Friday morning, I tried to fire up my SuperDuke. Kuh-chug. Kuh. Kuh. Click. Click. “Crap.”
I guess I’m not going to be in the office “in a couple minutes.” I attached my battery tender and fidgeted for another 15 minutes. Kuh-chug. Kuh. Click. Click. <sigh>
Out comes the FJR. In goes the SuperDuke. Back on the battery tender. Not a great way to start my day.
As you probably know, I’ve got a Yamaha Super Ténéré on order. The idea of riding 5000+ miles to Alaska and back sounds rather appealing to me. The idea of riding the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route is also appealing to me. What can I say? I like picking the road less traveled. The woman thinks I’m nuts. <shrug>
Imagine my surprise when I showed her a picture of the Honda Crossrunner. Her response was, “I could see myself riding across country on that.” I could only smile. Her next comment was, “Are we going to be a four bike family?” In silence, gave her a rather blank look. “Four isn’t enough. Is it?” “Not really. If you get another bike, we’ll be at five.” We’re going to need a bigger garage.
Cresting a rise west of where 217 connects to 26, I had a “moment” this morning.
I was humming along as usual, in the left lane, on the right side next to the dotted white line. The car in front of me slammed on his brakes. I followed suit, locking the rear wheel in the process. The rear wheel starts to slide to my left as I grab more front brake further unloading the rear end.
At this point I have no idea why the car in front of my is slamming on it’s brakes when it had been doing 65. But the idea of rear ending him doesn’t exactly appeal to me, so I follow suit.
Then I hear the impact. The guy in front of me just hit something. A flash of gray as a milk crate bounces off the concrete barrier to my left. You know the kind. With the metal reinforcement ring at the top.
Amazing what the brain can catalog when focused.
A split second and it was over. I’m back on the throttle to escape panic stops in my rear view. Gone. After I see more fresh debris against the median, I move over into the center lane until the concrete median transitions to open grass.
Hmm… I need to work on my panic braking skills.
The FJR has ABS and linked brakes so I can hammer both ends with confidence. The SuperDuke isn’t as advanced on the techno scale. Must practice that one.
Last month, I went to the Cycle World Motorcycle Expo
I’ve been watching Dakar.
I’ve been reading articles on the new Yamaha Super Ténéré and Triumph Tiger 800 and 800 XC.
I started playing with the Giant Loop Great Basin bag I got for x-mas.
I’ve spent hours just staring at my bikes, lost in random thoughts of storage capacity, cold/rain protection, helmets and body armor, mounts for my new Spot II GPS messenger, throttle control and speeding ticket avoidance.
I guess you could say I’ve got that itch. Even with cold and rainy weather we’ve been having lately, I’m itching to get back on a bike. I’m itching for a few days away from everything. I’m itching to disconnect from my hyper-connected life. I’m itching to focus my attentions on lean angles and hitting my corner markers.
Standing in my garage, watching the rain continue to fall, I wait.
In the meantime, maybe I’ll go surfing in Lahaina.
Am I allowed to lust for another bike yet? Probably not.
Italian Sex Appeal: Aprillia RSV4+R in black of course… My latest Cycle World rated it as Bike Of The Year, just like my SD.
I’ve been looking at the new BMW superbike, the S 1000 RR. It looks very interesting and the price is very good. Huge amounts of technology, under $15K.
But hey, if you are going to lust… Which would you rather have a racy Italian or a racy German. A racy German?!? That almost sounds oxymoronic. I think I’d even trade the SuperDuke for the Aprilia. I’ve got the FJR for road trips… Hmm… But what about my commutes? I guess I need all three!
One thing I do know that I don’t need the Factory version. I know the standard is way better than my skills can handle. So, let’s stick with the “cheap one.”
Just don’t say anything to the woman! I promised to not lust after another bike until the KTM is paid off.
| Top Speed: | 134 mph |
| Number of times blew the fiesta curves: | 2 |
| Number of times black flagged: | 1 |
| Number of times “off” track: | 1 |
| Number of accidents/injuries/get-offs/broken parts: | 0 |
Fun? No, not really. Learning isn’t always fun.
