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Here in Havre the weather is slow to change from the cold of winter to the warmth of summer. I know the calendar says April, but my bones still say February. Then again, maybe this is how spring is supposed to be.

Back home in Wisconsin we often had a short spring; typically only a week…sandwiched between six months of winter and another six months of road construction. Cold mornings and mild afternoons is probably a sign winter is gradually giving way to spring. I’m just not feeling it yet. It may take some getting used to.

This afternoon was a bit mild, but still cool. To celebrate the warmest temperatures I have seen in weeks I took my motorcycle out of the garage for the first time since arriving here in Montana. The wheels on my Yamaha TW-200 haven’t seen any open pavement since last autumn. As such, I was really looking forward to today.

I plugged-in the battery for much of the winter because it is small and has an annoying habit of running low on juice. A long winter of not using the motorcycle can’t be good for its battery. Of course, I also tax the battery heavily with my myriad of gadgets; GPS, two very loud horns, and an external plug I use to charge a cell phone and heated vest. I know the T-Dub was never designed for all of this and half expect an electrical fire under my ass someday while flying down the road.

One of the projects I have planned for this summer includes figuring out how to shoe horn a larger alternator and battery onto the T-Dub…so I can power even more devices. I don’t think I will be satisfied until I can power a laptop, a string of LED lights inside my tent, and a small coffee maker off of my T-Dub’s battery. Ah, the joys of roughing it on the road.

When I pulled my motorcycle out of the garage, I jumped onto the saddle, and did a quick prayer. I hoped all those cold months in storage didn’t harm her in any way. I then hit the ignition button and she began to turn over. At least the battery was good. Keeping the battery plugged in throughout the winter obviously paid some dividends. That was the good news.

It took a little coaxing some positive affirmation to convince Hopper (that’s what I call her) to start up. I don’t think she liked Montana’s thin air. I played with the choke for a few minutes, gave her a brief rest, and squeezed the ignition again. Finally, Hopper chugged back to life. I gently feathered the throttle to keep her from dying, and soon she was humming just like she did back in October before I put her away. It was going to be nice riding her again.

I took Hopper for a spin around town, loaded her up with new fuel, checked the tires, and then drove down to Beaver Creek Park and the northern gates of the Bear Paw Mountains. It was still a tad too cold to ride a motorcycle this afternoon, but it still felt good.

One of the first things I noticed is that my motorcycle seemed peppier than what I remembered. I checked the choke to make sure it wasn’t still on.

The T-Dub’s engine is not very complicated; one of the main reasons I bought her. There are no complicated circuits or microchips on a TW-200. In fact, the bike hasn’t changed at all since the early 1980s, with the exception of Yamaha adding front disc brakes. Everything else, for the most part, is the same.

The T-Dub doesn’t have a fuel injector that automatically adjusts itself for various conditions. And as you change altitudes, a fuel injector can be nice. If you want it to run better at a altitude, you need to manually ‘re-jet’ the carburetor on a TW-200. Mine must be jetted best for the higher elevation here in Havre, which is good…until I take her into the mountains.

I sure hope they have a slow vehicle lane on Going to the Sun Road. Otherwise Hopper and ‘yours truly’ may end up a hood ornament on some tour bus.