Well it is officially the day, one year since I broke the sporty and bought my Therapy! What a ride it has been, 33,000 kms most of it on the island but also with many trips off the rock and a few to the states, including our inaugural ride!
Started off heading out of the dealership and straight to the states to carry on with the planned trip to Anacortes and the Oyster Run. What a difference it was to ride the Heritage over the sporty along I5. No more of the bump bump bump of the concrete highway! Returning home, I was halfway to my first service already. The next day was of course to nice to stay in and go to work so we headed off to Courtney and the FBI for lunch. Just had to add a few more miles and of course grinnin like the Cheshire cat the whole way. Hard to believe it was a year ago already. If I remember correctly we stayed on the island until the new year, and we rode up until December when the snow hit and couldnt get out of the driveway by truck let alone bike! Not for lack of trying mind you. I spent a good deal of time outside trying to clear a path up the driveway, number one to walk along but 2) if the snow melted away there and I had the dirt driveway I was damn well going to take the bike up it as the roads were clear. All I got for my efforts were a nice walking path and some killer biceps with all the shovelling!!!!!!
Come January the snow had left and we headed to Vancouver for the bike show. Yep 3 of us nuts decided to ride to Van in 0 degrees. Lucky me, my vest decides to pack it in and my heated glove liners decide to burn my damn hands. Nothing like trying to ride thru Langley on Hwy 10 flapping your hands cause they need to cool off. Need to hit the highway quick so I can get some wind air speed blowing on them!!! Although this little incident resulted in a new set of gloves and a new heated jacket that is now known as my sauna, cause damn is it warm!!!!!! Definately worth investing in the more expensive product cause it sure does the job nicely. Our return home was quite thee adventure to say the least. The boys decided to get themselves tickets going thru Delta but for some reason even though I was keeping pace with them the cop went around me and after the 2 of them!!!! HA HA am I good or what! They will never let me live that one down. Well the ticket was a mixed blessing actually, for some reason the ticket slowed us down and we were not at the front of the line to load first, but they did load us on the bottom deck and pushed us up to the front. Thankfully we were parked there safely under the bulkheads cause on the upper deck where we should have been a car caught on fire and the boat was evacuated. Well even though we were off the boat and safe we were still concerned about the salt water they were pumping into the fire and it running down onto our bikes. The guys kept telling me to shut up as mine was new and not to worry about replacing it, as for theirs, that was another story and 03 and and a 90 could be a bit hard to replace. I was also concerned cause of the electronics I was packing with me, my camera and laptop were in my bags. Well besides a 4 hour wait for the boat to sail all was fine and the bikes werent even wet. Thank goodness for small miracles. The only other downfall to this trip was coming home to a new dusting of snow down my driveway. I wasnt to sure about riding her down so I got Len to do it for me. He had no problems but a day later when he came down the drive with his bike he didnt have such good luck getting back up it, which resulted in Lynn and I pushing him up the hill and blocking traffic so he could shoot straight out on to the road! Okay maybe if he had some tread on his rear tire he might have made it.
On the island again for another few months, of course any chance or excuse to head out on the bike was used and the mileage racking up with each day. Come March I took off for a week to the mainland again to visit some friends and ride some different roads. Had a great time over there riding around and visiting and taking full advantage of Kaylees visit with her dad. Nothing terribly exciting happened on this trip just good to be off the rock.
Well now it seems April and May are here and Im in need of a new rear tire. Already! Hard to believe that I have completely worn one out already! I stretched it as long as I could and got a new one installed just before my biggest excursion of the year, heading off to Conga with Flo and raise money for breast cancer!
It was planned for the end of May for me to leave and head south to meet up with her. Of course me needing some kinda challenge besides just riding off on my own to places unknown. I decided to try and push myself for the Iron Butt award. I mapped out where I was heading to meet with Flo and how to get the mileage that I needed. Pretty much had it all figured out with allowing some time to sleep and also taking into count the fact that the main portion of the ride was going to be on the US Memorial Day weekend. well the time came, had 2 bags packed one, for a weekend away with the girl and the other for the trip. Had a great weekend then came home unloaded and reloaded the bike then off I went for the ferry.
Well challenge it was, I was mainly on time but found that a ton of construction managed to hold up my pace and delay me from successfully completing it. I did pull off 1700 kms in a matter of 27 hours but for the award it has to be in 24. The whole trip I did in PINK! Lord help me. I had pink pool noodles strapped to the front and rear of the bike and I also had a long braided pink wig on for my whole travels. Crossed the border with it and flew by the troopers in a few spots but nobody questioned a thing. Met up with the gals and then spent a week coming back home, all in all put close to 5000 km on the bike in that one week and in the process helped to raise $12,000 for breast cancer.
i was home for 4 days and off again but this time I left Therapy at home. Dont think she was happy with me but she needed a rest and so did I. Went with Len to the Kamloops poker run and this is when I decided I was a shitty passenger with little chance of a long run on the back again.
Summer arrived and of course every weekend was full with rides somewhere. Think we managed to hit just about everywhere on the island over the course of the summer as well as winning many awards in the show n shines.
The next big trip was up to Salmon Arm for the Stomp and my birthday. We took a bit of an extended trip here instead of straight there and back. Even thought the fires were burning in Kelowna we found some great roads and had a great time of it. Think I added another 2000 on that trip to the bike, between the trip to Salmon Arm, riding around up there and then taking a major detour for the trip home. Was nice and relaxing and enjoyable to travel some roads that we hadnt been on before. While we were there we rode the Monashee pass and then heading home took highway 33 to Rock Creek to get to Ossoyoos, looped up towards Penticton and back down to Keremeos before heading thru Manning Park and home. Mind you the next day we got to run back across on the ferries and up the Coqihalla to look for our lost belongings.
The rest of the summer has been filled with day or weekend trips up and down the island. Have rode the new circle tour a couple times and it is awesome! After making some new great friends in the Comox valley, we have gone up there for several weekends. Planned a ride to Mount Washington just for the hell of it. Campbell River as well for their poker run, which if it wasnt for the company and great hostess for the night, would have been a horrible time. We basically have finished off the MAIN riding season with the Port Alberni toy run, which is always a marvelous event and glad that I made it this year as it was the 25th anniversary of it. Very large turnout indeed!
Back in April, I remember a trip to the FBI for lunch and oysters to bring home and my odometer rolled to 10,000. Not more then 3 months later we were on the same ride and I was over 20. It seems so hard to believe. I basically said to heck with the truck and let the insurance expire as I wasnt using it at all. Every time I had to go somewhere I went on the bike. I have been riding daily to Lake Cow for work and still am. As of now I have no plans of reinsuring, atleast not until I know the rains are here to stay.
I was hoping to end things off with a ride to Anacortes for the Oyster run again but it just wasnt in the cards this year. But Therapy and I did get out and add a few more miles together this afternoon in another excellent fall day that seemed like summer.
Happy Anniversary Therapy and I promise to not talk about trading you in for awhile!
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