Interesting? Yes.
Informative? Yes.
Repeater? Not sure about that. Maybe. Maybe not.
I signed up for a track day at PIR for this weekend. I’m excited but nervous. I know there is a vast amount of knowledge that I lack. I want to learn how to “really” corner, fast, smooth, safely. Anyone can go fast in a straight line. Cornering is defining skill when it comes to riding a motorcycle. If I can learn to corner “correctly” at 90+, then navigating the cloverleaf at 35 should be easy, even when things are not perfect and/or drama ensues. Right?
So how did this come about? Read more…
Friday:
It is a beautiful day and I stuck at the office. My progress with WPF has been notable, but I still have a lot to learn to create good apps. It is a very different way of thinking about things. All of this gets shelved next week. I need to slide back into the WinForm world and finish up a data validation screen that I had been working on weeks ago. Now, I need to rework a few things and finish it up.
My ride home from work was amazing.
I had a great vacation. Now it’s back to work and I’m really grumpy. I didn’t sleep much the last two nights out and I didn’t sleep very much last night either, even though I was back in my own bed. So… I’m grumpy. Read more…
View Klickitat Run in a larger map
I’m slowly gearing up for a run up to Klickitat. I want to get up there and take a look. It can be a very relaxing place. There is a really nice turn out above the river where the sunsets are really pretty. The turn out is about a mile up a canyon. The sides are not steep drop-offs but steep grassland. The river isn’t visible nor is the upload plateau. It’s quiet with a big shade tree. It’s a nice place to stop, eat an apple and sip some water. Read more…
Hours at the office a memory, I headed to North Plains for a 90 mile commute home. I traveled to the farthest points on Skyline where the gravel starts then back to Thompson. The corners flowed. Everything clicked. I figured out why the front end was wandering. Groves in the pavement. I learned that drifting out on a corner exit smoothed out my lines. The changes to the settings made a huge difference. The bike had previously unknown stability. I could dive into a corner faster than I ever could on my other bikes and it was a thoughtless process. The bike just flowed into every bend. And I wasn’t trying to push. I wasn’t pushing. It just worked. Read more…
After a relaxing weekend, I had a terrible night last night. All of the pets are in ‘spring-mode.’ The dog wouldn’t lay down. The kitten was racing through the bedroom and the pushiest of our cats decided that I was paying enough attention to her… at 4 am. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep last night. Read more…
I’ve noticed this (One of ‘those’ days…) is a very popular page. Today I re-read it. I saw a couple more typo’s and places where I wasn’t very clear. But more than anything else it was frustrating and disappointing to revisit that moment.
I know the guy had a life before all of this. He made a bad choice, but his choices had consequences far beyond his limited world. I had multiple conversations with the insurance companies. I learned his name, Mason Andrews. I learned that the driver he hit was terrified to get back in a car and was vowing to never ride again. I know that it took me almost a year to stop thinking about what I saw when I got back on a bike. Maybe that is why I still feel that tightness in my chest when I think about it. It was a brutal moment. Exceptionally fast and infinitely slow.
Spilt blood, bent steel, torn carbon, shattered glass, falling tears, and bare feet.
I still ride, obviously. The SuperDuke is in the same class as the S4R. And I have been seduced by carbon, ti, and steering dampers. But I try not to make those kinds of mistakes. I know what I don’t know. I don’t know the KTM well enough yet to really push it. I do know that you don’t push in rush hour traffic, at least not like that. Sure I break the laws and occassionally lane split when it suits my purposes. I use the power of that v-twin to scoot past the cages that would block my progress. But I also know what happens if I make a mistake…
Live. Ride. Breathe. Feel every moment. And understand that one choice will cause those ripples to move away from you and impact other’s in ways that you never imagined.
