Gummiente's Blog!

[Gummiente]

Ural blog updated today!

It's too much effort for a lazy old fart like me to set up a separate blog for the Harley on my website, so I'm taking advantage of this one to record my adventures with Red Oktober...

I've been enjoying the spring weather and putting more miles on the Harley than on the Ural lately; when I brought Red Oktober home back in March it had 2,200km on the clock. It now has 5,700km and has been absolutely trouble-free; any initial misgivings about trading in my '04 Electra-Glide have all but disapeared now. Angie and I had our first long ride of the season together this past weekend when we rode the long way up to Ottawa to spend the night at our friends' house. We were a little, um, under the weather on the Saturday morning due to a couple bottles of wine enjoyed on our back patio the night before, so we had to make frequent stops to re-hydrate ourselves.


Had a great weekend with lots of food, more libations, laughter and camaraderie. Our friends Dave and Jackie also ride (Kawi ZX-12 and Kawi Drifter 800) and I've known them for many years; Dave and I are brothers from different mothers and Jackie is the sister I never had. Great people!

Sunday morning before we left, I took a ride to a Tim Horton's a few blocks from their place to meet a guy I've been emailing lately about his sidecar rig. He has an '04 H-D Superglide with a Trans-Moto sidecar and as he lives in Ottawa I jumped at the chance to see it up close. And what a beauty it is - the sidecar is all steel construction with stainless steel fittings and a fully upholstered interior. We spent the better part of an hour talking about bikes and sidecars, at the end of it I'd made yet another new friend.


Yesterday I went into Kingston to finalise the tax return paperwork with my accountant. F**K REVENUE CANADA!!! (ahem) Anyway. Afterwards, I popped by the Harley dealer for a visit and saw this beauty sitting out in the parking lot. It looks like an old school Triumph chopper, but those with a keen eye will spot what it REALLY is ...

[Gummiente]

So I'm riding to work on the Parkway this morning, just puttering along on the Ural and enjoying the scenery and lack of traffic, when I came upon an unusual sight. As I approached one of the "Scenic View" points, I saw a large object in front of the protective stone wall that prevents hapless tourists from falling over the edge into the river below. It was a wild turkey... he was just standing there gazing out over the river. He heard my bike and casually turned to look at me for a few seconds, then looked back at the river again totally unconcerned. WTF??!! Do wild turkeys have the cranial capacity to enjoy scenic views? Or was he planning to jump? Surveying his kingdom? It looked so odd to see him standing there like a tourist, all that was missing was a camera slung around his neck and a Tilley hat on his head.

This Spring has been a non-stop Wild Kingdom episode on my morning commutes. Wild turkeys, ospreys, fox, rabbits, raccoons, geese, ducks, squirrels, porcupines, blue heron, stupidfrigginbambi's, I see them all regularly from the saddle. Almost puts me in a good mood for work. Almost.

[NorthernPete]

suprised the turkey didnt bolt, usually they run at wierd sounds....

[Gummiente]

Now that the weather has warmed up the roads I've been getting more aggressive in the corners with the Superglide, something I couldn't do on the chilled tarmac last October when I bought it. And I've experienced something that has never happened before on any of my previous bikes... I was leaning over so far on the corners that my boot heels were grinding on the pavement. Freaked me out the first couple times it happened, but once I realised what it was I compensated for it by rotating my feet forward on the pegs just before entering a corner. I've had pegs, sidestands, floorboards and exhaust pipes grinding away beneath me before, but boots are a first. The forward controls make my heels dangle down below the pegs; had I left the stock mid-controls on then it wouldn't be an issue, but I just can't ride long distances with my knees cramped up like that. On the Ural I can at least stretch out my legs by hooking the left one over the engine guard and placing the right one on the sidecar frame rail, but the Harley has only one spot for the feet. Anyway, there's still lots of lean angle left even when I rotate my boots up out of the way but I doubt I'll get over that far. Getting wimpy in my old age, I guess. But I'm already 20kmh faster in all my fave corners than I was on my Electra-Glide, so the Dyna Superglide looks to be the bike I hoped it would be. The only other bike I've owned that could corner faster and deeper was my '01 Triumph Tiger. Never did scrape the pegs on that one but had it heeled over to some REALLY silly lean angles a few times.

Tomorrow is supposed to be nice, warm and sunny again so the Harley will be the prime mode of transport. Thursday through Sunday, however, looks like rain in the forecast so the Ural will get the nod for commuting duties then.

[blues2cruise]

I guess this means you will wear out your chicken strips soon. Mine have a couple of smudges on them.

[Gummiente]

I guess this means you will wear out your chicken strips soon.

It's a Harley, it doesn't have chicken strips. It has Cornish Hen strips.

[Gummiente]

Hector is famous again! His picture appears in the June edition of Inside Motorcycles magazine in the column written by Larry Tate. Larry had asked me a few weeks ago for a pic of Hector, the Ural and myself because he was writing an article about winter riding and was going to mention us in it. He did a nice writeup, too, even though he refers to me as being "crazy"... but in a nice way.

[Gummiente]

An excerpt from the latest entry in my Ural Web Log...

"I have finally, totally, irreversibly slipped down into the warm depths of madness. It has been rainy/drizzly/crappy all week so far and I have ridden the Ural to work every day, regardless of the weather. This morning was particularly nasty what with the strong winds, steady rain and a chilly 11C temp. But there I was out on the road all toasty warm with my electric vest, rain pants, ballistic nylon riding jacket, leaky boots, open face helmet, sopping wet beard, waterlogged earplugs, fogged over glasses... and one silly, bigass, wet grin on my face the whole time. I actually enjoyed the ride and arrived at work with a smile on my face and a spring in step, much to the disbelief and rolled eyes of my co-workers. Damn that Ural, it has corrupted my soul!"

[Gummiente]

FINALLY got to ride the Harley today, it's been sitting there for over a week now because I've been using the Ural. The weather has been drizzly/rainy/moody for several days now and I'd much rather get the $10k bike dirty than the $17k one.

Wasn't much of a ride, though, as most of the day (I took today off as a holiday) had been spent taking my Mom for a ride in the Ural's sidecar. It was 2pm by the time I fired up Red Oktober, so I decided to just take the long way into Kingston and visit Motosport Plus to see if I could solve my signal light dilemma. See, I don't like the rear signal relocation brackets Harley uses when saddlebags are installed - they're ugly, black tubes that place the signals way out behind the rear of the bags like two little chrome blobs. I had ordered some flush-mount marker lights with the intent to install them on the rear of the bags, but when I hooked them up and did a load test the signal light module could not compensate for the reduced current draw of the tiny bulbs. This resulted in the signals flashing at a very rapid rate, which meant either installing a load equaliser or looking for some other kind of lights.

So when I got to Motosport Plus, Alison the Parts Goddess and I spent a frustrating 1/2 hour looking through catalogues for an answer without success until she hit upon the Kuryakyn Panacea tail light... one of which she just happened to have in stock. This is an LED unit with yellow "arrows" integrated into the circuit board that act as turn signals; when the signal switch is pressed the corresponding edge of the tail light shuts off the red LED's and lights up the yellow ones in the shape of an arrow pointing in the intended direction of travel. Not only that, but when the brakes are applied it automatically pulses for one second and then stays on until the brakes are released. Pretty neat. It took about 1/2hr to install out in the garage tonight and it really cleans up the back end of the bike. The "arrows" aren't quite as bright as I'd hoped they'd be, but they still are quite noticeable. I usually employ hand signals in addition to the signal lights anyway.

Just checked the weather forecast and it looks like rain all day tomorrow, so I won't be out on the bike(s) again until Sunday.

[Gummiente]

There was a window of sunshine between the periods of rain yesterday morning and I took full advantage of it by taking Angie in the sidecar out to the Rockport Lighthouse for brekkie. We stopped in the hamlet of Escott along the way because I wanted to show her my latest dream. There's a public school for sale on a very large plot of land and, should I ever win the lottery, it will become Ontario's newest Ural dealership with Angie, Hector and myself as the friendly staff. It will be a full-service Ural dealership, of course, with at least one of every model on display. There'll also be Dnepr parts and service available and the huge back yard will make an excellent spot for the annual CURD Rally. I'm going to call it "Gummi's Garage".

Dare to dream!