Motorcycles and Weight Loss

Got back last night from an overnight ride up north.

My butt kept getting sore from riding. Seems like after the first 100 miles, it would start aching.

Since the beginning of this year, I've lost 35 pounds by sticking to a low-carb, low-fat diet, mostly eating a lot of beef jerky for about four days a week, and the other three days eating my normal diet.

I guess I lost a lot of it off my ass, cause I can't seem to ride for as long as I used to. My tailbone keeps making itself known.

It's mostly my Electra Glide, and the stock seat. My Road Star on the other hand, has an aftermarket seat from "Ultimate Seats", and hasn't given me problems.

I notice now that Ultimate Seats now makes them for Harleys.

While they might be great for me, I don't know how my wife would like their passenger seat. She didn't like the one they made for the Road Star. But for whatever reason, she loves the stock seat on the Electra Glide. So do I want to spend $480.00 for a seat that I might like, but my wife may not like? I guess I could swap out the seats whenever she wants to go for a ride.

But I just don't have the $480.00 to spend these days.

I may end up riding the Road Star more often.

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The After-Crash Jitters

Went riding last Saturday with some folks, including a guy on a sport bike.

This guy had the "after-crash jitters". He's actually a cruiser rider, who crashed his Honda VTX a few months ago. He did so by leaning really hard into a curve, and apparently scraped it hard enough to where he lost traction and low-sided.

That was enough to convince him that he needed a motorcycle with more "scrape angle". So he bought a Yamaha FZ6, which isn't really a typical sportbike, it's more like an all-purpose bike. Not a dual-sport, but something that strikes a middle-ground between a cruiser, sportbike, and tourer.

So I figured "Cool, this guy REALLY want to hit some twisties hard".

But just the opposite. He's now a very cautious, and careful rider.

The ride was to Newcomb's Ranch, a popular hangout along the Angeles Crest Highway, a famed road here in Southern California, that connects the Los Angeles basin with the ski slopes near Wrightwood. It's 55 miles of some of the best riding in the Southland, hundreds of 25-40mph sweepers, no tight hairpin turns. You can hit these curves really hard if you know the road well enough.

Though right now, there's a road closure about halfway up the road. Still, the road is open through Newcomb's Ranch, and it's still an excellent ride if you really like to ride.

This guy on the FZ6 decided to pick up the rear of our group. He did ok on the freeway, but when we jumped on Angeles Crest, he just faded away from sight. I slowed it down to about 40mph, which is well within the comfort range for the average cruiser rider. But I still lost him.

I pulled over to the side, and waited. Some cars eventually passed by, and then several minutes later, he finally showed up.

So I continued on with the group. I pulled over a couple more times along the way, until we finally got to Newcomb's Ranch.

He explained that he had become a "changed" rider. But not so much that he had become an advocate of safe riding, just that he had totally lost his confidence. That crash gave him a really bad case of jitters.

He was shorter than I am, and had difficulty putting his feet on the ground. I stand at 5'8", I'd guess he's about 5'6". The seat height on the FZ6 is 31.3 inches. Compare that to his VTX which was 26.5. He could only get his toes on the ground. I'm not sure that FZ6 was such a smart idea.

I told him, "You sure got a great bike for riding the twisties!".

He said, "But I don't like the twisties. I prefer to stay on the freeway."

I tend to think the freeway is more dangerous.

The guy is a really nice guy. I felt kinda sorry for him. I've had the jitters getting back on a motorcycle after a crash, but those jitters go away after a couple of days. His jitters have been around for way too long, and has had a great impact on where he rides to, and having friends to ride with.

So I told him it's actually a really good idea to tackle a road like Angeles Crest Highway, and to hook up with a group. No better way to confront a demon than to face it head on.

And while I enjoyed hanging out at Newcomb's Ranch with him, his riding is so slow at this point that it becomes detrimental to a group of riders of having to pull over and wait every 10 miles or so. It would be ok if he knew the route well enough to get there on his own. But he doesn't know the roads well enough around here.

He needs to spend more time confronting that demon. I hope that at least having ridden with me last Saturday, along Angeles Crest, some of those jitters went away.

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Cruisers versus Sportbikes

The decision to buy a cruiser instead of a sportbike was largely due to a decision by my next-door neighbor. But that decision also has its roots further back into my youth.

What caused you to buy a cruiser or a sportbike, versus the other?

When I was 10 years old, my step-father and I drove his Chevy van from San Diego to Colorado, to pick up his old Harley-Davidson. It was a 1948 Panhead that he rode in his college days of the 1960s. He said he built it himself from junkyard parts he found all over the states of Colorado and New Mexico.

We brought it home and he began the long process of dismantling it, and cleaning it, and replacing some parts. He dismantled it down to every bolt, bracket, and piece that could be separated. I'm still amazed that he could put it all back together without having labeled the parts, or taped the bolts together. He had several coffee cans of bolts, nuts, and washers all thrown loosely together. He knew his bike that well, even after all those years.

I remember the day he reassembled it, mostly with the same parts, but with new paint, a new seat and taillight. He eventually changed out the exhaust, and made a new jockey-shift handle.

The photo above is his rebuilt, and repainted 1948, finished just around the time I graduated high school.

It was that time watching him piece it back together that I developed an interest in classic American motorcycles.

That interest was further cemented when my parents bought me the 1979 Kawasaki KZ400 in 1984. It wasn't anything close to being "classic American", but it was still mine, and I finally had wheels of my own. I wanted to be like my step-father, and learn everything I could about it, take it all apart, and put it back together like he did.

But in those days, riding a motorcycle wasn't a lifestyle for me, nor was it recreation. It was transportation, a way to meet new people, and help me get ahead in life.

Fast forward to 2004. By then I hadn't ridden a motorcycle since 1989. My next door neighbor showed me a Harley-Davidson brochure, and pointed out the Dyna Wide Glide. He said he was going to buy it.

I took at look at the brochure, and then I spotted the Road King with its classic American styling and thought about my step-father's 1948 Panhead. I thought, "yeah, that's what I want". If my neighbor was going to buy a motorcycle, then I'll buy one too, and rekindle those college days when my best friend and I would ride bikes together.

But that's when I saw the Yamaha Road Star, and saw a motorcycle that basically competed against the Road King, offering a lower price, a more powerful engine, and still tons of aftermarket support.

In my college days, and even today, I love riding the motorcycle hard into the canyons and over the mountains. I'm always pushing myself a little bit more each time. I could have easily bought a sportbike if the circumstances of my youth were such. Maybe if my step-father raced motorcycles when he was young, I might have followed suit. Maybe if my neighbor wanted to buy a sportbike, I might have gone that direction too.

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