How to ride an Indian, doggie style

The following is a guest blog submitted by Indian owner Glenn Heimler of Thousand Oaks, Calif. Glenn rides with a unique passenger – his dog Neko.

By Glenn Heimler
Today was the last of three days off and I didn’t have too many things to do. So I rolled the bike out, warmed it up, got Neko’s sun glasses and my gear and set out toward the Rock Store on Mulholland Drive in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Canine companion

On the way out, my little buddy got situated in the sling and enjoyed sticking his nose into the wind.
When we arrived at the Rock Store, to my surprise it was closed. It was Thursday around lunch time, and no other riders were hanging out, so we just kept cruising and headed up and over Kanan Road to the coast.
At Pacific Coast Highway we turned north and rode through Free Zuma, as Neko wanted to check out the bikini scene, then continued north up to Neptune’s Net restaurant which is located on the Ventura-Los Angeles county line.
We stopped to water ourselves and Neko was quite an attraction to even the nonriders. We hung for a bit and soaked up the attention.
After leaving Neptune’s, we continued north to Deer Canyon Road which takes us back up into the mountains.
We rode up to the top ridge to view Boney Mountain. By that time I thought we had a tire fire so we both got off the bike to put it out.
We got rolling again and eventually circled back to the coast.
While cruising at about 70 mph with nobody around we spotted a flock of seagulls enjoying some road kill in our lane about 100 yards up. We slowed down to about 50 mph. I was expecting them to fly away before we were on top of them. That didn’t happen. They took flight too late. I hit one square on with my windshield and the other got wedged in between my right mirror and throttle. The force was strong and almost laid us down.
I checked my shorts (!*?@#) and was ok, lifted Neko’s tail and he was ok. So we continued up the road past the old State Hospital. It was featured on the cover of the Eagles’ Hotel California album. Then we rode back into the mountains on the other side of Boney.
This little section of road is just great. Nobody hardly on it and the scenery is nice. Takes you past the hospital, through a small valley and back up on to a plateau where it passes a horse stable and gradually brings you back into town.
I’v taken this route many times but it seemed a little extra special to have my buddy Neko and to be on my Indian. What more can you ask for?
Keep riding. Native Spirit.

UPDATE:
Neko is a Maltese.
And how I get him to ride is I put him in a newborn baby sling that I bought at Babies R Us.
I put it over my head a one arm through. The sling hangs down to my waist and my top thigh. Neko fits comfy all the way in with just his head out. He likes to hang 10 with his front paws out and just his body inside the sling.

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