Community

My last blog post about Spyderfest touched on the benefits of joining a community of riders versus riding solo.

Having friends in the Spyder community has other benefits to new riders too. Especially if they are smarter than you about solving persnickety problems that have you stumped.

But I’m jumping ahead of myself so let me back up a few months. In March a Texan Spyder rider named Larry connected me to the Butler Mug Holder company, maker of a really robust mug system for power sports vehicles. After a few emails back and forth, the owner Mike sent me what I needed for my Spyder RS-S—a big ol’ mug that I could use for hot coffee or fill up with ice water for hot Arkansas summers.

The version he sent me came with an extra feature on the mounting bracket called the Butler Knuckle. To quote the maker it “allows for the articulated mounting of an additional device such as GPS, camera, etc.” And it works great for those purposes.


Except that I really wanted to mount my iPhone so I could use my GPS app (because I’m too cheap to buy an actual navigation system and because life is complicated enough without having to remember to add a GPS to the list of devices that need charging).

So when faced with the question of how to mount my phone, I immediately thought of RAM Mounts since the Spyder Five’s Lamonster uses their products for practically everything. He’s posted all kinds of ideas on Spyderlovers.com.

Now back to my problem. Generally speaking, I like the challenge of coming up with a creative solution to a dilemma. However, when the configuration options seem endless and the catalog of products is mind-numbing in its scope and your kids are telling you they are hungry and asking “where’s dinner?!”, then I’m a quitter. Sad, but true.

And I would have just quit and longed for a solution except for community. See I had gotten to know several Spyder riders online through the Can-am Spyder Facebook page and Spyderlovers.com, but had never met them in person. At SpyderFest, I finally got to meet Phil, his lovely wife Bobbie and their Spyder, named Darth (who won the lighting contest, by the way).

Phil is a problem-solver. A real one. Not a fair weather problem-solver like me. So when I emailed him about my project he jumped in and did the research. He sent me links to a couple of products. But when I got them in, they didn’t work because who knew that there were so many ways to measure ¼”?! (ID, OD, NPT, -20 and so on).

But Phil was not deterred. He went back to the proverbial drawing board and found a few other options. I got the products in. Put them all together. And…it works!!

I’m probably as excited about this “modification” as some people are about adding floorboards and fancy aftermarket exhaust systems. Without Phil I would have been stuck with my phone and GPS app in my pocket, pulling over and stopping any time I needed to check directions. Without community I’d be lost. In this case, maybe literally.