Thursday

Yes, Thursday was a decent motorcycle day, and it's about time! I've been slowly getting the Bonneville back together after putting it away last year. The last time I rode it, it left me stranded at St. Mikes and had to be loaded in the truck for an ignominious ride home. At that point I was pretty well tired of working on it and parked it in the corner of the shop. Later, when it was time to drain the fuel out of the tank for winter storage I found that the left petcock wouldn't flow any fuel. Note to self; check tank for rust, check/replace petcock.

I etched the tank last week with some acid I'd used on a couple previous gas tanks, and got a gratifying amount of rust out of it. Re-mounted with new petcocks, added some fresh gas, put the battery in and two kicks later was rewarded with the welcome sound of a happy British vertical twin.

A quick test ride and it seemed to have all the power from both cylinders, brakes still worked but I didn't have a functioning brake light. A new(ish) bulb, saved from one of many old Volvo taillight sockets in the junk drawer, cured that problem. I still didn't have a brake light from the front lever though, just the rear, so I stopped in to Classic Bike to get some advise from them, and learned how to fix the front light switch. Spent some time on that, didn't resolve it, but I know what I need to do now. In any case it passed a Vermont State Inspection, so I'm legal.

On to the TNT (Thursday Night Trailride) which was the first of the season, held at Kelly O's in East Orange. This is a favored loop on the Montshire circuit, with some great hill climbs and stream crossings. Unfortunatly most of the exciting parts were still too wet to ride, but we were able to ride the main loop which is about 2.5 miles. That was enough for me since I haven't done much woods riding, and I managed to get in 5 laps with a couple rest stops in between.

Here's the parking area, Kelly's house is on the hill, we head up after the ride for barbeque, beer and bench racin'.


I truck-pooled with Neil, but I couldn't keep up with him on the trail.