Dirty Girl's Vulcan Page
My beloved Vulcan is now over 30, we celebrated it's thritieth birthday last year with a very special spa day. And now the Vulcan has passed another milestone, it's zero-odo day!
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August 17, 2022
Vulcan and I set out to enjoy a very special day together, a day ride which would see a long anticipated zero.
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In a person's life there are milestones... birthdays are celebrated in many cultures, baptisms, confirmation, bar mitzvah, and other coming of age ceremonies exist in many religions, marriages are celebrated and divorces are occasionally celebrated too. I imagine there are similar milestones in a motorcycle's life... the day they roll off the assembly line, their first kilometer, their first owner... I wasn't my Vulcan's first owner, and I wasn't there when it rolled off the assembly line, but I've recently celebrated a very significant milestone with my bike. I got to watch the odometer return to zero. I think that's relatively uncommon for 500cc motorcycles; in North America that's touring bike stuff, common for Goldwings and Concourse, but not so much for smaller cruisers. I've actually been anticipating this event for many years, really, since the bottom end of the engine was rebuilt around 70,000km's, I've been anticipating the day I will get to see it go from 99,999.9 to 00,000.0
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In the many years between 70k and 99k there were numerous delays... Vulcan wasn't my only bike for those years, and I broke the speedo drive and then the second speedo cable. But everything came together this year - I found a replacement speedo cable, I found time to get away from my desk for day rides, the ridiculously hot summer afforded me a few glorious days of a moderate temperature suitable to ride (if it's too hot for riding gear, it's too hot to ride). On the down-side, living near massive wildlife such as deer, elk and bears (all of which I've seen on the road I live on) has made me more cautious about riding near dawn and dusk, although high temperatures make those times of day more appealing. Anyway, I've managed to find enough days to get my newly repaired speedometer out and about and put the odo back on its journey to zero.
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When I bought the Vulcan in May of 1993, it had 876 km's on the odo, just shy of it's thousand km service, and when I picked it up from the shop after it's safety certification, it had 880km's on the odo, and since then I have been working diligently to put the odo back to where it was when I got the bike. I'm almost there!
On August 17, 2022, the odo rolled over and Vulcan went back to zero. I'm now seeing numbers on the odo I've never seen before, like 00,003, when I got gas, and 00,010 when I got home from that lovely day ride. It was a really magical day actually; Vulcan and I enjoyed a beautiful sunny summer day of winding two-lane double-yellow-line kind of roads, winding past rivers and lakes, with air scented with sun-drenched pine aromas and fresh mown hay. I love the narrow, blind curve roads here on Vancouver Island, and it was a really special day of feeling at one with my bike and at peace with the world. A beautiful and memorable summer day ride, and a wonderful way to celebrate the Vulcan's Zero-Odo day!
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So, I've been fortunate enough to accomplish a zero that was decades in the making, and the Vulcan and I have now been together for more than half my life. Clearly my most successful romantic relationship. I mean, I'm still chums with my kindergarten friend Alice (Hi Alice!) and some of my high school friends too (Hi Sean!), but Vulcan and I are more than friends, I think... although perhaps I shouldn't try to define our relationship, this is wandering into overshare, lol
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So, what do you do once your bike is new again?
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Well, if you have a gas tank that only holds 11 liters, you do what you always do, you go get it a tank of gas!
Happy Zero-odo day Vulcan!
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What's Next Vulcan?
The Vulcan is now over 30 - it's a '92 model manufactured in September of 1991, and we celebrated its birthday last year with a very special spa day... and coming up next May will be our 30th anniversary, another milestone in my 'it's complicated' relationship with the Vulcan! It's a different love story than my relationship with my ZRX, but it's stood the test of time very well.
Here's to the next 100,000km's together Vulcan!
XOXOXO
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