3,011 Miles Later.....

I'm back. It was a great trip. I just got up and am downloading the pictures, I'm trying to work it all out in some kind of order when I write about it. No tickets, one minor crash that diddn't hurt anything (and was kind of fun) A lot of roads and some good food. I'll put more up later.

Sad News

I just read that Robert Dunlop died yesterday while practicing for the North West 200. http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/sport/sportresults/mcn/2008/may/12-18/may1508robertdunlopdiesatnorthwest200/

Scary deal, having your engine seize at 160MPH. for those that don't know what that will do. It locks up your rear tire so it starts skidding. A bike will only sty up under it's own power if the wheels are turning.
The Northwest 200 is a real road race. meaning they race on a real road that you and I could drive on. The roads are closed down for the event though. The most famous of these races is the Isle of Man.
Here's a video to show ya'll what it's like.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vqzpDRBsqdU


RIP Robert, ride on.

Put a new chain on and getting ready for the big trip

Well, I've been super busy. May was a hectic month. Ashley left for Vegas to visit her sister for a week while I stayed home with the kids. We managed to find baby sitters (Mom rarely says no God bless her) for the two days that I had to work. It started out fun, we gor some ice cream and movies and all watched them together, but soon enough Austin got sick with Rotavirus. So the fun stuff I had planned was spoiled. Austin got better, then worse for the rest of the week.
Ashley came home and I turned 30. Ausitn's illness spoiled our B-day plans, but we'll make up for it. During the chaos, I managed to change the chain on my bike, I replaced the sprockets also. The rear Sprocket is now a 44 tooth instead of the stock 42, which will give it a little better acceleration, but kill the top speed a little.


I got out for a ride on it finally though. The new gearing feels great. The damper I put on is leaking oil, I checked into it and learned that it's normal for them to come overfilled and they will leak till they have the right amount in. I'll give it some time but I don't think it's normal.
Now I'm just getting ready for the trip to California. Randy's going to let me borrow his tank bag, that'll be convienient. I'll keep the camera gun and phone in there.
I'm estimating the trip will be about 3,000 miles total. I may need to get myself a new rear tire while i'm down there. These sport tires don't last much longer than 3,000 and I put this one on last fall, it doesn't have too many miles on it, but most of them were on the track.
In th pic above you can see Randy's tankbag attached to my bike, it fits nice. It's a nice bag, a little smal, i've never liked tank bags, but this one's pretty convienient, not too big, will give me quicker access to the things I need regularly without having to dig through the backpack.
I got a new camera for the trip too, a "Steal" of a deal. I was at walmart, some one had tried to steal the exact camera I wanted and opend the box. They got caught the camera was recovered, but they couldn't restock it, so I got it for %50 off. IT's pretty cool 8.1 megapixels takes video too. I bought a 2 gig card with it, hopefully that'll be enough storage for the trip.

Some street riding and Super ART at Miller

Well I went out on one of my favorite rides the other day. It wasn't too fun, there's still snow all over and the road is a mess. In the pic below you can see the sand on the road behind me. I was watching Courtney as he rode ahead of me and there was a cloud of dust coming from his rear tire.



On 04-27 I went to Miller for the Super ART.

What a Blast, unfortunaltly I don't have any pictures of it. I learned a lot there, it was a ton of fun. I'm going to do it again soon hopefully.

It's been a while

I really havn't had time to do anything recently. I made it out on the bike for several hours today though. It's still a bit too cold for any real riding. Today I met up with some fellow cops for a ride to Antelope Island. Myself and Randy were the only riders with license plates! Nolan, Jason and Joey all were riding their new Harleys. It was in the upper 40's but still a bit chilly, once we got out over the water and onto the island, it was down right cold. Antelope could be a very fun place to ride, however the roads are always dirty, there's lots of wild life and with the animals come the cars or "cages" that stop in the road to gawk. The biggest problem I have riding there are the speed limits and the insanly high fines that would come with a speeding ticket. The entire island is posted 25MPH. Lets just say that most of the corners there come to life around 100. Needless to say the thought of a $2000 ticket keeps me riding at relativley sane speeds. It would be neat to see a road race similar to the isle of man there. Wouldn't be as cool of course, but the locale would suit a road race like that pretty well.

Here's some pics, Randy BTW is a girl when it comes to having his picture taken.

The Island

Usually the order in which we ride, cuz Blue is faster

Got out on the Triple and more Mods

Weather's been bad again lately, but I was able to get the Triple registered and out on the road - twice this week. I forgot how strong this bike feels, I guess I got used to the SV's power. Nothing speacail, just rode around town for an hour and to a church event.

I did get some more goodies in the mail.

I mounted up the steering damper today and got to test ride it. I still need to buy a "key" for the tuneboy program. I may wait a little bit as some changes in plans have come up. If it works out, i'll put it up here. Any way the tuneboy program allows me to change the fuel injection map and change anything computer related on the bike, plus do some diagnostic work. Sounds cool.

I ate chinese the other day and my fortune cookie read: "Pleasures await you by the seashore" an omen about my upcoming trip to ride on the Pacific Coast Highway? I think so! I'm getting excited about this trip. I really need the time off. The Disneyland trips arn't really relaxing for me, I like to see the kids have fun, but hopefully this trip will chill me out from all the stress of three jobs and being what sometimes feels like a stay at home dad. I can't wait till the kids are older and I can take them for rides with me.

Mad Doctor

Got another one of the items in the mail: The Mad Doctor tail light kit. I've always thought the stock light looked like a hemmoroid an the back of my bike, this kit replaces the stock light with a led strip and turn signals. I got it from MrBiff (Jeff) on thespeedtriple.com. It was pretty easy to install. At this time I havn't connected all the wires yet. I'm going to get some heat shrink tubing and a saldering gun to make the connections for an overall clean look. But this is what it'll look like. Also I loosened the rigth muffler to get the kit in, it looks crooked in the pic, but I hadn't re mounted it yet.