Starting Location: Dealership

Saturday August 16, 2003 - Sunday August 17, 2003

Join us Saturday the 16th in a corn roast, food, The Brick House Blue Band and much more in a benefit for MDA.

Ride with us to Mohican Park in Loudonville on the 17th. Registration is $20 between 8:30 and noon. Your registration covers a barbeque, two beers and live entertainment. The ride goes partly on RT 271 to RT 94 south then goes back roads. Party till about 6 pm.

Yes, it's the event of the century. Harley-Davidson is celebrating its 100th year of continuous operation. No other motorcycle company can make that statement. It will be done up in a proud American way with a huge coming home event. No matter where you live in the US, Harley has set up rides that end in Milwaukee. Here's how it's planned:

Let's start with the Northwest route. It will begin in Portland, Oregon, on August 17-18 and then head east. Next stop Kennewick, Washington. Then, on to Missoula, Great Falls, and Billings, Montana; from there, to Sturgis and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and finally to La Cross, Wisconsin, before ending up in Milwaukee.

The Southwest ride will start in Las Vegas, then go to Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, and Springfield, Illinois, before getting to Milwaukee.

For those headed to Milwaukee from the south, that event starts in Baton Rouge, then goes to Memphis and Nashville. From there it's on to Indianapolis, and then Rockford, Illinois, before ending up at Harley's home town.

Northeastern riders will start their journey in Washington, DC, go to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, then to Buffalo, then Dearborn, Michigan, and through Michigan City, Indiana, before they get home to Milwaukee.

So, no matter where you start from or where you live, you can join the fun. Log onto Harley's Web site, www.harley-davidson.com, and click onto the calendar of events. You'll be led to everything from specific dates to lodging recommendations. Buy your ticket and be prepared for one heck of a party.

Plan on joining in at any point in the route that suits you. This won't be a "formal" parade, considering that Harley riders are never formal anyway. However, we all do enjoy a good party! What better way to celebrate an American icon than to join in and show the world why we have loyalty and pride for being on a Harley and being in America.

Miss this one and you'll have to wait until 2103. Of course, by then it's just possible that people will live to be 150 years old and still enjoy riding their Harleys.

We've been asked about the use of air filters. High performance race bikes often forgo the use these devises to get a better flow of unrestricted air into the engine. Yes, it does work as long as the rest of the system is also modified to make use of the greater amount of air intake.

What that means is the valve timing and lift and the exhaust system must also be tuned to get more air in and out. The question is not if an air cleaner restricts the amount of air the engine ingests but what else goes along with that air.

Keep in mind that race engines are often torn down and rebuilt after almost every race. So the damage to cylinder walls, rings and piston crowns are considered part of the cost of racing. Your street bike will suffer more damage than you might know if you remove the air cleaner or even modify if to allow more air into the intake.

Because the intake on most motorcycles is closer to the pavement than on an automobile it is subject to more of the dirt, dust, sand and grime that hover just above the road surface. Some of these materials are considerably harder than the surface of your valves, valve seats and cylinder walls. The result is similar to taking sand paper or grinding compound and applying it to the internal parts of your engine.

A quality air filter is really cheap insurance. Harley-Davidson street bikes are designed to maximize the balance between incoming air and outgoing exhaust. Change that balance and you might risk all sorts of problems. For example, install a less restrictive exhaust and you may discover that the engine runs lean and gets too hot. Remove the air filter and it may run rich and foul the pugs as well as leave carbon on the valve seats and ring lands.

The factory goes through a great deal of trouble to make sure you engine lasts as long as possible. To do this they filter the oil and the fuel to remove any sediment or foreign matter that may get pumped into your tank or sneaks into the combustion chamber. And yes, they attempt to filter as much particulate out of the air as possible before it goes into the engine. Those particles vary with geography. In heavy industrial areas - it may be smog and soot; in the desert - it's sand; on the coasts - salt; and in the mountains - pollen.

It's a dirty world but we can help you keep the inside of your engine clean. Just ask us and we'll tell you more.

There comes a time in everyone's bike-riding days when you need to make split-second decisions about a traffic situation. Some situations may not be as serious as others, but some literally can mean the difference between life and death, so it's best to be prepared.

Preparing for potentially dangerous situations involves a combination of experience and preparation. The more experience you have, the more ingrained and automatic your reactions. However, for many riders, especially new ones without much experience, your best bet is to be prepared by knowing several valuable pieces of information that can be helpful in a dangerous situation.

The first of these is known as defensive driving, which includes constantly thinking three thoughts:

- Other drivers can't see me
- Other drivers don't like me
- Something will probably go wrong

While this type of thinking may seem overly negative and pessimistic, it goes a long way to making you a better driver because it reminds you to be constantly alert for bad traffic situations. Your increased alertness then leads to faster reactions, which can save you from a bad situation.

Another good rule of thumb is to remember that the vast majority of threats you will face come from the opposite direction in which you are traveling. As a result, it's important to spend most of your time scanning and looking at the road ahead of you, not elsewhere. However, this is hard to implement if you live in a large urban area like a big, busy city. In this environment, you need to keep your eyes peeled in almost every direction: on the vehicle ahead, on your side, behind you, and well ahead of you as well.

Finally, consider the advice offered by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, which developed a set of excellent rules for anticipating and dealing with traffic threats to bikers. The rules fall under the acronym SIPDE, pronounced sip-dee, which stands for the following tips:

- Scan: Actively search for hazards from the environment, roadway, and traffic.
- Identify: Determine which items constitute actual or potential hazards.
- Predict: What the hazard is likely to do or how it might affect you or other road users.
- Decide: Determine the course of action based on your observations and anticipation of what the hazard might do.
- Execute: Carry out your plan or move away from the threat by slowing down, stopping, or swerving.

Following the tips above and the SIPDE rules are the best way to insure that your rides are safe and pleasant.