Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

This year we're having a late Christmas, my youngest son is in the Navy and can't get home till next Monday so we're holding off and going to celebrate when he gets home. We can't wait! We haven't seen him since September so we're all really looking forward to it.

Right now, I find myself wishing I could ride, lol! Two weeks ago we had a blizzard roll through dumping 15" of snow on us, today we have a much smaller one giving us more snow along with high winds. I guess I won't be riding for a while, lol. At least I have a small garage and both bikes are inside wishing they could be ridden. First chance I get at clear roads they're coming out! I don't mind riding in the cold, I've got decent cold weather gear so if it's around 30 degrees and the roads are clear, I'm riding!

When I can't ride I spend alot of time on the web reading and occasionally posting on motorcycle forums. Does anyone know of any good, open minded, HD forums? Alot of the HD forums I've found tend to do more metric bashing than I care for or is that just the way it is? I'm active on a couple Vulcan forums and there's very little HD bashing going on, most respect what people ride, but on a couple of HD boards if you own a metric, you're immediately an outcast. I don't get it. IMHO, all makers have some great offerings, how can one limit themselves to only one make? Hell, if I had the financial means I'd have something from every make, I love motorcycles! Ahhh, but the world would be a boring place if everyone was the same. The ones that really make me laugh are the ones that have all the HD labeled clothes, hats, boots, etc. but don't even own a damn bike! Around here there's a few die-hard HD owners, the kind that say, "I'd rather push my HD than ride some piece of jap-crap!", but they're saying this as they're getting into their Honda Civic!?!? Gimme a break! I guess I'm not a biker, just a motorcycle enthusiast that would rather spend my time on 2 wheels than in a cage, that's fine with me, lol! Anywho, this turned into a bunch of ramblings, lol! Ride what you love and enjoy the wind!

There's a Harley in my garage!?!?!

After nothing but metrics since I started riding, December 1st I pulled the trigger and bought my first Harley Davidson! After my wreck I started searching for a bike. There's were several things I was looking for in a new ride, but I was determined to keep an open mind and look at everything I possibly could. For 3 weeks I looked at, sat on, and rode everything I possibly could that fit in my budget, from sport bikes to Harleys and everything in between. Finally, I came across my Harley, an '06 Sportster XL1200C, lightly used with only 5300 miles at Frontier Harley Davidson in Lincoln Nebraska. As soon as I sat on it I knew it was a good fit, kind of surprised me, lol! It was already outfitted with first things that I would have to buy, windshield, forward controls, sissy bar, and luggage rack. It was by far the best bang for my buck out of the choices I had available and it had that "feel". I had about a 120 mile ride home from the dealer, it's definitely a change from what I'm used to, but change is good! It was a great ride, but I've learned that the first thing I'm going to change is the seat. The stock seat is awful, 30 minutes into the ride my tailbone was killing me. I still couldn't quit smiling though, lol! Since I do plan on putting alot of miles on her a seat is a must. Here's a pic as we left the dealer-

I've got to give Frontier HD a plug, these guys wanted my business and were willing to work for it. I've been to every dealer within 150 miles of my home, HD and metric, and none of them acted like they wanted to sell a bike at all and if they did talk to me at all, once they found out I wasn't using their credit company and had a limited budget they had no further interest in my business. Frontier was just the opposite, they treated me like I was buying a $30,000 CVO harley regardless of my budget, they knew their product and they knew the metric side as well. They were able to answer any questions I had and went out of their way to earn my business.

Time to put some miles on her! I got up today and it was sunny and 30 degrees, time to ride! I've got some decent cold weather gear so I geared up and hit the road, the high was a balmy 45 degrees, but I still managed about 100 miles. I've got to say, I'm really enjoying my Sportster!

Who knows what's in store for my sporty, this is all new to me, so for now I'm just going to enjoy the ride!