In Twelve Inches of Attitude I finished by explaining that the new ape hangers obviously needed to be properly tested.
For scientific purposes. Obviously.
There were riding positions to evaluate.
Corners to investigate.
Coffee shops potentially requiring urgent assistance.
And perfectly sensible direct routes home that desperately needed to be ignored.
So naturally, a couple of days later, Matt and I went riding.
Because science.
Two bikes. Very different ideas.
Matt was on his Indian FTR.
I was on the Low Rider.
Park the two beside each other and they look like they were designed by people who had very different meetings.
The FTR is all:
ATTACK. CORNERS. NOW.
The Harley is more:
Relax. I've got 107 cubic inches of torque. We'll get there.
One has red wheels, exposed trellis frame and looks like it wants to start a fight with a racetrack.
The other has chrome, ape hangers, a giant V-twin and looks like it already won the fight thirty years ago.
Perfect riding companions then.
We headed down to Tokoroa and then, because neither of us apparently sees much value in simply travelling from A to B, headed off through the back roads towards Whakamaru and Mangakino.
This is increasingly becoming my favourite sort of riding.
There's a destination.
Sort of.
But the destination isn't really the point.
The road is.
A decent stretch of tarmac.
Some corners.
A mate on another bike.
Occasionally stopping somewhere because the scenery looks good and motorcycles need to be photographed approximately every seventeen minutes.
You know.
The important stuff.
Whakamaru
We stopped at Whakamaru Dam for some photos.
And I have to admit, the Low Rider is starting to look exactly how I wanted it to look.
The 12-inch bars have completely changed the silhouette.
Black.
Chrome.
Red stripe.
A little bit of luggage.
PW NZ hanging off the back.
And now those ape hangers sticking up where they belong.
Yep.
Still dorky.
Still love it.
Actually, possibly love it even more.
From there we carried on through to Mangakino.
And this was exactly the sort of ride I'd been missing during all those years away from motorcycles.
Not racing anywhere.
Not trying to prove anything.
Just riding.
Corners.
Throttle.
That Milwaukee-Eight doing its usual lazy:
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
Then another corner.
Then another.
Then eventually somewhere pretty enough that we had to stop again.
Motorcycles are excellent at turning:
“Let's go somewhere.”
into:
“Let's go somewhere, take three times longer than necessary, burn a load of fuel, stop repeatedly to stare at our motorcycles, and then tell everyone what a brilliant idea it was.”
Which, to be clear...
...it absolutely is.
Cardo changes group riding
One of the things that made the ride with Matt particularly good was the Cardo intercoms.
I haven't ridden with helmet comms before, so, having a system that just works changes the whole feel of riding with somebody.
No trying to interpret bizarre hand signals.
No waiting until the next intersection to ask what the hell just happened.
No pulling over simply because somebody wants to say something.
You just...talk.
And the quality was bloody good.
It doesn't make riding less enjoyable or less “motorcycle-ish”.
Quite the opposite.
You're still inside your own helmet.
Still riding your own bike.
Still concentrating on the road.
But now your mate is effectively sitting beside you having a conversation.
Which is surprisingly cool.
And Cardo has just made that considerably more interesting.
Their newly released Mesh Boost update includes something called Public Mesh — essentially proximity chat from Call of Duty.
Instead of having to build a private DMC group first, riders who choose Public Mesh can jump into a shared nearby DMC conversation. Cardo has also increased regular DMC groups to up to 31 riders and added Remote Grouping, where you can organise the group in the app before everyone is physically together.
And importantly, it's not another bloody piece of hardware I need to buy.
For supported second-generation DMC units such as the PACKTALK EDGE, PRO and NEO, it's being delivered as a free firmware update through Cardo Connect.
I'm genuinely looking forward to using Public Mesh.
The idea that you can meet other Cardo-equipped riders, both join Public Mesh and simply start chatting without performing the traditional Bluetooth mating ritual sounds fantastic.
Potentially dangerous, obviously.
Give motorcyclists an open communication channel and sooner or later somebody is going to say something stupid.
Quite possibly me.
Okay. Almost certainly me.
Mangakino
Mangakino gave us another excuse to stop and take photos.
And seriously...
look at those two bikes.
Completely different.
Both brilliant.
The FTR looks like it wants to leave black lines exiting every corner.
The Harley looks like it wants to cruise past afterwards making an unnecessarily satisfying noise.
I'm increasingly convinced there isn't really a wrong motorcycle.
There are just different flavours of stupid.
And I approve of most of them.
Beer is an important part of motorcycle testing
Eventually we made our way back to Hamilton and finished up at Good George.
Because every rigorous motorcycle evaluation requires a peer-reviewed conclusion.
Preferably involving beer.
Or two.
Good George is actually a pretty cool Hamilton story.
It began when a group of friends with backgrounds in hospitality and brewing decided to create their own beer and found themselves a home in the old St George's Church in Frankton.
