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The ice on the driveway finally melted and it was just above freezing, I had not been out yet this year , except on the Ice with the minis . This was the first road ride of 09 .
It started as they all do , in my driveway
I made my way out to Barre, the dirt roads were plowed but ice covered, there was just enough sand down to get traction .
I went into Barre falls, the main gate was open and the road was plowed, but also ice covered, I was chugging along in 3rd to avoid spinning the rear, as I was on ice in 1 wheel drive mode.
I passed by a guy in a pulloff in his truck, he pulled out behind me and followed close , there was no way I could stop to pull over and get going on the ice again so I didn't , he stayed behind me all the way out, a couple miles. I pulled into the icy parking lot at the end to let him go by .
He gave me a big thumbs up as he went by, certainly not the reaction I was expecting.
I meandered on the sand covered back roads through oakham and back to N.brookfield , had lunch a the pizza place and headed for home as I was starting to get cold .
It felt good to be out on the road again . Only did 55miles in 2hours but for ice and sand covered roads, thats not too bad. There were some 60+ mph sections and some 5mph sections.
here are a couple random pics of homemade solutions
My tire irons always seem to tear into the tail bag and poke holes so I took my axle wrench from the tool kit, cut it in half, cut a tire iron in half and welded the wrench halves to the tire iron halves, drilled a couple holes and mounted them in place where the passenger pegs used to be .
now they are nice and secure and don't flop around anymore, plus I have extra room in the toolkit and took a bit of weight off the tailpack.
the other thing was the need for a rear rack to strap stuff to, I saw a lightweight plastic one for sale on the interweb , but a lot cheaper solution was to buy a piece of plastic and make my own
lucky for me walmart had blue cutting boards in stock.