Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, bright sunny days. Friday night a huge thunderstorm, Saturday morning, the second weekend opportunity to ride my Road King and from 7am it pissed down until after lunch. I was wondering if I was ever going to get a nice day for a ride. When the sun poked its head out my wife suggested I might like to go for a ride and take our son with me, who with the inclemently weathered morning was driving everyone nuts. It struck me that this was one of the reasons she approved of the aquisition, and opportunity to get the son and I out of the house!
Off we went. I decided to brave a trip to visit my father in Farley, about 40 minutes away. He's a funny one, I know he was in to bikes when he was younger but I wasn't sure if he'd approve or not of me having another one, or where he stood with Harley-Davidsons. I did know that he would appreciate the vintage classic style and the fact that it was 10 years old. He's into restoring Morris cars and is involved in the local vintage car club and the Morris club, the classic shed tinkerer.
The weather held off and my son and I, pictured as we were about to leave, had a nice time on the way up. Only missed one gear and I was feeling very comfortable riding it. We arrived in Farley and rode straight into the driveway. His wife alerted him to the fact that he had visitors, he didn't hear the beast because for reasons I didn't want to explore he watches TV with headphones on.
He came out while I was taking my helmet off and when he realised it was me looked rather surprised. How long have you had it? asked and answered. I volunteered it was a '98 model and he looked very surprised. How well it had been looked after was discussed and I could see him looking over it with a mechanic's eye. A discussion about the fuel injection (he knew what bits were what, I had no clue), chat about the engine capacity in comparison with the Morris's (who he puts Datsun 120Y engines into), and it went very well.
BTW, it's exactly one month since I decided to buy a motorcyle. The process has come a long way and ended up nowhere near where I thought it would a month ago!
Inside for a water and a chat, with a three generational catchup and it was time to get back to home to get to the gym. We came back via the freeway and I decided to open it up just a touch. I found that between 100 - 115 k's or so is the sweet spot for the Road King. 130 k's however (I imagine, I wouldn't ever speed) seemed to give the Harley a bout of epilepsy. I don't know if this is common. If it is I now know why I'm forever driving past Harleys on the freeway. Either way it's something I'll be discussing with Noel the Harley genius when I take it in for its benchmark service and lookover.
On the way home the air got cooler and more damp. There were some significant clouds gathering and I knew a downpour was inevitable. We arrived home and for the third time in a row as we rode up to the garage the door magically opened. My wife had heard us coming and was keen to welcome us home. I rode the bike in, turned it off and the heavens opened up in a cacaphony of huge drops on the garage tin roof. My son commented, and I agreed, that we were very close to a little unpleasantness. My wife told him he'd better be talking about the weather.
