For some reason I have been having troubles posting. In the past few weeks I have really stretched the limits of motorcycling in general. I have been using the beemer for everything and Bali has nothing on me this week. I took home a boat load of groceries, diapers, a bicycle and a tv home on the bike. I hit up some yard sales and use it everyday for short and long runs. This particular bike does everything so well. Its feeling loose with the miles so I baby it a bit, but it still hauls and I mean literally, very well. Work has kept me busy so the few trips I have taken have all been related. I take the long way when possible. I keep my magazines for some reason, I think my mom could tell me why, and I am always perusing them in some fashion. One of my favorite writers is Peter Egan from Cycle World magazine (and others). I like to find ways this individual that lives life in the margins we wish we all could resembles me. I wasn't surprised to find that he and his wife took this very bike 4000ish miles into Canada and back to Wisconsin without a real hiccup. He is a touch older in years, but I am catching up. His praise of the Buell Ulysses makes me second guess it, because I have inadvertently copied many of his moves, outside of successful writing. I wanted to share my first adventure in motorcycling, because it came up the other day. Growing up in the mid 90's gave me a good view at great bikes and my age and location placed me in the dirt bike tangent. My nephew had a yz250... I was in 7th grade and height impaired, it didn't stop me. This event galvanized my NEED for a similar system of self destruction(my nephew broke his arm twice on the bike). The begging began and my father busy with the farm turned the problem over to my brother for my Christmas present that year. This type of thing had happened once before after my closest brother in age had a groping party in our basement and showed the movie RAD, I believe I was the only person in the room in love. I asked for a Freestyle bike with a rotor and got a '72 sting ray chopper...in hindsight, I could have reacted better. This Christmas was to be like the others. My Mom sewed a thick cushion with a vinyl cover over a piece of plywood cut by my dad on the table saw. An old tote gote frame with a tiller briggs and stratton mounted and the work was done. My brother Karl is extremely insightful and his abilities of innovation are quite remarkable, seeing his hand 0n my "bike" made it real for me enuf and I sucked up the zero suspension bike with a cv clutch after only a few temper tantrums. The ever clever Karl had done up the primary side of the clutch with an 8" frying pan as a cover, a 4 vane water pump, large ball bearings and bailer springs. It worked good till I was full tilt and spun a ball bearing out and hit my calf. As soon as the bruising subsided I realized the bike now had a different launch pattern, almost tossing me into the flower garden. This is the moment when I started really learning piece by piece mechanics. I rebuilt the carb, cleaned the tank, removed and re installed the exhaust and played with the clutch and hand controls. I learned a little late about checking and changing the oil though and moved on to a Kawasaki enduro years later. Nothing can replace that old tote gote for me and the slow memories we had. 7 mph is actually really fast when your riding vertically up a hay stack when the throttle sticks though. I have had a few bikes over the years and I'm always looking at more, but for the first time in a while I have a little bit of that hardy go anywhere do anything ability that the first one had, and its a bit quicker too. Thanks to all my friends and family for supporting my bad habits as long as you have. Love you.