The Ride Report

I spent some time in the garage today, wrenching away on my bike. My wife gave me a WarmGear heated vest for Christmas and I needed to run power from the bike’s accessory plug for it, so of course I had to make the wiring job more complicated than it needed to be.

The vest came with coax connectors and a battery wiring harness, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted to use the accessory harness I installed a few months ago when I got my Zumo GPS device. I had “improved” it by cutting off one of the plugs and soldering on a quick-disconnect plug so I could easily take the GPS rig off the bike when necessary, and I wanted to do the same thing for the vest. Let’s ignore the fact that the plug I had replaced was already a quick-disconnect plug — it just wasn’t the type I wanted to use on the GPS rig. And let’s also ignore the fact that since I installed it, I have never taken the GPS mount off the bike and I probably never will. The point here is that the accessory wiring harness had different connectors than the vest had, just like the Zumo. Clearly, I had to do more cutting and soldering.

Fortunately, I’m lazy. As I got out the soldering iron and tin and connectors and all the other crap that goes with it, I remembered how much work (and cursing) it was wiring up the harness for the Zumo and I said Screw it, I’m using the harness that came with the vest. That right there saved me at least a day and a half and five trips to RadioShack. I just popped the seat off, connected the harness, and rigged the plug under one of the side covers where it’s easily accessible when needed. In, out, done in about 15 minutes. Nice.

With all the time I saved, I decided to knock out a few more things I’ve been putting off:

• I repositioned the Zumo on my handlebars so I can put gas in without fear of dousing it and changed the angle to eliminate the noontime glare I’ve been getting off the screen.
• I pumped up the rear shocks so my fat ass would stop bottoming them out on potholes.
• I reinstalled my left muffler again to take care of a pain-in-the-ass exhaust leak that I still haven’t been able to completely eliminate.
• And perhaps most importantly, I adjusted my Kruzer Kaddy bracket so my coffee cup sits level when I’m riding. It was tilted a bit, leading to sloshing and unfortunate waste of delicious drops of my beloved Sulawesi.

I told my buddy Dave about all these mods — heated vest, mp3-playing GPS, drink-holder, adjustable shocks… He laughed at me. He said I ought to just trade the bike in on a GoldWing. He called me yuppie scum. He said I’m not a real biker.

I have to admit, that GoldWing comment hurt.