To Ride an Iron Horse - Jack of the Green's Blog

[JackoftheGreen]

Soooo where to start?

It's my motorcycle blog, so I guess the first update should be the what I'm riding. I picked up a 2020 Versys 1000 SE LT and sold my Concours14 to a friend of mine. Loving the Versys, not as fast as the Connie but way more comfortable and modern. Crusie control, ride modes, lean lights, all the things. It's pretty awesome, named it Gleep after a character in an old series of books I used to read as a kid. Also bought a KLR last year - two of them actually - with plans to do some adventure riding, but so far we haven't really taken to it. I'm planning to sell them this winter. And I also bought an M109R as a vanity project, it's a riot to ride but it's currently broke down.

Carrie updated her stable as well, we sold her CTX1300 and picked her up one of those new GSX-S1000GT+ monsters. That thing is a rocket ship with an attitude, real fast and crisp and nimble. Pretty badass. She still has the ZX-14R too.

I also rolled up my 20 year career where I was working before and started managing my local Cycle Gear. It's nice to get even deeper into the community through that role, but it's challenging working in retail.

Also still teaching with my local MSF program.

[JackoftheGreen]

Missing my Bully this morning.

Bully, you say? Well, that's Bully owner-speak for the Suzuki Boulevard M109R. It's possible owners of smaller Boulevards also call them Bully's, but I'm pretty sure the honorific is reserved for the big one. Anyway...

Yeah, missing the bike.

He's here, of course. I could go out and visit him where he's stashed in our little covered trailer. There's no room at the shop just now, so I can't take him in until after the first of the year. It's the first thing on my list for 2024.

The M109R is famous, you see, for lots of things - monstrous torque, polarizing looks, that big ole 240 out back - but it's also infamous for a few things. Among them, they're prone to 2nd gear failure. If I tried to explain the exact part that fails and the nature of the failure, I'd screw it up. I'm not much of wrench. But suffice it to say, some component of the transmission related to gear the 2nd tends to take damage on these bikes, and mine was no exception.

My last ride of the season on the Bully was a nightmare. I'd planned to meet up with a friend of mine and go for a ride, but I wanted to knock out an oil change first. I took the bike out for a quick 10-minute jaunt just to warm up the oil prior to draining, and everything went sideways. First I ran outta gas about two miles from home, which sucked but wasn't a huge deal. Carrie ran one of our Rotopax out to me and solved that issue very quickly. But cruising down the road about halfway home, the bike started to shudder and jerk. Just a little at first, but it got bad FAST. So I had to pull over again, and I knew right then something I Couldn't Fix had happened. My buddy came out and helped me trailer the bike home, only a couple of blocks by then, but it was a sad day. I took the Versys for our ride instead.

So the M109R has been sitting since then, other than a quick trip to another friends house for a once-over to see if it was something he could fix. No such luck, and I brought him home. I left him in the trailer because loading and unloading a 760 pound bike is nerve-racking and I prefer to do it as rarely as possible. So he sits, cold and alone, until the New Year.

[JackoftheGreen]

I think one of the greatest tensions in all the world is the tension between preparation and freedom. May I elaborate? Of course I may, it's my blog.

We went for a ride yesterday. Yesterday was January 1st and we live in the United State of Utah, which is at the 40th Parallel and USDA hardiness zone #6.

All that is to say January 1st is not typically a riding day in Utah. In fact it's two months into what we normally think of as the "off season" for riding. To be fair, our winters have been both contracting and delaying for the last decade or longer, so maybe it's time to reevaluate what we think of as the end of the season. But to be reductive in the interest of succinctness (TOO LATE!!), it was cold. 35 or 38 degrees for the entirety of our ride. The roads were mostly dry except for a few shady patches of frost, and the sun was shining. And I, my friends, was toasty warm.

Not by accident, of course. I was wearing (takes a breath) tank-top, unders (oh stop blushing), thermal fleece leggings, an electrically heated jacket liner, a long-sleeve thermal fleece shirt, textile riding pants with a quilted thermal zip-in liner, wool socks, waterproof riding boots, a waterproof armored riding jacket, insulated cold-weather armored riding gloves, and a helmet. I have no idea how much it all weighs, and it takes about five full minutes to get it all on. I also have a pair of electrically heated glove liners, but with my handguards and heated grips on the Versys they weren't necessary. I was a hopelite, no joke. Fully equipped. I could have ridden that way as long as the sun was up, though we only went out for about an hour.

In the warmer months, I ride my motorcycle to work most days. My commute is laughable, about ten minutes on surface roads, and I ride in an armored jacket, plain jeans, helmet, gloves, and boots. Not quite ATGATT because the jeans don't make the cut. Otherwise, full kit. At work I swap out the boots for old-man shoes. That's an acceptable level of preparation to get to ride every day, not a huge inconvenience. Totally worth it to turn work days into riding days. Could I put on my cold weather kit and ride to work in the winter too? Betchuraz. Will I? Absolutely not. It would take longer to dress and undress than the commute would last. That's both ways. But I could, and the reward would be more seat time.

This dynamic is scalable, too. If I have errands to run around town when it's warm, it's usually worth the extra prep to get to take the bike. The only exceptions are if there's a lot of groceries to get, if I have to go INTO the bank, or if it's just one stop close to home. Otherwise, I'll suit up. As the weather get's cooler, you introduce a new metric. Will I be OUTSIDE long enough to get too cold, will I be INSIDE anywhere long enough to warm back up? Will the thermals be enough of an advantage while I'm on the bike to make up for the liability they'll be while I'm indoors? Freedom and prep, prep and freedom.