Boring ride report, last day of February, 2010.

It isn't that the ride was all that boring, but that there really isn't much of anything to report. I didn't go around the lake. I just rode around town from thrift store to thrift store looking for a plain red woman's head scarf.

I like to wear a slick scarf around my neck when I'm riding, to protect my neck from my helmet strap and the collar of my jacket. Between looking at scenery and watching out for other drivers I'm a real bobble-head when I ride. And that can chafe the throat very quickly.

Well-worn cotton bandanas aren't bad but super-slick headscarves are better. The only problem is that the standard slick square headscarf that every woman owned when I was a kid is now pretty much fashion-extinct.

I have a square red headscarf that I bought at a thrift store but it isn't plain. It has a kind of checked pattern. I want a plain red one. the one I have is also not the slickest material available, either. I want the slickest material, whatever that is.

I visited three thrift stores and found many scarves, but not a plain red one.

It's in the lower 40s today so there were other motorcycles out. I rode for a little while yesterday but it was only in the high 30s so I was alone.

On my way home today I visited some friends:
Oh no! My bike is the same color as a cow!!!

Hinckley 865

The heart of the new Bonneville T100 is its 865cc vertical twin engine. This power plant combines classic Triumph looks with post-Japanese-invasion engineering. The head is obviously inspired by the rightfully famous Delta head, the sharpest looking head ever designed.

The 865 is a dual-overhead-cam engine, like the classic Honda CB450. As a kid I dreamed about the 450 when I wasn't dreaming about Triumphs. And I feel like my T100 is a fulfillment of both dreams.


Despite the overhead cams, the 865 isn't a super high revving engine. It develops its peak 66 hp at only 7200 rpm. Compare that to the CB450's 43 hp at 8500 rpm! But the 865 delivers at least 90% of its peak 52 ft lbs of torque from around 2700 rpm to redline. The Bonnie has the smoothest power curve of any bike I've ever ridden.

The finning on the head and cylinders is modest. Air cooling is supplemented by an inconspicuous oil cooler. This helps the big engine to more closely resemble classic era twins, some of which were heavily finned and looked larger than they really were.

The compact upper end of the engine sits on a substantial bottom end, giving the engine a distinct look. It also contributes to a low center of gravity, and that translates into great handling.

The 865 engine has been built since 2006 and is already legendary for its performance and reliability. It is a size upgrade of the original 790 engine that has performed reliably since 2001.


They did some fancy designing to make the 865 look like a classic Triumph engine, including an oil return tube that looks like a push-rod tube and deliberately placing the large engine cover on the left and the traditional "Triumph Triangle" cover on the right. This configuration required a right-side final chain drive, which is fine with me.

The engine is clean looking, despite the addition of flexible oil lines running from the head to the small radiator-like oil cooler mounted in front of the engine. Air pollution gadgetry is largely invisible. The air injector lines blend in with the spark plug wires they sit next to.

The new Bonnie motor runs so vibration free that, with the super-quiet stock mufflers, riding a new Bonnie is like riding an electric motorcycle. It's reported that the vibration damping engineering was too good at first and that a little vibration had to be engineered back into the engine for "character." They must have added very little. This thing is smooth.

The 865 is no racing engine but it's no dog, either. A completely stock Bonnie will go from 0 to 60 mph in five seconds and reach a top speed of 115.

Presumably, if you want to go faster than everyone else in town, you'll buy a faster bike. But if you want "enough" power and more than enough quality, you can't beat the Triumph 865.

My Second Motorcycle

Sometime in the late 80s I stopped at a garage sale in my suburban neighborhood. A faded red motorcycle was parked near the garage. It had no sign on it so I asked if it was for sale. The lady said yes, then told me her husband had bought it new, his friend was injured in a motorcycle accident and the husband stopped riding. The bike hadn't been started in about ten years. I asked how much and she asked how much will you give me. I said $100.00 right away and she said OK. Later that night with fresh oil and a new battery the little bike fired right up.

The bike was a 1977 Honda CJ360T. (The bike pictured above is the 76 model. The only difference is that the 77 had a stripe on the tank.) I don't know what Honda was thinking when they made this motorcycle. It was as light as it could be, with plastic wherever possible and no starter motor. I think it was geared a little lower than the CB360.

