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By Ted Dunlap, on July 31st, 2023 
The month of practice paid off. The oldest person in the class rode a motorcycle older than most of the students in last weekend’s training and examination sessions. She successfully passed the driving portion of the Montana state licensing exam to qualify for an “M” endorsement on her driver’s licensing. Both days of class were SCORCHERS. They were also very long for a retiree … heck, they were long for everybody … long, mentally stressful and physically tiring. I arrived in time to witness and record all but one of the tests. You can see bits of them in the video clip to the left. I also managed to roast in my multi-layer riding pants, boots, and ran through […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 28th, 2023 
While my last post was about a long-ago Sunday morning ride, the tradition lives on … for fifty years or more. As far as days of the regular week go, Sunday is a good one for sharing worshiping the blends of man, machine and roads that sport bikes or touring-sport bikes meld into a cosmic beauty that only the bikers can understand. Recollecting a rather famous one from the 1970 Northern California somehow triggered finding an ongoing one in my neck of the woods in the here and now. I joined my first Sunday Morning Breakfast Club (SMBC) ride on July 29th. It was EVERYTHING I HOPED FOR… and more. I rode quite a bit farther downstream to the starting […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 22nd, 2023 
I woke up quite early that Sunday as was normal for me. I considered quietly creeping around my sister’s house until she got up around 11, which was normal for her. The drive from Palo Alto to Santa Rosa would change from mundane to ugly by mid-day were I to delay my departure. Instead I unzipped and opened the driver’s side of my tonneau cover, tossed my bag into The Speedster and headed out before the traffic woke up. As I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge on this glorious summer morning I decided to enjoy Highway 1 instead of plodding along the northbound freeway. With the crack-of-dawn absence of traffic, the windy coastal road would add no time, but tremendous […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 21st, 2023 
This month has been most remarkable for the introduction by Missy’s ‘little’ brother of a “new” 1979 Honda XL75 into our household … and a new motorcyclist along with it. While visiting him as he and I took Idaho Star’s ENHANCED STREET SKILLS course, he set his ‘big sister’ on this 174-pound motorbike hiding in the corner of his garage full of Harleys. He and I agreed it was an excellent fit, subsequently hatching a plan to move it to our garage and turn her into a motorcycle jockey. We began her orientation ride July 1st in the Darby High School parking lot with Bruce and I coaching. Since that weekend, I have been coaching solo. She completed her […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 20th, 2023 
alter of the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta I meant to change the subject for today, but had a lot of links, articles and bits to share on the subject. Here, as well as my recent two posts, I will keep it out of the gross zone. Even this cursory view is awful, but the totality is awfuller. The good news is that, thanks to The Sound of Freedom and other efforts, there is some public awareness building, and with that some hope for reducing the scourge. While human slavery and trafficking in slaves is many centuries old the modern power brokers have raised the volume and sadism to what I suspect are new heights. Hopefully public awareness can […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 19th, 2023 
Today was my first time in a movie theater since watching Avatar in 3-D 14 years ago… and that one was probably my first in another decade or more. Suffice to say, I am not much of a theater-goer. But this one was well worth it. I am glad we went, in every way I had hoped for. The movie itself was exciting, touching and massively relevant. Can I recommend it any higher than I did yesterday? GO I am rather obviously not alone in my recommendation. Check out the numbers shown below that it is earning from a public who is being told by The Establishment either bald-faced lies, nothing at all about it, and/or to stay away. – […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 18th, 2023
Today we make one of our rare treks to Missoula specifically to see a movie … well, that and to lend our support to this anti-hollywood-establishment movie that is breaking attendance records. The Sound of Freedom is on track to break $100,000,000, yes a hundred million dollars in box office receipts tomorrow. Disney studios and others kept this production in a dark closet for five years after it was completed. Angel Studios captured the rights to it, and came up with an unusual crowd-funded distribution system that is currently succeeding phenomenally. Angel Studios selected Independence Day for its public release. Hollyweird opened their potentially giant Raiders of the Lost Ark to head it off that same day. Instead of […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 15th, 2023 
It is officially Bitterroot motorcycle riding season. Tourist bikes have been exploring up and down The Bitterroot River on Highway 93 for most of a month now. A skosh tardy in getting my bikes where I wanted them for this season, I started a little behind the early bikers, but not too much. Right at the top of my 2023 bike ride bucket list was a reconnoiter of Highway 38 between Grantsdale and Phillipsburg, Montana. It is right in my neighborhood, lightly traveled and reputed to be quite scenic. I was also warned repeatedly by people who have been there, done that, to explore it on my more maneuverable, agile Dr Zee (350 pounds) rather than jumping right in […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 12th, 2023 
I got the Valentine One installed and windshield remounted Monday afternoon (July 10, 2023), then took the Patrol bike on a meaningless meander of the local twisties. I finished that ride by picking up a cooking pot my wife left at a Monday potluck in the other direction. I filled the BMW up with fuel before and after, returning 44 mpg with quite a bit of overtaking, some to triple digits, a couple climbs up both sides of 7,014-foot Lost Trail Pass from the Bitterroot River 3,500 feet below, powering out of too many lovely curves to count, then running the ‘downtown’ errand. The result was a very nice 117 mile 2 1/2 hour break from the nose-to-the-grindstone yard-and-shop-work fuddy […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 7th, 2023 
Saber rattling seems to have toned down a notch. My sampling of non-lamestream sources shows a slight calming in the rhetoric, and indeed the likely D-Day has passed. I think we can move from Orange Alert to Yellow, or at least closer to yellow. My sense of the situation is that most of the world, those thinkers and watchers not under the Ministry of Disinformation thrall knew starting nuclear world war was consistent with the globalist/NATO/CIA/NWO… agendas and not with the Russian rhetoric or actions. Thus we were neither buying their false flag nor accepting their cover story for exploding the Ukrainian nuclear power plant to trigger nuclear exchange. Well, crap!… we will just have to conjure up some […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 6th, 2023 
1979 Honda XL75 and new rider … more than 20 years its senior My brother-in-law has over 35 years riding, and tinkering on them, now with a stable of Harleys. There was this little Honda training bike taking up valuable garage space until his vertically modest sister sat on it during a recent visit we made to his house. He did a thorough mechanical restoration, added rare bits to make it street legal, then delivered it to his sister. He, she and I have been working on rider training for about a week now, starting with a bike strapped down, rear wheel in the air. As you might understand, kick starting, left foot shifting, left hand clutching, separate front (right […]
By Ted Dunlap, on July 5th, 2023 
The Russians have stated the goal for their “special military operation” quite clearly and consistently. They insist on a non-militarized Ukraine. All of their actions have been consistent with that. A peaceful neighbor is not that much to ask, nor is it unreasonable. NATO has also been clear and consistent. They insist on removing Putin from power and completely eliminating the nation of Russia. The Russian military has been destroying Ukrainian army battalions, NATO weapon systems, mercenaries, NATO troops and equipment in what most observers call “a meat grinder”. The military capability of Ukraine is almost completely gone. Looks like the Russians are accomplishing exactly what they set out to do. Then someone blows up a dam that is key […]
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