I know Mother Nature has a dark sense of humor. She plays little games with me all the time. She sent Winter to the Midwest early this year, just in time for Thanksgiving. Thanks! She knew I had a four day motorcycle trip scheduled for that weekend, a new bike I still wanted to ride right up until December. I cancelled my trip due to frigid weather and high winds. But the Midwest didn’t warm up after that, the cold weather stuck around until the day before I boarded that plane for Las Vegas. So there was no riding at all for me, all this time.
Well, you know what the moral of this story is, if you leave your bikes out like you are going to ride them, it will be so biter cold and it will snow that you can not ride, but if you put the bikes away, connect them to battery tenders, put them on stands and cover them with nice wool blankets, for sure sooner then later, a nice riding day will come.
So, the weekend before I went on vacation I had some help getting the ST3 up on the center stand, I had it moved to the corner of the garage, up against the wall, out of the way. Same with the 954RR, it was placed on the front and back Pitbull stands and moved over to the wall, then both bikes were covered up with blankets. I had the trickle charger connected to the 954RR, but I still needed to get some components to modify the trickle charger for the ST3, since you have to take the plastics off to get to the battery on the ST3 and that’s a pain in the butt, so I was going to get it modified so I can charge the bike through the BMW outlet.
I didn’t have time to get the components for the trickle charger before I went on vacation. So the whole time I’m on vacation, the temperatures in the Midwest are above average and the ST3 is not getting a charge. I get back from vacation and it’s still mild, but my only day off it rains, so I’m not even thinking of riding. Work has been very busy so I’ve been working late every day. Now forward to this weekend.
So today is Saturday. I decide to sleep late and finally start unpacking from vacation and doing laundry, and cleaning up this mess I made before I left.
At some point I look outside the window and it looks like it’s nice out. Today was the first time I saw the sun since my vacation.
I quickly check the weather on TV and Saturday, they are telling me, is a nicer day than Sunday. Today is partly sunny and around 40 degrees, tomorrow 42 degrees but cloudy and rain and snow possible in the afternoon.
So since I didn’t finish one of my project at work, and I was planning on stopping at work for a few hours during this weekend, I quickly make up my mind that tomorrow I’ll work for a bit but today I want to ride.
Yippy, I can ride. It's finally warm enough. I haven’t ridden my bikes since November. I was so excited, I went in to the garage and scoped out the situation. It looked very bleak.
The ST3 was on the center stand facing the wall, actually the front tire was about 6-8 inches away from the wall, it was on an incline and leaning to the right. Since I’ve never taken the bike off the center stand before, I wanted to practice with someone watching in case I needed some help and wanted to practice on a level ground away from walls. The 954 was up on the Pitbull stands, I need help with that too.
I started feeling like a complete girly-girl. Two bikes and none I can get to, none I can ride and that’s if they would even start for me.
It was already 2PM and I needed to be at a diner party tonight anyway, so I called up my friend Rick to see when he could stop by and get the bikes down for me. He replied sometimes next week, it just so happens that all my friends live far away, which is why I have to become independent and can not ask for help with everything.
Oh well, that’s that. Nothing I can do. Tomorrow is going to be cloudy and it might even rain or snow and I have to work and finish up my project anyway, so I guess no riding for me this weekend.
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