Headsets & navigation

Well, the headsets finally shipped yesterday, and are supposed to arrive on Monday, after the weekend of course. The power wire for the GPS is getting put on Ed's bike tomorrow so we can ride and use the GPS for more than 2 hours now - YAY!

I can't wait to try out the headsets, I have no idea how the bluetooth will work, but I guess I can tie it into my Crackberry so I can use the phone and listen to tunes while I ride too. That will be sweet, not to mention being able to talk to each other.

It's supposed to be cold and rainy this weekend, so I guess we will be getting caught up on some movies that we have been wanting to see instead of going riding. Here's hoping for sunny skies and warm weather soon!

My bike is fixed, now where are those dang headsets???

After some brief frustration because poor Travis up at HD Appleton couldn't recreate the problem, I went to get my bike, and talked to him and I explained to him what happened to me when I was riding and he said he would check one more thing and that was the ticket - the throttle handle was actually broken and had to be replaced! It turns out that the 6th gear thing was purely coincidence.

I guess it was good to have that face to face contact. I couldn't take the bike up and my wonderful hubby dropped it off for me, and I explained the best I could over the phone, but I think being there and showing him what happened did the trick. My bike is good as new again and now it's just waiting for some warm non-gale force wind days to get riding. Oh yeah - the black satin flame levers look AWESOME!!!

Now, for the headsets - we ordered some half helmet bluetooth headsets from imcmoto.com and are (im)patiently awaiting their arrival. Other people have gotten theirs in a few days, but we ordered ours last Thursday and they haven't even shipped yet! I e-mailed the company today since I couldn't reach them by phone, and they assured me that they would ship out tomorrow. It will be nice to not have to wait for stop signs to talk, especially after last weekend when I had the throttle problems on the freeway. As soon as they come and we get a chance to play with them I will blog about them as well.

Ug - my bike is flawed!

So, decided to go for real ride #2 today. Decided to take the freeway for the first part to save time so it was the first time I got to use the 6th gear on my bike. Everything was going along great, and all of a sudden I had no acceleration. It was like a Toyota, but with the opposite problem. The throttle wouldn't open up at all, it would only go back so I could slow down. So, I had to pull off the highway, and after some nudging, I got it to open back up and off we went. It happened 2 more times in the next 10 miles or so, so we got off the freeway.

I never used the 6th gear after that, and it never happened again, so the only thing I can think is that it has something to do with the 6th gear. Oh well, we still had a really nice ride, we took a bunch of back roads, stopped at the Fin & Feather in Winneconne and had a late lunch and headed home. Tomorrow morning I'll call the dealer and get something set up so they can look at it. On the plus side, I won't have to wait until my 1,000 mile fluid change to get my new levers put on :-)

Rating the food: I had the tuna melt sandwich and the chowder, it was the special of the day. The chowder wasn't very good, and the tuna melt was toasted well, and the cheese was melted, but the tuna was still cold. Ed had the Reuben, and he liked it because they didn't use sliced corned beef, it was more like pieces of corned beef, or pulled corned beef, and his pasta salad was good too. The service was good, I didn't really care for my food, but Ed liked his.

First Ride of the year

Well, today was the first real ride of the year. We went around Lake Winnebago, and it was a day of firsts. First day with the new GPS, first day driving in the rain and first day driving in a wind where I was actually scared at some points to be on my bike.

So, we start out, and the GPS keep telling us to turn around and go back home. Omen, maybe, but no, we decide to plug on. After 3 times of pulling over, Ed figured out that somehow the route got corrupted, he got the GPS to recalculate the route and away we went. Ran into some road contruction but nothing major. Outside of my hands getting cold from the wind blowing off the lake, it was a nice ride - until we turned directly into the wind. Holy cow, I have never actually been scared on my bike before until that very moment. I was getting blown all over the place and any time I got over 50 MPH I wasn't sure I was going to be able to keep control of my bike, but, I did. I hunkered down, sucked it up, and kept up the best I could.

We needed to make a detour to take Ed's rain gear back to the Harley store since it didn't fit, and it starts to rain. So we decided that since we were almost there we would just keep going. Ed said he wasn't sure if I wanted him to stop so I could put my rain gear on or not, but I said it wouldn't matter, because although I did such a fantastic job of packing my rain gear, I left it laying on the table at home. So, we rolled into H D Appleton slightly damp, wandered around for a bit while the storm rolled over, then headed out to finish off the ride and head home.

We were following the storm, so we decided to stop for lunch to give it a little more lead time. It was the first time I had to ride on wet roads and through puddles at highway speeds, it actually wasn't as freaky as I thought it would be. So, all in all, it was a good ride.

More miles under my belt, some new experiences, and I won't be forgetting to pack my rain gear - on my bike - after today.

The navigation tool has arrived!

Today a surprise was waiting when I got home from work - the Garmin Zuma 550 that we ordered. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet because it will be going on my husband's bike. I would rather just follow behind and not have to worry about when to turn and where we are going. I'm getting ready to hook it up and play with it some before he steals it back. The next piece is communications. We're looking at some Bluetooth headsets that will work between the bikes.

My bike

So, here is my bike. I left it stock, for now, except I added (all detachable) a luggage rack, sissy bar, windshield and saddle bags, and I added an engine guard, just in case I lose my balance. Can't be getting stuck under that great big bike you know. The most frustrating thing was that I was absolutely in love with this bike, but for some reason Harley decided it would be cool to put the license plate off the side off the bike so I also had to buy a license plate relocation kit to move the plate to the back of the bike. Did they really think that no one would want to put bags on this bike?

My first purchase to change out a component of the bike is the levers on the handlebars- I found some satin black with chrome flames to compliment the paint job. I'm not going to attempt putting them on myself though - when it comes time for the 1000 mile fluid swap, I'm going to let them do it for me. I've already decided that the ability to stop and shift are good and I want to be able to keep doing that.

Oh - and I bought it from the best Harley store H-D Appleton!

What are the adventures of Dyna Girl?

Ok, so, I just got my new bike, a 2010 Dyna Wide Glide, hence the name of the blog, Dyna Girl. It was delivered on March 10th, and I've put on over 100 miles so far. Living in WI, and the fact that it is only April 2nd, that is pretty impressive (my round trip to work is 4 miles). My goal with this blog is to document my travels over the course of the riding season. The places we go, the people we meet, the food we eat, even the places we stay. Hopefully you will find it entertaining. I'm looking forward to writing down what I see and experience with the wind in my hair and hopefully no bugs in my teeth as we hit the open road this year.

My husband rides a 2009 Dyna Fat Bob, and we just got our licenses in 2008, so we're pretty new at this, but are trying to make up for lost time. The experience of being on that bike is amazing and I wouldn't trade it for being in a car for anything (under most circumstances). Stay tuned and hopefully in the next few weeks the weather will warm up enough that we can start doing some serious riding and I will have some adventures to tell!