2014, January

After taking the month of January off from motorcycle event postings (after all....is there much riding to be done in January, given the cold weather the U.S. has been recently experiencing?), it seemed fitting to get back on the beam for February. There are certainly warmer areas than NH in February in the United States, but I think on the whole the country has experienced some unusually cold spells....even down south! Tough to ride in those conditions.

However... I think we have a pretty good number of entries for February! If you have anything to add, please leave a comment to this blogpost and I will be sure to add it. Please make sure to submit the date of the event, the name of the event, the city and state that the event is being held, and a website for more information, if you have one.

2/1 Ottawa Motorcycle Show Ottawa, CANADA 2/1 2nd Annual Biker Ball Yarmouth, MA

2/1 Easyriders 2014 Nashville Bike Show Nashville, Tennessee 2/1 Osceola Law Ride (Sheriff Escorted) Orlando, Florida

2/1 Animal Rescue Dice Run at Stormy Hill Harley-Davidson Clermont, Florida

2/1 Plant City Bike Fest Plant City, Florida

2/1-2/2 Colorado Motorcycle Expo Denver, Colorado 2/2 Webster Westside Auto & Cycle Swap Meet & Show Webster, Florida

2/2 30th Annual Peotone Illinois Motorcycle Swap Meet Peotone, Illinois

2/7 Hot Winter Nights Cyclemax Wilson, NC

2/7-2/9 Progressive International Motorcycle Shows Chicago, IL

2/7-2/9 St. Valentine’s Day Motorcycle Massacre Hondo, TX 2/8 Happy Days Are Here Again Sanford, Florida

2/8 Hot Winter Night Event! Twigg Cycles Hagerstown, MD 2/8 Iron & Clematis Vintage Motorcycle Festival West Palm Beach, Florida

2/8-2/9 Rockingham Northeast Motorcycle Expo - Salem, New Hampshire

2/8-2/9 Easyriders 2014 Columbus Bike Show Columbus, Ohio

2/9 First Annual Buccaneer Bikers Poker Run Brooksville, Florida

2/9 8th Annual Treasure Coast Bike Fest Stuart, Florida

2/14-2/16 Indiana Motorcycle Expo Indianapolis, Indiana

2/14-2/16 Progressive International Motorcycle Shows Seattle, WA

2/15 GWRRA FL2-G Yellow Jackets Chili Cook-Off Fort Myers, Florida

2/15 Jim's H-D Customer Swap Meet St. Petersburg, Florida

2/15 5th Annual "Party Under The Bridge" Moore Haven, Florida 2/15 Annual Biker's Ball for Alzheimers Winter Haven, Florida

2/15 SCVR's Mid Winter Party/Membership Drive Cottage Grove, Minnesota

2/15 Zanesville Trail Riders Swap Meet & Bike Show Zanesville, Ohio

2/15-2/16 17th Annual Oklahoma Motorcycle & Car Show Oklahoma City, OK

2/15-2/16 29th Annual ABATE-District 1 Swap Meet & Ride in Bike Show Little Rock, Arkansas

2/16 Bikers Soar For Wildlife Peoria, Arizona 2/16 Rumble on 5th Ride Naples, Florida

2/16 24th Annual Motorcycle Swap Meet Brilliant, Ohio

2/16 Mountaineer Casino Motorcycle Swap Meet Chester, West Virginia 2/20 Bike Night West Palm Beach, Florida

2/20 Hot Winter Nights at Village Motorsports Holland, Michigan

2/22 Hot Winter Nights at Niehaus Cycle Sales Litchfield, Illinios

2/21-2/23 Nuclear Cowboyz Freestyle Motocross (FMX) Tour Tampa, Florida

2/22 Red Iron Ride Phoenix, Arizona

2/22 Freedom Fest 2014 Music, Food, Beer, Vendors and More Lakeland, Florida

2/22-2/23 Blackstone Valley Harley Owners Group Foxboro, Massachusetts

2/23 2nd Annual Big Chill Ride Poker Run Melbourne, Florida

Transcript: Matt Smith is at the factory at FS Curtis headquarters in St. Louis, MO, and he has answered a popular question they hear a lot from folks: "Why would I choose a duplex reciprocating air compressor instead of just one bigger air compressor or 2 smaller separately mounted packages?" There are several key reasons you would choose a duplex machine. First off, duplex provides 100% backup. If I'm doing maintenance on one pump, where one pump goes down, I always have the other pump to provide 100% backup and cover all of the air demands of my shop. Second, because rotary screw technology is a great intermittent technology, it is ideal for applications where demand vary widely. So let's take the example of a 20 bay shop. If I have a 20 bay shop, and on the average day I only use 10 of those bays, I wouldn't want to size a rotary screw compressor to cover all 20 of those bays, because rotary screw technology likes to run all the time. If I oversize the rotary screw compressor to cover all 20 bays and run it at only 50% duty cycle the rest of the time, I'm going to run into all kinds of problems with the rotary screw technology. Because recip technology likes to run intermittently, over-sizing a duplex compressor is the ideal solution. We have one pump that can run and cover the 50% of the time that I'm only running 50% of my bays and we have both compressors to cover all 20 bays when the need kicks in to do so. A related benefit of this is that we would save energy costs with the duplex air compressor in this application because on those days when I only run 10 bays, I run one smaller horsepower motor instead of a bigger horsepower motor if I had sized one compressor to cover all of the demand. A related benefit is also pump life in this situation because if I sized one compressor to cover all 20 bays, I would be running one pump whenever I needed air. With a duplex air compressor, you alternate back and forth between pumps so that you share the demand between 2 different pumps and you increase the pump life. Finally, the last reason you would want to use a reciprocating duplex air compressor is space requirements. If you have limited space but you need 2 pumps you can mount 2 pumps on one tank instead of having 2 separately mounted tanks, so duplex is ideal if space requirements are a consideration as well.