Our original plan was to collect Garry and Shirley in Carlisle and then make a loop to the southeast and then back up to Newton and home on old highway 6. When we got to Carlisle with Howard and Brenda, Garry & Shirley suggested that we go a little farther on to Pella, where the annual Tulip Festival had just concluded. Since I’m not as familiar with that area, we had Garry take the lead to get us there.

We rode south on Highway 5 out of Carlisle, and I was really noticing the cross-wind pushing me around on the road. We turned left onto Marion Co. highway G40 at Pleasantville and took that to Lake Red Rock. G40 ends at highway 14, just shy of the entrance to the Mile Bridge going over the lake. We crossed the bridge and turned southeast onto G28, which we took into Pella. This was a really scenic ride that took us past Cordova State Park, where the water tower-turned-observation-tower is located. (Lake Red Rock is an Army Corps of Engineers lake farther downstream but part of the same system as Polk County’s Saylorville Lake.)

We parked on the square in Pella and took a little time to walk around and look at the tulips in bloom. The Pella Tulip Festival is a long-standing Iowa tradition. The town has a distinctly Dutch heritage, and every year they build a community festival around the thousands of tulips planted around the square and in a variety of gardens around town. Although we missed the official festival by waiting til Sunday to ride down, the tulips were still beautiful - a few were fully bloomed and blown, and some will peak in a few more days. Most, however, were in full regalia and it really was a lovely time to visit. (Full photo album here.)

We decided to take the faster, less scenic route home - we took Highway 163 from Pella into Des Moines, and this was where I really got sick of the cross-wind. I swear I have never been pushed around so much as I was on this 40-mile stretch. (Even our first day of riding home from Sturgis in 2006 wasn’t this bad!)

One of the most annoying things for me is that I seem to have a problem with my jacket ballooning up from the wind. I don’t know if it’s the fact that my sleeves don’t fit snug, or that the jacket’s not vented… it doesn’t even matter which jacket I’m wearing, I always have this problem in strong wind. So I was battling the balloon, and had to keep my jacket zipped all the way up to my chin - only to find that this caused the little fabric zipper pull to whip me repeatedly on the chin and mouth. My solution was to clench the fabric pull between my teeth. I must’ve looked like a dog pulling on his chew-rope. At least it kept me from getting whipped in the face. (Turns out, Garry had a whipping problem too - the radio antenna on his ‘Glide kept catching him on the back of the head and ear!)

In all we rode a hundred miles - and I am FINALLY sporting that “sun-burned from the forehead, down” look you get from wearing a do-rag and sunglasses!

Jackie H. in Panora, IA just got this beautiful red/red Road King, and came over to Big Barn HD for the 2008 Blessing of the Bikes and Mystery Ride. She’s also a new member of the Des Moines HOG chapter, so I got to introduce her to the group this past month as well. (It’s a nice scenic ride over to Jackie’s house, btw… though I had a little trouble with that last year! LOL)

Thought I would just show off the new configuration of my speedometer. I’ve never been crazy about the black, pebble-textured speedo housing. And, we found after we put the pullback risers on that the speedo was sitting at an angle where I could barely read the speed and couldn’t read the mileage at all. So a new configuration was needed.

Steve turned the black housing around so that a bend in the shoulder area would put the speedo at a better angle. He switched out the original black handlebar bracket for a chrome “Live to Ride” version, and bought the neat chrome bezel as well. The problem was, the black housing was supposed to lay on top of the chrome L2R bracket, and when it did, it covered part of the eagle design. Steve’s solution was to bolt the speedo housing to the back of the chrome bracket rather than the top.

The whole thing required a little fabrication on the housing as well as a re-setting of the lights that go across the shoulder piece, and some further noodling to figure out how to show the entire eagle design. What’s neat about it is that the black housing really fades into the background, while the chrome bezel and bracket kind of pop forward, visually. I’m not sure I’ve accurately described it, but the whole setup looks really neat. The L2R bracket matches two other L2R items I have on the bike.

We took a 60-mile ride on Sunday from Des Moines down to Carlisle, over to Martensdale and then back up to Des Moines. It was chilly, but it was so great to get out and ride that we didn’t really notice til the very end. Well, most of us didn’t.

Six of us - Steve, Kristin, Hollie, Howard, Cassie and myself - left Des Moines around 2 p.m. My car had told me it was 53 degrees at 1 p.m., so we figured it might hit 55 even though it was overcast and clammy.

