Milddogs Ride Again!

Yup, it happened. But how did it happen? Where did they go? What did they ride?

Hasn’t been much of a riding year for me. I’ve only put about 2000 km on the Super Tenere. Mostly because I was commuting with another person to work for the summer. Weather didn’t help motivate us to plan any weekend adventures. I’ve seen Dendog a bunch this summer, but we usually travel with our families and that means: No motorcycle trips!

But that all changed Sept 19, 2014. The culminating weekend of the 2.5 year preparations and celebrations for my birthday. The preparations began in earnest when I purchased my Super Tenere with the goal of riding to Alaska.

A few weeks ago I read this post on the Super Tenere Forums: Wife buys dude a Grom. I thought, “hey, that’s really cool”. I had been watching Honda Grom Youtube videos during the rainy summer and thought, “hey, that’s really cool”. A little bike to fart around on. Cool. I had mentioned them to my son and wife and Dendog.

On Sept 18th, Dendog, Mrs. Dendog and our mommy arrived at my house in my dad’s truck. With a Honda Grom in the bed of the truck! It was for me! My wife had purchased a Grom for me! Dendog did the procuring at Hully Gully in London, ON.

Friday Morning, Dendog and I unloaded it, laughed at the tiny battery, put some gas in it and fired it up. We rode up and down the street a bit, adjusted the clutch and then suited up for the maiden ride. Dendog rode the Super Tenere for the first time and I rode the Grom. It was a blast. Had to stop for fuel and filled it up with $4.60 of gas. Dudes at the gas station were staring. I was in my full gear, riding this tiny bike and taking with Dendog on the intercoms while I fueled up. He was out of sight so it probably looked like I was talking to myself. A bit like the old days of Bluetooth headsets.

We did about 50 km around the back roads. Up hills it was a struggle to maintain speed. The little Grom isn’t broken in yet. Can’t see anything out of the mirrors. One of the neat features is that with a full face helmet, you can’t see the bike at all as you are riding.

I have to think about what mods I am going to do. Would be nice to get a few more km/h to make the commute to work viable (almost all 80 km/h roads). Most popular performance mods seem to be
-taking out the restricting tube in the air intake (I already did this)
-new exhaust
-Power Commander
-big bore kit (any size up to 181 CC)

I was joking with my wife that I could spend $400 and get an exhaust system that cuts the bikes weight by 5 lbs. Or, for free, I could lose 5 lbs 🙂

Now that I have two bikes again, Dendog and I can ride when he is in town. Next summer we hope to do the east coast and finish the provinces. I’ll take the Tenere 🙂

I think I need racing leathers to go with the Grom!

We went out for dinner Friday night. We went to Kelsey’s. It wasn’t great, but it was better than Smitty’s!

Peace out!

Some pictures: