Road Kill Diaries

Monday -- Martin Luther King Day -- dawned warm for a change. The thermometer read 42 degrees at sunrise, a contrast to more than three weeks of subfreezing overnight lows.

Some ice remained on our driveway but rain Sunday changed most of the rock-hard frozen tundra into a muddy mix of gravel and dirt so I suited up, backed the Super Glide out of the garage and fired her up, confident that I could make it down the steep driveway.

I made it and turned onto Sandy Flats Road, finding a hard-surfaced secondary road covered with water, mud and debris from the sometimes-heavy rain that fell on Saturday night and Sunday. Water and mud coated the bike as I negotiated the one mile stretch to Poor Farm Road, another secondary road also dotted with water and mud.

By the time I made it to U.S. 211, the Glide and the lower legs of my chaps looked like I had been dirt-biking but I found the main highway mostly dry as I turned south and headed to Floyd to meet friends for breakfast.

After breakfast at the Blue Ridge Restaurant in Floyd, I grabbed a cup of coffee at Cafe del Sol and pondered a route for the day's ride. The conditions on the secondary roads pointed to only one riding strategy: Stay on primary roads: Too much water, mud and debris on the other byways.

I needed to run some errands in Christiansburg so I headed north on Virginia Rte. 8. Some wet spots on 8 as well but mostly dry pavement. The glide carved through the corners and I enjoyed the sun and the first ride in more than a month.

At Christiansburg, I turned south on U.S. 11 and headed for Radford -- a pleasant 12 mile stretch of three-lane road. Just outside of Radford, a stretch of road where the sun doesn't reach offered some challenges.

From Radford, I turned onto Rte. 114 for a ride back to Christiansburg. Took care of errands and headed back to Floyd as the sun began to set and temperatures started to fall. My driveway had melted some more and the slick mud offered a end-of-the-ride thrill as I gunned the Glide and sent mud flying at the left-hand turn at the top.

Hosed the Glide off and put her away for the night. With luck I'll get a couple of more rides in this week before the weather turns cold and wet -- again.

I last rode my Harley Super Glide on Dec. 15 -- my birthday.

A massive snow storm dumped two feet of snow on Southwestern Virginia on Dec. 18, followed by a Christmas Day ice storm and three weeks of sub-freezing temperatures, so the ice in my driveway is hard, slick and unmeltable.

A warming trend over the past few days along with rain overnight on Saturday has some gravel peeking through on the driveway and a lot of what once was ice and snow is now mud.

May try to get the bike out on Monday when the high will be around 51. We'll see.

Reports Business Week:

Shares of Harley-Davidson Inc. declined Thursday after an analyst recommended investors sell the motorcycle maker's stock, saying bike sales fell as much as 40 percent in October and November and demand remains uncertain.

 

Shares declined $1.38, or 5.1 percent, to $25.51 in midday trading.

Goldman Sachs analyst Patrick Archambault on Thursday added Harley-Davidson to the bank's "Conviction Sell" list with a six-month price target of $23. That implies the analyst expects shares to drop almost 15 percent from its closing price Wednesday of $26.89.

He previously rated the stock "Neutral."

Archambault said checks with dealerships indicate retail bike sales declined between 35 percent and 40 percent in October and November due to tighter lending standards at the company's lending arm and a recall of 110,000 touring and custom bikes.

Joe Kinny, a longtime rider of BMW motorcycles (along with other European brands and a Buell) joined the Harley ranks last week with the purchase of a 2007 Super Glide.

You don't usually see serious riders like Joe, who owns a shop that produces custom parts for vintage bikes, jump to a Harley but he's been looking at the big bikes for a while with the thought of having something for long-range riding. His two BMW bikes are older models with a lot of miles on them.

But if I see him in a do-rag, I'm gonna get worried.

Temperatures climbed into the high 50s Monday afternoon so I hit the road for a short ride.

After my first stop, I hit the starter button and nothing happened. Instead, the alarm lights flashed.

Uh-oh. I looked in my jacket pocket for the key fob that controls the alarm system.

Na-da.

Harley-Davidson's passive alarm depends on a proximity control, an electronic fob that must be within 15 feet of the bike for it to start.

The fob, in the pocket of a jacket hanging near the bike in the garage, was close enough to start the bike but once I left the garage, the system armed itself When I shut the bike off several miles away it didn't find the signal from the key fob and disabled the ignition system.

When I left, my wife was working in the yard, away from the sound of a ringing phone. I called her for more than a hour before she came in to the house, returned the call, and drove out to bring me the fob. By that time, the sun was setting and temperatures dropped. Fog moved in and I arrived home soaked and shivering.

On the way home, I remembered reading in the owners manual when I bought the bike in February about using a personal identification number to disarm the arlarm but I didn't remember the detail. After I thawed out, I found the owner's manual (which I should have kept in the bike's saddlebags, and reread the section on disarming the alarm without a key fob.

Hopefully, I can remember it the next time I pull the same stupid stunt.