Which also explains the name.
The historic church became the home of the brewery and Dining Hall, and Good George opened its doors in Frankton in 2012.
A church converted into a brewery.
I mean...
I'm not going to get into theology here.
But that seems like an entirely reasonable reuse of a building to me.
And .. funnily enough, I was there at opening day!
A couple of beers.
Some food.
Motorcycles parked outside.
A bloody good day.
But apparently that wasn't enough motorcycle activity for one week.
Because two days later...
things got serious.
Virgin Pillion
Robyn got on the back.
For the first time.
Ever.
Yep.
Virgin pillion.
😏
Those matching Willie G passenger pegs I installed in the last episode suddenly had an actual purpose beyond looking shiny in the garage.
The mission was Papamoa.
Coffee with Mark and Sonja.
Nothing too dramatic.
Just a decent ride over and back.
Except when somebody has never been on the back of a motorcycle before, it suddenly becomes quite a significant adventure.
Helmet on.
Jacket on.
Cardo connected.
Climb aboard.
Right then.
Here we go.
And she loved it.
Not tolerated it.
Not:
“Well, that wasn't as terrifying as I expected.”
She genuinely enjoyed it.
Immensely.
Which could prove expensive.
Because there are several possible outcomes when you take your partner pillion for the first time.
One is:
“Never again.”
Another is:
“That was okay.”
And then there's the dangerous one:
“That was awesome.”
We appear to have achieved Option Three.
Cardo, again
Having Robyn on Cardo as well made a massive difference.
Rider-to-pillion communication is possibly even more useful than bike-to-bike communication.
Instead of taps on the shoulder...
Or pointing vaguely...
Or attempting to shout through two helmets at 100 km/h...
We could just talk normally.
Brilliant.
She could tell me how she was doing.
I could talk to her.
We could have a conversation while riding to Papamoa.
It makes the whole experience much more shared.
And significantly reduces the chances of interpreting a tap on the shoulder as:
“Look at that!”
when it actually means:
“STOP IMMEDIATELY.”
Here we are on the road, complete with slightly ridiculous motorcycle selfie:
I think the grin pretty much tells the story.
There was, however, one casualty
We got home after a fantastic first ride.
Robyn enjoyed herself.
The Harley behaved.
Nobody fell off.
Everything was excellent.
Almost.
Then we noticed the boot.
More specifically...
what remained attached to the boot.
And what was now attached to my exhaust.
Yep.
Robyn's boot had been resting against the hot exhaust.
The exhaust won.
Quite convincingly.
There is now a lovely melted black deposit decorating my previously shiny chrome.
Excellent.
Nothing says:
“Successful first pillion ride”
quite like having to scrape your passenger's footwear off your motorcycle afterwards.
The good news is Robyn wants to go riding again.
The slightly less good news is that we're apparently going to need to discuss foot positioning.
And possibly heat-resistant boots.
Still...
bike fine.
Robyn fine.
Boot...
less fine.
I'll take that result.
And now I've started messing with the suspension
Of course, taking a pillion also brings another part of the motorcycle into sharper focus.
Suspension.
And, completely predictably, I've already started down that rabbit hole too.
Because apparently I am physically incapable of owning a standard Harley-Davidson for more than a few weeks.
This isn't new.
My last Harley — the Fat Bob — went through exactly the same process.
Back in 2015 I took the FXDF down to Kiwi Suspension Solutions and fitted a set of Öhlins HD022 rear shocks.
And while I was there, Robert Taylor did what Robert does and suggested that perhaps I should do something about the forks as well.
Funny how that happens.
That Fat Bob ended up being upgraded and tuned by Robert and the difference was enormous.
Eleven years later...
here we bloody go again.
My 2015 Fat Bob suspension upgrade
Robert Taylor has been one of the familiar names in New Zealand motorcycle suspension for a very long time.
In other words...
he knows a little more about suspension than I do.
Quite a lot more, actually.
Which is why Robert is involved again.
There are already plans.
There are already parts involved.
There may already have been conversations involving words like spring rates, damping and ride height.
And if history is anything to go by, I'm about to spend money making a perfectly functional motorcycle considerably better.
Again.
But that's another story.
And probably...
the next blog post.
This Harley thing is escalating nicely
So the latest chapter looks something like this:
Ride with Matt.
Back roads.
Whakamaru.
Mangakino.
Cardo.
Beer.
Two days later...
First pillion.
Papamoa.
Coffee.
More Cardo.
One extremely happy Robyn.
One slightly cooked boot.
And now a suspension upgrade.
When I bought this bike I genuinely entertained the idea that I'd just ride it.
No major modifications.
Nothing silly.
Just enjoy the motorcycle.
That was adorable.
The Low Rider is becoming mine one ride, one accessory and one unnecessarily idea at a time.
And now Robyn likes being on the back too!
Oh dear.
This could get expensive.
FUCK YEAH. 🤘
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