With only 5 days left till I head out for Sturgis, South Dakota, time is a commodity that is in short supply. Tonight I have a Chapter Officers meeting that's going to cut into final preparations, tomorrow is my weekly AA meeting I attend and Friday is just going to be a long day.
Thankfully I have completed 99% of the refit of the trailer. All that remains is greasing the spring shackles and trailer hitch adjustment.
Last night after getting home from work I made some changes to the ramp mount that cropped up during the fit test for the bike wheel chocks.
I had originally placed the ramp catch in the center on the rear of the trailer. Getting the bikes on was a piece of cake, but when it came time to back the bike off the trailer, whoa!! found out the ramp was to narrow to put your feet onto. I also realized that the ramp location was not going to work to good, so last night I cut off the old and made a design change and welded the piece into place. Honestly I think it looks much better.
So over the next 3 days it's all about packing up and getting ready to hit the road.
If possible I'll be posting to this from the road.

Busy, busy, busy

The sun has finally come out here in San Diego. The June gloom is gone for the time being and working outside is enjoyable.
I've made some progress on the trailer project. My buddy Brian and I spent the last weekend wire brushing the frame. We cleaned the metal down and I shot the primer. The dang thing is starting to look like what it was meant to be.
Prior to sanding and paint, I found the fenders I needed and got them welded into place. I added the extra cross members to help distribute the loadover the boards better.
Tammy (my wife) found the right kind of paint for the board and got better then half of them painted.
Tonight I hope to paint the semi-gloss black paint to the frame so I can start laying boards.
Still to complete in the next two weeks is board mounting, trailer wiring and lights, welding the stop plate to the front of the trailer, paint the wheels and get new tires, find a good spare wheel and tire, mount the wheel chocks for the bikes, test load the bikes.
Alot of work in a short time.
Tonight I also have a meeting with the group organizer of the ride to Sturgis, South Dakota, but thats not till 7:00 pm. So I should be able to get some trailer stuff done. Maybe not paint but at least pull the brake drums and get started re-packing wheel bearings.
We went to our HOG chapter birthday party Sunday. It was a lot of fun. It was also the 25th anniversary of our chapters founding. Nation HOG is only a year older then us, which I thought is pretty cool. We are also the first HOG chapter in California. Way cool!
I went over to Kellie and Brians house last night to see if I could get her bike running again. I wanted to rebuild the carburator but we couldn't find a kit. Brian called me this morning and said they were just going to take the bike to the shop. Kellie did fix me a nice diunner for taking the time to at least try and work on her bike lol.
What I really need to do but fcant is take a day off to work on this trailer, unfortunately I need to save what time I have for Sturgis.

New Trailer

Picked up the trailer from Yuma AZ yesterday. The trip home was uneventful for the most part. I was a bit worried that I might get stopped at one of three check points along the way, as the trailer had no tags. Turns out to be no problem.
Got it home and parked in the back and started right away on pulling the boardsoff to see what the frame looked like under the boards. What I see doesnt look bad. I'm going to have to strengthen a couple of places along the frame, but other then that I believe it will work out fine for what I need. When I get a chance I'll post pictures of this project.
I have one month to get this trailer ready for our trip to Sturgis South Dekota in Aug.
The chapter had their brunch ride this weekend. They all took a nice ride in the back country before ending up to eat at Taylors Taste of Texas in El Cajon. I heard it was a nice ride and time by all that went.
I need to start getting out on more of the chapter rides. Lately I've had to many others things come up that hasn't allowed me to ride with the group. The way things are shaping up, I may not get much riding in with the chapter till Sept. after the Sturgis run.

I'm Back!!!

It has been awhile since I’ve written to this blog. I actually removed all the old post as I hadn’t posted for better part of the year.


Living life has a way of getting in the way by not allowing the time needed to sit down and write what’s been going on and what’s coming up if you know what I mean.

My last post was back in September of last year. I wrote about being in the middle of dealing with my son’s impounded car and the hassles that entailed. All worked out, we got the car back.

So far this year a lot has happened. In March, I went down on my wife’s bike while taking it to the dealership to have them look for an electrical problem. The bike had died (lost power) while on the highway. As I moved over to get onto the shoulder of said highway, I ended up getting on some oil under an overpass and the bike went into a skid. In the blink of an eye, I was high sided (Thrown over the top) from the bike to the pavement. I suffered three broken and one cracked rib, a concussion and minor road rash.

I spent the night in the trauma center and five weeks off to recover. I’m all better from that now.

Then I found out I have what’s called Inflammatory Muscle Disease. I found this out after mentioning to my doctor that I had been feeling weak in the legs. I told him of this before I had my bike accident. After lots of blood work, so kind of electro stimulus procedure, a muscle biopsy, and several trips to see another doc that specializes in muscle and bone, IMD is what I have. They just don’t know what version. This I hope to find out next week.

I’m not too worried; I mean what can I do about it anyways? Right now I’m taking some steroids and another drug to see if strength comes back to my legs.

On the brighter side, I made the ride to Reno NV to attend the annual HOG Officers training.

This was three days of pretty intense training. Those of us that went picked up a lot of good information on how to run and organize a chapter.

Today, I’m in the process of getting everything done that needs to be done before making the trek to Sturgis South Dakota in Aug.

Last night I went to Yuma AZ to look at a trailer. I need a trailer that will hold four full size bikes. This one I looked over will meet my needs. So I gave the guy $300.00 bucks to hold it with the promise I’ll be back on Sunday to pick it up.

Lots of work still ahead and I’m getting a bit short on time.

Promise I’ll write more here more often and let you all know what’s happening.