More posts about ongoing “project daily driver” are here:
My cruiser is back on the road! When snow was 3′ deep and hauling firewood was a daily issue, I planned this moment. I’d made an appointment months in advance at a motorcycle shop.
Was this always necessary? I live in an empty location in an increasingly empty society. If I walk in the door looking for motorcycle service on the fly I’m doomed. I’ll hear something like “we’re really swamped during this unexpected temporary situation that’s been ongoing since about 2010. We have only few decent mechanics and they’re exhausted. We try to augment that with a handful of clueless Gen Z flunkies but they never show up and can’t operate a motorcycle anyway. We can fit you in for service six weeks from next October.”
Such is the decline in society. Look around. You’ll see it.
I adapted instead of bitching. I made a motorcycle appointment during a season of snowmobiles. Good for me. (If I owned a snowmobile I might make an appointment now for sometime around Christmas.)
My bike came back and I pried open my wallet to pay the price. Worth it! The old Honda looks more or less like it did the day I bought it. Except it’s slathered in 20+ years of dirt. (Some people wax bikes like showpieces. I don’t.) It also runs more or less like the day I bought it. All hail well built, simple, engines!
In celebration, I did a shakedown ride. I dug through my mishmash of protective gear. I’ll admit I’m a disorganized mess. It’s not that I haven’t been riding, it’s that the last two years have been 40 MPH and slower on a Yamaha in the forest and not 75 MPH and faster on a Honda on the slab. Two very different worlds. Also, I’ve bought the absolute bare minimum equipment over the last two decades and used it all until it’s frayed.
Everything I own was probably shot 10 years ago. I just keep riding anyway. Ignoring its increasingly ragged condition might have caught up with me.
I grabbed my trusty helmet, which has been carefully stored. I had to wipe off a ton of dust. I put on my leather chaps. (They may look silly but if I attack your kneecap with a belt sander I guaran-damn-tee you’d prefer them to denim alone!) I put on my jacket (which is looking a bit worn).
I do have new gloves. I’m not an animal!
Now I was suited up and ready for a daily driver shakedown cruise!
As I rode my helmet didn’t fit like it once did. It seemed to be rubbing my skull. Like someone took a perfectly good helmet and stashed a brick in it.
For dirt bike riding I bought a new helmet a few years ago. It’s perfect for 45 MPH but it would suck eggs at 75MPH. Hence the old helmet which is meant for highway speeds. It used to fit like a glove but now it was hard and uncomfortable.
I stopped for a cheeseburger and to assess the helmet situation. When I took off the helmet a bunch of foam came out. I found more foam bits in my hair. More fell down the back of my neck. The helmet got old and the soft padding inside is literally falling to pieces. It’s just plain wore out. I suspect the shell is still good but the soft padding inside is toast. Unfortunately the soft stuff is part of the protection. Without the soft stuff, the harder parts of the helmet were grinding into my skull.
No denying it. I going to have to throw out a good looking but decades old helmet. I wish I could retrofit the inside. I’m sure it’s a PITA and it’s definitely not recommended for safety reasons.
I hate trying on helmets. It took me forever to buy a simple dirt bike helmet and by comparison that’s practically a cheap ass bicycle helmet. Plus there’s not much of a selection locally and the real crux of it is that I don’t like shopping.
After a righteous cheeseburger I suited up; gingerly fitting the helmet on a slightly sore head. Then the chaps showed their age…
Flashback to buying the chaps; Sturgis 2000:
Me: “So you’ll hem to fit?”
Grizzled biker chick with scary big sewing machine: “Yep. Stand on this box.”
I stood on a box and she fitted the waistband and then the legs; marking them to cut & hem to length.
Me: “It’s a little loose around the waist.”
Biker Chick: “What kind of bike do you have?”
Me: “Honda Shadow.”
Biker Chick: “Metric Cruiser?”
Me: “Yeah, the belt is loose maybe you could…”
Biker Chick: “You’ll grow into it.”
Sigh… she was right! The waist is now more… um… form fitting. It’s not too tight, but it sure as hell ain’t loose. Fuckin’ covid weight gain!
