First Ride with Wife

[tarheel_rider]

At breakfast my wife says "Why don't you try to get home at a decent hour tonight so we can take the bike out this evening"? I haven't had the bike a full week yet, so wow. Who am I to argue, so showed up at 5:30, she geared up and off we went. Not a very long ride, but about an hour around Jordan lake and through some gentle curves before stopping for dinner. Ride temps were in the mid-forties, which would not have been even imaginable on the K75. With the heated seats on the LT, no problems. With the K75, after an hour she was pretty insistent on getting off, on the LT she didn't seem to notice we had already ridden that far. At dinner, she is planning out all the visits we are going to do over the summer on the bike. YeeHaw! This is going to work out really well. I like the LT, but the fact that she wants to ride more and farther, makes it even better. The only issue is I kept dragging the center stand on the turns in the intersection and even lightly scraped a couple times in the curves. That was a first for me, will have to learn to leave a little more room to spare when 2 up. But great first experience for her on the LT and left her wanting more. :)

[mwnahas]

If you're dragging, you might want to check your preload suspension, crank it up a few notches if you haven't already.

It's a great feeling isn't if you're wife likes to ride more. My previous bike was a K100RT and my wife didn't like long rides on that. Reason I got the LT!

[tarheel_rider]

Thanks for the tip, I'll check that (preload) out.

[BillyOmaha]

...The only issue is I kept dragging the center stand on the turns in the intersection and even lightly scraped a couple times in the curves. That was a first for me, will have to learn to leave a little more room to spare when 2 up. ...
Howdy Joel,

Congratulations on the Mrs. liking to ride. Nancy loves it and I feel blessed.

I agree with others on cranking up the pre-load. I would throw in a "word to the wise"; I have the Ohlins with heavy springs and, when riding solo, if I don't back off the pre-load from two-up riding, then on bumps the during braking the ABS can kick in.... not too dangerous if you know about it, but real surprising the first time :o

Another thing you can do is cut half of the little bumper that the center stand rests up against.

Ideally your spring loaded foot pegs should be the first thing to touch down, then lower fairing and last, hopefully never, the hard parts.

Have fun this summer!

.

[mpillis]

When I heard our local dealer was closing down I told Maria we may have to sell the LT for lack of dealer support. Her mouth literally dropped open NOOOOOO. She loves the LT, we have done several trips to NC, TN, georgia and 1 trip to Florida. We are leaving in June for a 5000 mile trip out to Montana. She loves riding and I love having her along.

[TomH]

I previously had the R1150RT and loved it but SWMBO really, really, didn't like it. She even fell down once getting off and broke here wrist! So she was very much for my getting the LT especially after getting a test ride. Now she plans day trips for us to various quilt shops in Nebraska. We get to ride, she gets to pick up more quilt fabric and it's a ton of fun walking into one of those places in MC gear! Scares the dickens out of them until we take off the helmets!

[tarheel_rider]

I previously had the R1150RT and loved it but SWMBO really, really, didn't like it. She even fell down once getting off and broke here wrist! So she was very much for my getting the LT especially after getting a test ride. Now she plans day trips for us to various quilt shops in Nebraska. We get to ride, she gets to pick up more quilt fabric and it's a ton of fun walking into one of those places in MC gear! Scares the dickens out of them until we take off the helmets!

That's great. We do the same thing for pottery shopping locally. Have to visit lots of pottery shops to find what she wants. They always look a little startled when we walk through the door. On the quilting front, we had planned on doing the stash dash this year which is a visit to 10 local quilting stores in less than 2 days, get stamped, then turn in your card for prizes - but didn't get around to it. Next year we'll join in. Anything to ride :D