Sunday, June 17, 2012

Pop's fathers day ride.

I don't know what it is about the FJR, but ever since the day I rolled it into the garage, my wife's grandfather has been bugging me about when I was going to take him for a ride. I told him to let me get used to this auto clutch thing first and when I'm comfortable I'll take him for a spin. Lately he's been giving the me the "I don't think I'm ever going to get a ride" bit.

So I decided Fathers Day was a good day for a quick spin on the bike. Got him fitted up with some minimal gear that fit him and with my wife, son and my father in law in the car armed with cameras, off we went.

He had a blast. I pulled off after he was comfortable and told him we were going to turn around and head back but to hang on as I was going to goose it a bit. I think it was about 1/4 throttle really but he thought we were on a rocket. We zoomed past the car going ticketable speeds. I then took him a bit beyond that and we nudged a number on the speedo that would be a bit of a milestone and then I shut the throttle down and came back to reasonable speeds.

After he got off the bike, a major feat in and of itself as he's not that mobile, but he had two people helping him...I was using all the muscles in my short little legs to keep the bike upright...by far the scariest part of the trip for me. Again, after he got off he had to catch his breath and then he couldn't stop talking. Memaw just laughed when we told her how fast he went and said we were crazy.

Safety briefing...



Ready to roll....



Stopped for the turn around briefing...Pop looks like he's giving thumbs up but he's trying to figure out how to open the visor.



Relaxing after a short high speed run...