I'm really jazzed.

So far I haven't taken any pictures of it. My wife took maybe two pictures, but I want to clean up all the chrome first, and then I'll take some pictures. If you buy a Harley, you don't get all this chrome. It's about $10,000 more. At least, that's what Indian tells you.

I haven't kicked this thing in the butt yet. I haven't really cracked it yet. Just getting it up to 45, I'm only in third gear, and there's still so much of that throttle left. I can't wait to... It's got more power than the Harley. The sound is very similar, but this thing is heavily piped. The Harley, they take a lot of the piping out, which gives you a lot louder sound. For me that would have been fine, but my wife isn't going to deal with that. And I'm happy with the sound.

My sister's not real happy. My first bike, I got when I was 15. I was parking it at a friend's house, and my sister turned me in. She saw me one time, and she told me, "Either you can tell them, or I'll tell them." So I brought it home and said, "Here you go, Dad, take a look." He rode it up the street, brought it back, and said, "Okay." So my sister wasn't real happy when I bought another one. She says, "Now I have something else to worry about." But this is completely different. Twenty years ago I was pretty wild. I'm not like that anymore. No, really! The guy at the dealer told me "You've got to keep it under 50, the first 500 miles." I said, "Sure, I can do that. That's easy." But ten years ago it would have been really hard, I don't know if I could have. Then the guy said, "Don't crack it," and I thought, "Okay, now you're really making it rough on me!"

I figure, the guy said 50, so I've been keeping it under 45. A couple of times up around 50. I've only got about 350 miles on it so far. But after this weekend I want to take it in for the 5,000 mile service. (Interviewer gasps, "You've got a hell of a weekend planned!") No, no, I mean the 500 mile. Wow, 5,000 miles at 45 mph! That ought to take, oh, maybe the rest of my life! But I'll get it broken in well, and I won't have to worry about anything. It'll last forever.

So now I'm wondering how my wife is going to like riding on the back. She's ridden on the back of bikes before, and she liked it. But once this is broken in, I'm going to want to do some distance. I want to do things like, "Hey, let's ride down to Santa Cruz for breakfast," things like that. I'd be more than happy for her to have her own, if she wants. Although parking two of them in the garage would be a hassle.

I'm not big on doing things for myself, and this I did just for me. When we looked at this bike, I just went "Yesss!" But even after I made the deal, before I picked the bike up, I was thinking, "30 grand! I could put that into the house. Or I could put 30 grand into the stock market, and turn it into 15 grand." But I eventually rationalized it, because to take it out and just go for a ride, it makes me happy.

I had been saving money for ten years, for a used Harley, maybe 10 grand. I'd save 6 grand, and something would always come up, and I'd use the money. And since I've been with my wife, I think it was just a year after we got together, we ended up buying the house. A house keeps you busy, and it keeps the money going in a certain direction. So it just never worked out before now, but I was thinking the other day, "How much longer will I be able to ride, anyway?" When I hit 65, is it going to be too much weight, is it going to be hard for me to ride anymore? Not so much the riding, but stopping, or when you first start out and need to make a loop or something like that. Of course, it would be nice to just still be alive at 65. I've got to take care of that part first, I guess.

What's nice is that everywhere I pull over, people want to talk to me. You wouldn't believe how many old men tell me, "Hey, I used to ride Indian!" Tons of old guys come up to you, tons of them.

No, the boots aren't new, they're 20 years old. I just got them stretched. They were okay for riding, but I went to a home show and did a lot of walking. My feet were killing me! So this guy stretched them, and now they're great. Real nice guy.

So two days after I brought the bike home, my brother in law borrows my pick up, and he puts a dent in it. Hey, I didn't care. I was just so happy about the bike. I told him, "Put all the dents you want in the pick up." But he should probably stay away from the bike. Because if anything happens to it, there's no way out of it. First off, you get your checkbook out, and then I'll be mad at you for the rest of your life. I try to make it as easy as I can. If you know what the situation is before you go into it, then you've got nothing to cry about later. Probably better to just staaay awaaay. I want no problems.

 
March 17, 2001