Put the damn cell phone DOWN!!

*** continued from previous post  ***


And with a quick kiss before putting on our helmets, I started the engine, brought the bike up off the kickstand, (much more stable after yesterday's mishap), and gave your Mom the signal that it would be alright to climb into the back seat.

There are certain rules you follow when riding 2-up. Waiting for the driver, (or Pilot as we are referred to in the Victory Vision community), to tell you it's okay to climb on board is primary, you don't want your Pilot to be caught unawares. That's how broken arms happen. And yelling.

I hadn't told your Mother, but I was a smidge nervous about putting a twist to the throttle and riding away. The Vision is hands-down the best bike I've ever owned, she has the comfort of a big touring machine coupled with the speed and agility of a sports bike. But we were seriously testing her load capabilities. So I eased off the clutch and slowly cruised down the driveway. The real test would be pulling out on the road. I would get a good feel, very quickly, for how this trip was going to proceed.

With a bit of a catch in my throat I cruised down our driveway, eased out onto the arterial, and gave her a bit more throttle. She pulled straight and true. I was actually amazed to find that the bike handled very, very well. Once again I marveled at this machine, this blending of artistry and petrochemical explosions all rolled into a ballerina of the blacktop. I couldn't tell a difference between loaded and unloaded as we hit the curves that led from our house to the main highway. Yay! This was going to be fun!

One more test to go. I eased up to the stop sign at the intersection and signaled right. Would the bike be top-heavy? Would it be hard to handle at stop lights and low speed maneuvers? The quick answer was no - once again I could tell little difference. Good! My last hesitation put to rest, I looked both ways, and with a gentle pull of torque put the tires on the path that we would follow for the next 120 miles or so. It felt good.

Our trip was now properly underway.

Whereupon, as if on cue, a young girl on a cell phone and in a truck big enough to have Mini-Coopers stuck in its grill without noticing, materialized out of nowhere, roared up on us, and proceeded to tailgate. I mean really tailgate. Damn, that is not the way I wanted to start this trip. Young ladies on cellphones, or anyone on a cellphone for that matter, is a major hazard. Sight all the statistics you want, but 9 out of 10 times if we have a problem with a car, it will be someone yakking on a phone.

*** the journey continues tomorrow

Ooopsie goes the bike!

*** continued from previous post  ***


I won't go into the details, but I found room for almost everything. The bird book fit very snugly into the inside pocket of my mesh jacket, so thank Jeebus no staples. The last piece of the puzzle was to put the bag, and my collapsible cane, on the trunk and secure it with bungee cords. Bungee cords. The bane of my existence. I don't know how much you've worked with bungee cords, but they should rename them, 'Hey! Look at what I put my eye out with!' cords. Although, that would probably be fairly difficult to market. The minutes ticked by, and after several failed attempts, plus a couple of very unattractive welts on my forehead, I managed to secure the 'whole kit-and-caboodle' to the rack on the Vision's trunk.

I stepped back to survey my work.

Well, I had seen worse, but not from anything other than first-graders making flower pots out of clay for Mother's Day. The sleek lines of the Vision were destroyed, and it looked like we were trying to use, and quite unsuccessfully, the nylon bag as an inverted rudder. The bag didn't so much rest on the trunk as it squatted there. The bungee cords sunk and bit viciously into the nylon, making it look like we weren't so much carrying a bag as trying to keep it from escaping. You think I'm kidding but I'm not. I swear, it looked as if a family of Gypsies were using the bike to caravan across the nation. Stealing babies. Tiny ones, to be sure because there was no room, but stealing babies none-the-less. (I'm taking old 16th century Gypsies here, not the new modern Gypsies with shiny trucks and lawyers and small weapons.) I cared not how the damned thing looked. The dead caterpillar was on there securely and that was my intent. Fashion be damned! For we were on vacation, and about to embark on a 7-day journey into paradise, and couldn't be troubled with petty things like style, and balance, and gas millage, and visibility, and aerodynamics.

I climbed on the bike to test the load balance. I pulled her into an upright position and immediately noticed that the right side of the bike seemed to weigh approximately 6000 pounds more than the left side as I arced over and dropped the bike on the ground with a stomach-churning 'screeeeeeeeeeccchhhh'. Which, as any experienced biker will tell you, is, and this is a fairly technical term - is really 'bad'.

Luckily the engineers who dreamt and built the Vision suspected that the owners might be grossly incompetent and designed 'tip-over protection' into the body styling so that, heaven forbid, you ever DID drop the bike it would land on the front and rear tip-overs ensuring no damage to the machine itself. Not even a scratch. You have no idea how wonderful that is. I've seen some expensive bikes fall over in a parking lot and suffer thousands of dollars worth of damage.
That doesn't seem right, does it? I mean, you can drop a baby and do less damage than you would to most motorcycles. Not that I would know that. (If you're feeling your head for dents stop it right now!)

Anyway, I righted the bike using the 'butt-lean-push' method and got her back on the kickstand without too much trouble. Amazing how a little bit of leverage will allow you to pick up something currently weighing more than a great Blue Whale. I stood back and considered my options. Unless I wanted to spend the entire trip leaning heavily to the left to compensate for the balance, I was going to have to do some rearranging.


*** the journey continues tomorrow