For Memorial Day, I took the bike to visit my family’s graves. Got just over 100 miles in. Both a good and a sad day.
Memorial Day Ride
Jim Says: “It finally stopped raining, get out there!”
Motorcycle
Picked up a new camera, the Insta360 One bundle from the Apple Store. I mounted it as a “flying rig” on the included selfie stick, so that it was just over my right shoulder. I’ll be editing to include better audio in the future as the built in mic was rather loud wind noise.
Jim Says: “This whole *going outside* thing might not be as terrible as I originally thought.”
I just picked up an Apeman A80 from Amazon and mounted it on my handlebars to test the gyro and get an idea of image quality. (Filmed in 1080, but converted to 720 for YouTube.)
Audio was recorded using an Olympus digital recorder with a mic in the pocket of the pack on the back of the bike. The camera did pick up decent audio without much wind noise while in the waterproof case.
Jim Says : “Well worth the extra effort.”
I was lucky enough to find an Indian Motorcycle Demo Event near me, and headed to North Star Polaris (Facebook) in St. Clairsville, Ohio to test ride a Scout.
There was a chance for rain that day, so I didn’t take my trusty Magna. My plan is to find a bike to be my daily rider and put an antique plate on my Magna so I can still do some joyriding with it. Being that the ’88 Magna is made of mostly unobtanium, I don’t want to risk it getting damaged in day to day use and me not be able to get parts to repair it.
While at North Star, I was able to get some saddle time on the new Scout, and absolutely loved it! It took me almost a full 2 minutes to go from that weird feeling of sitting on a strange bike for the first time, to it feeling like it was an extension of me. The ergonomics are perfect for my 6’2″ over 100 pound (shut up) frame.
And the way it handles.. just perfect. It goes exactly where you want, when you want. Stable in the straights, but incredibly nimble in the turns.
I still want to ride the Triumph T100, but I think my decision has been made. The race is on, can Honda come out with a forward control package for the Rebel 500 before I buy a Scout? Time will tell.
I was also fortunate to get a spin on a classically styled red & cream 2017 Chief Vintage (but didn’t think to take a picture). Nice bike, but that Scout was just what I was looking for.
Jim says: “If you need me, I’ll be somewhere on two wheels.”