One thing was for sure, you really had to hold on! The power to weight ratio was amazing. If I didn't shift very smoothly the front wheel came up. Top speed couldn't have been very fast because the beast really screamed at highway speeds. But from a stop I beat pretty much anything on wheels. I just held onto first gear until almost red line and when I shifted I was near the top of the power curve. Man, that was a quick bike.

I hated the ugly faded red and the dumb looking stripe so I painted all the red parts black. The bike looked like a wasp. The seat vinyl crapped out and I replaced it with heavily Scotchguarded black denim. It looked pretty cool and it was very easy on the butt.

The bike was so light that it got blown all over the place on the interstate, so instead of going around the town on the big roads I'd zig-zag through town on the back streets. It was the perfect bike for that kind of riding. Like most stock Hondas it was very quiet so I surprised a lot of people when I flew down their less-traveled byways.

[I neglected to mention that if I accelerated too hard the front wheel lifted up when I let out the clutch in second gear.]

That bike was a very bad influence on me. It made me do illegal things. I drove it way too fast and sometimes I rode it where you aren't supposed to ride. I won't go into detail in case they're still looking for me.

I had the 360 when my dad gave me his four-cylinder 1974 Honda CB550. I rode the four sometimes, mostly because it was interstate-safe and big enough to give girlfriends rides. But mostly it sat, because it was nowhere near as much fun as that 360. I eventually sold the 550 because I didn't want it to die of neglect.

Later I moved to a part of town full of dangerous drivers. I risked my neck every time I rode the 360 and finally decided to quit while I was still not dead. I couldn't bear to try and sell the bike so I just gave it to a guy I worked with.

My new Bonneville isn't as quick and maneuverable as that 360 was, but that's probably a good thing. Bonnie is only a little bit of a bad influence on me, and I can live longer with that.

My First Motorcycle

My first motorcycle was a 1967 Honda Dream 250 that I bought right after my 16th birthday in 1970. The very square looking bike was not my first choice but I don't think I could have made a better choice for my first vehicle.

When I say it was "square" I mean old-fashioned but I also mean physically square. The headlight was square, the fenders when viewed on end were squared (and flared!), the forks were squared. Nothing else looked like a Dream.

The motor was whisper quiet and always started with the merest bump of the starter button. This ugly beast was as reliable as Honda ever made them. The huge fenders and complete chain cover, while corny looking, were very functional. It looked nerdy as hell but it was really a great bike.

I rode old Red many thousands of miles all over the Midwest and she never gave me the slightest problem. None of my friends could say the same about their bikes. But I got this bike almost by accident.

Right after turning 16 Dad took me to a bike dealer in St. Louis. I picked out a cool looking late model Honda 175 scrambler and put money down on it. We left to visit a loan company and got approved. When we returned to the dealer the salesman unapologetically told me he had sold the bike right after we left.

We left that dealer, never to return, and visited a small Honda dealer closer to home. The only small but not-too-small used bike they had was the Dream. I sneered at the corny looking beast. The salesman assured me it was a great bike and a great deal (much cheaper than the scrambler) and that I owed it to myself to take it for a test ride.

He showed me how to operate it and turned me loose on the parking lot and the driveways that went all around the dealer. I started off uphill on a gravelly patch, spewed some gravel and shot up the hill. I rode all over the place with a big smile plastered across my face. They had to flag me down to get me off the thing!

We made the deal and Dad followed me home in the car. I proceeded to ride Red all over the neighborhood (we lived in the suburbs) showing all my friends. I didn't stop until nightfall. Missouri learners permits only allowed daylight riding, darn it.

I never ever regretted buying the Dream. Dwarfing the little bike with my skinny 6' 2" frame I looked like a dork on that bike, but I was the happiest dork in town.

When I got out of the Army I moved everything else home but left the bike for a week at the apartment complex. When I returned to get the bike it was gone, and the apartment management said, "What motorcycle? We don't remember any motorcycle."

What followed was an epic story that I'll save for another time.

