Riding this Saturday, 9-10-16, leave from Point Douglas Park just west of Prescott

[Jim&Teresa]

Chuck and I are planning on riding this Saturday for a fun day of riding. You are certainly welcome to join us - we will be riding probably 8 hours or so through Wisconsin with breaks and a lunch stop somewhere. We have a few routes to choose from including as far north as Hayward, WI. Another route would take us east to Ladysmith, WI. We will discuss the route chosen at the start of the ride.

Riding this Saturday, 9-10-16....We will meet at 8:45am at Point Douglas Park just west of Prescott, WI. Leave by 9am sharp. We can fill you in on the ride routes when we meet. Meeting location map: https://maps.yahoo.com/place/?lat=44...nited%20States (https://maps.yahoo.com/place/?lat=44.750073704115124&lon=-92.8177528444212&q=Point%20Douglas%20Park%2C%20Hastings%2C%20MN%205 5033%2C%20United%20States&bb=44.76587124%2C-92.85571575%2C44.73429624%2C-92.77984142&addr=Point%20Douglas%20Park%2C%20Hastings%2C%20MN% 2055033%2C%20United%20States)


We just have to take advantage of the great weather for riding!

Hope you can join us....

[MKrone]

Jim

Kathleen and I plan to join you folks, see you at 8:45 AM.

Mark

[MKrone]

All
Great ride today led by Jim and Chuck, my trip odometer showed 491 miles and spent 10 hours 33 minutes on the bike, yes my butt is tired. OK, on to the bad, illegal spiders we all have. So, I'm heading home around Shakopee with both my headlights and fog lights on as it's dark in that area around 9:00 PM, BTW, no flashing from oncoming cars. I get lit up by one of the state of MN's finest. Seems he's all bent out of shape over the fact that you can see white light from my bumpskid (lit with LED's courtesy of Spiderpops.) reflecting down when you look at the spyder from the rear at night. I'm thinking yes, OK, this is a good thing as being seen in the dark usually keeps you alive. He then proceeds to walk around the front of my bike and tell me that under MN statutes 169.49 to be specific, I'm only allowed a maximum of "4 headlights" on a motorcycle and he counted 9. Seems he thinks the fender marker lights and the small marker LED's by the headlights are per MN law, "headlights" and that I'll have to have them removed. I mentioned that the bike, with the exception of the bumpskid is stock from the factory and that all the lighting complies with DOT regulations as designed by Can Am and in compliance in the USA, quite sure they researched the applicable laws as well. He begged to differ and told me the "Statute don't lie, look it up, better yet, I'll print you a copy" He then proceeded to tell me that my spyder is "terrifying" from the front and "just plain scary, because of the illegal lights."

So I'm standing there with this clown and mentioned that perhaps he is not interpreting the correct meaning of what the statute means by "headlights" versus "marker lights." This apparently does not make him feel good about himself and he tells me he should just shut the vehicle down and make me tow it home. At that point, I'd had enough and mentioned I look forward to the opportunity to discuss the whole safe lighting situation with him in court and we could just see what the judge thought of this. Seems this kinda cooled his anticipation at getting the illegal bike off the road, he ended up giving me a warning with the wrong statute 169.18 quoted and took off.

I'm torn between thinking how can a cop be that stupid or perhaps the lighting was just a way to pull me over and hope I looked like the typical biker thug he imagined and had dreams of a big drug or alcohol bust. Either way, that kind of behavior does make one think we do have a problem with LEO's in this country. The kicker was he told me he was a fellow biker too, I'm thinking "really, you don't think a little illumination at night is a good thing for a biker?"

[Jim&Teresa]

All
Great ride today led by Jim and Chuck, my trip odometer showed 491 miles and spent 10 hours 33 minutes on the bike, yes my butt is tired. OK, on to the bad, illegal spiders we all have. So, I'm heading home around Shakopee with both my headlights and fog lights on as it's dark in that area around 9:00 PM, BTW, no flashing from oncoming cars. I get lit up by one of the state of MN's finest. Seems he's all bent out of shape over the fact that you can see white light from my bumpskid (lit with LED's courtesy of Spiderpops.) reflecting down when you look at the spyder from the rear at night. I'm thinking yes, OK, this is a good thing as being seen in the dark usually keeps you alive. He then proceeds to walk around the front of my bike and tell me that under MN statutes 169.49 to be specific, I'm only allowed a maximum of "4 headlights" on a motorcycle and he counted 9. Seems he thinks the fender marker lights and the small marker LED's by the headlights are per MN law, "headlights" and that I'll have to have them removed. I mentioned that the bike, with the exception of the bumpskid is stock from the factory and that all the lighting complies with DOT regulations as designed by Can Am and in compliance in the USA, quite sure they researched the applicable laws as well. He begged to differ and told me the "Statute don't lie, look it up, better yet, I'll print you a copy" He then proceeded to tell me that my spyder is "terrifying" from the front and "just plain scary, because of the illegal lights."

So I'm standing there with this clown and mentioned that perhaps he is not interpreting the correct meaning of what the statute means by "headlights" versus "marker lights." This apparently does not make him feel good about himself and he tells me he should just shut the vehicle down and make me tow it home. At that point, I'd had enough and mentioned I look forward to the opportunity to discuss the whole safe lighting situation with him in court and we could just see what the judge thought of this. Seems this kinda cooled his anticipation at getting the illegal bike off the road, he ended up giving me a warning with the wrong statute 169.18 quoted and took off.

I'm torn between thinking how can a cop be that stupid or perhaps the lighting was just a way to pull me over and hope I looked like the typical biker thug he imagined and had dreams of a big drug or alcohol bust. Either way, that kind of behavior does make one think we do have a problem with LEO's in this country. The kicker was he told me he was a fellow biker too, I'm thinking "really, you don't think a little illumination at night is a good thing for a biker?"

I'm glad you and Kathleen joined us for the ride to Hayward and the Chippewa Flowage area.

Sorry to hear of your "encounter" after a beautiful day of riding with friends.

[MKrone]

Thanks again Chuck and Jim, it was a beautiful day.

[rafmn]

Thanks to all for a great ride yesterday...Perfect weather too!! We were so glad to meet and ride with you fellow Spyder-Lovers. (Jim, Chuck, Patrick, Mark & Kathleen) We're looking forward to the next one, hopefully we'll have some fall colors by then.

137300
Thanks to Jim and Chuck for leading and sweeping, making sure we made it to our destinations.
137301137302
And thanks to Jim and Patrick for helping us find the elusive, Giant Muskie.... it does exist! (Too bad we couldn't have gotten a pic with the spyders in front of it.)
137304

[PScott07]

I'm glad you and Kathleen joined us for the ride to Hayward and the Chippewa Flowage area.

Sorry to hear of your "encounter" after a beautiful day of riding with friends.

It was nice meeting you guys, and sorry to hear about your encounter ( I Think there was more to it then the lights), maybe he just wanted a closer look Ha! Ha!

[PScott07]

Thanks to all for a great ride yesterday...Perfect weather too!! We were so glad to meet and ride with you fellow Spyder-Lovers. (Jim, Chuck, Patrick, Mark & Kathleen) We're looking forward to the next one, hopefully we'll have some fall colors by then.

137300
Thanks to Jim and Chuck for leading and sweeping, making sure we made it to our destinations.
137301137302
And thanks to Jim and Patrick for helping us find the elusive, Giant Muskie.... it does exist! (Too bad we couldn't have gotten a pic with the spyders in front of it.)
137304

Had a lot of fun on a long ride, hope to meet up on another ride before the end of the year, and thanks to Chuck & Jim for great ride!

[MKrone]

Great pics guys, sorry about the rant regarding the LEO. It was just a surreal experience, i'm still scratching my head over it. I also don't plan on removing the bumpskid.