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We were talking about deer at our sales meeting in Wisconsin last week. Our outside sales rep that works out of Kansas City has been with the company for about 25 years. He has hit 8 deer during that time. I've only hit one and it was about 3 years ago in my personal vehicle about 6 miles from home.

Too loud for me as a touring bike but sounds great and would be fun to run around on.

I too have had both Dish and DirectTV. A couple of years ago, Armstrong Cable entered this area and strung all new fiber optics. I had Dish for TV and Frontier had taken over Verizon which I had for my DSL service. My experience with Frontier was terrible. Though everything was supposed to be the same, my Internet service got worse and worse. I dropped Dish and Frontier and Armstrong installed their fiber optics for TV and Internet. It has probably been the best I'ver ever had. I still have a satellite on the guest house. Had DirectTV there and was never pleased with it. Equipment, on screen menus, none of it was as good as Dish. Had it taken out and Dish installed there and have never looked back. For our uses, Dish was much better than DirectTV. Yes, you can lose your signal if there is a really bad storm but it never happened often. I can't say that I've ever had a weather related outage with Armstrong cable...in fact...I've had no outages at all in almost 3 years now. I don't think that weather affects cable as much as it does satellite TV. Though I'm sure that they get their signal from a dish also, it is likely a much larger dish and is not affected nearly as quickly as the small dishes.

My Bushtec has the full carpeted interior and it is indeed installed with what looks like the spray on adhesive. You can get it at most any home improvement store. Sorry, it came from the factory that way so I have no useful tips on actually doing the job.

I love it. Looking forward to seeing more pictures when it is completed.

First I've heard of it but just something to be aware of. There was a news report just this week about one of those e-cigs exploding and causing severe injury to the man using it. Apparently the lithium batter is what exploded. He was in intensive care due to burns on his face, in his mouth and his throat.

Thanks for the replies folks. First, I was wrong about it being a 650. He came by last night and corrected me. It is a GS550. It belongs to one of his co-workers and has been a daily rider all summer. His friend rides it to work almost every day. It has 17,000 miles on it at this time. I know that if it needs repairs that a shop would charge him a fortune but if it does need anything, I'm sure it's nothing that I couldn't handle. He has at least agreed to store it here through the winter so I can check it out closely and take care of any issues that I find. He can buy it for $700.00 so I think it will be OK. Heck, if he were to end up giving it away later, most of us have lost more than that just on depreciation on vehicles. He has also agreed to take the motorcycle safety course so I feel good about that.

I use a full can for a tank of gas about twice a year.

My son, Dylan, is looking at buying his first bike. I actually don't want him to have one but he is 22 and makes his own decisions now. I know it's hypocritical of me to not want him to ride when I'm been riding all my life. So, one of his co workers has an older, '78 or '79, Suzuki 650GS that he has offered him for what I think is a decent price. It looks like it would make a good starter bike but I know nothing about these old Suzukis. Have any of you ever owned one of them? Any major issues such as transmission problem and etc? He told me that the fork seals are seeping a very little but otherwise, it seems to be in good shape. I haven't actually looked at it personally. Fork seals will be an easy enough fix.

Here is a tech article on changing the links to RAISE the rear of the bike. Should be the same except the links you add will be a different length. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?492-Leveling-Links-Raising-the-Rear-of-the-RSV

Rick, It could be a scam but not necessarily. It happens if somebody doesn't have a PayPal account or has one but doesn't have enough money in it and has to transfer money from their bank account. It even happens here if somebody uses PayPal to pay for their membership but doesn't have a PayPal account. If they use and electronic check through PayPal, there is a hold put on the funds until it clears. I get an email saying that I have received a payment but tells warns me that I should not ship anything until the funds clear.

I don't think that this is going to end well.

It's a bit pricy but this is my trailer of choice. I once had one very similar and have kicked myself many times for selling it. It is similar to the ground loading "Razor" trailer but this one is left connected to the vehicle to lower it. They make several versions. Everything from a trike model to a single bike model. There was another one that was very similar but a lot cheaper but I can no longer find it anywhere. http://www.baxleycompanies.com/Trailers.html

I would be more than happy to do that. It will have to be a weekend though because I travel a lot during the week. Just let me know when you want to do it.

That looks brand new Jonas. Very nice and I like the color. They never offered it with that engine here. I had an older model many years ago, a '97 I think, it had the 4.0 straight six. We never had any problems at all with it.

I have one that you can borrow. I live in Oberlin, OH. PM me your address and I'll put it in the mail on Monday. Out of town today.

LOL...there better be.

I doubt that will be a problem. She loves her Nissan Murano. Besides, the Murano gets MUCH better gas mileage.

I'll check that out when I get home Eck. Dang PUC...now you've ruined it. I was thinking that would be a good concealed carry hiding place.

Done.

LOL...hasn't broke down as far as I know. I drove 4 1/2 hours early Monday morning to look at and then buy it. Eileen went with me. After I bought it, I drove it as far as Toledo, OH and she followed me in my company car. I had to stay in Toledo to see some customers and then a trade show that doesn't end until Saturday evening. So, she took the Avalanche home from there and I haven't seen it since then. She said it drove great on the way home though. Yes BigLenny, it is exceptionally clean for a 2002 model.

I'm not ignoring this thread folks but haven't had tie to look into it. Long days right now at a trade show. I will look into this but it will probably be next week. I actually have a software update to do here that I've been putting off. Just bug fixes and etc. Maybe that will take care of it. Will get it done soon.

Anyway, we bought it and it was even better than I expected. Very well maintained. Runs and drives great.

Carl, I took it down some brutal roads and just did almost 200 miles on some absolutely horrible roads. I won't say that it rides anywhere near as good as my half ton did but it wasn't terrible. How often will I pull something that heavy? We will pull the boat often enough and sometimes it is a long trip. Last summer we pulled it to Lake Cumberland, KY and once you get in the hills, the 1/2 struggled and actually got terrible mileage with that load behind it. I think the half ton was rated to pull about 7700 lbs. and I was pulling between 8500 and 9000. So...it absolutely struggled. I am willing to put up with a bit rougher ride to have something that is built to pull the weight that I put behind it.

I don't know if it's any better than the 6.0 but certainly can't be much worse. The 6.0 is a good engine but like the 8.1, not very good on gas. They were only offer in the 3/4 ton Avalanches and it was actually the ONLY engine offered in the 3/4 ton. Also, you are right about the ride of the standard Avalanche, my '07 model rode like a dream. This one doesn't ride as well however. It has heavy leaf springs on the rear and not the coil over suspension like the 1/2 tons. BUT...if you need to pull a load, this is the ticket.