It's been one of those kinds of weekends. I put over 250 miles on the side car rig but didn't go anywhere. Just running around town i.e. to the coffee shop, the farmers market, multiple hardware stores, grabbed a couple more geocaches, etc. I did manage to get at least one geocache for the month of August. That got me a bunch of virtual "souvenirs" such as the one shown below. But at least it got me out and about.
There was originally a ride to the Monderosa planned for Sunday afternoon, but only two of us showed up with our raingear. We decided to postpone for a week to see if the weather is any better next Sunday. Usually, there is a pretty good turnout for these Sunday afternoon rides to the Monderosa. Since the ride was cancelled, I rode around the local area looking for scenic spots but didn't find anything. There was never enough rain to really get wet but enough to make everything damp.
One little bit of excitement on the riding front. While turning around in a parking lot, the sidecar wheel lifted up for a few seconds. I just eased up on the throttle a little and the wheel came down just like it is supposed to. I'm pretty sure that it unloads frequently just while driving around. When turning right, you can feel the bike lean to the left as weight of the side car compresses the rear suspension of the bike as the sidecar wheel unloads. You can also feel it transfer back while shifting your weight towards the side car. When turning right, I generally transfer most of my weight to the right peg while moving right. On left turns, you do just the opposite. Moving around while turning seems to be more important with the softer sidecar spring I installed last month.
After modifying the right lower fairing, I figure that I should paint the cut edges. In this picture, you can see how thin the plastic really is. This is the upper front side car mount. I did hose off the fairing last Thursday but the continuing rain made it so you can't tell. The dirt roads probably didn't help much either.
After digging through the pile of stuff that I received from the previous owner of the bike, I found bottles of touch-up paint. They look pretty official...
I now know what the original color code was in case I want to repaint something. Like maybe the sidecar.
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Amazing how the miles can add up ... looks like you had a wee bit of rain as well (better rain than snow though!)
ReplyDeleteYes, just a wee bit of rain that came down very slowly over the last several days. It would be nicer if it would just rain and be done with it. Do you think you'll get a reprieve from the governor or will you have to start kindergarten tomorrow?
DeleteGood to you got some miles under your belt in spite of the lack of scenery. I am still waiting on cooler weather myself, though I am riding with the evaporative vest more often these days.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds uncomfortably hot. The only times I've used the evaporative vest was when it was around 100°F. Which sounds pretty I was somewhat surprised how quickly the miles added up.
DeleteSome weekends it is nice just to putter around. Why is it the rain won't really come down? It threatens and teases and spits a little, but we need a good gully washer if only for one day.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't do much either this weekend. Brad worked yesterday.
Maybe I need to learn to putter around more. Angry clouds built up and dumps almost enough rain to wet down all of the streets but not much more than that. A gully washer then clear would be much better.
DeleteI should look into any "Letterboxing" around here. I don't do GPS...old school only.
ReplyDeleteI looked into "Letterboxing" around here and it looks very familiar. Very similar concept to geocaching without the electronic gadget.
DeleteHello, now that's an idea... painting the sidecar. You might need more than this Lackstift (paint stick) though.
ReplyDeleteMy one issue with painting the sidecar to match the bike is the dark color of the bike. The white sidecar is much more visible than the magenta bike.
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