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Freebird

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Everything posted by Freebird

  1. Whatever the case about the bike itself, I think that the letter was very well done.
  2. I have my doubts also but hope I'm wrong. Would love to see them come out with a new one.
  3. I can honestly say that I have. It was on a truck, not a motorcycle. A late 60's Ford truck. The truck was very hard to start. You would have to crank it for a while, let it sit for a while, then crank it again and then it would start and run perfect. Turned out that the filter was full of trash. Cranking on it I suppose softened up whatever it was plugged with and then it would run fine until you turned it off and it apparently harder again or something. Changed the filter and never had another issue.
  4. Thought some of you might find this interesting. It is our visitor stats from September. 44,162 The total number of visits to your site this month TOP COUNTRY 35,934 Visits United States 6,111 Visits Canada 336 Visits United Kingdom 308 Visits Australia 118 Visits France
  5. I agree. That looks nice.
  6. There are no rules about pictures having to be Venture related. The sizing requirements are the same for all and as long as they are PG rated, that is about the only rule.
  7. LOL....to be honest...when I look in the mirror, I don't see that much difference. I have noticed that my pants are too big in the waist now but only a couple inches so far. I had gone to a 36 waist to be comfortable. Now a 34 waist is not tight at all.
  8. Those of you who have not owned a Honda Shadow likely don't know about this issue. I had a '95 I think and I loved the bike but the battery was a very poor design They designed it especially to fit into an odd shaped area so it was not a rectangular battery. It was narrow/stepped down on the bottom. They had a tendency to boil the acid in the narrow section of the battery and if you weren't observant, would spew battery acid and corrode the frame in that area. Great bike but very poor battery design. Here is a picture of the one I had taken in front of one of my houses in Dallas. Also a picture of the battery it took.
  9. Somebody the other day was telling me to try spaghetti squash in place of pasta. They said that it looks pretty much like regular spaghetti once cooked. Very neutral taste and works well as a substitute. Eileen already uses ground turkey for all the sauces that she makes so that may be a good option. Haven't tried it yet and understand that the texture is the only thing that you have to get used to.
  10. I agree. That is why I said, I was NOT changing my diet in an effort to lose weight. It is just a result of the change that I made to get my blood sugar down a bit. I need to buy a tester because I don't even know what the result has been. I just know that I'm losing weight...and I'm HUNGRY.
  11. I installed them long ago. I think there is very little left for Yammer Dan to do to that bike.
  12. I've seen a few posts here lately about there still being some brand new RSVs on dealer floors. It led me to think about, why would I buy or not buy a new RSV. I was just wondering how you all feel about it. For me, the decision has very little to do with the bike itself. In my opinion, the RSV is still one of the best bikes and best bike values on the market today. Yes, Yamaha should have made some small incremental changes over the years but basically, it is a solid platform with a great engine and is still one of the most comfortable bikes I ever owned. Yamaha continuing to install a cassette deck on the bike until the very end is just plain stupid in my opinion. They could have very easily done away with it and substituted an MP3 or just an MP3 Interface. Even a CD player would have been an improvement though not a lot better. They could have just removed the cassette, run the auxiliary port to the dash the way many of us did and just put some gauges where the cassette was...again...as many of us did. A very small amount of engineering and production change to correct the sometimes obsessive clutch basket chirp and the gear whine would have been a great move. It would not have taken much to address that issue. Carbs? OK....to most people, not that big a deal. I was actually just fine with the carbs even though there are few vehicles on the road today that still use them. Some people actually prefer them over fuel injection because we can work on and repair them. There are some things that I like batter about the fuel injection on my Road Glide but it's honestly not that big a deal to me and I was fine with the carbs also. The bottom line is that the RSV was and still is a great bike. I love my Road Glide but there are a couple of things that I actually liked better about the RSV and the main thing is the heat. Make no mistake about it. The Harley runs HOT. If you get stuck in slow moving traffic you are going to suffer and your passenger is going to suffer even worse. On a very hot day, you