Bubba

I had an interesting 'confrontation' with a guy in KY last fall. Was riding rural roads outside of Verona in a group of 5 sport bikes. Dude in cage was poking along about 10 under in a 55. First guy passed him and as I went to go around, the car started swerving back and forth in the middle of the road, right on the center line. I dropped back and less than a half mile up the road, he came to a stop sign and I saw him reach over to the opposite side of the car. I pulled up beside him and tapped on his window to see what his beef was, and as I look inside I see: 1) it's an old guy (like me) prolly 60s, and 2) he's got a very serious looking piece sitting on his passenger seat cushion! Needless to say, I wasn't in mood to argue much anymore and I left him ranting and cussing at the intersection. I don't carry and I don't pass judgement on those who do, but just a reminder that if you do carry and you really plan on 'flashing' your piece as a deterrent, you better always be prepared to pull the trigger and live with the consequences. I'd rather use the superior warp speed of my bike to avoid the crazy dumbasses than try to shoot it out with a nutjob. Let's be careful out there!

Standard rule of thumb for single-axle trailers is that you should have approx 10-15% of the total weight on the tongue. So, according to the numbers you and IPapa have posted, your tongue weight should measure between 145-220#. I'd shade that to the light side based on your observations. Be aware that too light in the tongue can result in self-induced sway under certain conditions (cross-wind, braking, cornering). Your proposal of loading the front and rear of the trailer isn't a great solution, either. Result is larger rotational mass around the pivot (axle). Place the heaviest items (bikes, generator) nearest the center of the trailer/close to the axle and load the front/rear with lighter items.

Rope is a defiinite 'No!' Bungee won't work--too stretchy--unless we're talking a bicycle. Get yourself at least two decent quality tie-downs. As far as the hard part, loading a bike into the back of a truck is the hardest part. You'll need at least one sturdy ramp that's at least 7-8' long and preferably, a raised area that you can back up to so as to minimize the angle of the ramp. Another swell idea is to use a tie-down to attach the ramp to the truck so the ramp doesn't scoot off the tailgate when you're unloading. And if you want to see why it REALLY matters....well, YouTube is full of videos of painful and expensive bike loading FAIL. Best advice is to get yourself another body to assist.

Humbly suggest Porky Capone's in Lebanon. Mark is a rider and...oh, BTW, he has the best dead pig in SW Ohio! No beer license, but he let's you go to the Quickie Mart next door and bring your own poison.

Loading on a single-axle trailer is more critical than on a tandem axle. Tongue load should be approx >10% and <15% of the total trailer+load weight. If you load the trailer so that the COM (Center of Mass) is close to or behind the axle, you will induce an essentially uncontrollable sway. Read here: http://www.sherline.com/lmbook.htm#refrn9 Check out the site for additional info on hauling loads. EDIT: For weighing a lightweight trailer like yours, you can use a simple bathroom scale (most read to 250-300#) to get a measure of how much weight is on the tongue. Use a few blocks of wood for supporting the tongue at the ball hitch to prop the trailer at the proper height, i.e., frame level with road surface.

That truly is an amazing and touching story! Truth be told, tho, when I first read the thread title, I figgered it was gonna be a story about a woman's mouth-breathing husband/BF....

Oh, c'mon guys. Anyone over the age of 12 knows that Daytona Bike Week has absolutely nothing to do with bikes! Now maybe if they called it Daytona Trailer Week, it'd be more accurate. Here's what Bike Week is about: And if you want the awesome banner--approx 4' x 24'--in the last pic for your motel room/camp site, I'd part with it for a fairly low sum of money, but I ain't giving it away free 'cause I....ummm....appropriated it from over the main street area and spent a night in lock-up in Daytona to get it.

More to the point, the mods should re-title this thread "It's winter and I'm cranky 'cause I can't ride my bike." Tons of threads on every forum--AFJ too--that are non-MC-related bitchin'. As soon as spring hits, we'll all be best buds again!

You won't see me posting in any of the pro- or anti-gun threads. I recognise that I'm old, slow and fat. I'm gonna be one of the first that gets eaten, so why load up on tons of armament?

OK, the dude making the cardboard stove obviously has kids--snotty nosed ones at that--but there's NO WAY he's still married. If I was doing that shit in my wife's kitchen, pouring melted wax over her granite countertops, it'd be my ballz that were boiling in the tin cup, not water!

Sheit. At my age, camping is a cheap motel with a lumpy mattress and a black&white TV. Sleeping on the ground in a tent is being homeless...

Buddy rides a Honda PC and uses the ME880s. They are great tires for both wet and dry sport riding, but I doubt you'll get more than 6-8K out of 'em if you use 'em hard. He doesn't.... Let's face it. Any modern sport bike/sport tourer/cruiser that has more than 40-50 HP and weighs in at 400# or more isn't gonna get much over 5-7K miles out of a good road tire, and that even goes for the dual compound tires.

