Want to know what it's like to ride a motorcycle into Washington DC in the morning?  I uploaded a new video that pretty much covers it.

It's been a weird week in the house of smthng...

Saturday, I decide to run out to Rob's place to help him put his Victory back together.  He decided to replace the main drive gear to change the cruising RPM.  That was about a year ago. ;)  Anyway, he got that done and we got most of the exhaust back on.  We had to get everything torqued down correctly, fire it up and finish bolting the rest of his "bits" back on to get the thing back in running shape.  The exhaust and brackets and everything pretty much went without any problems, other than having to run to Tractor Supply to get some new bolts.  Once that was done, we decided to see if it fired up. 

He hadn't had it on a battery tender, so my hopes weren't great.  We had to jump start it from his car, but it did turn over.  We tried four or five times before it finally fired, but it wouldn't stay running due to the deadish battery.  We finally just ran it for a few seconds while it was on the jumper cables. 

At some point, we cranked it up and snake jumped off the bike onto the floor at my feet!  I didn't have enough time to see what kind of snake it was, as Rob and I pretty much both just bolted.  Unfortunately, that gave said snake enough time to just climb right back up the rear tire into the bike innards. :S

We pulled the bike out to the driveway and started hunting.  We finally found him behind the swingarm on the tranny side.  Rob decided to do some "prodding" with a stick, but all that did was relocate the thing under the new drive gear that he'd spent a year or so getting done.  There's no way to pull the cover off the drive gear without pulling the entire exhaust again, so that was pretty much out.

We did some thinking (hah!) and finally came up with trying to smoke the snake out.  Rob keeps bees, so he fired up a bee smoker and stuck it under the drive gear.  After about an hour or so, the snake finally decided to relocate (getting his tail caught under the drive belt probably had smthng to do with it). 

Anyway...  we finally got him off the bike, but he was messed up enough that he wouldn't have lasted very long, so Rob, uh... "took care" of it.

It was about 2 and half feet long, give or take.  While we were relatively convinced it was a copperhead or diamondback or smthng like that, in all reality, it was probably just a red rat snake that hadn't gotten his stripes yet. 

Needless to say, we didn't get a whole lot more work done on the Victory. ;)

The roads in Yellowstone make up a "figure eight".  We decided to do the lower portion the first day and the upper portion the second day.  We started from our cabin in Lake Village, on the east side of the lower loop.  We stopped first at Pumice Point on Lake Yellowstone.  We snagged a few pictures and moved on.  The next stop was Potts Hot Springs Basin.  There's a bunch of pools and steam there, but not much else.  You can't get very close, as there are no trails or anything.  Still, it was our first sighting of geysers, so we had to stop.

Then we hit the West Thumb Basin.  Way cool!  There's a whole area of springs and geysers.  There's a nice boardwalk that goes right through the basin and you can get really close to a lot of the features.  We spent a fair bit of time here and this was probably the main cause of my camera battery dying later that day. ;)

On the south portion of the loop, I noticed a large male elk at Scaup Lake.  Unfortunately, by the time we'd parked the bikes and gotten out cameras, he'd decided he liked hiding in the bushes.  We hung around for a few minutes, but he was uncooperative, so we continued on until we found Kepler Cascades.

Kepler Cascades is a set of falls on the Firehole River.  There's a viewing platform, but the best views are afforded to those who are brave enough to climb out on some rocks (that would be me).  We took the requisite pictures and then headed to Old Faithful.

Old Faithful was still faithful and spewed pretty much on time.  It was hot and crowded and honestly not that impressive.  But, it's one of those things you have to see if you're there.  We then had lunch at one of the restaurants. Food, acceptable.   Service, horrible.

We then saddled back up and headed to the Prismatic Spring.  This is a really big spring with a lot of bacterial/algae growth.  It flows down into the river and it's a pretty cool place with boardwalks to get you out over the area.  Elk and bison don't use the boardwalks, as we did see quite a few hoof prints in the hot muck.  I guess the local critters are used to it.

