Today was pretty cool, with a temperature of 30 degrees when I got on the bike to go to breakfast. Since the Sunday meeting place is only about 2 miles down the road and since I wasn't planning to go riding after breakfast I dressed more for breakfast and wrenching than riding in the cold. This would have been a great morning to use some of my electric gear but since I'm still waiting on the Warm & Safe controller I didn't bother hooking up the cable directly. Remember, I was only going to breakfast.
Brrr!!! When I got onto Hiway 6 taking the new over pass over 90A I realized how cold it was. Thank goodness I was halfway there. Turn on the heated grips! On High!!
You see the reason why I wasn't going riding following breakfast is because I was planning to help my buddy John put his Goldwing back together. After our last trip he had started working on the front end, changing fork oil, replacing steering head bearings and other stuff. With the holidays and a cold he sort of got delayed on putting it all back together. So the plan was to work on that following breakfast.
After breakfast Fred and I headed to John's house. Lucky for me John's garage is insulated and had a little space heater running. It took the chill off the air and made it such that your hands didn't hurt when you scraped or banged them. Once we got started, things were going pretty well. We managed to get the forks set, front tire on, brakes and fender attached. Pretty much everything at the bottom end of the forks. Then we went to the top end. It took three tries before we got all the cables routed correctly from the handlebars. Those pesky throttle cables. After that we put the instrument cluster end and decided to call it a day.
Since it was just before 2pm and Reagan was out and about, I decided to take the long way home. So I headed west on 90A to FM359 where I turned right. A few miles down the road I caught up with some Harley riders doing the double nickel. Everybody had their gear on and seemed to be riding safely so I just stayed behind them. I figured when we got to Winner Foster road I'd go which ever direction they didn't. As I expected they stayed on 359 heading north so I turned left and took off down Winner Foster Road. It was a great day, very little traffic, clear skies and the temperature was just right.
I turned right onto Bois D Arc and headed north. This road takes you into Fulshear with a few sharp turns along the way. When I got into Fulshear my Fuel light came on. What? only 160 miles on the trip meter and I need gas? What gives. I decide to push on into Brookshire for gas. I stay on FM1093 heading west out of Fulshear. When I get to Simonton I turn right onto Simonton road toward Brookshire. There's an Exxon there and I like using my speed pass. Since I was a little concerned about my fuel economy I decided to keep the pace steady (but enjoyable) so I could see if my fuel usage was on par. My guage said I had 38 miles of fuel left and it was 10 miles to Brookshire. So if things were OK, I should roll into town with 27 miles left. And that's what happened. While refilling the tank, it dawned on me that last weekend I was riding around the motorcycle range practicing on "the bean" which is a small oval-ish track used in the MSF Experienced Rider course. That was mostly first and second gear with some hard acceleration which explains the poor fuel economy.
With a full tank of gas I headed north to Pattison to ride Racers Road. It's got some nice sweeping curves and is fun to ride. Racers Road is FM1489 out of Pattison. When I crossed the Brazos river I slowed to 45mph so as to avoid the need to make any donations to the San Felipe police department. I continued south crossing over I-10. Just as I got to FM 1093 I decided to turn right instead of left and head toward Wallis. I had a plan...
Once I got to Wallis I turned left on Hiway 36 and headed south east toward Rosenberg. I was planning to stay on 36 until I got to spur 10 which would cut over to Hiway 59. When I got a few miles down the road to Orchard I decided to head south to Taverner and pick up 90A. Once I got to 90A I turned left heading toward Rosenberg again. Glancing down at the GPS I noticed a road up ahead on my right that eventually went to Hiway 59. So when I got to it, I turned right onto FM1875 and headed south toward Beasley. They've been doing some construction on 59 around Beasley and I wasn't sure about the best way to get onto 59 heading back to the house. A short detour and I manged to get myself going northbound on Hiway 59.
By 4pm I was in my driveway, talking to my neighbor. It was a nice ride home and I wasn't too cold. The odometer has another 106 miles on it from today's trip and I think my adjustments to the backrest are going to work well. Before I leave for Ft. Davis on Friday, I hope to take another 100 miler without the beadrider pad on the seat. Hopefully I've adjusted the bike to the point that I can enjoy my Rick Mayer custom seat which to this point has been a pain in my butt.
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