I've done all I intend to do for the 2007 Ride for the Heart. The HID headlight bulb is in, the auxiliary lights are in place, the GPSs are hooked up, and everything works. I wasn't able to figure out any good way to drink water while I am riding so I will just stop when needed, even though it will take me a minute.
Overall, everything works well. I took my bike on two long practice rides through a very hot desert (a total of about 1030 miles at temperatures up to 110ยบ) and the setup worked well. We did not have a chance to ride at night, but my friends confirmed that my lights were *bright* when I turned them on while riding behind them.
Here's a few pictures of everything ready to go (and clean too!) We had collected a lot of bugs on the practice rides, and I spent a happy hour cleaning them out of the crevices before I took the pictures.
You can see my otter here on my tail bag. Otters are my spirit animal, and Claire found this for me.
She seems pretty secure in the handle. :-)
Claire took this picture of me. That's not ATGATT!
After the Ride for the Heart I still wasn't done. I had more plans coming up! In particular, I have some trips up north on the calendar, and I will need to carry some clothes and a sleeping bag for a long weekend. I had previously bought a Givi rack and I finally took the time to figure out how to put it on. Surprisingly, the rack required me to take off the turn signals and move them to brackets on the back end of the rack. I don't have them wired on yet, but at least the rack is in place:
Ok, another few days are done. I redid the lights. After riding with the lights on the Givi rack I decided they were too fragile out there -- they kept getting caught in the bike cover -- so I put them down where the original turn signals were, and I redid the wiring so it was much neater too. I was much happier with that solution; it was cleaner all around and nicer looking to boot. And just today the Givi top case arrived! Of course I had to go put it on the minute it came. (Silly grrl.) Here are the pics of the 599 all ready to tour:
Of course, now I need to figure out a new way to hold my darling otter! She's going to want to see the world as it goes by, and that big case is going to block the view. A conundrum!
