Laziness - The Mother of Invention

It was after 9:30 this morning before I finally got on the road. I have been working locally in the STL area for almost two months and had unloaded almost everything from my truck including my motorcycle. So it took a little while to get everything situated as I headed out for Fort Worth, TX with my 3 pieces of 30" by 20' steel pipe.

My motorcycle is a 2003 Harley Davidson Road King. Because it is a 100th Anniversary special edition I intend to keep it forever. Being black and chrome it is beautiful when clean, which I try to maintain as best as I can. But riding sideways on the front of my flatbed trailer, just behind the gooseneck, makes it very difficult sometimes. Especially when it rains. The road spray coming from my truck tends to turn everything a mucky shade of brown which takes hours - literally - to remove. The washing part is only half the battle. It's the polishing and shining that doubles the effort.

It has always bothered me that my pride and joy is exposed to the elements. One of the worst was just this past April when I was headed for Salt Lake City and ran into a Spring blizzard going thru the Rockies. Pictures and details are HERE. (Right click and 'open in a new tab' or you will be re-directed away from this page)

I do have a motorcycle cover and I use it when parking the bike outside. But I was afraid to leave it on while going down the road. I think the wind would cause the cover to flap and the paint would get chafed. The cover might even totally blow off even thou it does have one strap in the middle.

This afternoon as I'm going thru OK the skies begin to darken and sure enough I see lightening straight ahead of me. The remnants of Tropical Storm Bonnie made landfall this morning in LA and I suspect this is some of the out-flow. CRAP! I really hate cleaning my bike. There has to be a way. I got an idea!

I pull off the exit and put the cover over the bike. Next, I take one of my tarps, which is WAY HUGE (12' x 24') and use a section of it to go over the top. After using bungees to tighten three of the four sides, I roll up the excess tarp and lay it behind the bike, out of the wind, and use a strap to secure it to the deck of the trailer.

VOILA' -- worked like a champ! In 20 minutes my bike is protected and I'm cruising down the road into the rain -- smiling! Next time I get to Belleville, I'm going to see Steve, my tarp guy, and ask him about making a fitted tarp.