Spring Has Sprung For Me - Yippee!

I was beginning to lose faith that Spring would ever arrive, here in the mountains of northern NM. It's been four months! since I've ridden, but today, God must've figured He'd tested my patience long enough, cuz we have here a most magnificent Spring-like day, sunny and dry dry dry dry dry!, temps in the mid to upper 50's!

The muddy, soggy, rutted, at times impassable dirt road that I have to negotiate is also, finally!, DRY. So I moved my bike up to a neighbor's property for parking under my BikeBarn, and this alone will eliminate the absolute worst parts of this road, and today - who could've believed it just a few short days ago - I got to ride.

The battery had, finally, died after four months of no use and no charging, and cold outdoor storage, so I brought it indoors a few days ago and charged it up, then put it on the battery tender for a couple more days, then left it unplugged over night to make sure it was holding its charge. Put it back into the Swing this morning and vrrrrrrrooooom! it cranked right into that purrrr we like so much.

Cleaned up the bike, checked and filled the tires, listened for any untoward noises (none to be heard), and off I went, just like winter had never happened.

Rode the nice and easy 30 miles into town, went to the gym, and rode on back, cruising through this gorgeous day with a bit of a smile on my face, but more than that, a nice warm feeling of being, literally, "back in the saddle again".

The bike performed just like it has been Spring all along, never missed a beat, never complained, happy to be out on the road, viewing those still-snow-covered mountains in the distance.
Halleluia!

So today is officially Spring here in my neighborhood, regardless of what the calendar says. Riding season has begun! Of course, it can snow in June around here, and the next couple of months are still iffy, but I've been given the gift of the ride. It almost does seem like winter never happened.

What!??? Am I Crazy!???...............................................

Yep, it's springtime in Texas too!

Right/Ride On!

It will be at least the first week in April before anyone is riding around here .
We are expecting more snow today . You are lucky ,I have not ridden since
September . I am happy for you

Wow. Sounds like you get to ride only about 5 months of the year. Ouch.
Makes me count my blessings.

Stay warm anyway, and remember, April is now just around the corner!

We get about five months here ,and then we sometimes do a month in Florida Feb or March.We can usually ride here into Nov so
it is not as bad as it sounds at first glance.
We plan on a week next Nov buy towing south until it is warm enough to ride . In your logo it says insole pads in gloves .What do you mean buy that ?

It's for vibration reduction. I got the idea from someone else on this, or another forum, and it's the inexpensive option to buying gel pad gloves, and it works really well too:

buy the cheapest shoe insole pads you can find (like the generic version of Dr. Scholl's), and cut roundish pieces that will fit nicely inside your riding gloves in the palm area - get the right size and placement for you before you glue them in - then glue them in there. I think I used just a common glue stick and it's worked fine.
You want to leave the lined side of the pad against your hand, of course.

It really helps reduce hand vibration from the bike, and in combination with something like grip puppies virtually eliminates any troubling effects.

I'm glad to hear that you get to ride more than I thought.
And best thoughts and prayers for your speedy recovery from your upcoming surgery.

matthew wrote:

It's for vibration reduction. I got the idea from someone else on this, or another forum, and it's the inexpensive option to buying gel pad gloves, and it works really well too:

http://silverwing.org/cgi-bin/topic_show.pl?pid=26928#pid26928

Thanks for the idea Bill, even though I didn't remember it was yours.

The best thing that I found to eliminate hand fatigue is electronic cruise control
It is beyond a doubt the best add on there is for me any way .

Matthew,

It is nice to ride for those of you that can't during the winter. Since I moved to California about 14 years ago I have gotten used to riding all year around. Here is a picture of our last group ride a week ago.

Hey JeffR

Having lived in California - in and around Santa Cruz - for about 9 years before coming to NM 20 years ago, those rolling green hills in the picture seem familiar. I'm only a little jealous of your year round riding, and this winter especially has been the wettest and most difficult in the past 18 years around here. Since I only took up riding three years ago, this has been my third winter, and by far the worst.
Last two winters I could ride most of the time, even if it was cold, but not this year.

Ride safe.

Was able to get a short 160 mile ride in today. Kim on her SilverWing and two bikes joined us. It was brisk, but tolerable. Tomorrow will be warmer by a few degrees, but I have too much work to dao after church so will have to pass on riding tomorrow.

The ride today was more a pretext to wash the bikes and get them ready for the season. Glad to have the bath out of the way.

Hey Dale

You folks don't have winter down there in AL do you? But I see you DO have identical Swings. Ride safe.

Now I've ridden three days in a row, so if I had any doubt about Spring actually having sprung here, I guess I can feel more confident now. Yes, we'll get some more cold weather, and probably some more snow too, but I'm thinking it's all bluster at this point, without a whole lot of umph. (May it be so!)

Hey Jeff I think I reconize that pull off in the picture. What road is that on.

We get winter here in North AL, but it is a bit of a joke.

Hey Dale,

Thanks for the laughs this Sunday morning. You two have really learned how to handle those winters down there! I hope you had 4 wheel drive to help!

Dale,
That looks like a "normal snow" here in NE Tennessee. Mother Nature shot us a blank
the week before Christmas and dropped 8-9 inches on us. That is not what I have come to expect for this area. I applaud your courage driving through that big pile.

