Tag: ford

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Waiting on an EV…and trying to decide which one

I’ve been wanting to go away from internal combustion vehicles as much as possible and with my Sondors Metacycle arriving in June(ish) I’m heading in the right direction. It’s an in/around town motorcycle so I’ll be keeping the Africa Twin for longer rides, but for for those times where a quick run to the store or an appointment the use of an ICE vehicle won’t be necessary.

Back in late 2021 I ordered the Ford Lightning, but am likely pushed out to 2023 to finally order and receive. There are two other vehicles I’ve put pre-orders on are the CANOO and the APTERA and have also been considering the Tesla model Y.

The reason I want the Ford Lightning is its ability to be a power source for my home during power outages. With the number of windstorms/big trees/power lines above ground it’s something that happens here in Spokane a couple times a year. Most are only a few hours, but this winter the power was out for a few hours and I was about ready to startup my Champion generator to get some heat going, but then it turned on again. Hooray.

All of the vehicles (including Tesla) are out to 2023 at this point and all but the Tesla are unproven although Ford certainly has the infrastructure behind it to be successful.

My current vehicle is wonderful so I “can” wait, but it’ll sure be nice when I get the Lightning.

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Roadtrip, but on 4 instead of 2 wheels

I attended a conference in Las Vegas in early April, 2022 and decided to drive down from Spokane, WA which is about 2,300 miles round trip.

I had thought about riding my Africa Twin down, but the second day from Twin Falls, ID to Las Vegas, NV turned out to be a very windy, rainy/snowy, and cold day so it would have been pretty miserable. I don’t mind the cold or rain/snow, but that wind was brutal.

On the way down I went through the Boise, ID area so that I could meet someone I had hired a year ago, but hadn’t met due to the pandemic. It was really nice to finally meet him and get to know each other a little bit better.

I then stopped in Twin Falls, ID for the night before heading onto Las Vegas. The conference was really worthwhile and it was so good to see so many friends again.

On the way back I went a bit east to go through SLC (horrible drivers) to stop in Missoula, MT to see some friends and then back to Spokane.

The second day on the drive back was also very cold with morning temperature around 27F with lots of snow in the mountain passes. Very beautiful, but not fun on a motorcycle.

The route was:

From roadtrippers.com

I used GoPro’s TimeWarp during some of the trip, but it still ended up being over 30 minutes for the 36 hours of driving.

There’s no sound, but if you play your favorite playlist it’ll make it a fun “drive”.

Cannot wait for my next big two wheel ride!

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Moving away from Internal Combustion

I’m making my first foray into electric motorcycles with the purchase of the Sondors Metacycle. Due to the supply chain disruptions, and a brand new product creation/release the dates of release have been pushed into 2022 from late 2021. I’m looking forward to this machine arriving in April(?)…fingers crossed.

First thing I’ll do is replace the mirrors.

Here’s a review on the production version from Electrek.

I’ll keep my Africa Twin for my long distance rides, but for in town / near town the Metacycle should reduce my need to use any internal combustion vehicles.

Another bit of exciting news is that I’ve pre-ordered the Ford Lightning to replace my Ford 150 and I’m very happy to be moving away from an internal combustion engine to electric since it costs over $140 to fill the 38 gallon tank when the truck is empty. Here’s a review on the Lightning.