Goodbye Cruiserface, Hello Happyface: The (old) Long and (new) Short Of It All

No Snow In Brattleboro: That would be Brattleboro, VT. I was through Brattleboro today and there was no snow at the Harris Hill ski jump. Lots of mud, though, given recent rains and above-average temps (e.g., 55 today).



Built in 1922, the jump is located off Cedar Street in Brattleboro at coordinates 42.859946, -72.570725. Usually held around the first of the year, the annual (Harris Hill) ski jumping championship is a big deal up this way.



Cedar street lets you bypass the sucking traffic in downtown Brattleboro getting to/from I91 and Rt 30 (when making a cheese run).

The pic below shows a portion of goods available in said cheese run yesterday. I bought 2 x 4 of my favorites. Those are (1) Grand Reserve, (2) Maple Smoked, (3) Smoked Garlic and (4) Shallot and White Pepper.



The Grand Reserve (well aged for 6 years) is especially tasty but they all go well on crackers with a cold beer this holiday. Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Happy Thanksgiving ( even if you do celebrate a month late LOL) John. Enjoy the cheese and crackers. I too enjoy well aged cheese. We have a cheese vendor at our local Saturday market who has an 8 year old cheddar that makes the absolute best grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches.

Love this thread. Thank you guys. I am riding a FatBoy at the moment but thinking of switching to a GS. I just joined this site and coincidently Popscycle responded to my post in the Noob/welcome page. If I needed any further encouragement this thread might have pushed me over the edge.

Sorry about that, it wasn’t Popscycle that responded to my post but someone with a similar name. Anyway, still a great thread and I will continue to follow.

Welcome, @Limrik, we look forward to hearing more from you.

Let me nudge you in the right direction:

https://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/mcy/d/brooklyn-2002-bmw-r1150gs-motorcycle/7024440280.html

https://boston.craigslist.org/sob/mcy/d/scituate-bmw-r1150-gs-adventure/7023148553.html

https://vermont.craigslist.org/mcy/d/sharon-2004-bmw-r1150gs-adv/7022958517.html

https://providence.craigslist.org/mcy/d/barrington-2008-bmw-r1200gsa/7018351078.html

Power Parked In The Yard: Just before Thanksgiving, I was riding through Deerfield and stopped long enough at the yard to see that a good bit of their power was parked.





Seeing and riding trains around Thanksgiving are fond memories of earlier times.

Masking Pork Chop, The Practice Pig: I've a lot of riding pictures, some of which are totally dull, stupid, inane, inept or otherwise not interesting. Loathe to throw them away, I look for uses for them. Sometimes trying to combine them into something more interesting makes for an enjoyable pastime on an otherwise crappy day (i.e., one not good for riding). Recently, Topaz Labs tempted me to try their AI masking filter for 30 days so I set about learning to use it, thinking it might make combining pictures less time-consuming. The second practice subject was a steel pig (sculpture) that I saw outside the shop where I was buying some tasty, smoked pork chops. Thus the name. To make a long story short, I hastily masked the pig (to remove the background) and put it just off of a tasty trail up in NH.


It is our practice to denote combined/composited pictures as such when posting them here. There's no symbology in this combo, other than perhaps as a reminder to get the chops out of the freezer before heading up to NH trails.

PS: The 30 day trial had ended when I tried to mask the pig yesterday evening so I ended up purchasing the filter. It is faster and easier than my older masking software.

Winter Arrived Today: The first of December has brought on winter. Behind the wetlands that are behind the woods behind the house is a good-sized pond, a portion of which is shown below. On riding to the store this morning to get a few staples, you could see that the pond has finally got some surface ice.



With temps in the 20s and 6 inches or more of snow predicted for later today, I guess winter's settling in.

I forgot to mention that there were six (I believe) swans out on the pond sleeping. Shown below, this was a close as I could get using the zoom lens from this vantage point.



This pond and its tributary has had resident swans for as long as I can remember. We used to see their nests while fishing from the canoe.

What The Redhead Saw This Morning: The man cave door went up around 8:30, the redhead looked out, saw this and went back to bed on the battery tender.



With more on the way, I need to trek out back and take a winter scene picture there. Maybe after lunch. You can't (or shouldn't) rush these things. This is to say I am taking care of my procrastination issues, you just wait and see.

I procrastinated and waited until today to get a pic of the back yard the back yard. It was a good thing I filled the bird feeders yesterday as the overnight snow brought us up to over a foot of the stuff. It's scenic but was tough walking back there.



So far, no critter tracks; however they're likely hanging out back of the clearing beyond the brush line. In summer, that part of the acreage is like a jungle. There's a creek back there and winter is the only time the ground on both sides of it isn't soggy. Beyond that, it is all woods preserve all the way to the pond.

Winter Scene Dreaming: With over a foot of snow on the ground, cold temps and icy spots on roads; I had to visualize a happy ride by combining two previous, unused images.



An unused grist mill pic was combined with a pic that had the gs in it in the hope of making a more interesting picture. This is a ride I'd like to take today but would spend too much time in heavy traffic on crappy, sloppy, slippery, salty roads in the cold. Being in the comfy chair by the fireplace better suits these old bones.

I haven't visited ADVRider much in the recent past, so I forgot this valuable discussion. That's sad because I have something fun to share finally.

A couple weeks ago, the giant steam locomotive Big Boy ran three blocks from my house! There was quite a crowd to watch, and I was glad I took the bike because parking was scarce.

It was so cool to watch it steam past. See:

One thing about my area is that they have speakers on the gates that simulate train horns so the trains don't have to blow their horn. The sound is localized. When the trains really do blow their horn, the loudness is amazing.

Leftover Foliage Pic: Below is a leftover foliage picture from an October ride that shows the Montague, MA, church at coordinates 42.535308, -72.532302.



The church dates back to 1751 but am not sure of the building's particulars. The design is that of an 18th century church but it may have been restored or rebuilt at some point. The Greek Revival front looks like a later addition.

Go Riding In Your Mind: On some days, there are parts of the day that just turn to shit. Yesterday had some of those. First was the weather, where we were anointed with more snow followed by a drizzle of freezing rain and sleet. Next, there was a runaway on the CNC machine that ruined my last 1/8 in. bit and put a stop to a production run of charity ornaments. While down in the basement, I heard this big "whomp" that turned out to be a big dump of snow and ice off the roof onto the ground in front of the carriage house entrance and garage. Although minuscule in the larger scheme of things, it was sufficiently irritating to send me to the (fireplace) comfy chair to contemplate that perfect summer ride and take a short snooze. Later that evening, I tried to capture the optics of that dream with this composite picture.



I often take pics of favorite roads without getting off the bike (who wants get off when you're in the 'zone' on a nearly-perfect road), so there's no evidence of the redhead being there for future memories. The solution is to go into Photoshop, grab a copy of that favorite road, grab a copy of the readhead, mask the latter and then combine them by cloning certain elements into the composite. Such is the above, which I will relish looking at during the intervening crappy days before spring. We do, of course, still have the untouched originals.

Seeing "Steam" do a flyby is one thing. Seeing/hearing/feeling steam just getting underway is something else...

Agreed. As a tribute to such great memories, below is a nice video of various Cass steamers (e.g., Shays, Heisler, etc.) getting underway.



The clatter of a Shays, Heisler or Climax engine adds something to the experience.