For those OR boys/girls who are in the SW part of the state, there's a New Year's Eve Day ride--better weather than Sunday--going out of the AA Shell in Wilder and heading to Falmouth, prolly via KY10 and KY22. Kickstands up @ 11 AM. Here's the poop: http://www.localriders.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16750

Interior perimeter drains will generally keep water from flowing across your basement slab, but won't help with water entry thru cracks and defects in your foundation walls or with humidity and the related mold issues. And if you've got a block foundation, fugget about it! Only permanent fix is to seal from the outside and regrade your yard to keep the water away from the foundation. Had the same issues at an old house. Even had the exterior deck, same as you. I undid the deck joists from the band board, dragged it away from the house with my 4x4 in one piece. Paid an excavator the $65/hr for him to dig the foundation to the footer, then I sealed the cracks with hydraulic cement, coated the foundation with waterproofer, installed wicking board, installed new footer drains and pea gravel, then had him come in and backfill and slide the deck back into place. Cost was under $2000 for the whole thing...plus a crappy week of being horribly muddy and tired. If you pay a company to do the labor, you'll get a huge bill...but it ain't rocket science. It makes a gawdawful mess of your yard for a few weeks (months at this time of year?) but it'll look fine come spring. Problem with wet basements is that they cost you a lot of money (or pain) to fix, but the money you spend doesn't add a red cent to the resale value of your house. The value is strictly to you in the "liveability" of yer hacienda.

Well, these big boys made it thru gun season. Whether they make it thru "little-old-lady-in-big-Buick" season is anybody's guess. All these pix were taken on 12/21/11 between 6:30 PM and 7:00 PM. Just gotta figger out how to get 'em to come in a little earlier. Also got these pests coming in. Definitely not true coyote; I suspect they gotta be 'yote/dog mix from their size!

http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/USNC0577 If I hadn't just gotten, I'd join you!

Here ya go! Try this site on for BRP views. Looks pretty clear to me. 'Course, that don't mean it won't snow tomorrow.... http://www.highcountrywebcams.com/cameras.htm

It can be beautiful down there this time of year. Just got back about a week ago from the Franklin, NC, area and rode the Dragon along with a number of the local roads. Heading to GA is a good bet as well. http://www.localriders.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16741 The mornings could be upper 20s/low 30s, but by mid-morning the temps will be into the 40s or better. If you stay out of the higher elevations--i.e., BRP and Cherhola SW--and stick to the valleys, it'll be fine. Traffic volume is way down altho there will be lots of LEOs around doing the holiday enforcement for the next week or so. Watch your speed in GA especially--they have the "super speeder" law that tacks at least an extra $200 onto the normal ticket price for 15+ over. Be sure you do your homework on the weather situation before you blow out'a Dodge, and be prepared for the weather situation to throw a curve at you, and of course gear up appropriately.

Grimsel Pass, Switzerland. I spent a year hitchhiking in and around the Bernese oberland back in the 60s, when being a homeless hippy in Europe wasn't totally frowned upon....oh, and the exchange rate was 4.25 Swiss Francs to the US dollar. http://www.myswitzerland.com/en/grimsel-pass.html

I have a multi-speed table-top drill press and a Craftsman router/router table that I'd be willing to part with cheap. This stuff isn't close to "commercial/industrial" type of tooling, but it'd be fine for a homeowner. Lemme get some pix of the stuff and I'll post up here in a day or so with a friendly price. Only glitch I forsee is that I'm located in Cinti. Lemeno if that's too far a drive to make the deal.

Some decent used ones available on CL. Not sayin' these are GREAT deals, but you can always make a low-ball offer at this time of year. If ya piss 'em off and they say "No!" yer not any further behind.... http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/mcd/2653270805.html http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/mcy/2706246988.html

Aw shoot, that'll buff out.

OK, and just how do these two word groupings juxtaposition in the same sentence? Yer gonna give squids a bad name! Definitely a great day for a ride. Not too many of these left in the season, tho. I was out for about 5 hours yesterday. Met a couple of friends in Rabbit Hash and rode the NKY twisties south and east to Falmouth, followed 22 to Willow, and then back north on 10 to Alexandria. About 200 miles for the day. If yer ever in Cinti and want to hit up the back roads, lemeno. And lastly, this pic shows why you didn't come afoul of Johnny Law. Definitely NOT yer typical outlaw biker gang! Needed someone in a pirate doo-rag and assless black leather chaps to liven up the crowd....altho, to be fair, I wouldn't want to face the fella on the left after getting his daughter back long after curfew.

Isn't this the same thing they were telling employees of Enron, Lehman Bros, and GM?

Just talked to my financial advisor. He said if I didn't sell, I didn't lose. Hmmmm, I wonder if he knows what he's talking about.... Of course, the contrarian view is that you should buy when there's "blood in the street" so it must be time to pony up another half mil for some more GE! Just like Harry's Carpet: I might lose money on EVERY transaction, but my plan is to make it up in VOLUME.