the weekend

I dragged Jenny out of the shed on Saturday morning around 6:30am, backed her across the frozen ground and shoved her up the driveway next to the house. I set out the extension cord, plugged in the battery tender and plugged her in. Having been trapped in the shed due to ice and snow meant she hasn't had any running time, and since the only way to put her on a charger out there would be to run a cord across the yard and driveway, she went without. With the bike plugged in I decided to drag the Generator out and fire that off also. I like to run it once a month but since January it has been impossible to open the shed door, so it has sat since then. A couple seconds of cranking and it took off. With the generator running and Jenny on charge I went inside, did some laundry and watched a movie. (half hour later I shut down the generator and shoved it back in the shed.). Jenny sat out there on charge. By 10am the battery tender had changed modes from charging to monitoring. I unplugged it, kicked Jenny over and she fired right off. fifteen minutes later I was on the road. luckily it was warm out, my chaps are folded up nice and neat in the tour pack on Charlene and that bike is parked at work. I also remembered my riding gloves, one of my jackets and vests are also folded in that pack. I threw on some work gloves, a light jacket and my Russian hat, backed Jenny around and headed off down the roads. The bike ran fine and after all the days without riding, it was like being released from prison. Being extremely shy of funds I kept the cruising local and since I could not afford to buy anything, there was no destination picked, just a cruise. After an hour and a half I stopped in at the dinner for lunch.  After lunch another short ride then put her away. Putting her away wasn't as easy as it sounds, what was hard ground in the morning was now, with the snow thaw and run off, Mud. She waddled her way down the front dirt driveway, slued sideways as she turned into the shed. The stop at the door to line her up meant my boots were covered over the top of the toes so the pegs ended up covered in mud.

The next day I dragged her out again, the ground still saturated, I shoved her backwards into the mud, then drove her out of the bog. She had dried mud up both rims, the pegs and the wheel wells so the first stop was for fuel and the car wash. It was colder on Sunday and I missed having the correct gloves and chaps, but it was still a good day to ride. I had forgotten all about the Penguin Plunge because I thought it was the following week. I rode her for about an hour and a half then put her away. I decided to use the paved driveway, run up the snow and grass, pull a u turn and fly straight across the mud driveway instead of going in lengthwise. The speed applied kept her from sinking and she slipped straight in. The tactic would never have worked with Charlene, she has to go in on an angle or she won't fit.

My plan for this morning was to ride Jenny to work, park her and swap Charlene, but waking up and finding the yard, driveway and road snow covered put a stop to that plan.