Gophers and Cheese

One of the new Polaris Slingshots was at First Thursday at Dulono's Pizza earlier this month.  I wouldn't mind taking one for a test ride.  It looks like a blast. Either by coincidence (or perhaps by design), a Morgan was also there.  Quite a contrast to the Slingshot. A wide variety of bikes is up next.

I rode my Sportster to Moto Mania and oddly didn't take a bunch of photos of it.  I took a lot of photos of other people's bikes but not mine.  Weird. Here's Dustin's Sporty: Kevin got his new tank mounted up: Sweet Tooth Leather (the air cleaner is particularly awesome): Another Sporty with no mufflers: Brett's "The Gypsy": ...and the honorary Sportster of the night was Dan's Royal Enfield.  He's been modifying it a lot lately and just put a Sportster tank on it.  I like it. Speaking of Dan, he recently pointed out that most photos on my blog don't have people in them.  It's true.  I typically go out of my way to put the focus completely on the motorcycles featured in each photograph.  I try to limit distractions in each photo and will occasionally go so far as to edit out people and things that happen get caught in the frame such as a random handlebar from a neighboring bike or a stray arm or leg of so...

Earlier this month I attended First Thursday at Dulono's Pizza and Moto Mania at the VFW .  I'll start with Moto Mania... As usual, an interesting array of local choppers and garage-built machines showed up. Eric's shovel looked awesome: ...as did Charlie's. Ed's bike just towers over all the others: Joe's panhead looked great as always: It might come as a surprise, but the Uptown VFW has one of the finer selections of Coors and "Not Coors" beers in Minneapolis. Sportsters are up next!

Sunday night, I posted this photo on Instagram and tagged Biltwell in it because I was wearing their helmet and bubble shield (if you look closely, their handlebars and gloves are in the bubble shield reflection too).  It's not the first time I have tagged them in a photo, but nothing has ever happened. Well, Monday morning Biltwell re-posted my photo on their Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts and my Instagram feed proceeded to blow up with new likes, comments, and new followers, which was awesome.  It was simply incredible to watch the "Like" count rise on their pages to over 2,500 combined.  It certainly helps that Biltwell has about 45,000 followers on Instagram. I have been a fan of Biltwell and their products for years.  I have had their Clubman bars on my Sportster since 2010 and have been wearing their Moto Gloves nearly as long (I actually have a backup pair new in the package, just in case).  I put their Sanderson pegs on my bike in ...

Yes, more GoPro footage.  I'm like a little kid with a new toy.  This video was taken yesterday as I headed out to Bay City, WI to watch some of the AMA Hillclimb Grand Nationals .  These are two tunnels on I-94 in Minneapolis.  The first is the Lowry Hill Tunnel but I don't know the other's name. Like the t-shirt?  Buy one .

I'm having fun trying out my new GoPro camera and messing around with the editing software. I have a lot of to learn but here are two short videos I made while riding to and from the Chariots of the Gods show yesterday.

After the Ride for Larry Pierce last weekend, I concluded that riding one-handed and trying to take photos with my old Canon Elph just wasn't cutting it.  I've been thinking about buying a GoPro camera for a while and finally decided to get one along with a few accessories.  The thing is incredibly small and light. I took my first ride with the GoPro last night around sunset.  Half the time I had it strapped to my chest and half the time it was mounted to my bars facing me.  I'm really impressed with the camera.  The free app and free editing software they offer are quite good too.  However, my computer is showing its age as editing (even viewing) 1080p, 60fps video is quite challenging for it.  Regardless, I dealt with it and made it work. I started a Gophers and Cheese YouTube channel where I'll be posting videos and I posted 2 already: While my aging computer might struggle to play the video full screen and in high quality, I wat...

The Ride for Larry Pierce ended at Jordan's brother Jesse's farm.  Group photos were taken with a flag to honor Larry. Here are two group photos posted to Instagram (@warizard and @wolvesnwhiskey).  I'm sure there are more floating around. The property was really cool.  Apparently, they're in the process of fixing it up and they rent it out for weddings. There was a clearing near the water where people could camp and there were a few rounds of slow races. The place was a nice backdrop for photos and I wish I had my good camera with me.  The iPhone camera is good but not great. Here's Jordan's panhead "Frost Buzzard".  He had a lot of trouble starting it and it usually had to be bump started which probably wasn't fun for Jordan, but it was entertaining to watch since he was quite good at it. Since I can't pack much gear on my Sportster (the downside of no back seat and no sissy bar), I opted not ...