buckle-up

There was a time, way back in the early 2000s, when the idea came to Margo and me to ride motorcycles. Together, we signed up for lessens that eventually led to us both to getting our motorcycle riders endorsements added to our respective drivers’ licenses. Cool! We were still very young back then and immortal. And so a two decades long adventure began. Of course, any opportunity to purchase an entirely new wardrobe meant a lot to Margo and while she stopped short of buying nail polish matching her purple trimmed motorcycle, I have to believe the thought crossed her mind more than once.  My own adventure with motorcycles began when I was still a teen and at high school in Sydney. Friends at my school bought motorcycles as our final year came to an end and I thought that bikes were pretty neat and there was many a later afternoon spent hanging around their homes as they “played” with their bikes. Honda was the manufacturer of choice back then and, for a while, 250cc / 305cc ...

It was barely a week that passed before we were packing our bags again and heading back out onto America’s highways. For this trip, we had the BMW i8 back in the garage following its minor traffic accident in Plano, Texas, so it once again became the chosen mode of transportation. Our BMW M4 was given time off following its trip to Las Vegas for the HPE big tent marketing event, HPE Discover 2018. It continues to surprise us how well the i8 is suited to grand touring and there is ample room to fit our soft bags along with a couple of soft suit carriers. With summer prices for gas skyrocketing, having a hybrid that only needs a top-off of its miniscule gas tank every three hundred miles or so, it proved an advantageous choice once we crossed into California and saw how expensive gas had become – almost $5 at one gas station! This trip would take us back to Las Vegas and then on to Simi Valley, California, before we turned north to Half Moon Bay for a week of meetings over the o...

This week, the weather warmed considerably and I was able to get back on my motorcycle – well to be truthful, Margo’s motorcycle – and drove it out of Windsor, Colorado down to Loveland, Colorado. We have leased a 1000 square foot heated facility where we can lockup all of our toys. The “shoes” we wrote about, in our last post, has seen new tires mounted to the wheels of the Corvette and along with the trailer the Corvette and motorcycle will welcome this facility as their new home. And it really is only a handful of miles away and is a vast improvement over where we had previously stored out RV and trailer. Oh yes, in time, the RV too will join the rest of the vehicles in this facility as soon as all the winter maintenance and repairs under way with the RV are completed.  Getting back on the motorcycle and picking up once again from where I had left off last year, was enjoyable. I don’t what it is about riding a motorcycle but it certainly is outside of the ordinary. Helmet f...

This has been a September to remember – for a second time in less than twelve months we had a potential buyer of our lovely Niwot home bail on us right at the eleventh hour just as they were about to hand over a check. Earlier this year we had almost crossed the finish line, only for a last minute hitch surfacing, but the common thread on both occasions was a little last minute buyer’s difficulty finding the money. On the bright side, on both occasions it has led us to revisit and prioritize a couple of task we had simply put off for too long so yes, our home has a light and airy feeling once again that, of itself, is making up for a little of the letdown that followed these missteps.  For all of September we had spent the time in our Niwot home having elected not to travel far from our home. This isn’t usual for us at this time of year – yes, we did miss the final of the Indy Races that was held once again at Sonoma. Readers of this blog will recall that at this time last y...

After a lengthy hiatus, our red C5 Corvette Z06 is almost ready for the track. For nearly two months it has been worked on from top to bottom and from front to rear. The list of service and replacement items was extensive and comes after three years of nothing more than track outings. For a moment, we were even talking about replacing it with a C7 Z06 Vette and on a recent road trip Margo searched the web for every piece of information on the C7 Z06 after our local GM dealer put a very attractive package together for us. A black C7 Z06 with the optional Z07 package and with detailing that included the upgraded interior, where the double stitching was done in yellow as were the powder-coated brake calipers – the touch of yellow on an otherwise black Corvette was all rather striking - and we came very close to pulling the trigger on the deal. But then, stepping back and looking at our C5 Z06 and having already experienced a supercharged C6 Vette on track, we decided to spend the m...