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Getting Ready For Laughlin
by Dale Brown, 2008

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, 3 April 2008

I took the trike down to Minden to have my brother Ken change the oil and filters, adjust some highway pegs and lights, install some more gadgets, and give it a good looking-over. The Laughlin River Run is less than 3 weeks away, and I'm already thinking about the trip.

Round-trip distance from Tahoe to San Mateo to Laughlin and return will be about 1,700 miles. Always the navigator, right? Plan the flight, then fly the plan--that's been my mantra since the first day I started navigator training almost 30 years ago.

It probably was my mantra before that--I just didn't know it.

I've ridden the trike an amazing 500 miles just this winter. I rode my first bike, a 2000 Harley DynaGlide Sport, just one thousand miles in the 2 years I owned it. I probably wouldn't have even touched a two-wheeled vehicle during the winter except to start it up every week or so.

The trike is a handful on Tahoe's twisty mountain roads, even if they're dry. US-50 between Carson City and Spooner Summit is very steep and winding, but it has the look and feel of an interstate. The trike doesn't like fast, twisting roads. Go just two mph over the speed limit, and you find yourself gripping the gas tank with your knees and wrestling the handlebars, fighting the centrifugal force.

I figured the trike conversion probably took 25% off the gas mileage of the stock Gold Wing, but still at 30 miles per gallon it's way better than any other vehicle I own. I would've been happy if the conversion extended the riding season just a few months, but it's proving to be a year-round ride.

My son loves the trike, and I love taking him for rides. The majority of the 500 miles this winter have been spent taking him to the Lake Tahoe School or just riding around the area on sunny days. We listen to Radio Disney on the Garmin GPS-396 navigator/XM satellite radio receiver, and he digs it.

He actually fell asleep once on the back of the Gold Wing. My wife Diane was horrified, afraid he might be thrown off into space if he wasn't awake to hold on tight. I considered it a compliment to the smoothness of the trike--and, I unabashedly add, my skills as a driver.

Hunter has his Mom's flip-front helmet, an intercom, Radio Disney, arm rests, and even a cup holder back there (for use at stops only, thank you)--he's perfectly safe and comfortable. Incidentally, Diane has not ridden the trike yet.

I must admit, the trike is starting to look like my recently sold Cessna P210 airplane. GPS navigation. XM weather and audio. Intercom. Digital instrumentation. Soon to have a fuel computer and electronic engine monitors. Am I subconsciously compensating for not having an airplane by tricking out my Gold Wing?

Nah. It's conscious

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