World's Heaviest Motorcycle

From a German website, "das Panzerbike:

Miscellaneous

Triumph Rocket III manufacturing process

Now I want me a British bike:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKEuzxC4eGc

How the Triumph Rocket III is built. It has a great ability to change directions because it uses "argument juice from the argument lobe of the female brain".

Build a Bike

Allstate Insurance has an interesting site where you can design your own motorcycle. Give it a minute to load. You might enjoy watching the guys building a bike, but click on "Build a Bike" and build your own. Send me a picture of your bike. Here's mine, I named it "Black Bob".

Me and the Ninja

I'm really liking the little Ninja. I kind of get pushed around by the wind at highway speeds, but otherwise it's a lot of fun to ride, and I got 65 mpg on my last tank.

Bill's new bike 2

Bill & I rode to the TX207 Rest Area south of Claude & took pictures of our new bikes. It was a nice ride, but felt good to be out of the wind at the rest area in the canyon. We shot the breeze for a good long while.

The trailer project

Ron and I are exploring the feasibility of using my old lawnmower hauler as a motorcycle trailer. First thing to do is paint it black.

Gary's new bike

Gary got a new Buell Ulysses XB12-something. Cool bike, looks like it could climb a building. We took brief advantage of the prettiest day of the year so far and went for a ride.

Test drive

Ron came over and test drove the new Ninja. He liked its quickness & agility.

Bill Q gets himself a Harley

Not to be outdone by my recent Ninja 25o acquisition, Bill Q has gone and gotten himself a big ol' Harley Heritage Softail. I'll dig up a more recent picture later.

Reversed polarity

A couple of weeks ago, I turned on the key (81 6-volt Passport), and I have dash lights but the starter wouldn't crank. This is typical after the bike sits a while. So I kick start it, it runs great and I ride around for about 2 hours, thinking that I'm doing the battery some good.

The bike sits for a couple of weeks again until today, I turn on the key and I have NO dash lights. I don't want to start it and blow out bulbs with a dead battery, so I immediately remove the battery and hook it up to a meter which shows zero volts/amps. The electrolyte level is good. I figure the battery is probably shot, but with nothing to lose, I hook the leads up to my wall-wart trickle charger, and while looking for an outlet to plug it in, I notice the charger getting really warm really quickly and look down and see smoke coming out of the little charger, and by now it's really hot! So I disconnect it, but now I'm wondering where it got enough energy from the battery to do such a thing.

So, I hook up the meter again, and it still shows zero volts/amps. So I reverse the connectors, hooking negative to positive, etc., and now the battery shows fully charged, and tests good except for the polarity being reversed.

What caused this? I assume that both the battery and charger are trash, but I'm wondering what I might have done to cause this.

New bike: Ninja 250

So, I found a bargain on Craig's List and am now the owner of a virtually brand new 2007 Kawasaki Ninja 250.

It's still in the break-in period, so I'm taking it really easy for a while.

Couple of Ninja 250 stories

Here's a 52 yr old guy who rode his 2006 Ninja 250 from Key West Florida to Prudhoe Bay Alaska.

And here is a "minimalist's" ride through Mexico on a Ninja 250.

Pretty day for February

I've had my bike on a trailer for about 3 weeks now, waiting for a chance to take it to town for new tires. I've missed a couple of pretty nice riding days because of this. Today though, it was so damn pretty and a Saturday to boot, that I went ahead and took it off the trailer and cleaned it up. The tires are not yet hazardous anyway.

Also, I got myself a new digital SLR camera last week that I've been trying to learn how to use. I rode out south of Claude on TX207 to Palo Duro and took these pictures.

There were a bunch of bikes out today. February. Go figure.

Big Dog Motorcycles, the leader in the high style cruiser niche and number 2 American V-Twin motorcycle manufacturer, unveiled its complete 2007 model line and made another giant leap forward in the premium motorcycle industry with fatter tires, new styling features, and new technologies.

“Big Dog Motorcycles created the benchmark by which other custom manufacturers are judged,” commented Nick Messer, company president. “As the competition continues its crusade to catch up, we continue to set new, higher standards in terms of design and performance.”

Palo Duro Lookout 2

Bill & I snuck off work a little early on a beautiful Wednesday evening and rode out to the rest area at Palo Duro Canyon south of Claude on TX207.

This is my favorite afternoon ride because it's only about 80 miles round trip for me. For Bill, it's about twice that.

The Glass Chicken Tour

Bill & I rode to Mobeetie, Cheyenne, Woodward, and Canadian over the weekend. We visited battlefields (Washita), museums, and cemeteries (Elmwood and Gage) and broadened our historic horizons. In addition, Bill has come to greater appreciate the power of the Glass Chicken Phenomenon, having come across both a natural, spontaneous Glass Chicken with regard to Temple Houston and the movie "Cimarron", and a rare sighting of an actual fired, glazed, "glass" chicken at a grave marker a few feet away from Temple Houston's.
Also, while at the Pioneer Museum at Woodward, Bill found a book containing a photo of my great grandparents and grandmother (on my mother's side) that I had never seen, which I copied and reproduce here.
Later, we stopped in Canadian where as if to add to the irony of Sam Houston's youngest son migrating to Woodward, OK, we found a big screen TV and watched as Texas lost to Oklahoma 21-28.

The Galloways

These are my good friends, Marc and Ellen Galloway and their daughter, Emily. They live in Oracle, Arizona which is just north of Tucson. They were very kind to me during my visit, feeding, housing, and entertaining me with gracious hospitality.

Tucson Arizona

These are just some photos I took from Big A Mountain overlooking Tucson. Nobody I know.