. BMW, KTM and a few others are experimenting with these lights but I do not think they are coming as original equipment on any motorcycle yet.  BUT if you want it now you can buy aftermarket and install adaptive headlights yourself.

4Smart helmets – Although they typically include HUD, smart helmets are a lot more.  Some offer dynamic noise cancelation, rear facing video, connections to phones, bike to bike communication, etc., etc. You just have to decide how much “connectivity” you want while riding, how much before it become a distraction to you.  I like the concept of a smart helmet but I have not yet had the opportunity to test one out.  

giorgi1Airbags – A few years ago Honda came out with airbags for their Goldwing. I really have not heard much about bike mounted airbags since. But airbags embedded in jackets has started to take hold in the market place.  First introduced for racing, you can now buy, for a bunch of money, for normal street riding.

Traction Control – Or launch control, or one of several other names.  This is on a lot of higher end sport bikes now and some large touring bikes.  It would be a safe bet that in a few years it will be extremely widespread and maybe even mandated.

Automatic tire pressure gauge – Harley Davidson, BMW, Honda and others all have these built into their higher end bikes.  So there is no reason to think that we will not see them on a lot more bikes in the future.

Cornering ABS – Smarter ABS, a system that knows you are in a turn and adjusts the braking to maximize its impact without affecting your turn.

Smart Helmets/HUD            Adaptive Headlights

BMW HUDS                       JW Speaker Adaptive Headlight 

Skully

Intelligent Cranium              Airbags

Sena Smart Helmet              Alpinestars Tech Air Street

Samsung                              Dainese D-Air Street

Motorcycle Racing… I am a fan now!

Posted: May 10, 2016 in Motorcycle, Motorcycle racing
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OK… the boys at Dawghouse Radio have made me a fan of motorcycle racing. 

A while back I wrote a post regarding how I was not a fan motorcycle racing and why I did not care for it.  That post got me an interview on the DawgHouse which led to a hosting spot.  My view on road racing began to change the more I began to pay attention to the racing in order to be better prepared for the podcast. 

It really started during the MOTOGP and World Superbike 2015 racing seasons.  There was a lot excitement all season long. Mark Marquez and Valentino Rossi feuding, Jorge Lorenzo working hard to be the champ was engrossing.  Combine that with World Superbikes Johnathan Rea’s utter domination of that series and the motorcycle racing world just pulled me in.    

Motorcycle racing also pulled my wife in as well.  The bug did not bite her for road supercrossracing but for Supercross and to a lesser extent Motocross.  She and I have sat on the couch and watched the 2016 Champ Ryan Dungey and the rest give it their all every weekend. This year Debbie and I have watched all of the Supercross events and have even discussed going to one next year.   

I still hold to some of my original thoughts about motorcycle racing in the US.  One of the reasons, I think, that Supercross is so popular is that all the spectators can see all (or almost all) the track at one time something you can’t do at motocross and road racing events.   

I also think a racing series limited to V-twins running on some of the NASCAR short track would take off in short amount of time. This would be a little reminiscent of the old board track days.  Harley, Indians, Victory, Star and all the others going at it on a short oval would be a lot of fun to watch.

Moto-AmericaIn addition to the MotoGP and World Superbike I have also been viewing MotoAmerica.  Even though I have only been watching for the last year, I can tell that a high level American series is really needed to help propel American racers to the world stage.  The racing on the American circuit has been fun to watch and I hope they will be able to expand their reach soon.   

So, twist the throttle, I am now a motorcycle racing fan

 

Motorcycle TV: Ride with Norman Reedus

Posted: April 26, 2016 in Motorcycle, Motorcycle Rides, Motorcycle TV
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norman

The “Walking Dead” star gets his own motorcycle themed show on AMC this summer.  The show will premier June the 12th at 10PM (EST).

If you did not know it by the way he has built and rode motorcycles on the Walking Dead Norman is a fan of the two wheel life.  So much so he was able to get AMC to produce a six episode series titled “Ride with Norman Reedus”.

Norman states this is not going to be a gearhead show but on where he and friends “explore local biker culture and celebrate the best and brightest collectors, mechanics and craftsmen around the country. Each episode will feature Reedus and a riding companion – a fellow actor, musician, friend or local chopper fanatic – as they journey to custom bike shops, tattoo parlors, collector’s warehouses, or a roadside smokehouse… with plenty of time for unplanned detours and tire changes”

But unlike us average joes Norman’s friends include Peter Fonda, Robert Rodriguez and Balthazar Getty. Guess I will have to wait for my own TV show to ride with those guys!

I LIKE TO DRAW ATTENTION TO MY REAR END! Product Review: Custom Dynamics HD LED Tour Pak GEN2 Magic Brake Light Flasher for Harley Davidson Motorcycles

Posted: April 18, 2016 in Motorcycle, motorcycle safety, motorcycle touring, Product Reviews
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“Baby got back” and I cannot lie that it fits the Ultra Limited and I want to try to get drivers to see my motorcycle’s rear end. OK.. that is Ultra Bad.

In the age of distracted driving I want folks to have a better chance at seeing me when I am stopped, breaking, or slowing.  So I looked around for a device that would cause my rear lights to flash when the breaks are applied.  There are more than a few of these devices for nearly any motorcycle on the market but I went with the Custom Dynamics Magic Brake Light Flasher.WP_20160417_11_44_23_Rich

I will admit that my section of the Custom Dynamic product was influenced by my earlier purchase of their  LED Turn Signals .  That product was easy to install and has worked well.

The installation of the break light flasher was easier than I expected.  Once the seat was off and you can see the Tour Pak wiring it was almost a no brainer.  Once the device was installed we had to choose the flash pattern.  It comes with 10 patterns of varying complexity.  The video shows you all the patterns, and while it might be less than evident on the video the lights are quite bright. We went with the “Blaster X Consistent” pattern.

When I showed our upgrade to my daughter, as she pulled into the driveway, she stated “that’s distracting”.  I took that as a job well done!

Now it is hard to review whether or not this is a good safety product, if I never get rear ended did the flasher help or did I just get lucky.  But I can review it on ease of installation and my subjective thoughts.  This product does what it says it is going to do, it was easy to install, and I think it is going to help draw attention (thank you daughter).  Based on that I am giving the Custom Dynamics HD LED Tour Pak GEN2 Magic Brake Light Flasher for Harley Davidson Motorcycles 5 out of 5 stars.

5 star

 

 

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