What did you do on or to your other bike part 2

[Gone in 60]

My first upholstry job came back to bite me. The BMW seats get oddly sticky when they get old and are sun-baked. So, my first attempt to recover a seat was for the worst one, that would leave a sticky residue on your pants and was just pain yucky. I went to the upholstry supply shop and just bought a yard of the cheapest black vinyl they had, which turned out to be pretty thick and not too flexible. I covered over the sticky original vinyl, and the result made for a pretty hard seat.

I didn't seem to mind it for the shorter runs, but on long days, my butt was a little numb at the end. Still, I didn't feel like it was too much of a burden. Still, since all of the seats are the same, I swapped that one onto the least-ridden bike, #3, and had gone on to using a much more stretchy vinyl for the rest of the seats. 

Last week, I was riding #3 with the hard seat when the boss wanted to swap me with the new black-and-white so that I could start converting it to become our #6 bike. We met up on our travels, swapped, and he headed home on #3. I got a text by the time I got home from him expressing his extreme discomfort in the hard seat. I guess I have a little more natural padding, so I promised to strip it and recover it again in what I have left over in the stretchy stuff. Had to stop by HQ for some supplies, so I swapped seats and brought the hard one home. Yeah, it's pretty darn uncomfortable. Stripped it down to the foam and redid it, and am waiting to be dispatched on a run today to try it out to see if it makes my posterior any happier. 

Also, very much enjoying #6. She's the smoothest running, most trouble-free machine in the fleet, even with the highest mileage. Still running CHiPs Style with no yellow decals. Seems the decal company has gone back to the shop to work on our kit, but due to the ridiculous shipping and tariff charges it will wait till the boss visits family in the UK soon and can bring home the decal kit in his luggage. I'm not a fan of riding a bike that looks like a cop, especially with local agencies still riding this generation BMW, but it's fine for now. 

I partiularly don't like cars in front of me at highway speeds suddenly slowing like I'm patrolling them. Yesterday it made for a somewhat hilarious incident. Coming home on the 5, in the car pool lane going about 70. There was a car well ahead of me going the same speed. Then, a typical "Zero F's Given" driver crosses over the double-yellow lines into the car pool ahead of the car in front of me. Of course, he's alone in the car, why wouldn't he be? Driving a Chrysler Cirrus. Honest, remember the Chrysler Cirrus? Yeah.

As he's alone, crossing over the double-yellow, already on the hook for a $491 ticket if he were caught, I see him glance in his mirror and spot me. And panic. So, with a car behind him going 70, he puts on his hazard lights, slows to 25, and pulls up against the median to the left, like he's just waiting for me to stop and ticket him. Of course, I just sail by without giving him a glance, he realizes I'm not a cop, and is now furious. So, he speeds up and starts following me a bit close, as if I'm the bad guy. Had to laugh a bit. Traffic opened up and started running at about 80, above the cruising speed for a still-running 90s-era Chrysler, so that was the end of that.