Bike nights

[sportbikecalgary]

So, in Calgary, there's a standing ride-what-you-want bike night on every Thursday night during the riding season. The meeting place is a local burger joint somewhat in the middle of the city on the TransCanada. The cruisers arrive early and the sportbikers arrive late. The DP's, ST's and touring rigs don't make much of a dent in the crowd. On the average there can be 50 to 150 bikes show up.

On Sundays, there's a small hamlet 40km outside of town that can have 350 riders show up for a Sunday afternoon. It makes a great place to stop. Cruiser riders stop in after their epic 40km ride, DP'ers show up covered in mud and sporting bikers show up after an hour or so of strafing the local corners.

The questions. Do you guys have a local bike night you can regularily attend? Do you have to travel far for it? Is it brand specific? How many riders show up? I always find these nights to be fairly entertaining with a measure of BS tossed in with brand banter and occasional tech advice. I would hope that those in the GTA would have several to choose from.

[Dirtybill]

For me, not really. There's a Thursday night thing with about 5-10 friends which is just a BS session and the Italian bike owners meet the last Tuesday night of every month but other than that I avoid the couple of others I know about because they're largely populated by squids. www.bcsportbikes.com is what used to be the squid hangout. Not sure how many are left and have moved on to X-box:p

Not to derail your thread but seeing as how I see "Desmo", any idea how much the dealer in Calgary is charging for minor and major services on the 1098 and 848? There seems to be some discrepancy in what the manual says and what the dealers are charging. I've heard a major service, I assume this includes changing the cam belts, is in the $1000 range.

[sportbikecalgary]

Not to derail your thread but seeing as how I see "Desmo", any idea how much the dealer in Calgary is charging for minor and major services on the 1098 and 848? There seems to be some discrepancy in what the manual says and what the dealers are charging. I've heard a major service, I assume this includes changing the cam belts, is in the $1000 range.

You are correct. The cost of ownership is not pocket change. I just phoned the dealer and they quoted me $400 for the minor service and $1000 - $1400 for the major service. This would be consistant with the charges for servicing my 4 valve ST4s (996 motor). There are aftermarket replacement bits (collets?) you can buy and swap in during the first major service that extend the service range by 50% and I think they're worth it if you're planning on keeping the scoot for a while.

Calgary seems to be a fairly affluent city and there's lots of people that don't care about dropping a grand for a service call. Me? I'm a cheap bastard. It's very tempting to ride from Calgary down to Spokane (about 700km) to get my next major service done. The service charges in the U.S. are quite a bit less and the difference would easily pay for the cost of gas and hotel to make it happen.

[mrspock]

I never really got into the hanging out thing as I was one of theose guys who really prefers to just rack up the miles and since the only way to do that was to ride , I did lots of that .

I recall a few short years ago I went to Yorkville here in Toronto one sun day afternoon on my then ST1100 , My bike was a 1997 with at that time about 200,000 kms on the clock .

I was able to find a place to park next a group of five or six other bikes , in this case hawgs . I recall two of the guys approached my bike as I walked a short distance and i can hear them saying that , " i must be a real novice rider wearing all that safety crap ( I wear only a fully armoured riding suit heat to toe ) and one guy pointed out to his buddy that I realy don't even ride much becaus eI ONLY had ( what he thought was ) 20,000 kms on the bike . I pointed out that the ST has 200k as they boasted about there five year old bikes with ALMOST 2500 KMS on it . I pointed out that I was also a member of the Iron Butt Association as shown by my earned license plate frame . One guy said that ya , he heard that " they have to be real hard core to get that because they had to ride at least 250 miles in a single day " . i said , well , actually , you need to ride at least 1000 mile in a single day but with a bike like this , a short ride like that is a peice of cake .

I respect all who ride , becaus ethey ride but for me , i just find the whole riding to the donut shop thing a bit too boring .... but thats just my opinion and will not dis those who ride to donut shops ..... bring me back a box of donuts :-)


spock

[Dirtybill]

..........on the other hand.

When I got my first Guzzi, I figured I'd go down to the Italian thing just to see what was happening. A guy I had never met before offered me a it was either a Teo Lamers or Stein Deinse cataloge in case I needed to order parts or just for perusing. I also got a lot of usefull info about the care of Guzzis. Funny thing was, when I first saw this guy I though he was a street person.

Oh well, Gearheads have never been known for their Gucci accessories:D

[John]

Don't dig on bike hangouts. Gives me hives...

John.