Don, you guys have more snakes than anyone I know. My neighbor says he killed a young copperhead about 3 weeks ago on his back porch. I have not seen one personally here on our place.
The motorcycle riding was a blast. My buddy is a motor head and the sound of a powerful engine gets his BP up. We ended up switching between 3 bikes. I ended up riding a very special Yamaha FJR 1300 sport tourer most of the time. The original owner (another friend) payed $15000 to a 3rd friend who has a machine shop to install a very custom one off turbocharger on it. They started with 8 psi boost but it was too fast, so they turned it down to 4 psi and it will rocket up to 150mph in short order. My buddy says he's had it up to 180mph indicated with saddle bags.
At low speeds, it runs like any normal bike and handles very well. When you give it full throttle and the revs get over 3500rpm, the boost and torque kick in and you really have to hold on. I told him he should not let anybody else ride that bike or they could hurt themselves.
Next up the V-max. It has custom exhaust made to look like stock exhaust but the catalytic converter has been ummm, how do you say improved by lightening it up? Also has the bike's ignition/fuel curves worked on by a special programmer. There is no way I can convey how much torque and hp that thing has. Did I mention we filled everything up with avgas before we left?. He says it dyno's at 184hp at the rear wheel on a cool day. You can be doing 75 in 5th gear and gas it and in about 4 seconds you're doing 110 without down shifting. I told him he should not let anybody else ride that bike or they could hurt themselves.
The Ducati Hypermotard is a fun, hooligan bike. It is his favorite for all around fun. Lightweight and decent hp. Of course he has custom exhaust and a few other goodies on it. He can't sleep at night if he has a new bike and it is still bone stock. I can leave stuff stock for 30 years. I told him he should just "give" that bike to me since he has too many.
Drew, hope your hand is better. EPI pens are crazy $$$ for what they are made of , but how many people would be alive today if they'd had one. I wish we had some for our middle daughter who is very allergic to cats.
We went to some tractor pulls in Hallettsville Texas today. It was crazy hot inside the expo center. The big boys weren't there with the 4 engined sleds but a whole lot of single engined v8 supercharged tractors and 4wd trucks. LOUD. They gave you earplugs with your wrist band.
