The Kickstand 
March 2004 Newsletter@VMTAColumbusGA.org
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Membership dues for 2004 are due now! Don't lose your club member status. Send your check to VMTA c/o Mary Fiske, 3951 Biltmore Dr. Columbus, GA 31909. $30.00 family & $20.00 single. Let's all try to have perfect attendance.
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The PresidentŐs Message
GREETINGS! Wow! After a very uninspiring assortment of weather in February, March has certainly come in like a lion! After entertaining my parents for the last week and a half of February, Susan and I finally got to take a brief ride late Sunday and the warm weather sure felt good! We took the ride across Pine Mountain on 190 and into Warm Springs. Even on top of the mountain the temperature was very mild and there were plenty of bikes out enjoying the beginning of spring. By the way, some guy has opened a nice little biker shop in downtown Warm Springs if any one is interested. We passed a white Wing on the way out town heading back to Columbus and found out later it was Bobby S. out for ride!
The near 80-degree weather this first week of March sure feels good and all that pent up desire to RIDE is coming out. I am enjoying riding the Wing to work and going to LaGrange every day racks up the miles. Hope all of you are clearing the cobwebs off and getting out there for a spring warm up because by the looks of the upcoming schedule we are going to hit the asphalt running! I havenŐt heard if anyone is going to Bike Week and we did want to go so bad but Mom & Dad came first this year so maybe next year. The following weekend is Dublin and I hope we can have a good showing at that event because it does sound like fun. Just a reminder as to how good we have it here in Georgia, I recently talked to our good friends, Dick & Vickie, in Milwaukee and although they have been having unseasonably warm weather also it was still 40 degrees for highs and melting snow and salt on the roads. So their bikes were still in the garage for the THIRD consecutive month.
I want you all to put April 3 on your calendars for the Membership Drive. We need the maximum support of the club for this event as we push for more members. We plan to publicize this event aggressively and hope for good weather. I plan to lead a ride later that afternoon to some place of fine dining.
LAST REMINDER: If you have not already paid your club dues please do so as soon as possible. Submit your payment to Mary Fiske and enjoy another year with the Club!
So letŐs get together and RIDE, folks!
Roger
The EditorŐs Note
Chris Aycock
Meitra gave me an XM satellite radio for our anniversary in December and I am hooked on it! Over 100 commercial-free channels of any kind of music you can think of plus news, talk, comedy, and traffic and weather (for major cities).
The tuner can go from your car to house to a boom box and, even better, your motorcycle. I installed mine on the BMW and it works great. The fine folks at cyclegadgets.com sell the mounting-specific hardware. I have dealt with them in the past and they are speedy and helpful. I recommend them without hesitation. Circuit City or Best Buy sells the tuner, car kit, and modulator (if you want a permanent mounting).
Since the radio is a tuner only you keep your current radio and just play it through a cassette adapter included in the car kit. The FM modulator does away with the cassette adapter and taps into your radio antenna so then you play it through your radio by tuning the radio to a certain frequency.
Since it requires a view of the southern sky where the satellite is I can imagine that the radio might not work that well in certain mountain valleys but I have never experienced a loss of service when going under bridges or overpasses, even the really big ones on the I75/85 connector in Atlanta.
You can get a sample of the service at xmradio.com. It costs $10 a month for a subscription. To mount it to a bike you can plan on spending $200-$270 depending on whether you use the modulator or not. Not cheap, but the good stuff never is.