Met up with a friend from the S-T.n forums yesterday for a quick ride, as the weather was beautiful and I wanted to get out. We'd intended to cruise up to Index on Hwy 2 and take an interesting road leading up into the mountains, but my buddy had time contraints, and so we just retraced part of last week's route, heading up Hwy 9 and over to Lake Cavenaugh. The road around Lake Cavenaugh is a narrow, windy one with terrible asphalt and really limited sight distance, but the views are very nice and nobody else is ever on it, so that's something.

We did have an exciting start, in which your humble narrator forgot to turn off his ignition while waiting at the Park-N-Ride with all farkles plugged in (XM radio and GPS, plus charging my cell phone from the accessory port). Between that and the headlights (both of 'em), when it came time to head off, my bike wasn't going to start at all. My traveling companion was kind enough to give me a push downhill.

Here's Zach between our Bandits. His is a 2000 B12, I believe, so it's tons faster than Zoë, and it also looks like his headlight doesn't suck as badly as the second gen Bandit's does.

...and here's me, throwin' down a little street flava for all my homies. Represent:

So I think I'm going to give instructing at the MSF classes a shot. Apparently there's a state-run training program. Prior to enrolling in that program, you're required to attend and assist at four Basic Riders' Courses; then the program, which gives you your instructor's certification; and then the teaching part. Once all the instruction is out of the way, you get paid a couple hundred bucks for teaching a weekend class. It's not enough to make me rich, but I generally enojy teaching (witness my several years of teaching sailing classes), it'll help me keep my skills sharp, and a couple hundred bucks is certainly better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

Also, it would seem that instructing allows bikes and bike gear to be a writeoff on one's taxes, which is most excellent indeed. [smirk]

So, anyway, right after the Great West Coast Ride, I'll start assisting at classes. The training program is in September or October, and then I guess I could start teaching. Apparently an instructor is generally obliged to teach a class a month, in order for the instructing company to get their money's worth from them. That should be doable.

It always amazes me how much kids love bikes. On the way to work this morning (a beautiful day for it, as well - sunny and warm enough for the Teknic mesh jacket) I passed three schoolbuses full of kids on their way to some sort of Event. There was a nice gap in traffic, so I had some space, and came past them at a fairly good speed differential. As I passed, just about every window seemed to hold a little kid, waving at me in rapt attention, eyes gleaming. I waved back to them - such is the responsibility of an upstanding young citizen such as myself - and couldn't help but imagine their thoughts, watching me and Zoë on the road, maybe dreaming of riding off into the distance on their own someday.

Or maybe just hoping I'd get smashed by the next available Hummer. You never know.

If'n you're not an S-T.n'er, this won't mean anything to you. But if you are, check me out: I'm completely awesome.

Represent, foo'.

Ladies and gentlemen:

This last weekend I joined a number of the sport-touring.net folks on a ride up over the Cascades to Winthrop, along scenic Highway 20. This is one of the best motorcycle roads in Washington State, and it had just been opened the previous Monday. All told, we had 10 other bikes along, all but one of which were much larger and faster than my little Zoe, but she performed like a champ and an exhilarating time was had by all. This ride was a faster one than my usual solo pace, although certainly not beyond my comfort zone. The S-T.n folks are great about riding your own ride; there were folks along who spent a lot of the ride well past the ton, and others (well, me) who set a more sedate pace. I brought the video system along and, as before, filled two tapes with footage. Sunday I edited that down to another 11-minute video, and here’s the final result:

Ride Movie Number Two

I think this flick came out a bit better than the last one; the scenery is also much more interesting, since we ranged from lowland forest to evergreen forest to the snowpack at the top of the cascades, and then down into the desert/scrubland on the eastern side. As always, though, I’d love any feedback, either positive or negative.

The total milage for this trip came out around 430 miles; all in all, a pretty long day of moderately aggressive riding, and I was tired and sore by the time I got home. Temperatures were in the 30s up in the mountains, and as the movie and pictures show, there was still plenty of snow on the ground, though the road was perfectly clear. I was very grateful for my Gerbing heated vest, up past the snowline. Descending down into eastern Washington was a startling transformation; the desert / scrub of the eastern side was warm, tremendously windy and dry, and a very sharp contrast to the overcast gray skies and occasional showers of the western side.

Hwy 20 itself is an amazing ride; great pavement and wave after wave of sweet twisties, surrounded by beautiful mountain vistas that I didn't have a chance to even glance at. The group really spread out on the way up, as the corners were challenging enough that we all took them at our own speeds. S-T.n'er mbspeed was kind enough to ride trail all the way, which has to be a bit dispiriting on a high-performance bike like his Blackbird.

We lunched in Winthrop, a strange little kitschy town that appears to be designed to look like an Old West frontier town. Regardless, the burgers were good and the waitstaff very forgiving of our large group and tremendous pile of cold-weather riding gear.

After lunch, we headed south, aiming for Blewitt Pass along Hwy 97 and the return to Seattle via I-90. This part of the trip was much less technical; open scrubland, for the most part, with long sightlines, wide slow sweepers, and plenty of room to speed it up a bit. A fairly brisk pace was maintained for the rest of the day; I spent a fair bit of the ride in mortal terror of Speed Tax Collectors, but the roads were mostly deserted in between towns and I suppose we got lucky. Some wonderful vistas were to be seen over Lake Pateros, Lake Chelan, and the Columbia River before we climbed back up into the high evergreen forest for the crossing of Blewitt Pass.

A wonderful trip. I pushed my limits a bit on this one; while I didn't ride at speeds I'd never attained before, I certainly maintained those speeds for a much longer period of time and in a moderately challenging environment. I was definitely wishing for a bit more power from Zoë, especially when it came to pass uphill at the higher elevations. I spent a lot of this ride with the throttle WFO (that's Wide Fuckin' Open, for the uninitiated) and I did feel a bit too much exposure when passing. I would really have liked to be able to whack the throttle open at 85 and have acceleration available right now, get past whatever slow car is in my way, and drop back quickly into the right lane, than sitting in the left lane sloooooowly working my way past. I didn't take any unusual risks, though, and with the exception of one terrifying crosswind-while-leaned-over-hard-in-a-turn moment, I felt very comfortable all along.

On group rides, it's very important not to get suckered into playing keep-up, to remember that dropping back 20 seconds so the other rider is out of sight only means you'll arrive at the meet-up point 20 seconds later, and to concentrate on staying within your own limits and comfort zone. This group had some amazingly skilled riders along, and I know keeping up with some of them would have put me in a very dangerous position, given my smaller bike and relative inexperience. These folks are great in terms of letting everyone ride their own ride, though, and I'm always happy to run with them.

Here's the first half of the group taking a break on the way up (in either Darrington or Marblemount, I can't remember)

Here's the first half up at the high point of Hwy 20...

and another shot, after the second half joined up. Damn oversleepers... :)

Those of you not in "the community" may not be aware of the bitching that goes on about those who ride a bike different than yours. The big division seems to be between Harley riders (and to a lesser extent, cruiser riders as a whole) and sportbikers. Yours truly basically falls into the latter camp, though the Bandit's not really a sportbike...

I can't say for sure what Harley folks think about us. I've never had the "When're you gonna git a REAL BIKE?" speech, but I know lots of folks have, and I know the riders on good ol' American iron do tend to turn their noses up at us on occasion. I do know for a fact that we sportbikers tend to bitch a lot about Harleys; mostly at their inarguably lower performance, higher cost, and the "poser" label we attach to a number of their riders. A lot of the bitching sort of smacks of jealousy, though; "that mean ol' Harley rider didn't wave back to me!" And of course, there's a fair number of us who do our share of posing as well, but there ya have it.

Anyway. I did a bunch of wrenching on the Bandit yesterday in preparation for the Great May West Coast Ride. I guess when I reinstalled the tank I managed to put a kink into the air-vent hose, such that when I rode for a bit and fuel got depleted, pressure dropped in the tank enough to prevent fuel from feeding. Anyway, long story short, the bike died on the freeway - fuel starvation. Luckily I was in the far left lane and was able to stumble to the shoulder before the engine died completely. Trying to figure out the problem, I had the bike up on its centerstand, my helmet on the ground next to it, the engine off, and was obviously trying to figure something out.

In the time it took me to realize what was wrong and figure out a work-around, I was passed by quite a few bikes; traffic was pretty slow, right around 35mph in the fast lane. Of the bikes that passed me, not a one of the sportbikers paid the slightest attention; well, one did throw me a jaunty salute and rev it, as if to say "if your bike wasn't fucked, I'd race ya, bro!" Three different Harleys, however, yelled out to me, pulled off to offer help, etc.

Thanks, guys.

Just a quick reminder that whatever you're riding, the other guy's a fellow rider too. CBXXXX1500R-RR or Ultra-Wide-Dyna-Custom Classic, whatever. We have our little cliques, we all ride for different reasons, but we're all out there riding. You know what? That makes us brothers.

So wave to everyone. Stop to help anyone who needs it. One day it'll be you on the edge of the road, and you never know who'll help you out.

also: welcome to all the new viewers. I presume I can direct my thanks to the Motorcycle Bloggers International site, but I'm glad to see y'all. Keep on stopping by and I promise I'll keep on writing.

This Thursday, stupid-early in the morning, I plan to leave on the Great West Coast Motorcycle Adventure. My final destination is San Diego, though I'll be stopping on the way to hit the West Coast Regional Meet that sport-touring.net puts on in Fortuna, CA. I'll try and post some projected route maps when I get home tonight.

Yesterday I did a dry-run packing my bike. For luggage, I have the Cortech Sport sadllebags and the matching Sport tailbag, as well as a little tankbag, also from Cortech. The tankbag is already filled with the electronics I'll be bringing along; the video setup, my digital camera, my GPS, and my iPod (yes, I have one now. Don't hate me). There should be room in there for my wallet and cell phone, and that's about it.

That leaves the tail and saddlebags for everything else a boy could need for almost three weeks on the road. Packing light will be required. I don't have the storage space to take more than one riding jacket, which is a real problem; do I take the mesh, and hope it doesn't rain, or the textile, and pray it never gets above 70 degrees? In southern California, in May, neither of those are gambles I'd like to take. I do have room for both sets of riding pants, though, which is good.

Tentative plan, for the southbound leg:
Day 1 (Thurs) - Seattle WA to Eugene OR
Day 2 (Fri) - Eugene OR to Fortuna CA
Day 3 (Sat) - Fortuna-area rides with the S-T.n crew
Day 4 (Sun) - Fortuna CA to Half Moon Bay CA (or somewhere nearby)
Day 5 (Mon) - Half Moon Bay CA to Santa Barbara CA
Day 6 (Tues) - Santa Barbara CA to San Diego CA

Then I hang out with my peeps in SD until Saturday, head back to Santa Barbara to spend a couple of days with my parents, and start the northward trek. I'll decide on that route later.

I'm on the road, folks. I'll try to drop some updates occasionally, but if not, look for a big-ass trip report in a couple of weeks.

See ya!

well folks, the Great West Coast Motorcycle Trip is at an end. I rolled into my driveway at 1:30 AM last night, after the longest and least-fun session on a bike ever (San Francisco to Lynnwood in one long slog) and though I miss being on the road, I'm glad to be home.

I need to get my journals and logs and pictures and video in order, and then there'll be a trip report here. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get it all worked out.