Joining The Trendies: First Moto-POTA On The T-Dubs

We all know that fifty-year-olds buy motorcycles. And sure enough, after spending my half-century completion year pedaling 1500 miles on a two-decade-old thrift shop Schwinn Madison Fixie (a bike I literally spotted on my walk-turned-ride to work one day), I got the bright idea to buy a scooter. This was not actually a midlife crisis, at least not an obvious one. This was a practical solution to the problem of never having a place to on-street park my car in South Boston whenever I go out at night. So one Monday night in November, I decided to see what it took to get a motorcycle endorsement, which was needed to ride a scooter in Massachusetts. By Wednesday I had enrolled in the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s (truly excellent) training program. By Thursday I had my motorcycle permit. And by Monday a hardcopy of my new driver’s license with a motorcycle endorsement was in the mail.

I had tried to convince AA1F to come along with me a get his moto-license too. But he needed some time to think about it. And to have me tell him just exactly how hard it was. One week later, AA1F enrolled in his motorcycle safety class. Neither of us had (mostly) ever been on a motorcycle before.

And after the MSF class, I no longer wanted a scooter. I wanted a clutch, not a continuous variable transmission (CVT). Not to be cool, but rather to not “whiskey throttle”, i.e., go as fast as the bike can go in as short a time as possible because you pinned the throttle back. By absolute mistake. You can only go so fast in first gear, unlike a bike that has absolutely no gears at all, catch my drift?

I decided I liked the Yamaha Trailway 200, better known as the TW-200, and affectionately called the “T-Dubs”. AA1F, not to be left out, decided he liked the T-Dubs too. We bought them last December and picked them up from the dealer earlier this month. My mother said “what the heck? You each got the same bike? In the exact same color?” Well, we at least got different color helmets (yup, same brand and model, the Bell Bullitt GT.)

And of course we got different color Aerostitch R3 motorcycle suits as well… And different color Gaerne Fastback motocross boots… And slightly different Alpinestars winter riding gloves…

Ok, we may look like a bit, uhhh, coordinated, shall we?! But truth be told, I feel exquisitely well-protected in this gear. In fact, I never knew that people survived motorcycle accidents due to a certain professional bias I have. When I learned that good motorcycle gear actually does save the lives of motorcyclists, I decided not to skimp. What you are seeing is not that AA1F and I ate our way through this past winter (okay, we may have a little), but rather giant pads of armor over the chest, back, shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees. The suit itself is made of ballistics nylon so you hopefully keep your skin if you fall.

We put a total of 70 miles on the motorcycles after 3 separate rides, and hit 45 mph for the first time today. Our first couple jaunts were largely destination-less. In fact, our very first one, we went around the block over and over for a total of 15 miles.

Today, we decided to go do a moto-POTA, or the trendy colloquialism being increasingly used by hams to mean activating a Parks-On-The-Air entity by motorcycle. We headed to Thompson Lake US-2151 with a backpack containing our radio gear bungeed onto the passenger seat of my T-Dub.

Limited in space and weight, we brought the Elecraft KX2, a small Bioenno battery (3.5Ah), 25 feet of RG58c/u, and the Chameleon lightweight end-fed halfwave antenna (CHA LEFS 40-10). Within a few minutes, we managed to get 11 contacts on 40 meters.

We packed up and went home.

Riding like the wind.

KM1NDY