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Apparently, I needed to activate or unblock the comments feature. It is now enabled. :-)

Mileage this season

I found a note I'd written in my paper maintenance log. It listed my mileage on June 6th. Using that figure, I've ridden approximately 3,172.4 miles this season. (That would be as of today.) Most of those miles are commuting to work 50 miles round trip. That is about 793 miles per month. That's not too shabby. :-)

Plans for a new paint job

So, I've been wanting to paint my bike since I bought it. I've heard that the silver wing tanks are fairly rare, and the 450s are sort of a collectors item anyway. So, my thought was to get a different tank and paint it, instead of the stock tank, just because of the rarity and on the odd chance I'd want to sell it, it would be nice to be able to go back to stock.

Anyhoo, there are a few options for tank replacements for the 450 after some trial and error by other folks. There is a way to modify a 250 tank to fit the 450. There is also a motorcycle company called Tank, that has some gas tanks that also fit the 250 Rebel. Using the same modifications, that should also, in theory, work for the 450. And then there is the CX500 tank, which we happen to have a couple of lying around in the garage. So, there are options. (The Tank tank is also larger, which is nice.)

Here is a rough mock up of the paint job I want.


The fleur de lis would be gold same as the pinstripes.

Maybe a winter project?

Going to work the scenic route

Ok, so I took this from my car but the route is still the same. :-)

Getting out of first gear

For some reason I've lost my touch. I can't seem to get out of first very well. It feels as though the bike is carrying a heavy load and doesn't want to get off the line. I know it is just me though and not the bike. Hubby doesn't seem to have any trouble. And I only have trouble when I'm really thinking about it. I can shift through the gears just fine but some times I get stuck in first after coming to a complete stop.

We think it started when I added the cramp buster on the throttle. It also might have something to do with wearing my heavier gloves in the morning.

I guess I need to find a parking lot and practice finding the friction zone again. It is really weird. Not sure how that happened. Getting too comfortable maybe? Riding distracted or tired? Hmmm.

I drove today for those reasons, not the friction zone thing, but being tired and distracted - and running late on a very cold morning. Not as cold as it is going to get but near freezing. Maybe I can ride this evening if it isn't raining.

Conspicuity

Now that the days are darker as I leave for work and come home from work, I've been concerned about how visible I am to other drivers. I once saw a person on a silver bike with silver gear on disappear into the distance against the road. Since I also have a silver bike and silver gear (pants and jacket) I've really wondered how invisible I might be at dusk. I've added the spotlight bar with lights and that has definitely made a difference. I notice people notice me sooner. Fewer folks seem tempted to pull out in front of me - they come to a complete stop as opposed to a rolling stop and then a quick braking when they finally see me. Or maybe they can judge my distance better with the three lights. Or maybe they see me as a larger vehicle and tend to stop because of that. Whatever the reason, it has made a difference.

My jacket and pants both have reflective bits on them. The pants have piping down the sides and a bit on the back of the legs. The jacket has a reflective strip (across the back) and a triangle logo (between my shoulder blades).

Last night I met hubby for dinner and on the ride home he followed in the car (Honda Civic HB). This was a good test to see how visible I am on the road. I wore the retro-reflective Illuminite bicycling vest I bought to increase my conspicuity. It is a slip over thing with velcro on the sides but it isn't very large so I can't put it on by myself over my jacket. That's a problem for sure.

Turns out, I am not very reflective after all. Hubby says the lights from the car don't hit my upper body so the retro-reflective stuff doesn't illuminate. When a taller vehicle was behind him and the car wasn't in the way, those lights lit up the vest. And the high beams on the car also lit up the vest. But, otherwise, I'm not very visible.

So, I think I'll buy some reflective tape to put on the back of my saddle bags. Those are lower and will reflect the low lights of a small car. Also, my duffel bag that I use at work covers a red reflector on the back of my seat back rest. I'm thinking about using the vest material to cover the straps on the bag and maybe the sides of the bag. Might be a better use of the vest. He also thinks that the reflective stripe on the jacket, which was covered by the vest, would be more visible than the vest because it isn't retro-reflective and works in lower indirect light.

So, that was disappointing but a good test. Now I know I need to work on being more conspicuous.

Chilly morning

This morning was just above freezing when I got up. So, I got to use my new winter gauntlet gloves that I bought at MotoGear Outlet. I had to stop to get gas so I figure I would know by the time I got to the gas station how warm I'd be. Turns out I was too warm. The sun came out and that sure made a difference. I had on many layers - short sleeve tee, long sleeve tee, long sleeve turtleneck, fleece vest and then my moto jacket with the liner in. I also had on a balaclava under my helmet. So, my neck was very warm, in fact I couldn't close my jacket at the neck. I also had on long warm tights under my moto mesh pants with the quilted liner in. Wool socks and I liner in my moto boots. (My toes get cold and so do my finger tips usually.)

