Very Short Notice Good Luck Mechanic SPC Thomas Regan of Topeka, KS, assigned to the 250th FSC KSARNG, was killed in an automobile accident last weekend. His widow, Rebecca, requested the attendance of the Patriot Guard at his wake and burial. Bring your big flags. Ride Captain is Mechanic. ------- That is how they come. A simple email followed with the instructions on where and when to meet up, or ‘stage’ as they like to call it. The request for the Patriot Guard to join them was late coming, with less then 24 hours notice, 20 riders showed up in Leavenworth, KS, Thursday morning at 9:30am. This would be my first funeral with the Patriot Guard. I had ridden in the 24th Marines Homecoming, but that was different. The visitation was the previous night, but I ... read more

11 MAY 07 -- It was a gathering of east coast Sportsters owners, members of the XL-List from www.Sportster.org. The last few years the XL-list has had an annual rally in Kansas City area, but some members located on the east coast thought one closer to home would give those that can’t make the KC rally a chance to meet and do some riding. Yep, it was one of those internet things. Mother’s Day weekend we converged on the Rider’s Roost a motorcycle campground in Ferguson, NC. There were no rally t-shirts or pins, no meals were provided and best of all there was no rally fees. Everyone just paid their own expenses. The body count for the weekend was small at 14 but we were a motivated lot, coming from KS, OH, NJ, PA GA ... read more

Ride Report Cape Fear 1000 I have wanted to do a road rally ever since I read the blogs about the 2005 Iron Butt Rally. Its that 11K miles in 11 days rally that Iron Butt Association has every 2 years. I guess it is really hard to get into the rally, there are a long applicants and only a limited number of spots. I am not up for that kind of extreme riding anyway. But since I had read those blogs I had been interested in doing one of those kind of rallies. I have been looking for one that is in the Midwest, but the closest ones are either in WI or TX. I was going to do the one in TX, its called the TX 2step. But then this year they didn’t hold ... read more

The morning started early as I remembered to 'spring forward' with the clocks last night. My cold from the last few days is still kicking my butt, but I had to get out today and ride some. This is just my luck the weather finally warms up and I have my 1st cold in 2 years. Effie, my 2005 883 Low Harley Davidson Sportster was just as eager to go for a ride, as she got moving much faster than I had. The HOG group was to meet up at the Central HD Shawnee KS store at 10AM leave at 10:30 or 11 to go to the staging area for the Merriam, KS St Patricks Day Parade. I missed it last year because they were predicting severe thunderstorms and hail last year. There were those that ... read more

08 Installing Floorboards on my 05 883 Harley Davidson Sportster, Effie. -- 1 March 2008 Finally a warm day it’s a good day for a ride, but I wanted to put one of the new accessories on that I had bought over the winter. I had decided to try floorboards last year. I spend a lot of time on my bike and have found that it affects the way I walk. The story behind this is the bike is air cooled, on hot days the back cylinder gets really hot because my legs were cutting off the air going to it. So I need to bow my legs out to allow air to get between my legs and the engine. This puts my ankle at an unusual angle. During the summer I wear my boots all ... read more