Wes

Oh come on now... you can't fool me. That was not a one day snow... it took at least a week to accumulate that much snow. Wouldn't surprise me it you admitted that was hauled in from Wisconsin. Shame on you for sending the wife across that busy street while you were in the safety of the car. By the way yall don't sound like you are from Alabama either.

Well, here I sit, watching the snow fall hard outside, already a good three inches on the ground with no signs of a let up. If this keeps up it could turn into one of the winter's deepest single snow falls, which of course will translate again into mud and ruts, and again no riding for a while.

Now though, the temps are higher, and melting will happen faster, and maybe drying out will be faster too. I admit I'm a little surprised that we're getting a snowfall with this much punch. I thought - and wanted to believe - that this sort of thing was done for this year. Oh well. Just goes to show me.

Yesterday was a beautiful high fifties sunny day. Supposed to do that again by Tuesday. I'm being patient.

matthew wrote:

Well, here I sit, watching the snow fall hard outside, already a good three inches on the ground with no signs of a let up. If this keeps up it could turn into one of the winter's deepest single snow falls, which of course will translate again into mud and ruts, and again no riding for a while.

It was 83 degrees today with no snow .

Hi Bill,
Up here in NE Kansas we had our 10th ever highest snowfall. But I think you folks set a few records yourselves, right?

DickO wrote:

But I think you folks set a few records yourselves, right?

We did have a snow record this year.

Our area had 3.5" - 4" of snow that was completely gone by the next morning ... my kind of snow.

The kids wanted to make a snowman ... the snow clump hung around for the next 4-5 days.

We had 4 days of snow clouds here.... schools were down but, after the fourth day they decided that it might not snow so they opened the post office again and reopened the schools.

So it did indeed turn into the deepest single snow fall of the winter, with a solid nine inches where I am, not counting drifts of course. Looks like we might have some sunshine mixed in with the clouds today to melt some of it off though.
I'm hoping. If not today, tomorrow is supposed to be sunny with a high temp in the mid fifties. That'll help.

Just for laughs, the forecast yesterday was for 1-3" of snow over night. We had 3" by six pm I'd say. NOT an exact science by any means.

A little more hesitantly than before...................I'll still wish us all a HAPPY SPRING!

I was lucky enough to ride this weekend and to and from work today. Unheard of here in the great white north. Roads are clear except for the damn salt and sand in the city but the highways are great. Earliest I've ever been able to ride here. The Wing just begged to come out of hibernation.

I was able to ride most of last week. High in the mid 40's with rain. And one thunderstorm. All in all wasn't too bad. I couldn't wait any longer. And i needed to get in some more rain riding practice.

jeffp wrote:

I was lucky enough to ride this weekend and to and from work today. Unheard of here in the great white north. Roads are clear except for the damn salt and sand in the city but the highways are great. Earliest I've ever been able to ride here. The Wing just begged to come out of hibernation.

What part of the city are you in ? I saw a scoot in St Vital and wonder if it was you . Watch out for the sand at corners .I hope to get out today .

Happy Spring indeed, even for our neighbors in the Great White North.

The project I'm currently working has me scrambling and working weekends. I haven't had too many opportunities to ride so far. Possibly this coming Saturday if I'm able to attend to some of my household chores early.

Wasn't me in St. Vital, I'm in North Kildonan. I was out Lockport way on Saturday followed by a cruise to Gimli. I must have seen 20 or so bikes out that day.

Believe it or not, almost all of that nine inches of snow is gone - at least from the road, if not from all of the land - so now it'll be the mud to deal with, as in, no riding for me till that's all dried up. Sunny in the fifties today, and sixty tomorrow, so I'm thinking it won't take too long.

Oh, I'm keeping myself scooter occupied by thinking about the road trip I'm gonna take this spring/summer/fall (?) Looking at the maps, imagining routes, determining distances, etc. Nothing decided yet, but it's developing. A pretty good substitute for actually riding, under the circumstances.

Fantastic picture! Is that the beautiful road (46) that leads from 101 by Paso Robles 9 (Atascadero) to Hi way 1 ?
I live in Santa Barbara and hope to be getting off on Sat and Sundays in the near future. Do you have any plans for a group ride in the next few months that I might be able to ride in?
I went out for a solo ride to Lake Cachuma and over to Solvang last week on Sunday. At one point I pulled over to remove my seat pad and was passed by 7 riders. Well that was just what I needed.
They were in the number one lane hailing assss fast. I got on and cranked my swing to the max and caught up to the last man that was ridding a BMW 1100 in no time.
We rode all the way back to Santa Barbara in perfect weather about a 50 min ride.
When we arrive, little did I know we all got off at the same exit and the BMW pulled up next to me and gave me an atta boy saying that I had a nice ride and that it looked smooth and comfortable.
I thanked him for the complement and returned one saying that one day I would like to ride a bike like his.
The light turned green and we all went our ways and I did not get a chance to find out any ones name.

JeffR wrote:

Matthew,



It is nice to ride for those of you that can't during the winter. Since I moved to California about 14 years ago I have gotten used to riding all year around. Here is a picture of our last group ride a week ago.