NEWS from Vermont yesterday, from the guy excavating for the house foundation: Atsa no boulder, atsa ledge. Might be the whole toppa the mountain.
The lonely ranger made her way here Sunday, from Austin, Texas. She’s got a plate and is on the insurance, but until I know more I’m still thinking of her as a project bike I’ll likely reduce to a rolling chassis and go through in a major way over the winter.
She’s the lonely ranger because she was traded in October 2021, and on account of her high miles, 82,000, she sat at three different dealerships in Texas until I bought her two weeks ago.
The 2016 Road Glide Ultra typically sells for around $16,000. I bought her wholesale at $9,500, expecting to do the usual upgrades, new suspension fore and aft, but also to pull the motor for a rebuild at Johnson Engine Technology, in Westerly, RI, get the crank trued and balanced, the pin welded against scissoring, lighter rods, forged pistons, blueprinted fuel injectors, etc.
In 2012, JET rebuilt the iron piggy’s motor after I had used it up on a cross-country run to Seattle. Piggy came home on a truck that time. I tore things down on damage inspection, split the cases here at the house. It was a good core, worth saving. I broke-in the rebuild riding to Alaska the following summer.
Here’s the rebuild coming home, sitting on a hand truck in the dining room. Marry a woman with a sense of humor, that’s key.
And make her a sunny-side type. Like here she is yesterday, watering the sand out by the road.
I haven’t evaluated the lonely ranger’s motor yet. Don’t have any numbers for you on compression and leak down. To my ear she sounds fine, runs well, but if I decide to ride the bike for a while before pulling the motor, I’ll have to do something about the front suspension.
Man, it’s soft—seriously soft. She’s got a wicked brake dive, and she’s far too heavy to be wallowing to a stop at every red light.
In closing, here’s a coincidence: The lonely ranger spent her first life in the greater Houston area, became a Rhode Islander this past Sunday—and come this Sunday my friend from Houston, CCjon, will be passing through and roosting here for the night. He’s on his way to the national sidecar rally in Topsham, Maine.
He’s heading out from Houston this morning. I’ll saddle up the iron piggy and ride to the rally on Monday as well, camp for the week with the sidecar crowd. I don’t mind being the oddball on two wheels.
CCjon told me in an email the other day, “Sidecarists are hands-on people, inventive, sociable, lone-wolf riders, much like you, Tony. You will be welcomed and fit in just fine.”
I’m told it’s not the usual biker crowd; no need to resort to earplugs to sleep through the hootin & hollerin & carrying on. “We joke that the loudest noise at night with us is the CPAP machines.”
Tony DePaul, June 5, 2025, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA
