Retired and Trippin

In February of 2010 I was lamenting the cold weather and reading the GL1800 forum online. A post in the Kansas section caught my eye. It was a bike blessing at the First United Methodist Church in Junction City, KS on April 11th. My spousal unit and I talked it over and decided we would do it, weather permitting. April 10th arrived bringing excellent weather - sunshine and temperatures in the 70's. The same was promised for the next day so that afternoon we took off for Junction City, KS. We rode Hwy 24 west from the Kansas City area to Wamego, KS, where we turned south on Hwy 99 and then west again on Hwy 18 to Manhattan, Kansas. We had dinner in Manhattan and then rode on into Junction City on Hwy 18. We found lodging for the night in a Super 8 motel. On April 11th we rode to the First United Methodist Church at 8th and Jefferson ( http://www.jc1stumc.org/index.html ). The parking lot on the west side of the church was reserved for motorcycles and parking was being managed by the...

Tuesday, March 30th, was a beautiful day so Gary, Greg, and I decided to ride to Collins, MO for lunch at Peggy's Restaurant. Greg had a brand new Goldwing that needed a good break-in ride and Gary and I had been itching for a ride. We rode south from Shawnee, KS on Hwy 7 to Hwy 54, which is nearly to Ft. Scott, Kansas. From there we rode east on Hwy 54 to Collins, MO at the intersection of Hwy's 54 and 13. Peggy's is famous in our riding group for their pork tenderloin sandwich, which all three of us ordered. We were not disappointed. The only down side of the tenderloin sandwich is that we were too full to enjoy a fine piece of pie. After lunch we rode home on Hwy's 13, some unknown county roads that Gary knows by heart, Hwy 71, some more county roads, and Hwy 69. Our entire trip covered approximately 320 miles. The weather was fantastic with sunshine and temperatures in the 70's. No photos were taken.

At noon today, as I was headed out to have lunch with Carl and our dad, I checked the outside thermometer and saw it was already a little over 40 degrees. I thought this would be a good day to give the new Falken car tire on the rear of my GW a test spin. After lunch I had some other commitments (us retired people can get awful busy) so I didn't get a chance to go riding until nearly 5:00. By then the temperature had dropped to 39, according to the temperature indicator on the motorcycle. I took a short ride out to I-435, north to K-32, west to K-7, south to K-10, east to I-435, north to Johnson Drive, east to Quik Trip for gas, and then home. I only rode 37 miles but I gave the tire a pretty good evaluation. I hit 90 mph with no ill effects. I drug the highway pegs on the ramp from I-435 to K-32 and again from I-435 to Johnson Dr. There was no sliding at all. I had no problem with handling at slow speeds around my neighborhood. It did require that wee bit of a nudge to...

Today I put the wheel with the Falken tire on my motorcycle. It (we) are ready to ride! Bring on the warmer weather.

I mounted the Falken Ziex ZE912 on the rear wheel of my Goldwing yesterday. It looks good. I am anxious to get out on the road and test it out.

No, I’m not turning to devil worshipping nor am I turning into a werewolf. Two web sites that I know of refer to a motorcycle rider who rides with a car tire on his motorcycle as a dark sider or darksider (one or two words, depends on the web site). http://lifeisaroad.com/stories/2004/10/27/theDarkSide.html http://gl1800riders.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=31 There are several reasons provided for going to the dark side but the one that drew me in was the possibility of getting more miles out of the tire. Motorcycle tires on the rear of my Goldwing have been lasting 10,000 miles at best, my last one only 4,000. It seems that motorcycle tires are engineered to wear out quickly. And they are not cheap. A very good car tire costs less than a motorcycle tire. A friend of mine recently crossed over to the dark side. He purchased a car tire, a Pirelli Eufori, installed it on his Goldwing, and rode it for one or two thousand miles before the cold weather grounded him. He is pleased w...

Here it is nearly Christmas. I'm tired of the cold already and I'm ready to ride . . . anywhere.