will even notice some excessive heat when running a highway speeds. There are some things you can do to help, remove the catalytic convertor from the head pipe, replace the head pipe with a ceramic coated aftermarket unit, etc.....but even then....it is HOT. Not way around it. Not bad for the rider when you are running down the highway with your feet out on the highway pegs but the passenger will still suffer some. With that one thing aside though, and it is a big one, there is very little that I don't like about the Glide. That being said, what if I didn't like the Glide and decided to buy something else. Would I buy a new left over RSV? With the recent posts about them being available it just caused me to wonder why people would. Big Tom posted about a brand new one on the floor at Pioneer for $14,000.00. My friends, that is a BARGAIN. That is just about what I paid for my 1999 when I bought it in April of 1999. So why would anybody not jump on that deal? Well after giving this some though, I can only give you my main reason for letting it pass if I were even in the market. Accessories. That is it. I can live with the carbs, I can remove the cassette and add gauges, I can pretty much deal with the whine if it is not very excessive. Personalizing a new RSV would be a major pain though. One are where Yamaha has always been a complete failure is the availability of accessories. I don't think there has ever been a time since the RSV was introduced in 1999 that the accessories have truly been readily available. I can remember many of you posting in the old days about trying to order a rack or bag rails or this or that and being told that there was a 6 month wait. Why? Because they were selling so fast and furious? I don't think so. I think that Yamaha just put it out there and then sat back and waited to see how much demand there was before actually manufacturing them. Then after that short time when there were a few items available, many were discontinued even while the bike was still being sold. It is inexcusable that a company would market and sell a bike while at the same time, discontinuing the accessories that many people would want. I don't think that they even show a trunk rack available any longer. Hopnel stopped making the bibs long ago. Khromewerks no longer shows mufflers available. Forget ordering any carb covers, twinky covers and many other things from Yamaha. That means that you buy a brand new motorcycle and find yourself scouring Ebay to make that bike your own. Aside from a handful of local members here who offer some nice accessories, you are pretty much out of luck. I think about the bike that I sold to Yammer Dan and then think about how long it would take me to accessories a new RSV the way that I had that one done and I realize that it is NOT something that I would even want to try. There are many things on his bike that would be very difficult and maybe impossible to find again. Not to mention what it would cost me to do so. So that is why I would not buy a new RSV. I think that Yamaha could and should learn a LOT from Harley, Indian, Victory and others about marketing. They are capable of building a fantastic machine but fall way short in everything after that. What are your thoughts?
  13. Well here's the thing. Many of you know that due to a bout with Cancer about 5 1/2 years ago, I lost the site in my right eye. Things are going fine and the cancer appears to be under control so that's not the issue. A couple of months ago while I was in Columbus, OH on a business trip, I woke up one morning and was having a difficult time focusing. Computer text was blurry and etc. Got up and headed out to see some customers and found that my distant vision was blurry also. Couldn't hardly read street signs and etc. Being blind in one eye already, it was a bit scary. So when I got back home I went to see my eye doctor. I had just gotten new glasses about 2 months before and my prescription was almost the same as the year old glasses that I was wearing. This time though, my vision had changed a good bit. Especially my distant vision. So again I got new glasses but they didn't find anything wrong. A physical a couple of months early indicated that my blood sugar was getting a bit high. I was not diabetic but he called me "pre-diabetic" and told me to change my diet or I was looking at diabetes in the future. Based upon that, my eye doctor told me that my blood sugar was likely causing my vision problem. Apparently high sugar causes the pressure in the eye to change and distort the eye and can cause vision problems. So, that scared me enough that I finally decided OK....time to look at my diet. Now you have to remember, though I live in Ohio now, I was born and raised in Texas and was raised on biscuits and gravy, fried chicken, lots of beef and etc. Since marrying Eileen almost 20 years ago my diet has certainly improved as she absolutely does NOT fry anything. Still though, I travel extensively and eat out at least 4 days a week and have taken full advantage