Slowly, slowly, I’m getting closer to being farkled out…

At the Iron Butt National Meeting in ’12, I saw a sticker I really liked. It had been created by Bill Thweatt, a long-term IBA rider who had done, I think, 3 Iron Butt Rallies and had completed at least of one of all the big rides the IBA certified. Back then Bill was selling a raft of “My Local Riding Area” stuff: stickers, hats, t-shirts, and more. At that time, my panniers had been painted with satin black and the white local riding area stickers looked really good on them. Or at least I thought they did.

Interestingly, Eliot didn’t look that much different than he had 53 years before. We were at his mother-in-law’s “cottage” on Scraggy Neck Road, North Falmouth, MA. She had paid $12,000 for it in 1947. It had three stories and a lot of land. I’d guess it would go for at least $2-3 million today — maybe even a lot more. I have no idea about real estate values on Buzzard’s Bay. It might be better than it is in Greeley, CO.

Eliot has a 25′ inboard and a 16′ Herreshoff 12 sailboat. We got to use both.

Back to the “My Local Riding Area” stickers — Bill had quit making new stuff but had a few of his old stickers left. After I bought Horse he sent me 5 when I ordered 2 because, he said, they were really old and he thought I might have trouble separating them from the backing. He was right! I also decided that the white ones weren’t going to look very good on a silver pannier. He gave me permission to have Callie Graphics make some as long as I didn’t sell them.

She made them in black and a little smaller than Bill’s. They got here yesterday and it was (barely) warm enough to put them on today. Here one of them is mounted on top of the big pannier lid:

I’m getting closer to having the bike (temporarily) finished. I’ve got a fender extender to put on and I decided after the one time I rode in the dark that I wanted brighter driving lights than the Denali DM 2.0 that Frosty had added (he never rode at night and I do at least several times a year). I vacillated between Denali D2 2.0 and Clearwater Darlas. Both lights have dual intensity, so when you’ve got low beams on the driving light has less brightness. Then when you hit high beam, you get full intensity. The deciding factor was the ability to adjust the brightness on low beam. Clearwater lets you adjust the lower brightness between 10-90%. I’ve got those and hope to get them installed next week.

The last farkle to add (for now) may seem superfluous since Horse has an electronic cruise control. But I’ve had my fancy cruise controls fail on long trips before and get a sore hand because of my arthritis if I have to hold the throttle constantly. I want a back up cruise assistance device. I liked the Throttlemeister that was on Dudley, but they’ve gone out of business. The reviews on Adventure Rider say that the Kaoka throttle lock I bought from Twisted Throttle is a bit easier to use, needing only a little finger to spin it on. I never had too much trouble using the Throttlemeister, but the Kaoka looks and sounds like it will be as good.