We then headed up through Madison to the northern part of the loop.  We stopped to get some pictures of a bison who was hanging out on the side of the road.  They are actually bison...  buffalo are in Asia and Africa.  BTW... the picture doesn't do it justice.  Bison are HUGE!  Especially at night, when driving down the road. :S

We also stopped at another set of falls on the Gibbon River.   I think it's just called the Gibbon Rapids.  I left Jim and Rich for a few minutes and ran up to the next overlook.  That gave me an opportunity to get pictures of them riding (trust me when I tell you that it's a rare thing to actually get a picture of yourself on a bike in motion).  They weren't great shots, but they'll do.

From there, we continued on to Artist Point.  I managed to get a few pictures, but that's where my camera battery called it quits.  After hte sun set, we headed back to the lodge. We passed another couple of bison and some elk.  There were a lot of people stopped to look at the elk, so we didn't bother. I started some laundry, had a "frosty beverage" or two and settled down on the lodge porch to write up some of the ride.  While waiting, I saw a coyote go trotting down the road in front of the lodge.  A few minutes later I saw a baby deer (I think) come flying up the road from the lake.  Then, there were all sorts of hoots, howls, yips and other strange noises before a pack of coyotes surrounded it and pounced on the thing.  They demolished it in no time flat!  Coyotes make some weird noises when they're getting ready to tackle smthng.  It was truly creepy, but way cool.

Anyway, I finished up my laundry and turned in for some much needed sleepz.

The first day of the rally basically started with us getting set up with a route to ride in the morning.  Jim and I had one planned, but Jim had obviously been busy.  He'd managed to find a couple local riders and we formed up a group of about 10 riders.  As with the EOM a few years back, this ended up being the group we rode with the entire rally.  It was a good set of guys (and girls).  We gassed up and quickly split into two "packs".  The faster guys (including Jim and I) up front, with the others a little bit behind.  We were never more than 5 minutes apart.

We took highway 72 plus a few other roads North and we ended up for lunch in Estes Park.  The roads and the weather were both awesome!  Couldn't have asked for better.  The wife did very well and managed to lean with me and generally just be a good, predictable passenger. :)  The comm system I installed last week helped a lot.  I was able to explain things and point out stuff as we were riding and she was able to ask questions and point out stuff that I missed.  It was worth it's weight in gold. 

We stopped at the Stanley Hotel for lunch.  The Stanley was where a fair bit of "The Shining" was shot.  It's a neat place and the food was excellent.  We learned a fair bit more about the crew we were riding with.  I'll post up names when I can get all my pictures and other scribbled notes taken care of. ;)  On of the guys (Dave I think) was a bit sneaky and paid for lunch before anyone knew about it.  That was very nice of him...  I'm sure it was well over 200 bucks!

As we were packing up to continue on, it started pouring.  SERIOUS rain!  We didn't have a whole lot of options, so we just rode on.  The wife didn't complain a bit (we were both in mesh - we got WET). 

Jim and I decided we wanted to see the Rocky Mountain National Park, so we split off from the rest of the group and headed up.  The bottom portions were nice, but it was just more of what we'd already been riding through.  Then, we got UP into some altitude!  The temperature dropped drastically and instantly.  We were riding above snow fields.  My guess is that they're there year round most of the time.

We saw lots of other FJRs coming the opposite way... more rally attendees.  We stopped at the top and the wife and I waited while Jim did the hike to the peak.  We saw about 6 other FJRs pull in and out of the parking area and talked very briefly to one couple on completely matching 07s and wearing matching gear.  We'd bump into them later. 

We headed back down and put some hustle on to make it back to the hotel in order to catch Jim's wife when she landed.  We hung out for a bit and checked out the other bikes until the dinner.  Jim's wife arrived as we were finishing up, but the staff was nice enough to keep a plate for her. 

After dinner, we pretty much called it a night.

Jim and I met in Springfield, VA at 4:45 am on Wednesday, July 23rd.  The plan was to leave Springfield and head West for about 1500 miles on our FJRs.  That would have put us somewhere near Burlington, CO at about 2 am on Thursday if everything worked out ok.  This would have gotten us a Bun Burner Gold from the IBA (sorry no links right now, I'm composing offline).  The pace is rough, but it's possible and Jim and I have both done that kind of distance and time before.

What actually happened was a fair bit different.

A local DC-Cycles member and IBA member, Louis, was kind enough to show up and sign our starting witness forms.  Then, Jim decides he needs to check his tire pressure.  Ok, fine...  We air up his tires.  Then we pull up and get gas.  This gets us a time-stamped receipt and starts the clock ticking.  Jim tries to put his helmet back on and his speakers fall out.

Jim messes with them for 20 minutes or so, says goodbye to his wife and we can finally start rolling.  We've already lost time, but not much.

Then we head into Pennsylvania and it rains...  The entire time we're in that state.  Not too big of a deal, but it means we aren't able to use CBs (mine's not waterproof) and we're not making really good time.  But, we persist and aren't doing too bad.  The rest of the trip goes without too much incident until we hit Kansas.

Kansas is hot and boring.  We've messed with the CBs and they are close to useless.  Jim's is probably worse than mine, but that's like arguing about which pile of poo is bigger.  Not too big a deal, but it's another setback.  We just aren't making real good time.  I'm having to stop at every gas station and soak down my head-rag and drink lots of water.  Dehydration is definitely a concern. BTW... when I say it's "hot", I mean that the average temperature is about 100 degrees. :S

Then we hit St. Louis.  Traffic was real heavy to start with.  Add in some construction, then an accident and we're at a standstill.  We probably lost an hour or so getting through it.  We're also exhausted from the heat.  But, we press on.

We finally get about 40 miles East of Abilene and stop at a Denny's for food.  The service was pretty bad and Jim and I are both beat.  We reluctantly decide that it's not smart to continue and we cancel the Bun Burner plans.  We tried to get a room in two places and called two others.  All are full. So, we ride on to Abilene and managed to find one hotel with a room.  We notice another FJR out front and hope we can catch him in the morning.  That's it for us, good night!  Time...  2 am.

We get up Thursday morning and repack the bikes.  We meet up with John, the other FJR owner and chat with him for a few minutes while he's packing up.  He's from Richmond and we'd both met him before at the Eastern Owner's Meeting.  He's traveling with his wife and taking it a bit easier than we are, but he heads out before us.  We figured we'd catch up with later.  Wrong!

We keep on going and manage to get out of Kansas (YAY!).  We make it somewhere in Colorado and have figured out that we can still do a regular Bun Burner if we get a few hundred miles in about 5 hours.  A Bun Burner is 1500 miles in under 36 hours.  No problem!  We just keep on trucking and manage to get it done.  We pad out the mileage a bit and stop at 1580 miles.  Jim goes to gas up to get his final time-stamped receipt.  It's about 100 degrees out and we both have about half a tank of gas.

I'm at an opposite pump and am digging out my credit card when I hear a loud "whoosh" and then a big splash.  I turn around and see the remnants off a lot of liquid hitting the ground between me and Jim.  Turns out that his tank vent had clogged and it pressurized from the heat.  Jim says that a huge column of gas just shot out of his tank and arced over towards me.  Luckily it didn't make it all the way.  This is a wierd "glitch" I was already aware of, but it's news to Jim.  I explain it and we now are both in the habit of holding the lid closed when we release the key latch on the gas tanks. ;)

Anyway, we eat and then roll on.  We hit one really heavy thunderstorm, but it was actually kind of nice.  I dry out in no time (I'm wearing mesh gear by now).  We reach Denver without further incident, but then I had to choose to stay on I-70 instead of taking the bypass.  Traffic was congested, but there weren't any problems.  We finally make it to the hotel around 6 pm. 

My wife was there waiting for me. :)  We grabbed some food, hung out with Jim and then called it a night.  Let the NAFO rally begin!

NAFO is done and we're now in Yellowstone. Sorry for the lack of progress in updates, but cell service has been all but non-existent... forget about wifi. We almost hit a bison on the way in, had some excellent riding and are now just checking out the scenery. We just finished watching Old Faithful and are sitting down for lunch. Good times. :) If I can get some time tonight, I'll write some posts, but they probably won't get uploaded until Wednesday or Thusday.

Note: that means that the next few posts about NAFO (which is now done), will appear after this one when I get time to sit down and do some typing.

Ok, so it wasn't morning.  It was around noon before any of us got moving.  I packed up Blue and checked out and headed over to Seth's hotel.  I parked Blue on the sidewalk (thanks to the valet crew there for letting me) and headed a block or two away to meet Seth, Scott and Mae for breakfast at "Kaye's"...  a seriously greasy spoon.  You know it's a greasy spoon when the bottom of the plate is greasy too.

After a lackluster omelet, we headed back to the hotel.  Seth checked out Blue for a bit and then wanted a ride...  I gave him the shorty helmet I thoughtfully brought along and we headed up the road a bit.  I was going to scare him, but with his extra weight and all my gear on the back, Blue was itching to pull major wheelies (other bikers will know what I'm talking about).  I didn't want to tell him that the front wheel wasn't entirely on the ground when we hit the main straight. ;)  We got up to a reasonable 70 mph just so he could get the feeling of speed, but with an open faced helmet and a wheelie-prone beastie, I left it at that.

We headed back, chilled in the hotel lobby for a bit, then I headed home.

The drive back was horrible.  I was fine until I hit Baltimore, then it started raining.  I've got the gear for rain, so that didn't bother me.  What sucked was that everyone else forgets how to drive in the rain.  It took me almost three hours to get from Baltimore to Springfield...  I don't think I got over 40 mph or got out of third gear the whole way. 

Anyway... got home, put gloves and helmet on the fan (to dry them out a bit) and crashed.  Sleep was over due and very necessary... I had a lot of work to do on the Jeep the day after (Friday) to be ready for the weekend of wheeling.  I'll write that up later.  Cyas!

Yesterday I finished what is probably the worst ride I've had.  I still enjoyed it, but SO much went wrong, it was ridiculous.  Here's the rundown...

I live in Springfield, Virginia, which is just outside of Washington, DC.  Me and another FJR rider decided to spend the day running out to Seneca Rocks, WV to check out some of the roads we heard about.  Also, it's getting real close to "impossible" riding season and we're not going to be able to get out much for a few months, so we wanted to get one more before it got REALLY cold.  We met up at the local coffee shop and headed out on I-66.  We stopped in Gainesville for gas and coffee and headed on down the road.  A quick hop on I-81 south got us to route 55, which we took all the way to Moorefield, WV.  We were really quite surprised to find 55 turn into a brand new four lane empty highway for several miles.  I was expecting it to be miles and miles of bad two lane, so it was nice to be able to pass a few trucks instead of getting stuck behind them for miles.  We headed on to Petersburg and then took 55 out to Smoke Hole Rd, which was kind of our original goal. 

Anyway, we'd stopped a couple of times on the way and I noticed my rear tire was a little more worn down than I was comfortable with, so I took it kind of easy on Smoke Hole, but we still had a good ride.  That's kind of a cool road, but it would be a LOT more fun if it wasn't covered in leaves and if it wasn't absolutely freezing...  it was probably hovering around 36 degrees for most of the day. 

We stopped at the end of Smoke Hole and checked my tire again... totally toasted - showing little metal reflective bits around about half the tire.  Not a good sign.  So, I checked the GPS and found that a few motorcycle shops were in Elkins, which was about 30 miles away.  We were overdue for lunch, so we headed to Elkin to get a tire and figured we'd have something to eat while we waited on it.  That's where the REAL fun started.

I was doing everything I could to save the rear tire on the way to Elkins, so I was using a LOT of front brake and no rear.  We also found out that it was more like 50 miles...  it was 30 miles as the crow flies, but there aren't any straight roads on the way to Elkin.  So, we head up some mountain on the way to Elkins, with me being really conscious of my lack of rear tire, when it starts snowing.  Whee!

So, we make it to Elkins and I stop at a gas station to find out where the Yamaha dealer is.  We get directions that it's about 4 miles "that way".  So, I go about 4.5 miles.  We're heading very rapidly back into "wilderness" and I'm seeing a distinct lack of civilization, so we pull into a restaurant parking lot so I can play "hunt the dealer" with my cell phone.  Unfortunately, I'm cold, hungry, unhappy about my tire and a bit torqued that we've been given bogus instructions...  so, my brain promptly shuts down as soon as I'm stopped.  I forgot to put the kickstand down. :(  It's not possible to hold up an FJR when it's already halfway down.  So, I now have a nice gouge on my stator cover and my hardcase.

Anyway... we get it back up and find out that the Yamaha dealer is less than half a mile away, right around the next corner.  We got in and talked to the guys and they didn't have a tire that fit. :(  Luckily, they did know a dealer that did!  We had to go get the tire and bring it back, but they'd install it.  So, we ran down to the Suzuki dealer and picked up a Continental "ContiForce", which I carried on the back of Jim's bike.

So, we dropped the tire back off at the Yamaha dealer and I asked them to check out a noise I heard on the front end after I'd dropped the bike.  We then ran back to the restaurant where I'd dropped it and settled in for coffee and calzone for a bit.  Two hours later, we head back to the dealer and pick up my Feejer.  The tire was $160.  The install was almost $100.  Ouch.  Oh... and my front brake pads were now toasted and the noise I heard was the base of the pad scraping the rotors.  They don't have any new pads.  The short solution is "don't use the fronts till you get home".  That's about 200 miles.  Whee!

Let me do a quick recap...  we've got five mountains to cross in 30-36 degree weather, I've got a brand new (slick) rear tire that I don't much care for, it's been snowing while we were eating lunch, I can't use my front brakes and it's now getting dark. 

We leave the bike dealer and are less than half a mile down the road when my right hand starts burning.  Not a little itch or something, but BURNING!  I rip off my glove and drive another half mile to a gas station and pull over.  I use heated gear.  My left glove connector has shorted out, so my right glove got all the power and burned the snot out of me. :(  Unfortunately, this is the second set of Widder connectors I've destroyed.  In my mind, it's a design flaw and I'm tired of it.  The last time it did it was on top of a mountain range in California.  In other words, it dies when I most need it.  I think the plastic on the connector gets brittle when it gets real cold and then it cracks.  Part of this is because of the way the connector plugs into the glove...  it basically pulls against itself and breaks.  It sucks and I'm pretty much done with them.  They're going to eBay soon.

So, now I'm not only riding home with lousy traction, greatly reduced braking, in freezing weather, in the dark, probably in the snow, without heated gloves.  Fun, fun.

It was actually a nice ride home, other than the all of the above.  Full moon, riding next to a river most of the time, interesting roads, great scenery, sheep (yes, there were sheep...  in the road), deer, etc...  But it was COLD!!!  I bought heated gloves for a reason!  My fingertips still hurt from yesterday.  Jim and I both mentioned how awesome the ride would be if it were just 10 degrees warmer and I had front brakes.
We had several stops for coffee on the way home... mostly because I needed the heat to bring my fingers back to life. 

But, we made it...  I got new brake pads today and I'll swap them in tomorrow. I think my daily commuting is eating up my tires and pads.  I checked them both less a little over a week ago and neither were that bad.

All in all, it was a really good day out on the bikes.  I kind of feel bad that Jim had to sit around waiting on me being stupid for several hours, but he still enjoyed it as well.  I'm thinking that the best part for him was that he was watching all this stuff happen to someone else. ;)

Hey again... I know, I know... two posts in one day?!?  smthng must be wrong in the world.  ;)

I'm on a local motorcycle mailing list, and it's normally full of drivel.  But, today there was actually smthng posted that I feel like passing along.  If you really want to know what list, ask me and I'll tell ya.  I don't want to post it because I know the spam bots will be all over it like white on rice.  Suffice to say, it's based around Washington DC, so if you live in Idaho, don't worry about it.

Anyway, there was a post about an advertisement that targets motorcyclists.  Specifically it targets helmet use (or lack thereof).  Anyone who's had a bike, been around bikers, whatever... has probably heard the arguement and legislation issues revolving around wearing helmets.  Certain "organizations" are wholeheartedly against helmet laws (for those not familiar with motorcycle issues, this means that there are a lot of bikers who do NOT want to wear helmets).  They get a lot of press, they get a lot of face time on TV and in newspapers, etc.  But, we rarely hear anything about the reasons to wear a helmet, other than the usual political drivel about how much it will raise insurance, how much it will "burden the state", yada, yada, yada.

Well, this one takes a different tack and drives the point home to the individual.  I thought it was pretty cool and hope to see it on televisions all over the place.  It's a message that needs to be heard.  Check it out on Street Anatomy.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 5:36 PM

Hrm... got just a few things I feel like posting up here today.

We'll start with a comment by none other than Seth Harwood himself!  On my blog, no less.  Where, you ask?  Well, go find it yerself!  I'll give you a hint...  It's the most popular and linked entry on this thing (I know, that's not saying much, but it should be fairly obvious to any who frequent my little abode).  For those who don't know who Seth Harwood is... he's a podcaster, crime novelist and an all around cool guy.  Go clicky on the link above if you want to know more (warning - some of his stuff is not safe for rugrats or the office).

Hrm... what else.  Oh yeah!  The Amondotech / light debacle is over... they sent me my stuff.  The coolest part about that whole thing was watching the Jeep club guys when I gave them the lights.  It very quickly turned into a bunch of grown men acting like 12 year olds blinding each other.  Always good entertainment there.  B)

Work is currently a nightmare.  We've got a really strange Exchange issue that no one (including the SEVEN support reps at Microsoft) have figured out yet.  Unfortunately, this is also happening during one of those high-profile, world leader conference type events that we have every so often, so it's a bit of an issue.  I pulled over 56 hours last week. :(  Hopefully this week will be a bit better.  I'm a bit burned out right now, which is why I'm blogging at the office instead of doing something useful.  Ok, I'm really waiting on the queues to drop so I can start messing with stuff again.

My Florida motorcycle trip is off.  I'm still not in good enough shape to enjoy it.  I'm going to go beat on the doctors a bit more and see what else we can do.

I might be posting up a few photos tonight from a recent ride out to Skyline Drive. Depends mostly on whether or not I can be bothered to pull them off the camera.

I still need new tires for the Jeep.  The JeepWobble™ is getting worse.  Might do that tonight.

I ordered a Sandisk Sansa Express MP3 player.  It was dirt cheap and I needed something a little more "durable" than my Zune.  The Zune is good and all, but I get a bit nervous taking a 30 Gb hard drive on Jeep trails.   The Express is small, recharges off the USB port, is built like a thumbdrive (so I won't need to carry around a cable), has 1GB of flash memory and can take microSD cards to expand it.  Did I mention that it was dirt cheap? ;)  You can check out a full review over on Anything But Ipod - excellent site!

I'm getting very sleepy.

L8rs!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007 9:26 AM

Just a neat line up of police bikes I spotted the other day.  Could have gotten a better picture, but I was being harassed by the White House officers as it was and I didn't think whipping out the tripod was such a good idea right then. ;)

Just a neat little scoot.  

Sunday, March 18, 2007 12:18 PM

Not much to say today, just have to toss out the occasional motorcycle pic.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:18 AM