Me and some of the guys went for a little putt up to the Poppy Preserve up in Antelope Valley yesterday to see the flowers since they’re in full bloom now. My wife thought this was hilarious and got a lot of mileage out of it at my expense (”Look at the big tough biker going to look at the flowers!”), but whatever. They were pretty. And I am a big tough biker, so I don’t care what anyone says. Plus, I killed several puppies with my bare hands and ate their hearts raw while I was out there so I could keep my tough guy cred, so I’ve got that going for me.
Anyway…
It was a great ride. It was pretty much the same ride I’ve talked about in the last couple of entries, but I’ve already said that Bouquet Canyon and Lake Hughes Road are two of my favorite roads, so why be surprised if I ride them again and again and again? The loop up to see the poppies went through a few miles of road I actually hadn’t ridden before, so I have a few new roads to explore again later. Here’s the map of the route, just in case anyone’s interested. Ignore the fact that the data says my top speed was 190 mph — I clipped the start and end off the GPS track and I think that screwed up Google Earth’s calculations. My top speed was really only about 100.
I had a little footboard issue along the way. When I added my skid-plate the other day, I forgot to put Locktite on one of the bolts when I re-mounted the footboard, and it fell off on the ride. That left the footboard hanging by the other bolt, which severely compromised my cornering. I jury-rigged a fix with a bungie cord by threading the hook through the bolt holes and wrapping the excess around the footboard, but that’s only going to last until the bungie cord burns through from touching the exhaust pipe. But it’ll do for now.
Here’s a picture of the repair, and I’ve also taken the opportunity to highlight how ground-down the footboard is so you can see that I’m not exaggerating when I say I need the skidplates. Notice that I’m grinding the bungie cord down now too.
