"When I do not want to say things in real life I often say them here." — Mimi Smartypants
Wow, two long motorcycle tours in one year (click here for a writeup of my earlier 2012 two-wheeled adventure)—just call me Iron Butt Paul! American motorcyclists have been riding Gypsy Tours since 1917, and they’ve always been hard-core affairs—long distances, sleeping under the stars, campfires, canned beans, roadside engine repairs and tire changes—a style of […]
Zen and motorcycle maintenance became one this morning. Or, more prosaically, routine maintenance was exactly that: routine, no glitches, no do-overs, no emergency runs to the parts counter. That in itself is a kind of Zen, but in addition to a fun morning working on the bike, I’ve now got a great cross-country ride to […]
Mount Lemon, that would be, just a 26-mile ride from my home at the base of the Santa Catalinas in northeast Tucson. We finally had a good monsoon rainstorm yesterday, and when I woke up this morning the sky was still overcast. I decided to get the Goldwing ready for a ride anyway, and that turned […]
That would be “wrenching” as in “motorcycle maintenance.” I found oil under my motorcycle the other day. With older bikes (and non-Japanese bikes in general), oil on the garage floor is pretty much standard … but it’s not something you want to see underneath a Honda Goldwing. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind it […]
I’ve wanted to ride BMW’s new six-cylinder flagship touring bike ever since it came out. Last weekend I had my chance: two days and over 500 miles on a 2011 K 1600 GTL. I’d driven up to Las Vegas to spend Thanksgiving with my son Gregory in Las Vegas. Greg, as he has done before, […]