by John Reblin

Maple Syrup Time

My lovely bride, seems like a long time ago, decided we should try tapping our maple tree in the yard and make maple syrup. Me (always the good husband) said sure, why not. Always willing to try something with her we tapped and saved the sap for a week or two and boiled it down into delicious maple syrup. After a couple of years of doing this it slid to the side, lack of time and boiling down 10-15 gallons of water in the house, raising the humidity levels was just not working out.

This year I decided I wanted to try this again and made up a plan to do this. I tapped a few trees now, grabbing one on the neighbor’s property along with one that was getting close to the minimum diameter for inserting the spigot.  All we needed was the cooperation of the season and weather. Well we are now in the middle of the project: cooking down the sap in the garage on propane burners, we had a few hiccups along the way. Sorry sweetie about the burnt sap on the stove thanks for cleaning that up, and with time on my hands today, I’m back out in the garage boiling down sap and writing this for you.

Collecting and boiling sap is like watching paint dry. First setting up the containers to collect the sap, the slow drip of the sap into them. If the weather cooperates you have a few gallons in a few days. Then it’s time to work on the finished product. Get the fluid hot on a heat source and it starts getting the molecules excited, churning around expanding and turning from liquid to steam. Sounds like pretty basic science. How long can this take right? Well to boil down three gallons to create delicious syrup takes five or six hours if you are lucky. It takes more time than people realize. Watching over the mixture of water and syrup, especially as you get closer to finishing it up. Keeping an eye on the thermometer looking for the 219 degrees, telling you that the process changing it from sap to syrup is done and ready to pour into the pint jars.  It seems to hover at 214 degrees forever then finally creeping up slightly. And you start thinking just a tad longer… Now my mind is going how long is a tad? What kind of unit of measurement is a tad? Is a tad a few minutes, 5 minutes, 15 minutes? Is a tad like a score, as in four score and seven years ago? Sorry, this is how my mind works. Anyhow… a little too long at 219 degrees or getting a little hotter than that turns it into maple sugar. Much hotter it burns the sugar. But if you do the work well watching what is going on, it turns into something useful and good.

But this also got me thinking about my next article, bouncing around in my mind and how do I approach it in an interesting way.

We are getting closer and closer to the riding season and to have a safe riding season we need to put in a little work. Now is the time to get out into the garage and pull the cover off the bike and start checking it over. What kind of maintenance is due, how are the tires and the brakes? Are all the lights working and do you remember where the brake lever is located?

With the warmer afternoons maybe take that bike down to an empty parking lot and set up some cones or lay some marking devises down to see if you can handle some tighter turns. Practice those high-speed stops, remember to grab both the lever and hit the pedal, and not to skid, always in control, riding and practicing within your skill level. The empty lot is a great place to practice some of these tricks.

And schedule that rider course, look for one that is challenging. Get the BRC2 course scheduled if you did not take one yet or it has been a few years. If you took a BRC2 last year why not get into the Ultimate Bike Bonding Course. Held at WCTC in Waukesha it is course that tests your skills at maneuvers. Before the class starts they supply you with some fire hose and tape if you wish to cover your crash bars to protect your chrome on the track. The instructors understand that not everyone has the skills at the beginning of the course. Sometimes as you push your abilities, “dancing on the edge” like Lady Gaga says things happen in those low speed turns.  The instructors start you out with riding as slow as you can go in a straight line.

The team then gets you going with some simple figure 8’s around some cones and start building your confidence and skills from there. Making the maneuvers tighter and tighter they get you making some tight moves down a slalom course.  They then put you into a circle of cones and as you get comfortable with a 24 foot or so diameter circle going both ways they change it up making it smaller and smaller.  From there they build patterns of cones for you to follow all the time challenging you, but also watching you giving tips and encouragement to get you better at handling your bike.

It is not all low speed maneuvers it also includes some high-speed work, taking laps at a high speed you feel comfortable with. They then teach you to use your body weight and the leverage of your body position help guide the motorcycle through the curve by leaning the bike over farther.

Just like syrup basics, some sap and heat and turning it into something good and useful, taking your basic riding skills and turn them, with some patient work, into lifesaving skill that will help you as you enter this and future riding seasons to ride safe.