Jeff Blogs

The speedometer and instrument panel for the Harley-Davidson Softail Night Train consists of a single gauge located on the top of the gas tank. It has an analog speedometer as well as an odometer. The odometer portion has not only the total bike mileage but also has a resettable trip odometer.

From a readability perspective the gauge is first rate but somewhat limited. I prefer having a gauge that shows not only the current speed but also has a tachometer for monitoring RPMs. For a Softail owner you basically have two choices.

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Motorcycle riding in Arizona is an interesting proposition. During the winter months, temperatures can reach the teens in the remote desert. In the summer temperatures can get up to 120 degrees. Those kinds of differences make finding the right kind of riding jacket nearly impossible.

While there are several jackets made for riding in the cold, riding in this kind of heat is not something that many people have to endure so manufacturers have been somewhat reluctant to develop riding gear for severe heat.

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Shortly after I got my Harley-Davidson Night Train I realized that I was going to need a way to carry things while riding. Initially I just figured I would get a backpack and put what I needed in that but quickly decided that wearing a backpack was a pain, literally.

As a software developer I seem to have to carry things around a lot. Whether it is my laptop computer, or a series of documents that I have to review I seem to always have something in my briefcase.

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The Harley-Davidson Owners Group has come up with a concept they declared Million Mile Monday. They set aside June 30, 2008 as a day to get everyone out on their bikes. The goal was to collectively try and accumulate one-million miles worldwide. The miles could be pretty much anything. Some would use their bikes to commute while others had planned a long journey that would incorporate this date into their plan. At the end of the day members were invited to log into the H.O.G. web site and enter their miles. It is a cool idea really. What better way to remind people how great it is to ride a motorcycle than to get them out on the road. Hopefully it would also increase the total number of riders on the road for at least a day. This should in turn make other drivers more aware that the motorcycle population is not a niche market but is much more mainstream than they had previously imagined. Perhaps then drivers would be more conscientious than they have been in the past.

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After getting the call that my new wheels had arrived for my Harley-Davidson 2005 Softail Night Train, I made arrangements to have them installed. I dropped the bike off at Chandler Harley-Davidson on March 6. It was two wheels so I just assumed that the bike would be done either that day or the morning thereafter. Now what was that saying about never “assume” anything? Yeah, I seemed to have forgotten that. Maybe I was being unrealistic. Maybe I am being impatient. Maybe I just have no clue how long it actually takes to install a couple of wheels. No matter what the reason, it wasn’t done. Instead I got a call this morning saying that the bike was ready to be picked up. All that was left to do was have it washed.

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