Shadow Adventures - Memorial Day Ride

I was fortunate enough to go for another, longer ride on Memorial day. This ride was about 30 miles and formed a circle through 7 or 8 small towns. There was no traffic on these roads and it was an excellent time to continue to build my riding confidence level. I really enjoyed all of the smells from the cookouts everyone was having.

On the way home, I ended up riding by Duman Park again, so I stopped to snap a picture.

There were several campers and many families fishing at the lake.

Overall, it was a great ride. 

I purchased some pledge multi-surface wipes to clean the bike after every ride to keep it looking good. I also noticed there was no coolant in the overflow reservoir, so I'll need to check that before the next trip.

Until the next time.....

Shadow Adventures - First Ride

After a week of sitting on my motorcycle in the garage, I finally got to take it for a ride on Saturday. The weather was sunny, but cool. Around 60 degrees with a 15 to 20 mph wind. My first stop was to get the bike inspected.

After the inspection, I decided to get some practice in on the back roads. It didn't take long to find the sweet spot on the clutch. I decided to cruise to a local county park. I did a drive through and turned around to head home using a different route. Round trip it was about 12 miles or so.

I pulled into the driveway and was telling my brother all about the excitement of the ride. He walked over to my bike and said "What happened to your cover?" I looked and the side cover that holds the manual was missing.

I was not too happy. I thought maybe I just left it off when I took the manual out to read it. So down to the garage. Nothing there. I decide to head back out and retrace my ride. I get to the park and turn around. On my way back I find my cover sitting in the middle of the road.

I pulled off and grabbed the cover. It was scratched up, but otherwise okay. As I am putting the cover back into place another biker approaches. When he gets to about 25 feet away he guns his bike and takes off. What an idiot.

I return home and tell my story to everyone, but I am sure they are already sick of hearing about my biking adventures! So my 12 mile ride turned into about 25 miles! The adventure continues.

Shadow Adventures

Last week I picked up my first street motorcycle. It is a 2001 Honda Shadow with about 13,000 miles on it. The bike is in great shape and I think I got a pretty good deal on it as well. Riding it home was pretty nerve racking once I got to the main highway, but I had my brother following behind me to keep traffic back. I made it home successfully.

I thought I would start sharing my motorcycling adventures on my blog as well. This way everyone gets to share in the joy of a motorcycle ride.