There’s a little pocket on one leg of the chaps. The snap that holds that pocket closed ripped out years ago. I can’t put anything in it because it will immediately blow out onto the pavement. For at least 30,000 miles I’ve literally had a pocket flap buzzing in the wind on my right leg every mile I ride. Being cheap is like that.
Plus there’s a decades’ worth of dead bugs and road grime. But hey, ride with what you got eh? In fact, I’ve been wearing the chaps on the dirt bike too. My theory is that if I bounce off a tree it’s better to have them than not. They’re not ideal for off road situations but they sorta’ work when it’s not too hot. I’m still alive right?
Then the zipper pull ripped off. Nooooooo!
So there I am in a burger joint trying to make assless chaps (over denim jeans!) work when they’re totally shot. There is nothing graceful about any of this! I’ve got one leg zipped up and the belt (which I definitely grew into) tight, but the other leg flapping around like I’m some sort of demented incompetent one leg flasher.
I was wearing recently purchased motorcycle boots (the first motorcycle boots I’ve ever owned). They don’t fit great and they’re not broken in. Thus, my balance wasn’t great. I stumbled and flopped over into the booth while trying to extract my Leatherman from a jacket pocket. (Even as I did this, I realized the pocket’s zipper pull is also shot. Years ago I replaced it with a gadget I found in a camping store somewhere. I’d forgotten about that.)
Then, while I struggled face down ass up in a burger joint’s booth… with chaps half on and half off and a Leatherman dropped on the floor where my helmeted head couldn’t fit to reach… I ripped one. It’s not my fault, it just happened. Trip over new boots, crash into the booth, drop the Leatherman, and then broooonk. God has excellent comedic timing and I’m one of his props.
People were watching. I was fatally embarrassed.
Then the phone dings. Usually it’s off in the saddlebags but I hadn’t brought the saddlebag keys with me. (Another part of “project daily driver” is managing some missing keys. When my dog died we got a puppy. The puppy is another Great Pyrenees and eventually it got tall enough to reach my chest high key rack. I only figured out what was happening after the puppy ate several keys. The damn dog didn’t inform me what keys it ate so I’m still figuring out what keys are missing. My saddlebags that are perma-locked until I fix them.)
I ditched the helmet, forgot about the Leatherman, pretended the chaps were not a tangled mess, and tried to sit properly. If I couldn’t manage actual human traits I’d at least mimic them. As I fiddled with the phone the people watching me got bored. Phones create invisibility; a new thing I just learned.
Mrs. Curmudgeon: “Enjoying your ride?”
Me: “I’M FALLING APART AT THE SEAMS!”
Mrs. Curmudgeon: “Stress will do that. Maybe take a longer ride?”
Me: “The shit I wear is falling apart.”
Mrs. Curmudgeon: “Are you wearing that jacket you bought from the guy in the classified ad way back years ago?”
Me: “Yeah, so?”
Mrs. Curmudgeon: “You do realize that there’s no such thing as classified ads anymore. Nor does anyone read a newspaper. Wait, are you wearing those skanky chaps?”
Me: “They’re perfectly good.”
Mrs. Curmudgeon: “You wore them into a mud pit last spring!”
Me: “That was not exactly an intended thing.”
It wasn’t this bad.
Mrs. Curmudgeon: “The mud was probably cow shit.”
Me: “Farming is why we’re not starving.”
Mrs. Curmudgeon: “Those chaps smell funky. Get your ragged ass home and buy new stuff.”
Me: “Shopping sucks.”
Mrs. Curmudgeon: “I will help you shop.”
Me: “Thanks!”
Mrs. Curmudgeon: “I will drove to a store, kick you out, and lock the car door until you’re wearing a new jacket.”
So there you have it. I hate shopping and all my shit is worn out. Meanwhile, Mrs. Curmudgeon is trying to keep me alive and also keep people at burger joints from having to deal with bikers that smell like agriculture. The universe is at balance.
I have now re-defined “daily driver” to include protective gear.