Harvie Diddleson

04/30/2026

04/30/2026

Yup 😁

04/15/2026

Popular driven-like-stolen tweaker car around Erie. Don't forget 5 year old wrinkled temp tag, no inspection stickers, self-installed bubbled up illegally dark window tint, cracked windshield, and one bald spare on rusty steel wheel. 😁

04/15/2026

After riding around on a Honda Aero 80 scooter for a bit, this was my first real motorcycle, a “first model year” 1978 Honda CX500. I got it while a junior in high school, and at that time my used example was 8 years old with about 10,000 miles on the clock. It was exactly like the one pictured, in “candy presto red,” with the exception that mine had a handlebar mounted National Cycle Plexifairing III windscreen mounted to it. Damn, National Cycle has stood the test of time- They supplied the factory windscreen that's on my current Harley-Davidson Heritage 114.

This bike made about 50 HP and 31 ft/lbs of torque from a 496cc liquid cooled, pushrod valvetrain V twin and weighed about 500 pounds wet. For the mid-1980’s when I started riding, that put it firmly in the middleweight class and was respectable power in the segment. The bike could easily keep up with bigger Honda SOHC CB750’s. It had a 5 speed transmission and a shaft drive. The bike was developed by the same team that had introduced the first 1000cc Honda Gold Wing 3 years prior in 1975. It was sort of a half-sized Gold Wing, and was later developed into the “Silver Wing” models a few years after the CX500.

Alternator stators, water pumps, and cam chains were the CX500’s weak points. The bikes didn’t really start encountering these issues until they had been on the road for 12-15 years. Many just got scrapped at that point as the longitudinal engine mounting made repairs an engine off frame affair that was costly at bike shops and not something most owners wanted to tackle.

I had sold my '78 CX500 around 1992. But I later relived the CX500 experience with an '81 CX500 Deluxe I had from 2003 up until 2015. I had developed knee issues and the 31" seat height of the CX500 started making it difficult for me to feel comfortable riding it anymore.

04/13/2026

Two cool big ships docked in Erie this weekend. American Integrity 1000 ft freighter in for some service at Donjon Shipbuilding. And BBC Chartering's BBC Tokyo unloading wind turbine blades that are heading to NY.

04/07/2026

Sad to hear that Abbey Square in Williamsville, NY closed last year. I leave a part of life in my 20's behind there. I started working at M&T Bank’s data center in 1989, it was just down the street from Abbey’s. Liquid lunches were still fashionable at many workplaces at the time, nobody thought anything of it. Me and a few others from M&T would go here for a burger a couple of beers at lunch, and shoot some pool. That went on for about 8 years.

04/03/2026

Learn & ride 🔥

03/31/2026

Aaaannnnddddd.... You get yourself arrested. 😄😄😄😄😄

03/31/2026

And… We have this little twat-nugget. Again, I’m not MAGA and I’m not furious over anything. But as a neutral observer name me one thing, one honest to Betsy seriously meaningful thing, that this event was successful at accomplishing.

03/31/2026

I’m tired of hearing how some Americans feel that we should have endless empathy to consider intellectually challenged people who get themselves killed for ridiculous and easily avoidable reasons as martyrs. That’s hogwash. Do others really set the bar in life so low that the most basic of common sense is literally nonexistent? 🧐