ABC's of touring, week 2, or is it week 1?

After a not so great start to the contest pictures, this is week 2, but since we have to start over, it's more like week 1.  This week we rode to Beaver Dam to the HD dealer there, then over to Green Lake and back home.


It was only in the low 60's, (still well above normal for this time of year) but I was comfy in my riding gear and especially with the heated hand grips.  I think Ed was enjoying his as well.  We did about 117 miles, had lunch at the Arby's in Beaver Dam and managed to get a couple of pictures.


The scenery was beautiful.  There were rolling hills and fields of green next to fields of golden remains of last year's harvest, and the trees are juuuuust starting to turn green so there were hints of green in the woods along with the brave flowering trees and shrubs that are already in bloom.  I'm still amazed that it's only March, it's almost like everything is a month ahead of time.


My ankle is holding up well at 8 weeks post surgery, I seem to do better if I am just riding and not doing a lot of stopping and starting since it's my brake foot that had the surgery.  I can hardly wait until we can get out consistently and ride!  This weekend doesn't look so good, but that's ok since I have to work on Saturday anyway.  Let it rain ;-)


Until next time...

Riding season is here? In March? In Wisconsin?

Yep, it's true!  I went to pick my bike up on March 14th, and the temp on the HD Dealership sign was 78 degrees, at 5 PM!  It was an amazing ride home, nice way to end my workday.


That Saturday, for St. Patrick's day, we rode up to Greenville to The Twist for a cone and ended up with a mint twist cone.  I had a hard time eating it fast enough and ended up with sticky fingers so I had to go in and wash up.  No complaints here though!  


The next day we started doing the ABC's of Touring contest.  We went to Chilton, Fond du Lac, and the HD dealer in Appleton.  Come to find out, we had to have our bikes in all of the pictures, so we have to do them all over again.  Someone (ahem, Ed) didn't read the rules close enough.  Oh well, just an excuse to put on some more miles!!


Check out the blog for the next round of adventures.

The 2012 Riding season is soooooooo close!

Yesterday it was almost 60 degrees and it rained, a lot, which helped get rid of the 6 inches of snow we had last weekend.

On Monday, Harley Davidson, Appleton, is coming to pick up the bikes and get them ready to ride.  Ed  decided that he is going to try out some Heat Demons on his bike like I had put on mine last winter.  If we don't get anymore snow, and if the weather stays nice enough, and if my recently operated on ankle cooperates, I hope to be riding by next month!

Raindrops keep falling on my Head!

Ok, I admit it, I am a slacker this year about blogging.  Back on Labor Day weekend, Sunday the 3rd to be exact, we decided to head up to Lakewood to visit the Sweet Memories candy store.  

We checked the weather and the radar, and everything looked good, a little overcast, but good.  The temperature was comfortable and the ride up was great for the first hour and 40 minutes, then, the skies opened up and the last 20 minutes to Lakewood were in a downpour.  It stopped just outside of town, we got there, parked the bikes and the skies opened up again!  I can't say enough good things about the Rider Comfort System I got.  The outer shell kept me perfectly dry, so at least my top half was dry.  

We spent quite a bit of time walking around the store and we bought candy and fudge and some candy cigarettes, and I got a roll of giant Smarties and also some pop rocks.  After we got home, I was extremely discouraged to find out that the sticks in the candy cigarettes were, gasp, CHOCOLATE, not the odd tasty white chalky sticks with the pink ends I remember "smoking" as a child. 

So, it appeared that the rain had passed, so we wiped off the windshields and saddled back up for the ride home.  Yeah, that lasted about 5 minutes and it started to rain again, and for some reason my headset wasn't working right because I couldn't hear Ed at all, but he could hear me fine.  So, we ended up pulling into a gas station, and, let's just say my rain gear is no longer a virgin.  I had to do it - a nice guy, who is also a biker but was in a truck that day, told us up the road a few miles it was pouring and there was standing water on the road.  I love, love, love my rain gear!  So, death grip on the handles, rain gear getting broken in, headset NOT working right and glasses fogging up constantly when not moving, we pressed on.  

