So far this has to have been one of the worst winters I have seen since I started riding.  Living in Montana, it’s typically cold, and even in May, there are the occasional freak snowstorms.  Typically, however, there is also a pretty good balance of nice days to keep the mood up and let us riders go out and find our legs (or wheels, as it may be).  That has not been the case yet this year.  So far I cannot recall a day where the temperature has approached 70 degrees, and the warm and sunny days we do end up getting are sparsely scattered between long, drawn out rain storms or cold, windy days.  So needless to say, I have not gone on a lot of good rides yet this year.

In the absence of warmer, mileage inducing weather, I have been working on a few little projects to help make my motorcycle trips a little better.  The first is a piece of gear that I wrote about a little while back, the camping hammock.  I decided to give myself something to do besides endlessly clean my bike, so I began making my own camping hammock.  The basic concept is really simple: Take a piece of rip stop nylon, hem the edges so they don’t fray, tie the ends together and hang it from two trees.  So far this has worked out pretty good for me.  I have been doing a lot of experimenting with how the ends are gathered and tied, but after a little bit of trial and error, I think I have things set up where I want them.

Another project I am working on is how to make some mounts for various electronic gear.  I recently purchased a Garmin GPS and would like to have it mounted to my bike.  I was able to get it to work for a moderate sized ride with the suction cup mount attached to the windshield, but for obvious reasons, I am not too comfortable with this method.  So I have been plotting and scheming on ways to make this happen.  One of the most interesting ways I have seen so far is to purchase some type of 17mm ball, which is the same size as the swivel ball on the stock mount.  I would then permanently mount the ball to my bike and attach the stock Garmin cradle to that ball.  The other option, which is a lot easier, but a lot less fun, is to just purchase a ram mount!  But for some reason that just doesn’t seem as cool as building a DIY model.

Another gadget I am working on is a mount for my cameras.  I have a couple of Flip video cameras that I would like to mount up to the bike as well for some warm weather ride videoing.    I can’t count how many times something really cool has happened while on my bike, and I have not had my camera ready to snap a picture.   This way, one of two things will happen.  Either nothing cool will EVER happen again while I am on my bike, or I will have the camera ready to start rolling when it does.  The hope is to get it mounted to the handlebar or possibly the windshield so that it up top, front and center.  I like the idea of having it behind the windshield so that some of the wind noise is blocked out, but I will have to experiment with all that and see how it works.  Either way, there are just some times where it would be nice to have video of a ride, and hopefully I will be able to get that set up this riding season.

So that is what I have been up to for the past couple of months.  Looking at the weather forecast, we might actually get some sun this weekend, so if all goes well I will get to try some of this out.  I hear Hell’s Canyon (another top 15 road) calling my name!