After a long winter with early, bone-chilling evenings, the weather has changed enough that it is time for bikin’…as in motorcycling. During the winter months when the sun sets early, the air gets pretty chilly, often as early as 2:00 PM so riding the motorcycle required planning. If we went anywhere, we layered our clothes and packed extras, including our leather chaps, to stay warm. If we wanted to do any walking after our bike ride, we even had to pack walking shoes because our boots just weren’t designed for that. It got that sometimes it just wasn’t worth the hassle so we opted to drive in the car instead.

Today, we rode the bike into Palm Springs to go grocery shopping and it was warm enough to leave the leathers at home. Yesterday the temperature peaked at 29C (84F) and today it hovered at 28C (82F), though there were plenty of clouds. The drive to Palm Springs also proved to be very windy and there were times with the occasional gust when I expected to be blown right off the bike. On the way into Palm Springs I wore my denim jacket and I damn near cooked with it on so on the return it remained in the trunk.

In the next two weeks we have two all-day motorcycle trips planned, one to Mexico and one to Las Vegas, and with the overnight lows being much warmer we should be quite comfortable. Now that spring has arrived, it will be nice to finally put the bike to good use!