Monday, September 21, 2009

Back In The Saddle Again

Yesterday, the son-in-law finally had his motorcycle ready for a ride. Last year, he hit an oil slick at an intersection in Manhattan (Kansas) and went down hard, cracking ribs and a rotator cuff, and deeply bruising his pride. Luckily, he wears a helmet and all that fancy kevlar racing garb - boots, jacket, and gloves. Nothing the road scraped off was skin, or, most importantly, the back of his head, thank God. The equipment protected him. The only way he could have avoided the wreck was to have seen the oil on the roadway in the dark. Bless his heart.

His bike took a major hit when it went down. It is some fancy sport bike with a big engine and fat back tire. Those sport bikes he and my daughter ride look like transformer toys to me. There is nothing aesthetically pleasing about them to an old Harley rider like me, but that is okay. If God had wanted everyone to ride a Harley, He would not have given aluminum and fiberglass to the Japanese.

My son in law ordered a new frame and put that motorcycle back together, as good as new. It was great that he could go riding with my daughter and me, though I imagine riding motorcycles with the mother-in-law along has to suck to some large degree. But, I greatly enjoyed the time we spent riding in the Flint Hills. I knew I would never be able to keep up with the sport bikes on the curves and hills south of Alma. (I could if I was twenty years younger.) I think the Harley could take those particular curves as easily the sport bikes, but my main goal in motorcycling is to stay upright and on the road. Anyway, I knew I could easily catch them on the straight.

It was just a beautiful day, perfect motorcycling weather, and there were scores of riders out and about every where we went. We stopped in Eskridge to just hang for a while. A Honda rider from South Carolina randomly stopped to chat with us. It was fine until he started spinning a line of what my grandmother would have called bull hockey. She never suffered fools lightly and I could hear her voice in my head as that fool went on and on and on. She would have said something to him that let him know she had his number. But I have none of her finesse. I turned my back and tried not to laugh out loud.

It was just a great afternoon and I so much enjoyed spending time with my daughter and my son in law. He was the crew chief in the Black Hawk helicopters in Iraq and now he is working on an engineering degree at K-State. I keep trying to persuade him to get a Harley, but those crew chiefs are tough customers. Maybe by the time he has earned a full engineering degree, he will naturally conclude the superiority of the Harley Davidson.

1 comment:

me plus three said...

I am jealous. It was a great day to ride...to bad my husband had to go and sell his. Glad you all enjoyed it, and that the bike is finally back in one piece:)