Harley-Davidson: January 2008 Archives

Now that I have established the story behind the Night Train I can now talk a little more about the bike. As a follow up I should mention that Trina was a little less than thrilled with the idea of me having a bike but she has slowly warmed up to it. There was a minor setback when I took her on her first ride. We decided to go visit my brother to show him the bike (he is a bigger motorcycle guy than I am and for the record a much better rider). I slightly underestimated the length of the ride when I mentioned it to Trina. I thought it was maybe 4-5 miles. It ended up being over 100 miles round trip as we went to his work, his wife Darlene's work and ultimately their house in North Phoenix (Trina swears it was south Flagstaff). This might not have been totally bad except the Night Train Badlander seat is really designed for 1 since the rear seat is approximately 7 inches wide and maybe 1.5 inches thick. It was days before Trina could comfortably sit again. The good news is that the next year for my birthday she bought me a new and much more comfortable seat. She still has not gotten back on the bike to see whether it is more comfortable for her and that was 2 years ago.

This saga actually began in late August 2004. At that time Trina and I were preparing to send our second daughter to college. There had been some discussion that perhaps it was time for us to get another car. We had one teenage driver and would soon have a second one. Trina was driving a relatively new Chevrolet Suburban and I was driving a 1996 Camaro Z-28. Looking over insurance quotes there was absolutely no way we could afford to let the kids drive the Camaro even if both daughters had a good student discount. Besides, I was a teenager once (Trina argues that I still act like a teenager and that's not a good thing) and I know what kind of trouble you can get into when you have a car that has a speedometer than goes to 140 miles per hour. I think they put that number on there just to tempt you.

That meant that the kids would drive the Suburban. This was not a situation that either Trina or the girls found particularly appealing. Trina didn't like the idea of the girls driving around in her leather encrusted, chromed out, cool ride. The girls on the other hand didn't want to be caught dead driving around in a SMAV*. They therefore determined that the best course of action was to get another car. One that was at the same time safe yet cool enough to be seen in by your friends.