Teejay Riedl - Motorcycles

Life is decidedly strange sometimes.

In June of 2005, I accepted an offer for a new job, which would entail commuting from Fairfax VA to Germantown MD daily – a round-trip of about 85 miles.

Juli didn’t want me to accept the position, just because of the commute – she knows how cranky I can get when stuck in traffic. Still, the job looked like a lot of fun, so I figured “what the hell”.

Juli and I got to talking about my taking the trip to work on the Marauder, and the difference I could expect between my previous 20-mile round trip and the new job’s. Both of us agreed that a 10-mile trip in winter, or rain, was vastly different than a 40+ mile ride. We then got talking about the Harley Electra Glide CVO that was my dream bike… but that $30K price tag was still a pretty huge hurdle.

The week before I started the job, we took a couple of days to help my buddy and his wife, Mike and Sandy Masquith, move from Herndon to Berryville. While at their new house, Sandy mentioned she had just bought her new Victory Arlen Ness Kingpin – a gorgeous bike. These things are pricey, make no mistake.

In the middle of my first week at the new job (commuting by car), the July 7th terror bombings occurred in London.

At home that evening, Juli and I were talking about the state of the world, and the lessening chances that either of us would ever die of old age, because Radical Islam is going to get us first. Conversation drifted to the topic of things we still want to do before we are killed by these yahoos that George Fucking Weasel Bush cannot [will not] protect us against… and Juli asked - almost out of the blue – “Is that Harley you were looking at the perfect bike”?

“Pretty damn near”, I replied.

“Then you better get one, before it’s too late,” she said. In all honesty, I don’t know whether she meant “too late” as in ‘before the model year closes and they change the spec’, or as in ‘before the Radical Islamic Yahoos get you’.

Before plunking Thirty Large on a bike, however, I wanted to perform a bit of Due Diligence.

As a more experienced rider than when I began in 2002, I had a much easier selection process and criteria list than I did when I bought Miss M. Nothing educates a consumer like experience with the product, after all.

This time, I wanted the Ultimate Ride. I wanted:
1. A bike with full weather protection, so if I got caught in the rain during my commute, I’d at least have some protection against the rain-blast at speed: not only a windshield, but lowers and leg-guards, too.
2. A stereo system, for God’s sake. Although I’ve had fun with the BubbaTone project, it’s been a damn pain in my ass (and wallet).
3. Cargo capacity. Waterproof, this time.
4. Aesthetics.
5. Water cooling, on account of the damn Virginia Roads.

There were really only three serious contenders, this time around: the Gold Wing, the Road Glide, and the Electra Glide.

So, I went and re-sat the Honda Gold Wing, in the spirit of making an imminent purchase. To my dismay, I realized that my size-twelves were prone to foul on the engine casing. Not the manufacturer’s fault… my own anatomy working against me.

I went and re-sat the Road Glide, and it was about right. I sat on the Electra Glide, and it was about right. In the case of the Harleys, the V-Twin was working to my advantage, in that the engine didn’t protrude from the sides of the frame, leaving lots of leg room. The lack of water cooling, I reasoned, wouldn’t cause me too much trouble – after all, I never see Harley’s on the side of the road due to over-heating. (I would come to discover that H-D’s lack of water cooling yields an Entirely New Kind of Hell, but that comes later.)

All three were very similar in price; just a matter of options and accessories.

I brought Juli along with me to Patriot Harley-Davidson, in Fairfax, to hone my decision… the previous night, I had very-carefully scrutinized the brochure for the FLHTCSE2, identifying which bolt-on chrome and billet gee-gaws came along with it. In doing so, I realized that the gee-gaws they bolted on at the factory were not the same gee-gaws I necessarily wanted on my bike. For example, I have no desire to cover the surface of every nut and bolt on my bike with chrome or billet – it serves no purpose. Likewise, a “stealth” luggage rack that curves downward might look foxy, but you can bet any luggage stored on it would tend to vibrate down the curve, ultimately falling off the back of the bike.

