Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Quicksilver Goes to the Shop

Before the big trip west, it was time for Quicksilver to get new rubber and have a few things looked at since it has almost 20,000 km's on the clock. My dealer, J&R Cycle, is about 200 miles south of us in Stayner, Ontario. I decided to leave the bike for a couple of days so, rather than ride down and have Sandy come and get me in the van, we loaded up in the trailer and WHOREd our way down. For those not familiar, this VROC acronym stands for We Haul Our Rides Everywhere and refers to towing a bike on a trailer.

The trip down went fine. We unloaded and gave Rhonda a short list of things that needed doing. I'm having them install the Baker Air Wings since it involves drilling and I am a "measure once cut three times" kind of guy. I did install the Hand Wings (bottom of the page) myself before the KSL trip and they worked great. I also looked at the new Dunlop Elite III tires, which look pretty good and should both grip better in the rain and last longer than the OEM D250's. We left the trailer there and will go down and get everything on Friday or Saturday.

On the way back, sans trailer, I was moving along at a steady clip on four lane roads south of Parry Sound. Our vehicle is an '03 Dodge Caravan. The cruise was set at 120 KPH in a 100 zone, not quite fast enough to catch anyone's attention. Somehow I got involved with two other cars, a Grand Am and a Toyota Corolla and they would gradually pass me and then slow down a touch so I had to pass them again. Finally, as the Toyota was creeping past me once again I put my foot down and hiked the speed up to 140. My plan was to get a mile or so ahead and then go back to my original speed but the SOB's stuck with me. About this time I passed an on ramp that leads down trough a rock cut and I saw a white car sitting hidden on the side of said ramp. I figured it was a cruiser but didn't see anything following for a few miles. Then he was there, passing the traffic and pulling in behind me. The lights came on at the next straight stretch and I pulled over.

Provincial Constable Brown was very polite. He told me he clocked me at 135 in a 100. That's 85 in a 62 for my non-metric readers. I told him I'd seen him on the ramp and couldn't dispute his claim. After going back to the cruiser he returned and told me that 35 over would have cost me $265 (including the ubiquitous surcharge) and four demerit points. Since I had been honest and cooperative, he dropped it to 19 over which will only cost me $67.50 and three demerits. I hadn't attempted to drop any names either, although I really don't know why.

This is my first speeding ticket in 17 years and it ticked me off that I hadn't been paying more attention but I've been driving so fast for so long that I guess I was overdue. Now I need to avoid the second one or it can have an impact on my insurance rates.

Anyway, nothing else happened on the way home which is pretty much the way I like it.

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