Mark Rutledge, a columnist for The Daily Reflector, a newspaper in Greenville, NC, as well as a motorcyclist, opines that scooter riders have earned his respect for "the wave".

He explains that really cold temperatures during morning commutes have put many motorcycle riders inside of warm comfy cages. But not scooters riders.

As he goes on to say...

Nothing separates the true bikers from the wannabes like 30-degree temperatures. I've never really considered myself a true biker, but I like getting 50 miles per gallon too much to let a little cold air stop me.

If the temperatures were in the 20s, and my commutes were more than 12 miles, I might sing a different tune. But with the proper gear, a 12-mile ride in 30-degree air feels no colder than a 30-second sled ride in the snow - and nearly as much fun.

For a whole week, I haven't passed anything on two wheels above a scooter. But cold or no cold, those guys are still out there buzzing along from point A to point B.

Maybe the scooter riders are not trying to save gas. Maybe they had a bad day in court. Either way, they're doing something most people won't consider.

That buys them a spot in the wave club.

Labels: Riding Weather, Scooters

This time of year, reading through the news and motorcycle forums, I come across numerous tips and discussion about winterizing a motorcycle.

Winterizing? What's that, and why?

Here in Southern California, I've never figured that out. We just keep riding our bikes. If you folks in the snow aren't gonna use the gas, then send it down here, we'll make good use of it.

This afternoon I took the cycle out for lunch, prepared to put on the jacket, only to find the sunshine was hitting at 85 degrees here in the Inland Empire. T-shirt riding!

Labels: Riding Weather

Yesterday, Sunday, I planned a ride to Mt Baldy through my "meetup group". I had planned this out a week earlier, and tried to get as many people to join in. But as the days went by, the weather forecast called for rain.

Well, it was only a chance of rain, about 50%, and only occuring late afternoon.

As a result, many people opted not to go. Some who had originally planned to go, later changed their mind as a precaution. Some had planned to go, but just never showed up. In all, there was eight of us that actually showed up and did the ride.

As it turned out, it never rained. Instead we got partly sunny skies.

I don't knock anyone for wanting to play it safe. It's actually a good move. If you're not comfortable with it, don't put yourself in a bad situation. While I wished for all my friends to come out and ride, I knew we'd have other days to ride. It's the people who take unnecessary risks that you have to watch out for, which many times has been myself!

But a 50% chance of rain is just that, 50%. On those times when the rains never materialize, you end up getting long stretches of road to yourself. That's what we got yesterday, and is why I often roll the dice and head out for a ride anyways.

Also, yesterday was the 24th Annual Love Ride, and was where all the RUBs were. So, I knew if we headed towards the difficult roads we wouldn't encounter their kind.

And safe we were. No RUBs in our direction, no traffic, good riding company, some sunshine, great roads, it's a special moment you have to take advantage of when you're a SoCal rider.

Labels: Riding Weather

Saturday before Easter and I wanted to go riding.

I was supposed to stay home and be a good son-in-law, as my wife's mother was here for the weekend. Nah! I'm going riding.

As many as six of us said they'd show up at the staging point to go riding, but as it turned out, only two of us did.

One guy got reprimanded by his wife for having ridden too much already the past several months. He had to stay home.

Two others were no shows. Not sure what happened.

The last guy said that it was too cold to ride. It was 53° when he said this, with an expected high of 69° in the afternoon, and that's too cold to ride?

The two of us that showed up talked about where to ride. He said he didn't care, anywhere was good. He just wanted to ride. That sounded cool to me.

So when it's cold and cloudy, where do you ride to? The mountains of course!

As we headed out, there was heavy mist in the air, but no rain. The road was wet where we started out. Water droplets collecting on my windshield had grown to such a point that it was difficult for me to judge the curves ahead. I had to pull over and wipe them off.

We went up Highway 371 into Anza, and found warmer temperatures and SUNSHINE! Basically, we had risen above the cloud cover. We also found many more bikers. It seems they made the same call as I.

We made the climb up the mountains to Paradise Corners, right at the junction of Highway 371 and 74, and continued to find bikers everywhere, and still sunshine. Then we rode highway 74 down into Palm Desert, and it got so warm, that we had to pull over and take off our jackets. We had to put on sun screen too.

From there, we hopped on to Interstate 10 and headed west towards Highway 62. Oh man! The head wind was blowing like heck. This was the usual head wind you get when riding through Palm Springs, except it was a little more fierce than usual. The upper and lower fairing on my Ultra Classic acted like a sail, catching all the wind and slowing me down to about 70mph at full throttle, in top gear. I bumped it down to 4th, and tried to get myself up to 75mph.

We jumped on Highway 62 heading north. At this point, the wind was hitting us from the side. At times we were angled over at 45° riding straight ahead. We finally got to the hills and were free of the wind.

We rolled into Pioneertown, and found the place packed with motorcycles. I never saw so many bikes at Pioneertown before. Some kind of "biker band" was playing, and just about every biker in Yucca Valley was there.

On Easter Saturday, this is where bikers go: Pioneertown.

