Hello everbuddy.
I ain't dead.
Been having too much fun playing with my new motorcycle!
I hadn't ridden in 18 years, so had to "learn to ride" again. There is a HUGE little-used parking lot close to my house so I have been spending untold hours in there getting my low-speed skills back to where they used to be ... sudden stops, swerving, tight U-turns, Cone Weave, all the stuff you seldom use but that can save your life.
I am the same way with bikes as I am guitars, screwing with everything and anal as hell. I used to ride for primary transportation in Phoenix as well as a lot of touring. So I know how I want a bike set up. This bike has only been out for about a year. So there are virtually no saddle bags or bag mounting hardware available for it. It took me uncounted Google hours trying to find a pannier mounting set-up that would work, then had to hack, saw, weld, grind, paint on that, and had to replace the rear turn signals with shorter ones to make the pannier mounts work. And just like with may guitars I am anal about everything, and being anal eats up time more than trying to make Adam Schiff honest. But as you can see I got 'er done.
Next was figuring out how to get a 2nd set of forward foot pegs on it so I can get the kinks out on long rides. Same drill as the saddle bags. But I got that done too ... finally.
Next up was finding a seat that doesn't make my butt numb after an hour. Three seats later I finally hit pay dirt. You are welcome to call me Numbnuts but when my butt gets numb it's all over.
Next was finding a windshield that would work well. More weeks on Google.
The three weeks trying to find a LED headlight that works well with the existing wiring harness, etc. ... and got that done.
Then finding something to replace the "meep meep" horns with something that goes '
HONK! HONK!" and that would fit where the old horns were. Another long search. Never mind that the headlight dims when I honk the horn. My Freeway Blasters are
LOUD!
Decent grips. Better mirrors. Charging lead on the battery. GPS unit and wiring that up. Knee pads. Handlebar risers.
Next was getting a touring trunk put together. I never carry a passenger, so I put together something that mounts over the rear seat with a back rest.
That meant lining the leather trunk with 1/8" plywood to make it rigid enough and strong enough for the back rest.
Right now I am finalizing what is the end of a 6-month search at least an hour every day. Finding some goddamned alloy wheels so I can run tubeless tires! My favorite touring roads here in Idaho wind through the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunately there are 100-mile stretches of those roads with NOTHING on them and NO CELL SERVICE. With tube tires my only option is to pack 40 lbs of tire irons, spare tubes, scissors jack, and other tools, and spend two hours removing a wheel and changing a tube if I get a puncture. I could fix a tubeless puncture in 15 minutes with half a pound of stuff. In 6 months of constant searching, fuming and swearing, I finally found a place in Italy that makes a unique type of spoked wheel that is tubeless. I would have to send my existing wheels clear to Italy for them to take measurements, then pay them over three grand to custom-build me a set of wheels. I was just about resigned to that, then what I consider a miracle happened. Some guy on the Royal Enfield group on Facebook heard my ranting and turned me on to a guy in Colorado who has a big RE dealership and also specializes in building custom bikes (and wheels are a big part of that). He can get me these wheels for just under $1,000.00 and will powder coat them to my preference.
Just sent him the dinero this morning.I
