It has been another rough spring living near Lake Michigan as almost all of the really warm and nice days have been during the work week since the roads have been clean enough for my liking. However, I needed to get my bike to my friend, Scott’s while he was available to help me with shortening my kickstand some more. Hence he has a welder, would be home and since he is retired, he gets very busy. Also, hence a few months after riding my new bike, it became very challenging to get it all the way down without problems with it being too long. I thought it had to do with when I laid it down in Port when the stand rolled up on me and landed on that side of the bike, but Scott also thinks it has something to do with the suspension settling. Either way I needed to shorten it.
Although today was not much to my liking for riding; cool, a bit rainy and pretty windy, I decided I needed to bite the bullet and get it there.
It was a pretty miserable ride there and it seemed much worse on southbound roads vs westbound. However, I did learn something today, that it isn’t quite as bad as I’ve always thought or felt when its this windy. Not pleasurable, but I can confidently handle it! I also screwed up by not keeping on my long sleeved thermal top because I took it off while waiting out some rain. So, by the time I got to Scott’s, I was very chilled. And although it sounds like I may have went topless, I was wearing a t-shirt. Hahaha!
I also did not appreciate two younger drivers who came up on me along Hwy 28 when I was already doing 70ish, so both times I slowed way down and pulled tight to the shoulder motioning for them to pass me. Which thankfully they did. Bad enough trying to keep my bike in my lane with them on my tail.
Scott did some testing by placing my bike on some long planks to see just how much we needed to trim it before starting the work. And, in the meantime Kevin texted me that he was on his way. In case we got done soon enough for a ride, but he knew I was probably going to want to just go home with how windy it was, and he too was even surprised I decided to make it there. After a bit of catching up with Scott, he headed out for a ride by himself.
It took around a couple of hours to trim it, weld the foot back on and then paint it.
Closer to when we were almost done, Scott’s friend Nettie showed up, and it was nice chatting with her since she also loves to ride, but I’m thinking it was a little too windy for her preferences today as well because she showed up with her vehicle and not the bike, as I think Scott was hoping they could go for a ride when we were done.
Once we were done, which was close to 3:30, I headed home and since the wind would be more at my back and it was warmer out, I decided to take more back roads home and go through a little of the northern Kettles. Which was actually what I should have done to get there as those roads are more protected and not so wide open. Ugh!
I only had burned off just under half of tank of the fuel from last season, but figured I would top it off with some fresh fuel and test the kickstand in Glenbeulah, and I was very pleased because it cleared well. From there I made a stop at the Mill Pond and then it did give me a little trouble, but it was a pretty steep incline, so I backed it up a bit and then it cleared fine.
I was so exhausted from fighting the wind on my way to Scott’s that it felt very good to be home and 118 miles is not shabby for a first ride of the season.
