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Went on my longest ride to date today. 196 miles literally to Hell and back. Hell, Michigan had their annual blessing of the bikes and myself my two brother in laws and 19 other people rode out from Saginaw at 11:30am. We got there, after getting turned around a bit, about 20min before the last blessing at 2:30pm. Funny thing, myself and my brother in laws (who invited me) are atheists! it was all for the ride and bike related "ooooohs and aaaahs". Of the 22 people riding, I had the smallest displacement bike at 650cc and the oldest (1977). I don't think anyone else was rinding anything pre-2000 and they were all V twins though not all HDs.

It started out cold and drizzling. Fortunately the precip let up, but it stayed pretty cold. Unfortunately I had dressed only barely appropriately in jeans, T-shirt, and a padded mesh jacket. Also I was wearing a new-ish helmet and wasn't quite used to it. Combine this with pounding a huge latte prior and I had a pretty grumpy ride down. I'm not really used to highway speeds and a westerly cross wind was being pretty pushy. Luckily I did have the foresight to bring a back brace and that helped a LOT.

The blessing event was pretty neat, some vendors had interesting stuff, there were some neat bikes on display, even some transverse 4's! Walked around a bit and then a gawd awful band started playing. We checked out a little more, grabbed a bite to eat and headed out. Most of the group had pealed off already to go to a local bar (dry event) and 5 of us headed home.

The ride home was MUCH better. Still cold, but I was used to the pace, wind, helmet, and everything. About 25min from home my KZ just turned off. Dead, no lights, nuthin. Pushed it into a parking lot and by the time the leaders circled back to see what was up, I figured out it was the main 20A fuse (it didn't blow like a fuse usually does, snapping in the middle, it was just a little brown on the ends?) and had a little patch of tinfoil in my tool bag for just such occasions. Not the best solution but it got me home. I'll put a new fuse in and probably put "new fuse box" on the todo list. My one brother in law said he could tell I've come a long way since last year and was riding a lot more confidently.

I sorta went into this ride with the idea that it'd be my first big "shakedown" ride. I'm used to city riding or popping over to other nearby towns and this was a lot different. I had fun and I think I'm in the position to enjoy the next long ride even more.

i cant see a damn thing but a black box with a wheel spinning around dam-it whats up help

please try insert picture

see if this works

I have same problem when I use Explorer 8, so now I use Google Chrome of Firefox.

whoa sorry about the black & white picture my bad!

glad you had safe ride home

The b&w one was a nice touch!

Remember a guy at the gate where you paid to get in ask if your bike was a 650 ?

That was me I was there with Abate We had around 800 bikes come in that day.

Glad you had fun and made it home safe
Dave

I do remember that, nice meeting you!