We rode down to Carlisle where we collected Garry and Shirley, then the 8 of us took off down Highway 5 to County Road S23, south down S23 to Highway 92, west on 92 to Martensdale at Highway 28, then north on 28 back into Norwalk and then Des Moines. This is a really nice loop, one we have done a few times before as an alternative to riding “up around the lake.” Our only stop, once we met up with Garry and Shirley in Carlisle, was a Casey’s in Norwalk. By the time we got there, everyone was noticing the chill a little - especially Shirley, who wasn’t wearing gloves. (Okay, it’s really not enough to say she was “noticing the chill a little.” Her comment was that she was glad she didn’t have to do any sudden maneuvering of the clutch or brake levers, because her poor hands couldn’t have managed it. We need to get that girl some proper handwear!)

We milled around Casey’s for a half hour or so, got warmed up, and then headed home. By the time we pulled into our driveway, we were all feeling the cold a bit. I mentioned to all that it felt like the temperature had dropped five degrees in the time since we’d left Norwalk. As it turns out, I was pretty much right: I looked up the 24-hour temperature history on Accuweather.com and it showed that at 2 p.m. the temp was 50. That means it had already dropped 3 degrees from the day’s high of 53 before we even left home! And at 5 p.m., when we pulled into our driveway, it said 45 degrees! Now eight degrees might not feel like a significant difference when you’re talking sub-zero. (Does minus-28 really feel all that much different from minus-20?) But when you’re talking 53 vs. 45, it’s HUGE - especially when it’s cloudy.

Despite the chill, it was great to finally get out and ride. WOOHOO!! Riding season is here!

Took me a few days to get it posted to the blog, but I did get to go on a very short ride on… hmmm, think it was Monday of this past week. Just a couple miles, but had to get out as it was really nice out and I hadn’t had a chance to test out my new pullback risers that we added to the ape hanger handlebars a few weeks ago. One of these days soon I’ll pull the bike out into the driveway and take pictures of all the goodies that got added this winter - the bike doesn’t look drastically different from 10 feet away, but the details are sure looking good!

WOW - we had a terrific membership meeting with the Des Moines HOG chapter last night, in which over 100 people were in attendance including 24 new members. (Special welcome to Hollie, Marla, Denise, and Susan/Coyote and her hubby Paul!) That’s twice as many new members as the past two months. (IowaHarleyGirl, where are you?? )

One of the items on last night’s agenda was a report from the Big Barn Harley-Davidson service manager, who gave us a short list of the five most important items to check on the bike as we get ready to ride this Spring. Certainly this info is helpful to all riders, so I thought I’d share it here with thanks and credit to Tom Reed for sharing his expertise!

Check these items before your first ride:

1. Tire pressure. The single most common reason for tire failure, says Tom, is inadequate tire pressure.

2. Indicator lights. Make sure your signal, brake and headlights are functioning, and replace non-functioning bulbs.

3. Gasoline. “Old gas” is bad, m’kay? Especially for carbureted bikes. What’s old? Tom says gas starts to deteriorate in the tank within three weeks. If your gas has been in the tank since last fall, time to siphon it out and replace it.

4. Oil. Start and run the bike for a few minutes, then check the smell of your bike’s oil. If it smells like gasoline, you’ve got fuel leaking into the oil tank and the oil should be replaced. Tom says an oil change is likely a good idea anyway - your owner’s manual probably recommends an oil change every 3000 miles OR every 3 months. That includes time the bike’s been sitting in the garage, waiting for good weather.

5. Brake pads. Look for wear and replace if needed. Some groaning/squeaking of brakes is normal on the first ride of the season, but the noise shouldn’t last. If it does, time for a service call.

• Belt guard cover
• Front axle nut covers
• Rear master-cylinder cover
• Pullback risers

A note on the pullback risers… last fall, my wonderful husband purchased and installed Ape Hanger handlebars for me (you might remember the story about how I didn’t seem to notice!). I noticed after a little riding that my shoulder blades were kind of aching, so we talked about pullback risers. The bike is looking awesome with the risers on there, so I’m really hoping those solved the shoulder-blade problem. Guess we’ll see… in a MONTH or more! (What IS IT with this @#$ winter??)

Then, this picture shows the road on the other side of our house. It’s unpaved, and the picture doesn’t even begin to tell the story of how rutted and sloppy it is. So, while we did see a few bikes while we were out and about today, we certainly didn’t get to ride.

If a crowded swap meet is a sign that Iowans are getting sick of winter, then this year we must all be on the edge of insanity. Not only was it nearly impossible to find a parking spot, it was difficult to even walk the rows of merchandise - I’d say this event has outgrown the 4H building at the Fairgrounds, where it’s been held for many years. As always, this event featured many used parts, leather dealers, and other bike-related booths, plus the custom bike show that I thought was a little larger this year. We missed one bargain - a quick-release windshield that might’ve fit Kristin’s bike for only $65 - and ended up not buying anything at all. But it was nice to get out and shop for bike-related stuff anyway. I took a few pictures of some of the custom bikes and put them on Webshots. Have a look, but don’t be fooled - the swap meet is wonderful but it’s no substitute for getting out there and RIDING!