[ If you look closely at the last picture, which I stole off the internet, you'll notice that the tank badge is a right-side tank badge! My bike was missing the left-side tank badge. Could this be a photo of my long lost bike??? ]

Sharp Dressed Rider

I'm joking about the title of this entry. I do not think the image at left is "sharp." It looks like a spaceman trying to pass himself off as a black cow.

(I'm wearing a full-coverage helmet, Perfecto style motorcycle jacket, chaps and tall boots. Not pictured are the black leather gloves I removed in order to operate the camera.)

My dad rode an old retired Army flathead Harley when he was young, and his brother, my uncle Bill, raced motorcycles. They made me promise to wear proper gear when I rode and to not drive recklessly.

I can't say that I always entirely kept my word, but their advice influenced me more than biker movies or changing fashions. I always thought it was more important to keep your skin on than it was to look cool. Not that it looks cool to ride down the highway on a bagger wearing only a wife beater, shorts, flip-flops and shades. That's biker high fashion here in Cornland.

Helmet law biker beanies are another fashion you won't see me wearing. That's the fashion statement that says "you can make me wear a helmet but you can't make me wear one that does any good." Good thinking.

I started riding with a 3/4 coverage helmet. Hippie-ish wire rims were my only eye protection. Later I grew a brain and bought a snap-on face shield. Still later I grew up and got a full-coverage helmet.

The anti-helmet gang say that helmets restrict your vision. But they tend to ride around looking straight ahead because it's uncool to move your head to watch for approaching hazards. I look like a bobble head in a hurricane when I ride. I don't think looking cool is worth getting run over.

The anti-helmet guys also tend to like loud bikes. They say "loud pipes save lives" but I don't buy into that. I always thought "loud pipes say look at me" although I'm sure there are exceptions. Some guys just love loud noise.

I once worked with a guy who owned three Harleys and an old Triumph. Two of the Harleys actually ran. He only ever rode the one that had the front wheel raked out so far that it took four lanes just to turn the thing around. I pointed out that my little Honda could run circles around any Harley in town. He said, "It's not how fast you get there but how cool you look on your way there." We had rather different philosophies. I was the one with the hot girlfriend so I wasn't very worried about not looking as cool as him.

I don't mind that everyday guys dress up like outlaws and ride bikes that look like cartoons. That's fine but it's not me. I'm not a biker. I'm a motorcyclist. I enjoy riding motorcycles. The way I dress, the kind of machine I ride and where and how I ride are selected to enhance my safety and enjoyment of riding. I like to ride the back roads where the fewest people see me, so it doesn't matter very much how cool I look.

And judging from the photo above, that's a good thing!

LSD Trip

No, I didn't ingest lysergic acid diethylamide. I went for a ride on Lake Shore Drive.
No, not the one in Chicago. The one in Springfield, IL.

Springfield is in the middle of flat, boring cornland. Most of the roads are flat and straight with 90 degree turns and intersections. Almost the only road with any curves is the one that goes around the unimaginatively named Lake Springfield.

Snow was everywhere and the lake was half frozen. I mean the northern half of the lake was liquid but the southern half was iced over.

The temperature during my ride was 43 F. I was wearing a shirt, two sweatshirts, an imitaion Perfecto jacket, jeans, tall lace-up boots, chaps, a bandana, a full-coverage helmet and gloves. I was warm enough, except for my hands. The gloves were unlined. Dumb me.

Still, the ride was great. I got a lot of surprised looks and no other bikes were on the road. Almost all the riders around here are fair-weather bikers. I get looked at funny anyway because most of the bikes around here are big V-twin baggers.

The bike ran great. Bonnie doesn't like near freezing temps very much, but she liked 43 just fine. I think I need a cover for the oil cooler when it's in the lower 30s. The bike never seems to warm up when it's that cold out.

There were a lot of puddles and the bike is a salty mess now. Check out my boots and chaps from when I stopped for a cup of coffee mid-ride:

This concludes my first ride report. Happy trails!

Greetings!

I bought a showroom-new 2008 Triumph Bonneville T100 in April of 2009.

I love this motorcycle and ride it whenever I can.

Right now there's snow on the ground so the bike is in the garage and I'm playing around on the computer.

As soon as the temperature gets above freezing around here I'll start riding again and taking photos of the bike at interesting places I visit. Then I'll post the pics and the stories here.