We bellied up the to bar and had us some drinks and chow while we chatted away for a couple of hours trying to talk over the band. All in all I had a great time riding and hanging out.

Moral of this story: When the weather is cold and cloudy in your neighborhood, get on your bike and go find great weather. Riders go riding not just to enjoy good weather, but to seek it out!

Labels: Ride Reports, Riding Weather

Al Gore has been telling us for many years that we're supposed to be getting some really great riding weather, and I still haven't seen it.

I guess I'm disappointed in him.

I'm not counting the Summer, because that's always great riding weather, and yes, I consider 110°F to be great riding weather too.

No, I'm talking about the rest of the year, Spring, Fall, and Winter. Where is the t-shirt weather? I've been collecting a lot of t-shirts everytime I go to biker rallies, and I want to show them off when I ride.

It's gotten to the point where I'm now buying hooded sweatshirts at biker rallies. I tell my wife that I want heavy-duty long-sleeve t-shirts, because they keep me warmer.

I've been riding my Ultra Classic Electra Glide more often than the Road Star because it has the upper and lower fairing, plus the tall windshield, to keep all of that chilly Southern California wind off of me.

For those of you who don't live around here, when temperatures drop to 65°F or below, most bikers would rather stay inside and drink latte.

The biker bars around here are not as crowded as they used to be. I suppose that's a blessing in disguise because the RUBs aren't riding. I'm actually seeing more bikes parked outside of Starbucks these days. Here's a riding club called "Coffee Cruisers" focused specifically around coffee houses. Boy isn't that a sign of the times!

I probably wouldn't have bothered writing about Al Gore, because I don't care for the guy. But since he was recently heralded by our Hollywood Elite as being the modern-day soothsayer, and the fact that none of his predictions have come true, I gotta let the biker voice be heard.

You promised us warm weather Al!

WHERE IS IT?

Labels: Riding Weather

After reading a couple of blogs about the temperature breaching the triple-digit mark, I felt compelled to chime in.

Last weekend, when Lewis and I rode through Lake Elsinore, I caught a temperature reading on an outdoor-display, reading 108°F. It sure felt like it. Actually, it was probably another 5° hotter riding on the asphalt.

My hands were burning, and no, I wasn't wearing gloves.

In fact, I was riding with shorts on. Definitely a mistake, because everytime we came to a stop, the heat from the engine radiated against my calves, sun was shining on them, and the heat from the street too. They got sun burnt.

The wind didn't make anything cooler, at this point, the air gets hotter the faster your ride.

For the most part, Lewis and I were just riding from one watering hole to another, getting a beer or a soda at each stop, and enjoying the air conditioning. We had ridden up the coast from San Clemente to Laguna Beach, and while it was cooler there, it was still warm. But as soon as headed inland, to get back home, the heat just poured on.

Common sense tells us that we were out of our fricken minds to subject ourselves to such a roasting. But the two of us wanted to ride so bad, nothing was going to stop us.

The main thing to keep in mind is to make frequent stops to get drinks. We probably stopped every 30-45 minutes. The sun was sucking so much moisture from our bodies, that I didn't have pee all day. In fact, I peed in the morning, around 9:00am, and didn't pee again until about 7:00pm. I just didn't need to go.

So, at what point does it get too hot to ride? I don't know, I haven't experienced it yet!

Labels: Riding Weather

Last Saturday some of us in our riding club went on the Bikers For Education poker run, starting from Fallbrook, CA and ending in Valley Center, CA.

At the end of the poker run, we were kicking back listening to the live band, waiting the hear the results of the "best bike" contest. A guy from Quick Throttle Magazine walked up the microphone and began talking before announcing the winners.

He mentioned "...and now that riding season has begun..."

I looked at Dave and asked, "riding season"? We started making a joke out of it.

Here in Southern California, it's always riding season. I'm sure in other parts of the country, it snows and ices up consistently during colder months, and thus, there is indeed a riding season. But the guys from Quick Throttle are actually based in Southern California, so I'm not sure what they were talking about.

Moreover, I didn't know that riding season had an official start date!

Anyways, one of the guys in our club complained that we didn't ride enough. Now we have an excuse. It wasn't riding season.

Check out my photos of the BFE Poker Run.

Labels: Riding Weather

Allan Johnson writes an entertaining read about riding motorcycles back in the old days in winter weather up in Toronto, Canada, with an emphasis on motorcycle cops. In the winter, the Toronto Police fashioned side cars to their bikes mainly as a way to help keep them from falling over. The icy road conditions probably made it difficult for a policeman to use their feet to keep a bike upright.

While others had to rely on other tricks to keep from losing traction:

I didn't have a sidecar on the Ariel - it was far too small to even think of that - and so I relied on lower tire pressure and careful use of the clutch and the higher gears to get traction in the winter. The gutters often had more grit and dirt than the centre of the roadway, and I can remember chugging up hills clogged with wheel-spinning cars by sticking near the curb and using the third of the four gears the Ariel possessed.

Labels: Icy Roads, Riding Weather