Saturday, August 9, 2014

Finally A Ride Together - No Breakdowns

 The plan originally was for the 3 of us, Lauren, her brother Ben and I, to ride to a regional Fish Fry somewhere Friday evening.  The kids had some other plans, so they took off together and did their thing while I headed out for a shorty ride of my own (fish).  Today, Saturday, we headed down to Rollingstone for lunch and then for desert, rode back up to Wabasha, crossed the river to Nelson, WI for cones at the Nelson Cheese Factory.


 
Once we were out today, I reminisced about rides a long time ago with friends joining me, riding my bikes since I most of the time I had more than one.  It didn't happen often; I'm sure that I can count the occurrences on two hands, but with friends I trusted, those that had riding skills but no current motorcycle owned, we would gather at my garage and head out together for a spin.  Normally they were "old" married guys. :)

Below was one of those times......my Touring Machine, Windjammer w/top box and the non-touring motorcycle that I used for touring even though I wasn't supposed to, here with my second and optional, Touring Saddle.  IIRC, Jerry and I headed out to Afton,, MN for an evening meal, taking the long way out and back.

Notice how clean they are.......now that I think about it, at this point in time I was walking to my workplace rather than making long commutes.


Today it just seemed a bit odd to see 3 of my helmets, some gear from deeper in the closet and 2 of my bikes out and away from home.  I'll get used to it though and am looking forward to more of it.  Ben got his license last weekend and I've only recently learned that Lauren obtained her Permit while living in Los Angeles.

It's not like there aren't available machines around.


10 comments:

  1. Coop I think I'd like to have a look in your garage, those bikes are beautiful!

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    1. Dar, the garage is a bigger jumble than you may imagine. These two bikes are dirty and we really need rain! :)

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  2. The perks of having spare bikes (and gear)... and two more potential riding buddies, even better... family members.

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    1. Spares....if at all possible, a good thing. We learned that around here a couple of weeks ago.

      I'm going to have a very busy winter attending to all of this "spares".

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  3. Coop:

    Must be nice to have family, whom ride. I have no one. Lately riding has merely been to and from work, or out for Saturday breakfast.

    I like your idea of keeping Spares around for friends

    bob: riding the wet coast

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    1. Bob,
      A very long time ago, Peg and I rode, sometimes even with my parents. As much as I like heading out on my own, I am looking forward to having some partners along.

      The spares are lucky accidents, many of them due to end of season close-outs and sales.

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  4. Now we know why you have extra gear and machines.

    Good job Lauren on getting her permit too.

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    1. A very fortunate, unintended consequence of 'mark-downs'. :)

      We've got Ben up and going, now we'll see what we can do for Lauren.

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  5. How many bikes do you have? I am confused between the scooters and the motorcycles. More power to ya and no pun intended!

    I have no riding companion either, but I go out anyway and just about anywhere.

    Sometimes I feel that having others along will put an "agenda" on my time and that is the last thing I want out on the road.

    So Bob, take heart, just get out and explore on your own! :=)

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    1. Deb,
      I don't blame you for being confused since I write about them individually in no particular order. I have two real scooters, at least scooters by most definitions, both 250cc models. The motorcycles range in size from 55cc to 1000cc, not all of them are licensed; two of them don't even run and haven't for years. There are 6 or so that I regularly ride, attempting to rotate through them since just sitting still isn't very good for them.

      I agree with you about having others along. There are only a handful of riders I spend any time riding with and just a couple that I end up going out for the day with. I enjoy the freedom of stopping whenever I see something I want to take a better look at or frame a photo around and that gets almost impossible with co-riders.

      I stopped a lot yesterday and my next post will be proof. Riding is freedom in a wonderful dose, doing it solo is just that much more.

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