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Issue #051
What's New at CruiserCustomizing.com
1. CruiserCustomizing Clearance Specials
2. Featured Member Story: "To ride is to live" by Druid
3. Hot Deals
4. Updates
5. Quick Poll
1. CruiserCustomizing Clearance Specials
Do you want to buy brand name accessories at rock-bottom prices?
We just finished our annual inventory count and came up with a long list of goodies that we
want to offer you at a huge discount or even completly for free!
Our new Clearance Specials includes overstock items, discontinued products or customer returns.
Products in the clearance section might not come in the original packaging, however if they are scratched or dented we'll let you know upfront.
Please note that Clearance Specials cannot be returned for exchange or refund.
Quantities are limited, first come, first serve!!!
Checkout the Clearance Specials now.
2. Featured Member Story: "To ride is to live" by Druid
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Riding up the Mountains
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My VTX with the new V&H exhaust!
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I live in the south of Sweden and this is also where I grew up. When I was 16 I got my motorcycle license and bought
a 125cc Vespa Scooter. Believe it or not but it was kind of cool and I was the only one in town who had one. The leopard design on my helmet was also very funky.... Actually my mom wouldn't let me buy a real motorcycle as she was convinced they are more dangerous. Yeah, right! The tiny wheels and the engine hangin on the side gave great balance. I'm not complaining though because it got me where I wanted to go and lots of people used to stop and talk and look at my machine.
As I grew up I sold my scooter and had only cars for several years but I took every chance I got to jump into a saddle. When I worked in Italy as a guide I used to rent a 250cc Honda off road in my spare time and when I lived in the US for a year I spent a lot of time with friends on dirtbikes in the Pennsylvania woods.
The years passed with no bike of my own but I did get a lot of biking done in India. I worked as a tour-guide there two winters in the mid-90's. When I was in Goa I would ride either small 100cc Hondas or the very special Rajdoot 350cc and when I was up north I always tried to get my hands on an Enfield Bullit. That is still one of my favourite rides and I regret to this day that I didn't bring one home with me.
Home again in cold Sweden I started a new career, organizing a technical support team for a mobile phone operator, and due to too much work and a new woman in my life there was no room for motorcycles:-( However, as life changed and things calmed down the old dream of flying on two wheels came back to me.
As I felt e bit "rusty" I decided on a smaller bike to begin with and bought a used Suzuki Intruder 600cc. A perfect bike to begin again on. It was fun to ride and took me on weekend trips around the countryside and to work but after two summers I decided that I wanted something bigger and more comfortable that I could take really long trips on down to Germany and Italy so in January 2003 I bought a new Suzuki Volusia 800cc. I started riding it to work when it was still so cold that I had to scrape the ice off the saddle in the mornings. I liked my Volusia a lot but it just wasn't powerful enough and the brakes where really bad. At that time an old girlfriend of mine was getting her drivers license and I helped her practise. She had bought herself a Yamaha Fazer 600cc and I had no chance of following her when she twisted her throttle.
After exactly 2.850 km I sold my Volusia and bought the biggest bike in the store - a Honda VTX 1800 and I'm in love! When I write this it's January 2004 and I've been riding my VTX for 18.000 km and the only times I won't drive is when we have snow.
Last summer I took four weeks vacation and spent it all on two wheels down in Europe. I enjoyed the high speed on the German Autobahn as well as the cruizing in the Alps. The VTX might be huge and low and heavy but 230 km/h on the Autobahn is no problem and racing up the mountainsides is easy. Racing downhill is pretty safe (!) as well because the breakes are fantastic. The footpegs got beat up a lot because of the hairpin curves in the mountains but other than that the VTX handles well even there.
With a windscreen and highway pegs I now have the perfect bike. The screen lets my cruise at up to 170 km/h in comfort and I don't have to hang on for dear life to the handlebars and the pegs let me change position in the saddle enough to allow long hauls. Going home from Lugano in Switzerland my vacation was almost over and I needed to get home quick so I did the 1.650 km (getting lost for a while in Lichtenstein and Austria when I tried to find a shortcut) i one haul. It took 17 hours from door to door and though I was tired both my back and my butt were OK thanks to screen and pegs.
My only complaint about my VTX is the fuel consumption - it's HIGH and racing down the Autobahn I have to stop for gas almost every hour and a half. With a hypercharger and tuning I hope that will get better.
This summer I'll take the Autobahn down to Hamburg and then the smaller highways through eastern Germany and in to Czecoslovakia. I'll just be in Cz for a day and then continue towards the real goal - the Alps. I'll pass Salzburg and then head for the Grossglockner pass, which is absolutely amazing, and once in the mountains I'll stay up there but will roam the Austrian, Swiss and Italian Alps and on down the Apenines to Tuscanny. What I want to do is to find a small village in the mountains in Tuscanny, get a room at an inn and then take day trips from there.
Well - that was my story and just writing about my plans for the summer makes me feel better.
Cheers
Lars-Henrik (Druid), Kristianstad, Sweden.
3. Hot Deals
4. Updates:
CruiserCustomizing Member Calendar January
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January Edition
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Please feel free to download the January 2004 edition of the CruiserCustomizing member calendar.
Other months will follow. We still need more photo's for future months so feel free to submit your own photo from your "My Bike" page.
For tips on how to take great prictures checkout Cycle Photo Guide: DelVecchio's Motorcycle Photography Guidelines.
Support CruiserCustomizing:
You can get a free CruiserCustomizing T-shirt and at the same time help to support CruiserCustomizing's efforts by making a donation of $30 or more.
Also, members who donate at $50 or more will receive the new CruiserCustomizing Sweatshirt!
All site supporters, current and future, will receive a
$5 discount on all merchandise purchases. We thank you in advance for your support!
Benefits: After we have received your donation we will display a "Site Supporter" graphic next to your name wherever it
appears on the website and show a thumbnail for your uploaded picture in the member list. As a Site Supporter
you will also be the first to find about new features and we'll contact you from time to time to get your
feedback on important decisions.
A very big "Thank You" goes out to the following members who have become Site Supporters
since our last newsletter went out:
Click here
for a complete list of all 424 Site Supporters.
New Features for Reviews:
Now you can vote if a member review has been helpful or not. Over time
this will bring the detailed and most useful reviews to the top and increases
the value for everybody.
We also took the liberty of highlighting some of our own product reviews
as "CruiserCustomizing Staff Picks". Remember, we all ride bikes here at
CruiserCustomizing and we only sell products that we would put on our
own bikes ...
New Products:
We just added the new VTX 1800 fork kit from Kewlmetal, ultrabright LEDs from Clear Alternatives,
Ostrich Tuxedo ties and front fender rails from Show Chrome Accessories,
the Muth Signal mirror (slick!), Restyling forward controls for the VTX 1300, a ton of new stuff
from MC Enterprise (available from us soon), new goodies for the Volusia, and much more!
Just in case you missed it, our new custom sweatshirts
are now available. Everyone likes the design and flames on the sleeves. Get yours now!
Click here
to view all new products added in the last 4 weeks.
If you have any products that we don't have listed yet, please send us an email to
newproducts@CruiserCustomizing.com
5. Quick Poll
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