Kevin's motorbike.......

Linda Hughes.

Yr fthfl srvnt on Kevin’s BigDog two winters ago.

Yesterday afternoon (Saturday, May 26, 2007), as I was putting away the zero-turn, I’m pretty sure Debbie’s Kevin blasted by on his custom motorbike.
Debbie Bell is the only child from my wife’s brother’s first marriage.
She was born April 1, 1969, and is my first niece; born even before JillZ (May 21, 1970).
That makes her 38. She married Kevin in March of 1994 shortly after my stroke.
Kevin is much older than her; born in 1960, which makes him Sue’s age, but slightly older. That makes him 47; almost nine years older than Debbie. (His full-name is of course “Kevin Bell.”)
Together they have a daughter, Christina, but something is wrong. She’s almost 14, but looks only seven or eight. She apparently has to have special-education courses — perhaps autism (but that ain’t nuthin’; look at J-Mac).
Together they all live with Carol, who goes by the name Carol Button, my wife’s brother’s first wife. Linda’s brother has been married at least four times — I’ve lost count.
How they can all live in the same house I’ll never know.
Their house is the tiny homestead where Carol grew up — in a western Rochester suburb.
We can’t imagine living with one’s parents — or mother (in this case).
They even got married in that house.
-So as I was putting away the zero-turn, I heard an almighty roar coming up the hill.
I turned to look, and first a noisy GeezerGlide blatted by, then Kevin, on his monstrously stretched custom, arm upraised in salute.
He tootled the bike’s puny horn, which would never pass muster with my all-knowing brother, and waved at me as he passed.
It appeared to be another $50,000 Rochester-Thunder custom-bike. Two years ago he had another $50,000 custom-bike, a Big Dog.
It had a massive Harley V-twin, hogged out to 114 cubic inches, which he claimed made 152 horsepower — I doubt it; to get that reading it would have to hold together at 8,000+ rpm. Too much weight flinging around — pistons the size of paint-buckets.
It had little muffling — each piston-stroke shook the ground. “Nice!” Kevin exclaimed, as he lit the motor, and then goosed it.
I straddled it and wondered how it ever turned. The front-fork was stretched at least three feet, and angled low to the ground.
The most recent engineering on sport-bikes is to get the front-fork near vertical, so that the motorbike is extremely responsive and will turn on a dime.
Trouble is, the closer to vertical a front-fork gets, the more likely it is to shake its head in the middle of a turn — a wonderful thing to have happen in mid-turn.
My old Ducati (a 1980 900 SuperSport) had conservative geometry; lots of trail. Made it more stable at speed (like 135 mph, which I never did), but made it turn like a Mack truck.
But it wasn’t anything like Kevin’s bike.
“How do you ever turn this thing? It’s wheelbase is at least seven feet.”
“Rides great! Smooooth.....” Kevin said.
Kevin parted with the Big Dog soon after I saw it; mainly because it would lock in second-gear.
Something about the custom tranny; which was special to allow right-hand drive (drive belt on the right side — big Harleys are usually on the left).
He’d start out in first, shift into second; and there it stayed. Couldn’t upshift or downshift. Wound to the moon on the road at 60 mph in second gear, and then try to get it into the garage still in second.
50,000 smackaroos. Around-and-around they went. Mechanics at Rochester-Thunder tried to fix it, but it kept hanging up.
He finally gave up in exasperation; and bought another Rochester-Thunder custom motorbike to replace it.
We heard all about that motorbike last Christmas; it was number-three — Big Dog was number-two.
“This bike is more old-school” — I guess that means a springer front-end, or maybe a girder.
But still a mightily stretched, laid-back front-end, with an 89 bazilyun foot wheelbase.
Actually I wish he’d stopped — I’d like to see what he had.
Linda suggests he’s like a little boy that never grew up — all wild enthusiasms untempered by experience or knowledge.
No doubt the salesman at Rochester-Thunder smiled as he walked out. (“Slap another steak on the grille, Martha.”)

“The zero-turn” is our Husqvarna zero-turn riding lawnmower. (We keep it in a shed.)

“JillZ” is my sister-in-Floridy’s only daughter, Jill Hinderer; by my sister’s first marriage. JillZ is married and divorced, and has a son by that marriage.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

“Sue” is my brother-in-Delaware’s wife.

“Linda” is my wife.

RE: “but that ain’t nuthin’; look at J-Mac” refers to my family’s opinion of autism. J-Mac had autism, and was allowed to make a few successful baskets for his high-school basketball team, where he had been a student team-helper. He became known nationwide for that; even got to meet the president.

“GeezerGlide” refers to a Harley-Davidson ElectraGlide. My brother-in-Boston has one, and loudly proclaims that it’s vastly superior. It’s a very laid-back cruiser-bike, and he’s 50; so we call it the “GeezerGlide.”

RE: “Bike’s puny horn.....” I once was riding motorbike with my brother-from-Boston, and my motorbike needed gas. I tried to get his attention by blowing the horn (he was leading, of course), and failed, supposedly because of my puny horn — which couldn’t overcome his blasting the surrounding countryside with Waylon Jennings.

“Tranny” is transmission.

RE: “springer front-end, or maybe a girder......” Most motorcycles nowadays have telescopic front-forks: the front-fork assemblies have the springing and damping inside. Eons ago, some motorbikes had outside springing, with the front-wheel mounted in an articulated girder.