March 5: On the Road Again

What a treat! After almost a year hiatus, it was great to ride again with my good friend Grant Myers. We didn’t get too much time on the road as we spent most of the day getting luggage set up on my new bike and picking his bike up from the shop. But it was wonderful to get both of our bikes ready for more adventure in the future.

Summer is fast approaching and I am so very excited about getting my bike ready for it’s trip to Iceland and Norway. After buying the bike a month ago and adding some safety features and wiring components, it was time to move on to the luggage.

Adding luggage to the adventure bike turned out to be an entirely different process than putting luggage on the Harley. With my big baby, I just ordered the luggage from Harley, had the service department install it, and voila! The bike was ready to go cross country.

When I received my large box of soft luggage for the baby brother, I opened the container and was immediately struck by how many pieces of various sizes and shapes of materials, nuts, bolts, and tubes were included. It was almost like bringing a box home from IKEA, only to find that the beautiful furniture piece in the store was really hundreds of little pieces of wood in a box. To be honest, my first thought upon seeing the assortment of luggage pieces was “Oh my goodness!” My second thought was “Grant” – after all, who else would be crazy enough to come over and help me with such a gargantuan task?

After spending a good part of last weekend and much of this weekend watching YouTube videos, wrestling with Allen wrenches, nuts, and bolts, pouring over written directions, and sending emails to the luggage company asking for clarification we have the luggage pretty much ready to go. It was the least I could do to make a home cooked meal for Grant and take him to my favorite pizza place. This summer’s trip is already shaping up to be quite an adventure and I haven’t even left for Iceland yet.