On a mission.
Once again I found a new way to challenge myself when it comes to travel and I think for the first time I have failed. Today's mission was:
1) Get out of a 3 hour shift at Sears.
2) Drive to Seattle on Lacey (the bike).
3) Meet up with Lacey (the girl).
4) Have dinner with Lacey (the girl).
5) Drive back on Lacey (the bike).
Step one was accomplished. Sears wasn't busy and they said I could go for a drive.
I made it all the way down to Marysville. By the time I got there I was shivering and I could tell I would not have made it back before sunset. I turned around, stopped in Burlington to eat and warm up and then drove the rest of the way home.
I was able to answer a lot of questions I had about driving Lacey on the freeway however. I've found that Lacey is able to go 60mph even on all of the hills I had to pass. It was more difficult to go 70mph most of the time on the other hand. The times I was able to reach the 70 mark was when a larger vehicle would "cut me off" and I was able to draft them. If they passed me leaving plenty of space, I was unable to catch the draft. Once I get in the drafting stage I am able to cut the throttle to about half rather than full and still push 70mph and could probably even reach 80mph if the vehicle in front of me was going that fast and second, if I thought it would be even remotely safe.
I've also found that I do not want to be on my bike when it is windy. Just from the air currents of the other vehicles passing, I've found that it would be very scary to ride on a windy day.
I've been warned by several people about rain and how hard it is to drive in the rain. I would still like to give it a try.
So I now have 300 miles on my bike. The dealership told me I need to come back for the free 300 mile check up once I hit 300 miles. I have a few things that need to be taken a look at too. The brakes squeak, after my 100mile drive today something started making a high pitched grinding noise around 20-35mph, and a little hose fell out of my engine the other day. It looks like an overflow tube, but I don't think things should be falling out of my bike already.
I've figured out how to use the MP3 player. The dealership told me I could plug an ipod into it, but when I did that it just charged and locked the ipod so I was unable to play music. That sucks, right? Yes and no... I figured out that the bike actually has a mp3 player in it which means I just have to supply the music on some sort of usb drive. This means I could plug in a flash drive OR I could even get a 80 GB usb harddrive, fill it with songs and just plug it in. The downside is that there is no display and there for no way to know what song I am playing and the only way to find a song is by pressing the next button until I get to it.
So to conclude this mission summery, I must say the goal was a failure, yet the knowledge gained from it is worth much more. I will have to complete the mission another time when I have the proper gear or when it warms up.
Next mission: Get a picture of me on my bike. This sounds like a mission for Kyle!
1) Get out of a 3 hour shift at Sears.
2) Drive to Seattle on Lacey (the bike).
3) Meet up with Lacey (the girl).
4) Have dinner with Lacey (the girl).
5) Drive back on Lacey (the bike).
Step one was accomplished. Sears wasn't busy and they said I could go for a drive.
I made it all the way down to Marysville. By the time I got there I was shivering and I could tell I would not have made it back before sunset. I turned around, stopped in Burlington to eat and warm up and then drove the rest of the way home.
I was able to answer a lot of questions I had about driving Lacey on the freeway however. I've found that Lacey is able to go 60mph even on all of the hills I had to pass. It was more difficult to go 70mph most of the time on the other hand. The times I was able to reach the 70 mark was when a larger vehicle would "cut me off" and I was able to draft them. If they passed me leaving plenty of space, I was unable to catch the draft. Once I get in the drafting stage I am able to cut the throttle to about half rather than full and still push 70mph and could probably even reach 80mph if the vehicle in front of me was going that fast and second, if I thought it would be even remotely safe.
I've also found that I do not want to be on my bike when it is windy. Just from the air currents of the other vehicles passing, I've found that it would be very scary to ride on a windy day.
I've been warned by several people about rain and how hard it is to drive in the rain. I would still like to give it a try.
So I now have 300 miles on my bike. The dealership told me I need to come back for the free 300 mile check up once I hit 300 miles. I have a few things that need to be taken a look at too. The brakes squeak, after my 100mile drive today something started making a high pitched grinding noise around 20-35mph, and a little hose fell out of my engine the other day. It looks like an overflow tube, but I don't think things should be falling out of my bike already.
I've figured out how to use the MP3 player. The dealership told me I could plug an ipod into it, but when I did that it just charged and locked the ipod so I was unable to play music. That sucks, right? Yes and no... I figured out that the bike actually has a mp3 player in it which means I just have to supply the music on some sort of usb drive. This means I could plug in a flash drive OR I could even get a 80 GB usb harddrive, fill it with songs and just plug it in. The downside is that there is no display and there for no way to know what song I am playing and the only way to find a song is by pressing the next button until I get to it.
So to conclude this mission summery, I must say the goal was a failure, yet the knowledge gained from it is worth much more. I will have to complete the mission another time when I have the proper gear or when it warms up.
Next mission: Get a picture of me on my bike. This sounds like a mission for Kyle!