Ready for Spring! Top 5 preps for that first ride
WOW - we had a terrific membership meeting with the Des Moines HOG chapter last night, in which over 100 people were in attendance including 24 new members. (Special welcome to Hollie, Marla, Denise, and Susan/Coyote and her hubby Paul!) That’s twice as many new members as the past two months. (IowaHarleyGirl, where are you?? )
One of the items on last night’s agenda was a report from the Big Barn Harley-Davidson service manager, who gave us a short list of the five most important items to check on the bike as we get ready to ride this Spring. Certainly this info is helpful to all riders, so I thought I’d share it here with thanks and credit to Tom Reed for sharing his expertise!
Check these items before your first ride:
1. Tire pressure. The single most common reason for tire failure, says Tom, is inadequate tire pressure.
2. Indicator lights. Make sure your signal, brake and headlights are functioning, and replace non-functioning bulbs.
3. Gasoline. “Old gas” is bad, m’kay? Especially for carbureted bikes. What’s old? Tom says gas starts to deteriorate in the tank within three weeks. If your gas has been in the tank since last fall, time to siphon it out and replace it.
4. Oil. Start and run the bike for a few minutes, then check the smell of your bike’s oil. If it smells like gasoline, you’ve got fuel leaking into the oil tank and the oil should be replaced. Tom says an oil change is likely a good idea anyway - your owner’s manual probably recommends an oil change every 3000 miles OR every 3 months. That includes time the bike’s been sitting in the garage, waiting for good weather.
5. Brake pads. Look for wear and replace if needed. Some groaning/squeaking of brakes is normal on the first ride of the season, but the noise shouldn’t last. If it does, time for a service call.
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We took probably our last ride of the season over the weekend - Sunday was beautiful, sunny with a high in the mid-60’s… so we took a scenic ride with Kristin, Hollie, Howard, Brenda and Cassie down to Indianola and Lake Ahquabi just a few miles south. Fall colors are nearly done (there are still a few really amazing trees here in town, though), and it’s getting dark pretty early what with Daylight Savings Time over… plus it’s the height of lust-crazed deer season and that always makes things interesting - but we had a great day riding with no troubles.
Remember my brave proclamation 
Last night at dinner we were warding off the cold (36 of the past 37 days here have had daytime highs below 30 degrees, including 15 that were in the single digits) by recalling the two Caribbean cruises we’ve been on. Ah the top deck, staring out at the endless ocean as real-life worries were set afloat… the beaches of white sand and pristine aqua-colored water… the islands… what *were* the names of those islands?? We quickly realized that these trips were 8 and 10 years old, respectively, and wondered if there wasn’t something more recent we could draw upon for warm recollections. That put us onto the subject of last summer’s Sturgis trip, and we conjured up the hottest day of that journey with some reluctance. It was about 111 degrees as we cruised across a corner of Montana, returning to Belle Fourche after our visit to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming. The trip to Devil’s Tower had not been all that pleasant - crowds and traffic were awful, tempers were short, and it was a day where I was feeling like we’d traveled far but seen nothing - except for a giant volcanic nipple poking up out of the Earth. This return stretch was, despite the heat, a blessing as it proved to be a little-traveled route. Very little. Vast open spaces stretched away from each side of the asphalt ribbon (was THIS where Woody Guthrie was walking and trying to think of a rhyme for “gulf-stream waters”? If so, it’s no wonder he came up empty!). You could look out onto a grassy range and imagine covered wagons actually lumbering their way west. And it was hot. The kind of hot where you soak your bandana and wear it under your helmet to keep your head cool… and sit in a little mom-and-pop convenience store seemingly in the middle of nowhere, drinking a sports drink even though you HATE sports drinks, because you’re pretty sure you left your electrolytes in a chemical toilet back at the Volcanic Nipple gift shop.
January was a particularly mild month around here, and folks are asking me if I got to ride the bike. I did - three different times! - and managed to put a little over 100 miles on it in a month when temps are normally in the teens. The next question always seems to be, “Doesn’t it piss you off to be teased like that?” Meaning, predictions are that Feb. will be closer to normal winter time weather. On the contrary, I’m not pissed at all. Those mild January days were a gift, and I for one took advantage of them as best I could. But I’m a realist: I know that February isn’t normally a month for motorcycles, so I don’t expect the whole winter season to just disappear simply because we got lucky a few times. Having the opportunity to ride in January was exhilirating, and I think I can now hunker back down for a month if necessary safe in the knowledge that the end of February is not too far away and that the next month - March - is Spring.