At the gas station, I took off my heavy gauntlet gloves and put my Joe Rocket warm gloves on with a glove liner. I was having trouble handling the grips with the bigger gloves one. I also took off the fleece vest because I was having a hard time turning my head.

That was much better! I wasn't cold at all and I felt more comfortable handling the bike too.

Thoughts on riding to work

So, I ride to work just about every day unless there is something I have to do that requires the car. For example, I had a meeting one day after work downtown. I don't like driving in rush hour on the interstate so I took my car to work. This also allowed me to get a new windshield for the car. I've been needing to do that for a while now. They came to work to replace it. So, I didn't feel too guilty not riding that day.

It is fairly uneventful getting to and from work these days. That's a good thing really. It is so much more relaxing to arrive on the bike than in the car. And I realized something else. I'd been debating with myself if it takes longer to take the bike - gathering my gear, warming up the bike - as opposed to hopping in the car and going. Well, one thing, when I drive to work I park off campus so it takes me about the same amount of time to walk to my office as it does to warm up the bike. And if I lay out all my gear the night before, which is easy if I take it off and lay it out when I get home, there really isn't more time involved. In the winter I'll be warming up the car anyway.

Now that I've got a routine down it doesn't take any time at all for me to get out the door. For a while I would forget my motorcycle key. I'd get all the way to the garage and have to go back for it. And this was after locking the house and everything. But now I just keep the key in my moto pants pocket. I don't ride without my pants so it is always with me that way. Maybe one day I'll have an extra house key made to keep on that key ring. That way I won't have to remember my house keys and I can leave them in my bag.

That reminds me, I need to have a copy made of the moto key. Maybe we'll do that this weekend.

Road comforts

I've got a cramp buster or throttle rocker, I can't remember which it is. It is nice to be able to relax my grip and still keep my hand on the throttle. It is much more relaxing than not having it. And it works very well with the heavier weight gloves. I've always had trouble when I wear thicker or warmer gloves. I feel as though I can't handle the grips as well as I can with thinner lighter weight gloves.

I also need to add some highway pegs. On the way home from our weekend trip I was wishing I could stretch out my legs. My knees were getting stiff. What I can do on the Rebel is sort of stand on the pegs and sit on the pillion seat. That is quite comfortable to rest that way.

I'd also like to have my seat redone and add some gel to it. There is a place near our house that can do it but it ain't cheap. Would be a nice birthday or christmas present though! I'll add that to the list.

Rocky Mountain NP

In preparation for the proposed ride to Grand Lake, hubby and I decided that if the weather conditions were snowy or rainy or snow on the ground we wouldn't go. The cold would be ok as we have the right gear to keep us warm and safe. We got up to check the CDOT road conditions to make the final yay or nay call. The conditions for Berthoud Pass were wet and icy. And as we sat there looking at it the page refreshed to wet, icy and snow pack. That definitely called it for us. No ride to Grand Lake. :-(

So, we then decided to do an alternate trip. The conditions through Boulder to Estes Park were really good. In fact the metro area was supposed to be sunny and upper 70s all day. I always like traveling to Estes Park, much more than hubby, but he liked the idea so we prepped for the ride.

We decided to ride to Boulder and have breakfast there. It was quite windy, the windiest I'd been in on the bike for sure. The wind certainly does wear you out quickly. We'd only ridden about 25 miles to get to breakfast and we were tired already. But, breakfast perked us up. Hubby got some coffee in his system and I had grits and egg and ham. (We don't find grits very often in this part of the world.)

From there we thought we'd head to Lyons where we'd hop on highway 7 and take the back way into Estes. Highway 7 is part of the Peak to Peak Highway and very scenic. I hadn't been that way in a long time and never on the bike. Very fun. We will definitely do that again. Here is a photo taken at a scenic pullout near Allenspark.


Coming into Estes the back way allowed us to miss much of the traffic. We stopped to get gas before going into Rocky Mountain National Park. There were 4 open entrance stations and the lines were pretty long. When we stopped for gas I remembered to move my wallet to my jacket pocket so we could pay the entrance fee. $10 per bike, good for 7 days. And he told us he put us both on one ticket so if we wanted to come back in a car, the pass would still be good. That was cool.

I'd been leading the way this trip so I decided to head up Trail Ridge Road. It had been closed over night due to the snow so I knew we wouldn't get very far but I thought it would be nice to take the bikes up as far as we could. Holy smokes it was so crowded up there! There were cars strewn about the road where the gate was closed. I was very glad we were on the bikes because I thought we were going to have to split some parked cars to get out of the lot. So, we turned right around and headed back down the road. On the way down we found an empty pull out where we stopped to rest and take a couple of pictures.


We rode around just a bit more until we got hungry and tired of fighting the traffic. When we came out of the Fall River gate, there were cars lined up beyond the visitor's center waiting to get in. Yikes. Turns out it was Elk Fest that weekend. Guess we should have checked the calendar. We had some lunch and headed home. This time we went home the usual route on highway 36.

At the end of the day we'd traveled about 170 miles - a new long distance record for us! Yay! :-)