Gravel Roads

Once in a while you will have the fortune, or misfortune, depending on how you look at it to travel down a gravel road with your motorcycle.
Gravel and street motorcycles are not that compatible but with a little common sense they can be navigated with ease.
Sometimes the only access to your destination is by gravel roads and you will not want to bypass it just because of a little gravel.
The best way to stay upright on a gravel road is to slow down take an ultra light grasp of the bars and let the front end of the motorcycle do its thing.
The loose stones on the road will jerk the front tire around and the worst thing you want to do is jerk back or try to man handle the steering. Usually you can follow in the tire tracks of the cars where the loose stones have been pushed to the side and all that is left is the packed base. It is when the tire tracks cross where you will ride over loose stones and your front tire will skip from side to side and this is where the loose hands on the steering comes in, let the front tire jump around a bit and it will correct itself.
Gravel road graders usually grade the road by bring the gravel, kicked off to the side, back to the middle of the road to form a crown. So riding close to the ditch will keep you out of the really loose stuff and some times all that is left on the sides is hard pack.
At any rate if you are out riding around with no destination try a little patch of gravel riding to practise just in case you find out that you have to challenge a gravel road some day.

Finally Got To Ride

After suffering through a couple of weeks of cold weather including a week of fresh snow I finally got the bike out for a ride.
It wasn't without some minor setbacks and repairs as I had to do the same as Broke Down Suzuki Rider and remove and clean my carbs.
I took the bike out for a small ride around town on Saturday and noticed there was fuel overflowing onto the ground. Sticky needle and seat on one of the carbs so Saturday I removed the carbs and cleaned them with some carb cleaner.
BDSR came over on Sunday afternoon and we took a little ride up to the Halkirk Hotel and enjoyed a cool beverage with the saloon owner and one of his faithful patrons.
Just a short little jaunt as the weather was still on the cool side but the bike ran great with no more fuel marking the ground.

Red Deer Motorcycle Swap Meet

It was a long and cold ride to the annual springtime Motorcycle swap meet in Red Deer this past Saturday. In fact it was so cold and miserable with a forecast of snow that I took the truck instead of the bike.
Not many bikes in the parking lot either and but a few local diehards did ride their cycles to the meet.
There was not as many bikes there as I thought there would be but I did spy a couple of nice choppers.
The place was packed with people by the time I got there and it was hard getting close to some of the tables to have a good look at all the chrome and leather for sale.
Lots of vendors with lots of nice stuff but as usual it was mostly Harley Davidson with a smattering of Asian and English bike stuff . As it turned out I never bought a thing at the swap meet even though I had filled my pockets with some cash.