We pulled over after about 20 or 30 minutes so I could try (again) to fix my headset, but it still wouldn't work right.  I finally figured out that I must have accidentally pushed the MUTE button on the underside of the receiver, because as soon as I hit the volume up button, I could hear Ed really, really well and had to turn it back down.  We kept on riding, my death grip loosened, and I think that Ed was sick of me telling him every 5 minutes how much I loved my heated hand grips.  Funny thing is that they actually baked the black from my gloves into my palms, but I will take that over frozen fingers any day!

We did stop another time after it stopped raining for one of the 3 or 4 two minute breaks in the rain we got and were able to squish out the foam in our glasses and try to dry them off some so we could see!  Mother nature was being cruel, but we kept riding and it always looked like just over the next hill we would be out of it, but it was not to be.  There were times it was raining so hard it felt like hail, but we kept going.  After about 90 minutes of wet, cold rain, we made it to Appleton and the sun came out and there was much rejoicing!!

I am glad that my rain gear pretty much looks like a windbreaker suit, because I am sure that all the people we saw riding around thought I was crazy for wearing my rain gear.  I am really glad that I didn't put the hood up over my helmet!  We got home, put the bikes away, hung our gear up to dry, changed into some dry clothes and it started pouring!  We just looked at each other and laughed.

I can say that I am no longer terrified of riding in the rain.  Did I like it?  Of course not, but now I know I can do it!  We did 60 most of the way home, and thank goodness if there was anyone behind me they were nice and left space, just in case.  It was definitely an experience that I won't be forgetting anytime soon!

Fancy meeting you here!

I was hungry for pizza, so we hopped on the bikes and headed over to Waupaca and the Wheelhouse. When we got there, we walked over toward the hostess station and two of our riding/diving friends were just ordering their lunch so we joined them. We got the loaded pizza subbing black olives for green and it was fantastic! We are trying to behave ourselves so we skipped the customary trip through the parking lot to scoops.

We haven't been able to get much riding in this year because it's either been too hot, too cold or too wet. I haven't hardly put any miles on my bike at all :(

Anyway, the ride was great, we stayed off all the major roads, lots of twisting and turning and there were some parts where the only other vehicles we saw were bikes headed the other way! It was like we all knew we could ride that one road. The grasshoppers were out en-force today so my shins were a little sore and my pant legs were kind of gross.

It was just about the perfect temperature, low - mid 70's - I wore my middle layer of the riding system, a t-shirt & jeans and was very comfortable. The wind was a little weird because it would come from different directions but it wasn't strong enough to affect the ride.

I did have a totally new experience today. I ran over the deepest pothole ever and my boobs came right out of my bra. Ed thought it was the funniest thing ever. I had to stop extra long at the next stop sign in order to adjust myself. Not a pleasant feeling at all! I got a headache from my neck getting jammed, but it's all good. Wind in my hair, sun in my face, the ride goes on...

A storm is a brewin' !

We went for a short ride, just up to Greenville, to have a bite to eat. I told Ed it looked like it might rain, but he didn't believe me. We ate at the Stoneyard and it was good. I had a Southwest bacon burger and Ed had a cheeseburger, and we both had yard chips which were delicious slices of home made potato chip heaven! We also had Point rootbeer, but I wasn't overly thrilled with that, I like Sprecher or A & W much better.

We were just finishing up our meal when a lady came in and asked someone if they saw the lightning and we looked out and it was pretty black, so we decided to pay and head straight back home. The storm was really impressive looking, the front was black clouds and they were curved, clearly defining the pending doom. The entire ride home my rear view mirrors only had the inky black clouds in them. We made it home and all we got in Oshkosh was some wind. I was so disappointed!

The ride was short and sweet and thankfully uneventful. I'm still hoping to never use my rain gear!

Dells bound

Today we rode down & around the Wisconsin Dells area. We left home, rode to Portage then down & around and through Baraboo, back to Portage and back home, about 250 miles all together. We didn't stop anywhere to eat, we just stopped for gas and Gatorade since it was so warm out.

The ride was amazing, there were places where we were up and down hills and around curves and the endless shades of green and grass tops were beautiful. There were some spots where we rode through canopies of trees that looked like they were reaching across the road to try and hug each other and their branches entwined forming an amazing canopy that let bits of sunlight in to dance around on the road. As the clouds cleared up, we seemed to be racing with the cloud shadows on the road as well. We were gone for about 8 hours but the time went by really fast.

We did stop at the A &W when we got back to town for some cold root beer and a little food before heading home to hang out in the AC.