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Post by milly on Mar 29, 2018 13:25:42 GMT -5
Off to work on the bike today.  |
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The Bike
Mar 29, 2018 20:14:44 GMT -5
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Post by benji on Mar 29, 2018 20:14:44 GMT -5
Off to work on the bike today. you guys that ride in the rain are heros to me. Ive tried and failed. Just can't do it. |
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Post by 90GTVert on Mar 29, 2018 20:42:20 GMT -5
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Post by fuzzyruttin on Mar 29, 2018 21:16:13 GMT -5
Back in the day when i lived in FL, I had a Yamaha 440, the only form of transportation I had while going through college. Had a good rain suit because when it rained in Daytona, it really friggin came down in buckets. Gotta say, it was a real PITA at times getting to the classroom, un-gearing the suit and heavy-ass backpack of books, and being drenched in sweat cuz it was 80-90F outside. Here you are riding around trying to stay dry, and you're just as soaked inside because of the makeshift sauna the suit created. That only lasted about a year before I broke down and bought an old '82 Honda Civic off of one of the professors. Great car! Loved and owned several Hondas ever since.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Mar 30, 2018 1:26:41 GMT -5
I went and spent about five years in San Francisco before settling down and raising a family. After trying a car and realizing how badly that worked in a crowded city, I got a motorcycle and rode that year-round. It was certainly nice that you could ride year-round. But from about Christmas to about February 1, it usually rained quite a bit. Days and days of it. And it could get heavy. I wore cheap plastic raincoats and rainpants over my clothes, of course. I'd step inside home at the end of the day and the water would just run off of me onto the floor. I remember my room-mates once or twice looking at me with narrowed eyes as if they were thinking, "You're going to clean that up, right?"
I don't think I left terrible messes. But back then I think I might have been a bit more oblivious about doing the right thing than I would be today. So, who knows? Maybe their skepticism was justified.
At least I wasn't sweating, like fuzzyruttin. The temp was closer to 45 than 85. And I'd hang the rain gear up plus the gloves and boots (soaking wet). Plastic rain gear would be dry enough in the morning. But this was a genuinely wet and humid climate. It was often pretty hard to get regular clothing really dry and warm.And I always seemed to be stuck with that one roommate who objected to turning up the heat a bit on the grounds that it's too expensive! Friends of mine would complain about the same thing. I guess there's one in every crowd.
I'm not really sorry I did it. Life was fun there. But, man oh man, it was possible to get a chill that was very, very difficult to get rid of.
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Post by bluegoatwoods on Mar 30, 2018 1:58:39 GMT -5
And I've reminded myself, in that last post, of what I think of as one of the defining moments of my life.
I do remember that I was driving the VW Beetle that I had when I first went there, so I guess it was while I was still pretty new. It was after dark and it was foggy. Just off the road there was a group of twelve or fifteen scooters parked under a street light. The riders were just hanging around there. They were wearing green raincoats with various symbols painted on them. They couldn't have looked more like the cover of "Quadrophenia" if they'd tried. But, naturally, they were trying. That's exactly the look they were going for.
I drove on by with my mouth hanging open, thinking, "I'd like to join those guys!"
But I didn't have any money for a scooter right then. I don't remember if I considered a scooter when I gave up the car and went for a motorcycle. But I do remember that I lucked onto a pretty good deal on that bike. So the decision was made for me. (I think you could get a 50cc Honda or Yamaha for about $400 then. Still...that was more money than it is today, of course. About double my monthly rent, for instance.)
When those days were all over I had to raise a family. So there was still no budget for scooters.
This would have occurred during Ronald Reagans first term, for instance. Yet the image of those guys hanging out around their parked scooters and my longing to join up with them stayed with me all that time.
I only bought my first scooter a couple of years ago. I had finally, finally arrived!
My biggest regret is that I hadn't done it sooner. I should have done it sooner and just made it work somehow.
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Post by fuzzyruttin on Mar 30, 2018 7:21:58 GMT -5
^ The reason for my buying a scooter was seeing all those bad-ass looking Ruckuses all over the streets of Thailand. I tried to find one to rent, to no avail. Got just a basic 100cc bike, which was a blast hitting the back roads with. Even got a flat and had to mingle with the locals (very little to no English).
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Post by aeroxbud on Mar 30, 2018 11:06:40 GMT -5
Off to work on the bike today. you guys that ride in the rain are heros to me. Ive tried and failed. Just can't do it. I am just about to leave for work. Yep it's raining pretty hard. 😕 Got into a good soaking the other day. Jus as I got onto the free way I remembered my hoodie was sticking out of my rain gear. |
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The Bike
Mar 30, 2018 11:12:00 GMT -5
via mobile
Post by milly on Mar 30, 2018 11:12:00 GMT -5
Sunny here for a change so taking out the grandkids who have arrived from Nottingham on the scooter. One down three to go. Should have stayed at work 😊
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