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September 6th, 7th, 8th 2024

We have been requested to come up with an overnight ride. This has been discussed, and a ride from Hell to Paradise was speculated on. It has recently been suggested that might be a bit long for a Saturday/ Sunday. There is a poll on our Facebook page, with options for a couple of destinations, and a couple of weekends. One of the main considerations, Is a long ride day 1 to get there, and again on day 2 to get back. Leaving Friday on a 3 day weekend is a solution. I personally probably don't have enough vacation to add a Friday if I'm not already having a a holiday, but we will worksomething out.

Please respond to this poll. It appearse the few people who wanted to go, either haven't seen it, or haven't replied yet. It is becoming near the wire, and at this last meeting a request was made for us to lock down a date. We're trying. :)

On a trip in Georgia, we were ready to stop for gas and lunch. We were going to make a left, coming down a hill, that was a bit quicker than planned. As we were slowing, we heard very loud exhaust behind us. When we realized it was a tandom tractor trailer that probably couldn't stop in time, we continued straight. The next town was good enough, anyhow.

I saw a tree trimming truck... And another... And then three more, as we pulled into the gas station. We pulled up to the pumps, and realized there was no building... There used to be, there was a spot for one... And we realized this was where the tornadoes had just gone through. (I don't know if you recall a few years ago, when the pecan trees were decimated.)

We looked, and in the strip mall next to the station, was a huge party. Great smelling food, music, dancing. A police officer starting walking from there, toward us. Images from movies with corrupt deep South sheriffs came to mind.

It wasn't just any officer, it was the chief of police. More movies were recalled. We had a bit of a discussion, and he explained, it turns out they had no power. The restraunt owner in the strip mall decided to cook all his food (on wood smokers) and give it all away, since without refrigeration, it was going to spoil anyhow. The chief was inviting us to their party, since they had more food than the entire town could eat at one sitting.

They were having a huge party. Talking with the pastor, we discovered the pile of kindling next to the mall used to be the church, or they would have had the party there. One person was picked up by the tornado, 30 feet in the air. He was the only one injured in the whole town, he had a broken hip. They were having this huge party, because God had spared the entire town. At least the people, the buildings were a shamble. The house next to the church... Was literally across the street the day before, you could see debris trailing from the foundation, to where it had landed. Giant trees, 75 feet tall, were lying around like beer cans at a frat party. And they were jamming. We donated all the cash we had on hand, to the pastor, to help these wonderful people. Their lives are in a ruin... And they think to invite strangers to join them in a party. If you are ever near Talbotton,ga... Stop in, tell them those white boys on motorcycles appreciate the lesson on life. I think of that once in a while when things aren't going so good. Step back, see what you really got, and celebrate, because it could be so much worse. And all this, because we didn't turn at that one corner...

So I went down the rabbit hole a few times, looking for better music (without a headset). Thought I'd discuss some options, here, although it pertains to any model in general, there's a LOT of solutions I found that are specific to the model I was long to improve.

First, the different years have different factory hardware. I believe it was starting in 2020, they went to 'power band' systems. BTW, if I say radio, I mean infotainment system, I'm just old school. Those stock systems sound much better than the earlier ones, and are generally not plug and play compatible with earlier systems. (You can make anything work with enough fiddling, but different physical size and mounting, electric specs, software) I do not have much experience with power band, other than to say a lot of the annoying quirks I've discovered, have been addressed by Indian.

Second, a lot of the older (pre 2020) parts are getting hard to find. While oem vehicle parts are available, after market accessory add ons are not being made any more.

So-

Discussion 1: easy upgrades

It turns out, the factory speakers are a bit of a disappointment. In fact, the software for the 2016 and earlier, will literally blow the speakers. If you turn it loud when going slow, and have the automatic volume control turned on, it will turn it up, when you go fast, beyond 100%. I don't use that feature anymore, even though they supposedly fixed the problem.

I changed the speakers to Polk DB522. These are much higher wattage, and won't blow from anything the factory amp can toss at them. They sound much better, and are less than $100 a pair. (I have a few factory speakers if anyone wants them. ) The install is pretty easy, and I'd say this would be the go to (except see below) for quick audio improvent.

In these bikes, and I think still in the power band, there is no actual speaker enclosure. The sound just goes where it wants, and more than half is wasted toward the front or ground. Speaker baffles, or boom mats, are foam rubber bits to solve this. Crutchfield has a pair that fit well, and are pretty cheap. (I seem to recall $5, but maybe $10.) The ones shaped like the speaker are trimmed to fit in the mount space, you poke a hole for the wire, and simply lay them in place before you mount your speaker.

These 2 upgrades, for less than a hundred bucks and a couple hours work, produce probably a 20% improvement in sound quality, and maybe a 5% improvement in volume.

Next: saddle bag speaker craziness!

I have a motorcycle story. We took a really long ride, but I'll make the story short.

A few years ago Brenda and I set out for San Diego. We only had 19 days to make the trip, and we had a few lay overs to visit the kids in Colorado, and also to visit Brenda's aunt and uncle. But the rest of the time we would be on our bikes. Average ride distance per day was about 500 miles, but at least three of them we put in over 720 miles.

The one thing that we found out is that if you ride for only 100 miles at a time, then take a short break, it's not that hard to rack up those 500 mile days. This was our route: MI to Denver, then to Zion National park, then Las Vegas, then San Diego, then north to San Francisco area, then we turned east to the Bonneville Salt Flats, turned north to Jackson Hole & Yellowstone, then east to Sturgis area, eventually arriving at the west coast of Lake Michigan to take the ferry to Ludington, then home. It was one of the greatest rides I have every taken. Great memories.