Ken F
IBA #44567
My Dad is one hell of a guy, whom many of you will recognize. He just turned 86 & I'm 58. We have been best friends all my life. He's been pestering me for a year about buying another motorcycle, so last September 28th I flew to Denver and bought a 96 R1100RSL and rode it home to Missouri. It had the most god-awful flames on it, I seriously considered stopping at Wallyworld and buying a rattlecan of black paint before heading home with it, but decided to wait thinking of fish-eyes and wrinkled paint. Dad and I used to ride Harleys together 20+years ago. I was a long haired bearded hard-core, and Dad bought a 65 Panhead Dresser. We rode many miles together, along with lots of other Harleys!
The following week after I returned home with the "new to me" RSL, Dad left on his
K1100LT to meet his nephew (who lives in OKC) just north of Wichita, and they continued their journey to The rockies. The first morning after arrival, he ran a red light (turned to look behind for my Cousin) and centerpunched a Dodge dually...yep they are Ram Tough, however so is he! He was able to scrub his speed down to about 20 before he hit, and only suffered 3 stitches in his left hand and a severly brused ego.
It took about a month of coaching & encouraging him to get back on a bike. He said "I've had a long ride, but maybe it's time to hang it up". We began buying parts to repair his K1100LT, and he began to once again get the fever!! After we had all the new tupperware painted and put it almost back together, we noticed that the front wheel didn't sit quite right. Out came the string, and a back-yard alignment check. Not good. The framehorn was tweeked to the right by 3/4". Boy was he bummed. He could have been riding that afternoon, until we found that.
The next day we got on the computer and started searching Craigslist & found a beautiful 2000 R1100RT in St.Louis (about 3.5 hrs. away) with only 30K on the clock. We left the next day to bring it home.
I say all this, to say I'm really thankful that we can ride together still. We both know our rides are on borrowed time, but these last 3 weekends riding together have been worth the investment in both bikes, if we had to stop tomorrow.
The following week after I returned home with the "new to me" RSL, Dad left on his
K1100LT to meet his nephew (who lives in OKC) just north of Wichita, and they continued their journey to The rockies. The first morning after arrival, he ran a red light (turned to look behind for my Cousin) and centerpunched a Dodge dually...yep they are Ram Tough, however so is he! He was able to scrub his speed down to about 20 before he hit, and only suffered 3 stitches in his left hand and a severly brused ego.
It took about a month of coaching & encouraging him to get back on a bike. He said "I've had a long ride, but maybe it's time to hang it up". We began buying parts to repair his K1100LT, and he began to once again get the fever!! After we had all the new tupperware painted and put it almost back together, we noticed that the front wheel didn't sit quite right. Out came the string, and a back-yard alignment check. Not good. The framehorn was tweeked to the right by 3/4". Boy was he bummed. He could have been riding that afternoon, until we found that.
The next day we got on the computer and started searching Craigslist & found a beautiful 2000 R1100RT in St.Louis (about 3.5 hrs. away) with only 30K on the clock. We left the next day to bring it home.
I say all this, to say I'm really thankful that we can ride together still. We both know our rides are on borrowed time, but these last 3 weekends riding together have been worth the investment in both bikes, if we had to stop tomorrow.
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