Which first? The good news or the bad news. . .

Today I had the pleasure of spending most of my day at the Harley dealership. I needed a new rear tire, so I called the dealership to see if they could change it while I waited. They said no problem; it should only take about an hour and a half. I got there about 9:30 a.m. expecting to be home by noon, at the latest. Well, I'm glad I brought a book along, because around 1:30, in comes my service rep, holding a severed drive belt in his hand, and a "good news/bad news" sort of look on his face. The good news was that Harley would replace my drive belt free of charge; the bad news was that I had a brand new tire with a marred sidewall which they wouldn't replace. The service rep explained that the belt "broke" when they were giving it a test drive. The tester had been stranded and they had to trailer my bike back to the shop (I guess this explained the four hour tire change). While looking at the belt, I was wondering how and why it broke, because these belts supposedly last the "lifetime" of the bike and my bike only has 12,000 miles on it. The point at which the belt failed looked like it had been cut with a razor, it had absolutely no frays. I first thought they had over tensioned it, but if that was the case I think it would have been frayed. I suppose the reason it failed will remain a mystery, at least to me. Of course I had to wait another hour and a half for them to replace the belt. On a positive note -- I almost finished my book (It's a good book and I plan on doing a review of it in a future post).

But it's a dry heat

Yesterday was the first day over a 100 degrees this year and it's 110 right now, so I gave my Motoboss Cooling Vest a proper test today. Before today the warmest temperature that I'd used it in was 97 degrees. At that temperature it worked quite well and kept me cool for about an hour at freeway speeds (under 95 degrees I would actually get a little chilled). Before leaving work today, I completely soaked the vest (to the point that it was dripping) and it was 80% dry by the time I finished my 15 mile commute. It did, however, manage to keep my torso cool for the entire trip (I can't say the same for the rest of me). I forgot to mention that I wear my cooling vest under a Frank Thomas mesh armored jacket. The problem is that the jacket is black (I've got a Harley image to maintain ha, ha, ha), and at every stoplight it felt like my arms were going to burst into flames. Needless to say, I think I might see if I can find a jacket in light gray. The bottom line on the cooling vest is that it's great for my short commute but it won't hold up to long rides without stopping at regular intervals to wet it down.

On a side note: I'd like to thank the DPS motorcycle officer who cut in front of me today (missing my front tire by about a foot or so) and changed the course of a plastic bag that I would have otherwise avoided. The said bag wrapped itself around my rear brake pedal and my right boot and before I could free my foot the bag melted to my pipes (at least I didn't lock my rear brake in the process)!

The same old routine

There’s absolutely nothing exciting going on in my motorcycling adventures -- only the commute to work each day. My daily ride to work only gets exciting when I have to dodge still sleeping cagers at 4 a.m., other than that it’s a straight shot. And I mean straight. For those not familiar with the Phoenix area most all of the roads are laid out in a grid, no curves at all. My trip to work is a couple of turns to get out of my neighborhood and than 12.5 miles straight east. I've noticed myself daydreaming quite a bit on my way to work (to much traffic in the afternoon commute home to "zone-out"), and seeing that daydreaming on a motorcycle, and city streets don't really mix that well, I've started playing road games to keep my focus on the ride. My current favorite takes place in front of a concrete plant on my route. Long ago one of their trucks spilled concrete across the road and there is about a 6 inch gap in the dried concrete. If you aim just right you don't hit it at all (and I can't see the concrete in my headlight until I'm to close to adjust). I've got it down so I hit the gap about four out of five tries. There’s another half a dozen pot holes, loose manhole covers etc. that I do the same thing with on my way to work. Got any other ideas for staying focused on a routine ride?