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Told ya our weather is crazy here.

Just dont go cheap on the pants. They tend to leak in the worst places and melt to exhausts better then industrial adhesive. It is an investment and you need to like wearing what you bought.

Though I would share my experience modifying a rear spoiler to have a much brighter brake light and also with turn signals incorporated into it. My wife followed me on the freeway when I purchased my bike and said visibility of the bike from behind was severely lacking, which I naturally took as carte blanche to embark on a project to fix that little problem! 🙂 So, picked up a used wing from 'the diamond cut guy', ripped out the old LED and ordered Custom Dynamics TruFlex light bar, along with their Dual Converter and Smart triple play controller. The latter two allow for the dimmer running tail light function and programmable operation of the brake light and turn signals. With the triple play controller, the entire strip, including turn signals operate as the tail/brake light. I have mine programmed to strobe the brake light for a few seconds, then go solid. The brake light is significantly brighter than the stock LED strip. I can't define that in terms of lumens, or anything, but can say that when I first tested it I looked at it too long from a few feet away and had that burned into your eyes thing going on, like when you look directly at the sun. The CD truflex strip is 14.6 inches long and the stock strip is ~11" long. Fortunately the height was identical and was a perfect fit into the existing slot in that direction, but the slot needed to be lengthened ~1.5" on each end and it need a backer plate installed from the backside in order to affix the new LED strip to it. So, step 1 was take a deep breath and grab a dremel with a router bit. My trusty old corded single (high) speed dremel was not the right tool for this job, so with my carte blanche blessing to make the bike more visible I acquired a nice cordless multi-speed dremel to safely accomplish the task. From prior (bad) experiences, I knew it would be difficult to carve the slot out by hand and keep it straight, so I used some 1/8" wide masking tape to extend the slot lines and then proceeded to cut away, staying well short of the tape. From there, I used a series of files to fine tune the slot. It was not 100% perfect, but the imperfections are ultimately not visible in the final product. I then cut a scrap piece of ABS plastic sheet, courtesay of Tap Plastics, to approximately 16" long and 1" wide, used a heat gun to soften it up and shape it to the contour of the backside (inside) of the spoiler behind the slot. With a little cutting and fine tuning it fit perfectly and I permanently fixed it into position using ABS pipe glue. Painted the spoiler to match my '07 blue with the color rite matching paint, drilled the necessary holes for the LED light strip and installed. The dual converter and triple play controller fit nicely behind the battery box and the wiring was simple with the help of the wiring harness adapter from @M61A1MECH. In hindsight, I should have taken more pictures along the way....but here is the finished product. Took it out for first ride today and watched cars behind me as I braked. Almost without fail, they all seemed to give me more room when I braked. The brake strobe effect really is attention grabbing. IMG_1208.MOV

I feel I must apologize. I had been making plans to fly down to Houston, visit friends and rent a bike to go riding around on. I had no idea that God would utterly smoke all you Texans in order to stop me. Sorry.

Who besides me and @Squidleycan ride in 63* weather and park beside last week’s snow bank? Gotta love it.

Also handy to keep on hand but get a quality one like https://no.co/gb40 Tool dealers like Snapon and Mac also sell quality ones It also is handy for recharging any USB device and the unit itself can be recharged off any USB power supply. I also holds charge for about a year. I have boosted my 5.7 v8 with it so a Motorcycle is a breeze some are junk like the Eveready which is the first one I had.

Looks like we oughta have our own section here. I started riding in 1969, rode til shortly after our first daughter was born in 1981, then sold the bike I had then (late '70s Honda 750 Super Sport). We re-joined the "Never Say Never" riding community again in 2017 when we found our present ride...a very-well cared for, 1 owner 2000 RSV. Funny how the years, the aches and the worries went away.

10 degrees here in Houston last Tuesday and 78 today, I feel ya.

@circa1968 Glad you are back riding. Things will go back to normal and we should all be able to go anywhere and whenever. I also have the same color scheme. I have an '07 RSV. Hopefully next month will be better than this month in terms of weather. Ride Safe.

This story sounds so on track with me. I also took an 18 yr. hiatus from riding. Not all from family things but I just lost interest. In late 04 the itch got under my skin and in May of 05 I bought my brothers 03 Venture and put 96,000 miles on it so far.

I had my MC license when I was 15, I had been riding since I was ~6 and that was 40 years ago. We were also in a rural area so a lot less traffic. I didn't let my sons get their license because we had moved to Houston. Only my youngest is even considering it now because they have seen the nutty driving that happens every minute of every day here. People trying to drive 10 - 20 mph faster than everyone else, weaving and bobbing their way through traffic. Then you have those that are driving 10 - 15 mph lower than the speed limit. These 2 groups are just looking to die on the roads and take someone with them.