Random thoughts....

Does anyone use the term dungarees anymore? I rather like it more than jeans. It implies a certain ruggedness which is appealing.

I am still up in the air as to which route I will travel tomorrow when the Guzzi and I depart for our adventure. There are so many ways to go, but I must have a fine balance of speed and scenery. I do not want to just take the interstate highways the whole way and pin the throttle back but i cannot afford to lolligag either, as I must try to make it to memphis, TN by 6:00 p.m. Darn it all, i find myself in such a quandry. What to do...what to do? My head hurts.

Last night I had a couple beers with some mates from work. Mates is a British term which I am beginning to use since my friend Andrew is from across the pond. Anyway, I have decided that I prefer the flavor of Blue Moon wheat ale (brewed by the Coors/Molson consortium) to a rather renowned German wheat ale known as Tucher (pronounced Too-ker). Whilst Tucher is much more of a traditional tasting wheat beer, I prefer the less sour tasting Blue Moon. Your mileage may vary.

I woke up around 3 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. Maybe I'll use one of the "sick" rooms we have here at work and take a nap later.

"The Office" is my favorite tv show...hilarious!

I watched a special on Evel Knievel the other day. Evel Knievel, you were and are THE MAN!!

The adventure approaches

I am getting prepared for my trip out to the midwest this Saturday. My plan is to leave Deland, FL sometime between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. Saturday. Hopefully the critters of the night will spare me any trouble whilst darkness covers the land. I want to make it to Memphis, Tennessee by the end of my riding day Saturday. That will be a little bit over 800 miles. There my good ol' buddy ol' pal Mike will meet up with me and if neither he nor I are in traction from the ride, we will enjoy some good ol' Memphis BBQ. Mike will be riding down from Papillion Saturday a.m. to meet up with me.

I am taking a different route this time, as I do not revel in having to pass through Atlanta and all its traffic and road construction. It is a holiday weekend and the roads will be busy enough as it is. This time i will opt for going through Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama. I hope to reach Birmingham by maybe 2:00 or so. Forging on form there I will pass through Tupelo, Mississippi, the birthplace of the King of Rock 'n' Roll, Elvis Presley. After Tupelo I will motor on to Memphis, Tennessee, hoping to arrive by 7:00 p.m. or thereabouts.

Sunday morning will bring another FULL day of riding (~700 miles) but it will be good to have my riding buddy Mike along for that leg of the journey. Hopefully the state troopers will have other customers to serve, as Mike and I, having ridden together quite a bit, generally feel the need to stretch the antiquated speed limits. :=)

Here are a few maps showing the route I plan to take from Deland, Florida to Papillion, Nebraska. Click the maps to enlarge them.

More Breva fine tuning....

Yesterday and today at work I had this bad feeling that perhaps I had not correctly set the intake and exhaust clearances on the Guzzi...i thought maybe I had swapped the exhaust settings for the intake settings and vice-versa.

So I called upon the steady hand and keen eye of my friend Jim to provide guidance and mechanical expertise. We removed both valve covers again and rechecked the settings for the exhaust and intake valve clearances on both cylinders. Lo and behold they were okay! We did tweak one intake valve clearance a bit but it was not really necessary.

We also pulled the rear wheel off and I will take that into the motorcycle shop tomorrow for new rubber. That was a real snap to remove! The tire still has life left in it but this will probably be a 3500 mile round trip, so better safe than sorry. Here are a few pics...getting closer to being ready for the trip.....

*****UPDATE*****
I got my new tire mounted and balanced and I installed it. Ahhh, it is a nice riding tire! Less road noise and smoother overall ride than with the old tire. So I think the bike is ready to go now...the question is...am I? This will be the most miles I have attempted to cover in a single day and nearly double the amount I have ever covered in a single day on the Breva. Could be interesting :=O

Workplace cretin(s)

We have probably 10 or so people at work that regularly ride motorcycles to work. Ofttimes I will be the first to arrive and I get a nice spot on the back side of the building, near the entrance, which is shaded for a good part of the day. Usually one or two other bikes will park in my space as well, enjoying the close proximity to the entrance and the shade to keep the bike cool during the day.

So I found out today at work that some worthless loser of a humanoid complained about the motorcycles sharing spaces!! I guess this pathetic slug had some trouble getting their bag out of their car because the motorcycles were parked too close. He/she/it also had the gall to proclaim that it must have been a motorcycle trying to squeeze out of a space that scratched his/her new car!! What a joke!

Sniff sniff...waaaaaaaaaaa! Here, borrow my hanky...ball it up nice and tight...and shove it down your gullet so it stifles not only your speech but if we are all lucky your breathing as well!

This clown does not appreciate that by parking two or three bikes to a space we are opening up more spaces for cars. Our bikes are well WITHIN the lines of the parking space. Einstein here ought to be looking to place blame on the much more likely culprit...some slug in a car who opened his/her door smack dab into loser's car.

There, I feel better....not really.......Johnny has a message for ya :=0

Servicing the Guzzi (and some Honda Mini Trail stuff)

Today's topic will be servicing the Moto Guzzi Breva 1100. In Preparation for my trip next Saturday, I will be spending this morning performing various bits of servicing on the bike, including adjusting the intake/exhaust valves clearances, changing the oil and oil filter, changing the air filter and just generally checking bolts for tightness........

