Merry Motorcycle Christmas

With the icy hand of winter strangling my ability to ride, I needed some way to exercise my lust for all things motorcycle.

Luckily for me, Christmas arrived and helped to satiate my lust.  Well, maybe it did.

First up among my gifts was a gel seat for my Bonneville.  This gel seat comes courtesy of the Triumph accessory catalog and is actually for the Thruxton, a factory cafe racer version of the Bonneville.

Initial tests (i.e., putting it on the fireplace and sitting on it) show it to be more comfortable than the stock plank of wood, I mean, seat.  Truth be told, just about anything would be comfortable than the stock Bonneville seat.  The stock seat has a comfort range of about, oh, five miles or so before numbness sets in.  I'm hoping the gel seat will extend the comfort range deep into the double digits.

Additionally, this seat will allow me to install the accessory rear cowl cover on the seat.  Yes, I'm excited about that.

Next up was a much-needed balaclava to help make cold weather rides bearable.  It resembles a ski mask but is much lighter and works better as a helmet liner.  Plus, if this whole going to work thing doesn't pan out, I can use it as a mask to rob banks.  It's a very versatile item.

History alert: the name 'balaclava' comes from the Ukrainian town of Balaklava.  During the Crimean War of 1853-1856, knitted balaclavas were passed out to British soldiers to help combat the intense cold weather during the winter months.

Finally, I received a motorcycle from the Lego Technic line.  It's a total nerd's delight and I absolutely love it.  I've had a thing for Lego's since I was a little kid and I usually receive a new kit every year.

With this motorcycle, it has a working engine, transmission and suspension.  You can also build it one of two ways - either as a three-cylinder sport bike (Triumph Daytona, anyone?) or as a V-twin chopper.  The chopper even has the traditional exposed primary drive.  I built mine as the sport bike, of course.

The first thing you notice is its size.  It's freakin' huge!  The amount of detail that goes into it and the time it takes to build it are impressive, as well.  It's also pretty heavy.  I plan to buy another one and build it as the chopper.

You really have to give it up for the Lego engineers.  The amount of time that went into the design of this kit had to be staggering.  It's also much more complex than the Lego's I had as a kid.

The bad news about all of this stuff is that it did nothing to satiate my lust.  In fact, I think it made my lust worse.

I want to go for a ride so bad!