Greenville Mississippi motorcycle ride.

Here is the Greenville trip I promised you a few post back…just a little refresher…my son Myles

was playing baseball for the state championship so I decided to ride my bike to the game (its around 250 miles from my house) and meet up with the rest of the family once I got there. I left thirty minutes before the rest of the family, I need gas; I filled up just as I left town and stopped in Jackson to refuel again. While filling the tank I called my wife and found out they were only minutes away, so I waited to follow them to Greenville. The trip to Greenville was pretty much uneventful we made it to the Hampton Inn

and checked in with no problem. We had a great time at the games Friday and Saturday…the boys came in second.

Truth is I never had time to go for a motorcycle ride the entire time I was there my bike never moved once until it was time to leave Sunday.

I got up early due to a small threat of rain in the afternoon. As I was getting on my bike I noticed something shiny on my bike seat…it turned out to be a quarter.

Hmmm how did that get there…I have my suspicions…so in case you were wondering why I was playing the song “here’s a quarter call someone who cares” in the background …well now you know….it was the first song I thought of as I was putting the quarter in my pocket…ha-ha. I took hwy 1

as I wanted to stop by Lake Washington to take a look…hwy 1 was mine

only a few cars along the road with corn fields on both sides of me…one problem no gas stations..Hmmmm I should have filled up before I left town.

I have to mention this just as I turned off to the lake I saw someone on a tractor getting ready to plow a field…as I got near I learned my eyes had deceived me…it was just a tractor made out of hay…

nice job, very nice job….loved it!

I found the lake ok it was around twenty minutes out of town.

Just as turned off on the hwy leading to the lake

I looked down and saw I only had around thirty miles left till empty. My thinking was it’s a huge lake and there should be gas stations all around it….WRONG!!! I rode around the lake snapping a few photos

Then I came across this huge old house being taking back by the land…I still wonder what the story was on this one…

but always had in the back of my mind I was slowly running out of gas. This was a bummer due to the lake was beautiful and I had to cut the trip around the lake short to try and make it to the next small town for gas.

Once back on the hwy I found gas at the next small town, along the way I saw a lot of farm equipment (most of the stuff I had no idea what it was used for)

On a sadder note I passed mile after mile of dying corn…just thinking about how much money was lost due to the lack of water…sad, sad.

The rest of the trip home went great I stopped a few times for gas and a diet root beer and beat the rain by about ten minutes…it came a storm…but I was safe and dry inside my house…great trip, I would do it again…there is always next year, I’m sure the boys will be going to State again…GO petal!!

MOTORCYCLE PRODUCT REVIEW

I took my bike into the shop to get the oil changed (I have a oil change plan that came with the bike, otherwise I would do it myself) anyway I decided it was time to get a engine guard put on, so I checked with the guy at the parts desk and they had one in stock. I had been looking at one made by Cobra but decided to go with the one made by Yamaha. It’s a one piece with chrome from end to end. So then it was up to the service department to get it installed and the oil changed by Friday. This was important due to I wanted to take my bike to Greenville Friday morning. Well the service kept up there end of the bargain and the bike was ready Thursday afternoon.

I picked up my bike and the engine guard looked great,

I could not have been happier. So I decided to go inside the dealership to see if I could find any foot pegs…well I did…for a healthy price tag of 130 dollars..Wow!!! I decided to pass and got on my bike and headed home to look on EBay. On my way, I passed a small Harley shop and stopped in to see if they had any pegs…well they did…two kinds; one cost around 70 dollars and the other was around 30 dollars. Hmmmmm, guess which one I bought. Yea you guessed it; I went with the cheap one made by Drag Specialties …Ha-ha.

Truth is I had never used pegs before , so I was not sure if I would like them or not. So off to the house I went with my new pegs tucked away in my saddle bags. Once home, I went straight in and got some tools out of the workshop…I only used a few wrenches and a big crescent wrench.

The pegs came with a loop to fit a 1” bar or a 1 ¼” bar (like mine) simple installation; just pick the proper size loop, one bolt holds it to the engine guard and one bolt tensions the flip up motion of the pegs…it took me all of 5 minutes to hook them up…easy (anyone could do it)

First problem; the chrome cracked and flaked away on the loop as I tighten it to the engine guard (yep cheap…you get what you pay for) not sure if you can see it in the photo BELOW but the chrome did chip off.

My second complaint; was the pegs are chrome with little strips of rubber spaced around on it…I found it very slipperier when my foot was placed on it, and my guess is the rubber will tear soon.

Besides that they look great (well I think so…anyway)

The next morning I was off on my trip to Greenville, Ms (250 miles away) to watch my boy play baseball. I could not wait to try out the pegs and was using them before I even reached the highway…love them. I did notice that once I reached highway speeds my right foot wanted to try and be pushed off by the wind. So I reached into my saddle bag to pull out my tool bag (wait a minute…I don’t have one yet!!!…Chessie would not be proud. Chessie for you that don’t know is one of my bike ridding on line blogging buddies…great site by the way check it out when you get the chance.

http://chessiestales.blogspot.com/

She is always preaching

about how every biker needs a good set of tools somewhere on their bike.

Hmmmmm… so I looked around a store while getting gas and bought a 3 dollar crescent wrench it worked fine. I turned the peg in a little, made it kind of a V to the engine guard…no more slipping foot…worked great!!!

I’ve only been on one trip so for (AROUND 600 MILES TOTAL) I can’t believe I have been riding a bike without pegs. Its soooo nice to be able to stretch your leg out while riding. I will say, I will most likely buy better pegs with a heel loop soon. But as for now the Drag Specialties pegs work just fine, and the engine guard I can’t imagine how you could get one any better.

As for the trip to Greenville, Ms I’ll have a blog on it soon.
Big Al