of it. A couple of 20oz. Ribeyes per week is not unusual and the other nights are typically either BBQ, Mexican food or whatever else I am in the mood for. Well I'm 59 years old now and changing eating habits at this age is not easy. I'm trying though. For about the past 6 weeks I've completely changed my diet. It has been perfect except for two little things. I HATE it and I'm ALWAYS hungry. Now I'm fortunate that I've not had to be on blood pressure medicine. For a few years I've taken a very low dosage Cholesterol drug because my good cholesterol is too low but otherwise, I've been pretty lucky. So I changed my diet. Instead of going out to eat every night, I go to the grocery store and buy food (if you want to call it that) and take it to my hotel to eat. Usually a bag of salad mix and some smoked salmon or tuna to top it with. Instead of eating the hotel buffet scrambled eggs and bacon, sausage or ham that they have, I eat a small bowl of raisin bran with 1% milk and MAYBE a small thing of low fat yogurt. I have never been one to eat lunch so that gets me by until my friggin salad at night. I still usually allow myself to go out one night per week and treat myself. Even then though, instead of the 20oz bone in Ribeye, I will have maybe an 8oz Sirloin. Instead of blue cheese dressing with the salad, I have a vinaigrette or something like that. Now like most folks at my age, I could stand to lose a few pounds. I never thought I was obese but knew that it wouldn't hurt to lose a bit. Just wasn't that important to me though. I am about 6'2" or slightly taller and when I started this, I was bumping the 220 lb. mark. Now after about 6 weeks of this new way of eating, I'm down to, as of this morning, 200 lbs. So even though I didn't change my diet to lose weight, I have lost 20 lbs. in 6 weeks. To be honest, I think that those height/weights charts are crazy. According to most of them, I am still overweight but I honestly don't want to lose much more weight. So now I have to figure out how to eat to slow down the weight loss while still maintaining a low carb diet to control my sugar. In addition to all of this. I MISS my food. I LOVE food. I LOVE food that I don't need to eat....and....I'M HUNGRY. ALWAYS HUNGRY! Maybe doing all of this well help me to live longer.....but do I want to? hmmmmmmm.......
  14. This was discussed a while back. The problem is with Internet Explorer. There is a bug in Internet Explorer that prevents it from loading the images correctly. There are actually many bugs in Internet Explorer and that is why I stopped using it years ago. I think that if you try Firefox, Chrome, Safari or most any other browser that the problem will go away.
  15. I have no idea. Can you not see where either end goes?
  16. I love those old Chevy trucks. I think mine was a '66 if I remember right. It was completely restored also. Wish I had never sold it.
  17. WOW....that would be fantastic Eddie. Heck...I would even buy lunch.
  18. She has been often compared to Joplin. Some think that she is ever better. I have a list on my MP3 that I use when riding...among other it includes Susan Tedeshci, Beth Hart, Bob Seger. Turn it up and hit the twists....life is good.
  19. Did you ever check out Beth Hart. Along with Susan, one of my favorites.
  20. If that is what you want to do, then do it. Sooner better than later. Follow your heart and establish a career that makes you happy. Too many people stay in jobs that offer the no fulfillment.
  21. Many of us are convinced that some of the aftermarket shields are actually superior to the OEM. Several good ones to choose from. F4 is great, refresh the page a few times and you'll see their banner show up. Baggershield is also popular here as it can be adjusted to a high and low position, their banner should also show up.
  22. CRAP...was online doing an advance purchase on the tickets through my CitiCard advance ticket program. December 4th is the date. Just before hitting the submit button, I had a little voice inside telling me to check that date. Sure enough, I will be in Minnesota that entire week for our annual sales meeting. NO WAY to get out of that one. Just looked and they are also going to be in Columbus, OH. That's only a couple hours way. Date to be announced. Hopefully that one will work out.
  23. We don't now but used to have an Umbrella Cockatoo and a Quaker. We were just talking last week about maybe getting another one. Our pets at this time consist of a Sheltie and a 16 year old cat that we've had since he was 5 weeks old. Of course I posted last week about having to put our Annie down. Heartbreaking still.
  24. Another one that I like and I came across about the same time as Susan is Beth Hart. Like her music also. I was given CDs by both of these ladies about 15 or 16 years ago by a friend in Dallas. Been listening to them ever since.
  25. I've been listening to Susan Tedeschi for years. Have at least two or three of her CDs. Really enjoy her music.
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