I am done! Here are some pics! Click on the pics to make them larger and read some commentary. I have also included two crappy videos.

Here you will also find a couple pictures of the Honda Mini Trail. I believe the blue one is a 70cc and the red one is a 50cc, but I am sure EM will correct me if wrong. I have nothing to do with these "bikes" and no desire to ever own one, but I decided to post pics of them as one of my frequent readers has been plugging the Mini Trail almost every time he(she/it) comments.

Commando

Jim and Jerry and I gazed upon Andrew's new (classic) Norton Commando 850 today after work. 850cc parallel twin, right side shift (4 speed, 1 up, 3 down) left side foot brake. Man, just a freaking cool bike top to bottom. Jim finally got to sit in the saddle of a real classic bike...not some friggin' Honda Mini Trail!!

New words 'n' such....

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about words and phrases I'd like to introduce or re-introduce to the American lexicon.

I have a few words today which I believe are worthy of such an honor.

Firstly, turkey. As in "get away from me, you turkey!" It's a lot less hateful and vulgar than some other words, but believe you me it gets the gd point across to any ne'er do well loser who crosses your path. If the offender is a particularly repulsive and nefarious character, let's say you encounter a crude foreigner, you can add an adjective, for instance, "Meet my American-made fist, you jive turkey!!".

My next word comes from, of all people, a gd foreigner Canadian I work with. Nice enough fella....a little naive to the way we do things here in the good ole US of A, but he has a good heart. Anyway, here in the USA we have various terms for underwear....undershorts, undies, undertrunks, skivvies, boxers, jockeys, etc. Well, up in the hinterland of Canada, they call them gitch. For example, "Dangit, I forgot to wear my gitch today!!" I kinda like the word gitch, so I will promote a full-scale effort to get this word out there in our mighty country.

My final word today is swill. Another word for cheap beer or somesuch beverage. Personally, I am not a fan of such crap liquids, but I can see the attraction for some on a meager budget. "Hey Petey boy, let's go have a couple pints of swill and discuss the meaning of life"...that might be a normal usage of the word.

Sometimes I will go with my fellow Fiservians for a pint of fine ale, but there's always some clown who must consume swill, like Michelob Ultra or some mass-produced "light beer". In all truth this makes me feel the desire to ball up my fist and begin wreaking havoc, but I generally refrain from such behavior.

Above is a pic of a real fine taste of barley, hops, yeast and water from across the pond, poured for my friend Carl by our barmaid Cooper....

Back to the plains.....

I plan to saddle up the Moto Guzzi Breva 1100 in September and ride back to the Omaha area to visit some friends and family. This will be the first long trip for the Breva as the longest she's seen previously was an ~900 mile round trip to Key West and back.

I am looking at ~1500 miles each way.....throw in a few miles while I am riding around up there and I think it'll be a 3500 mile round trip.

I intend to take a different route this time, more through Alabama so i can avoid Atlanta. I also want to ride through Tupolo, Mississippi, birthplace of one Elvis Aaron Presley. More to come on this trip as it develops.......

Moto Guzzi National Rally washout

The Moto Guzzi National Rally was held over the weekend in Houston, Minnesota. Lotsa folks showed up from around the country and even the traveling Moto Guzzi semi-trailer with all the demo bikes was there. Luckily for me I was unable to make the trip.

Unfortunately there was a massive storm and loads of rain at the campground where the rally was held. The nearby creek flooded, some folks watched as their bikes and tents, etc. were washed away by the storm. Unbelievable damage but it appears no one was injured. here are a few pics I found on the internet.

Time to nip out for a ride

So, I am learning some new phrases from Andrew and his wife Jane...they are from Great Britain. I talked to Andrew this morning and he was out in the garage working on his new (to him) 1973 Norton. We decided it would be a good idea to "nip" out for a ride to meet the Ducati people at Cycle Gear. I said jolly right....but was corrected...that should have been "jolly good". Oh well, I tried! Can't a mate get some credit for trying?! :=) Anyway, here are a few pics from our ride, including some Ducatis, an Aprilia and of course the Norton and the Guzzi. Jane was on her Yamaha scooter with daughter Alex on back. Andrew was on the mighty Commando and of course I was on the Guzzi.

Motorcycling Saturday

Today I went for a ride with a couple of work mates. My friend Andrew was heading to Eustis, FL to pick up his new (old) bike, a classic 1973 850 Norton Commando. What a sweet bike! Myself and my friend Bob from work got on our bikes and followed Andrew and his friend Keith(a racer of classic British bikes) in their pickup truck to get the Norton.

After some general hobnobbing and such at the motorcycle shop(#2 on map), Bob and I took off on our bikes and rode all over the place for the next several hours. We rode past numerous horse ranches, many lakes and lots of old time Florida communities/homes/businesses.

We went to Yalaha Country Bakery(#3 on map) and later stopped at Jack's BBQ, a Florida institution(#5 on the map)