Her name is Shiela, and she is a gem

There hasn't been a new post on here in a very long time, and there hasn't been a post on here from me yet either. For those that are unaware my brother and I took a trip with a local group called the "Phat Aces" lead by Bob from Bob and the Showgram. This is a group that used to take road trips a couple years back and then had to stop for a couple years and their first trip back together was to the Tail of the Dragon and the Blueridge Parkway.

A trip to the mountains? On the shadow? Yes. I spent many hours working and tweaking the bike to get it ready for this trip. LOTS of sweat, and blood went into working on this bike that I have come to love. A last minute hiccup made me fear the ability of the bike to make it as I was unable to hold 80mph for longer than 10 seconds before the bike would act like it was running on 1 cylinder and losing power. I narrowed it down to potentially being the fuel filter (as it was probably the original filter and was very, very, very nasty to the point of being curious how the bike even ran in the first place) so I replaced that and the bike seemed to do ok in the short trips around town but I never was able to put it through its paces.

We left Ray Price Harley Davidson at 6pm sharp on friday night, everything seemed to be going well with the bike. I spent the entire trip out to Asheville wondering about every little ping, pop, tick, and rattle I was hearing hoping that it wasn't my bike. After 6 hours, we made it and with no problems. What I had hoped, but had not fully expected was after riding TO Asheville (took about 6 hours), through the tail of the dragon and the blueridge parkway (10 hours riding saturday), and riding back to raleigh (another 5 hours) the bike had absolutely no problems.

That right there my friends is a wonderful feeling. When I inherited the shadow, it BARELY ran and no one would trust it to even go 5 minutes down the road reliably. Over the past year I have poured sweat into it and have gotten it to the point that I can feel safe and comfortable riding it for more than 20 hours in a weekend, through one of the twistiest, turniest roads you'll find in america, up mountains and down again. I thought about naming the shadow for a little while but after this last trip I can't help but name her. Shiela. I originally got the idea for the name from a web series called Red Vs. Blue and I feel that it's a very fitting name.

Be safe, ride safe.

Randy's new bike

For his birthday, Randy got a new bike.... Sort of.... Think... the english guy in Grease II... that is about what he started with..

Now, its almost up to spec to pass inspection and registration. He already has the title and just needs a few little things...... like tires.

For his 24th birthday Rand got a new bike..sort of..

Randy has been working on a Honda Shadow he got from Emery. Think the English kid in Grease II, that is almost what he started with.

Getting close to being able to pass inspection. He has the title and just needs to tweak a few things to get it to pass.... like a rear tire.