Instead, my own personal tastes steer more toward bolt-on gee-gaws that serve a useful function… stuff like highway pegs and so forth…

So, as I was pondering all of this in the dealership, I looked over… and there was Ellie. A 2004 FLTHCUI Electra Glide, used, punched to 1550cc, with just about every single accessory I’d put on the bike myself. Yeah, even though she wasn’t a $30K CVO, she still cost more than my car. And y’know what? I don’t give a damn.

First Impressions

These impressions were collated after owning Ellie for a week - of which only 3 days were suitable for riding, because of Hurricane Dennis which has caused an almost-endless parade of thunderstorms through the area.

1. She’s BIG! And HEAVY! And deadly, utterly stable. Once I adjusted to her heft, and got her up to speed, I am amazed at just how smooth and stable this bike is. At 85MPH the ride is incredibly serene, and there is no buffeting from semi’s or SUV’s. She literally glides over road imperfections that would rattle my teeth on Miss M. At idle all the normal stories you hear about the vibration are true – she shakes and thumps and pounds away while sitting still: the trade-off is that she smooths out completely at higher speed.

2. She’s bulky! And SCARY at low speed! This isn’t a fault of Ellie; it’s just that I haven’t adjusted to her yet. When I first pulled out of the parking lot of the dealership, another couple on a ‘Glide pulled up behind me. I turned around to warn them that I was a new Harley owner, this was my ride home from purchasing her, and to “please give me some maneuvering room”. They were happy to oblige… but I found that handling her was not nearly as bad as I feared. Still, in a lot of ways my early experience on her brings me back to my first year of riding – terrified of making turns.

3. She's decieving! Couple the two points above together, and there’s something else… this bike can lull you into thinking you’re in a car. Because of the excellent wind protection and the smoothness of the ride has led me, more than once, to forget I’m on a bike. When it comes time to turn, or take an exit, I start to steer toward it (versus counter-steering)! Again, I’m sure that’ll change in time.

4. She's LOUD!!! Something else that will change in time (and a short time, too, I hope!) is the exhaust. When the previous owner punched the motor, he also had a set of Screamin’ Eagle pipes put on her. Now I have unwillingly become one of those “loud pipes save lives” people – a stance which is completely antithetical to my own beliefs. Loud pipes don’t save lives – they piss people off. After hearing those pipes in the parking lot – before even driving away – I went back inside, straight to the Parts Counter, and spoke with the fellow there. His eyebrows hit the ceiling when I asked what I could do to quiet her down, and he told me with complete sincerity that “nobody has ever asked him that before”. He’s now on the lookout for someone that wants a set of Screamin’ Eagle pipes, with the intent of arranging a coordinated swap for a set of stock pipes. My goal is to swap the pricey and noisy SE pipes with somebody who is getting rid of a stock set, and the lucky person to get those atrocious SE’s will pay the labor on my bike in exchange. Honestly, aside from my hatred of loud pipes, what good is a premium sound system when you need earplugs to tame the bellow of your own ride? Silliness.

5. She's POWERFUL! I mean, really, really powerful, in a “low-end-grunt” kinda way. Figure that the 1550 motor is barely shy of twice the size of Miss M’s 805… but there’s more than that. She’s a monster! I’m up to 80MPH before I get near the top of Fourth, and God only knows what she’d to in the top end. Even given that drag increases exponentially with speed (in this regime, anyway), I still think I could get 120 out of her, batwing fairing and all. Downshifting on long freeway uphills is a thing of the past. And torque, too – I still rev the motor a little when first getting underway, but that’s a conditioned reflex after riding Miss M. On Ellie, it’s not strictly necessary.

6. She's mixed-up! All the switches are in the wrong place, and hard to reach. Partly this is my unfamiliarity with her, partly it’s Harley’s design in the first place: I find the control placement counterintuitive. That’s something I’ll just need to learn to live with.

7. She’s HOT! Damn hot! So hot things are cookin’ inside my jeans! I'll tell you about it here.