How To Listen to Music With Your Watch
1 year ago
Saturday, March 29, 2008
On the Road to Super Bike School
Listen to the latest audio blog from BMWeerman and the Wrench Wench here...
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Micro Adventuring Part 2 ...Good Story of the Day
Got up before dawn today for a half-day run. Have a late morning interview for a new job, cool and ugh, but I can still put in a half days ride if I played me cards right.
Continue to get ready by flashlight. As usual everything that normally is quiet is noisy and I end up waking the Wrench Wench several times. Even with all that, am still away just after dawn.
Dave here is riding his Victory to the Elk Hills oil preserve where he works supposedly not drilling for oil.At the "big-gas" station just west of town pay 4 bucks a gallon, but make a new friend.
Once gassed up it is an easy 20 minutes to Taft and the 33 cutoff, then to the 58W.
God I love that sign...70 miles with now services also means 70 miles with no cops,sweet!
After opening with a few basic runs SR58 starts climbing over the mountain in earnest.
These kind of Road Cuts always amaze me! How do they do that?
It is possible to turn on Seven Mile Road but but only if I want to ride six and a half miles on gravel. Somedays maybe, not on this particular day. That means carrying on on SR58 further down into the valley until reaching Soda Lake Road. Soda Lake Road runs south to the little town of California Valley which I almost felt sorry for them but they seem happy enough hanging out at the fire station.
Down the narrow road with the ranching fences on either side. Past California City the road angles back toward the east. The vast dirty white expanse of Soda Lake begins to stretch out to the left.
After riding around seeing what I could see from the back of the bike I finally rode out to the east of Soda Lake and parked where the road turned to gravel.
I mushed across the desert grass to the edge of the salt flat where I saw this very impressive footprint. Knowing that a photograph like this would be meaningless without some context I decided to use my foot as a size reference.
I had no idea how mushy the rain had made things and my foot sunk into the muck past my ankle. Instinctively my other foot goes down to compensate and gets equally sucked into the goo. Then, of course, my hand went down into the cold wet mud just like my feet had.
I eventually managed to extricate a foot, but left my boot in the mud. Same thing with the other foot.
Continue to get ready by flashlight. As usual everything that normally is quiet is noisy and I end up waking the Wrench Wench several times. Even with all that, am still away just after dawn.
Dave here is riding his Victory to the Elk Hills oil preserve where he works supposedly not drilling for oil.At the "big-gas" station just west of town pay 4 bucks a gallon, but make a new friend.
Once gassed up it is an easy 20 minutes to Taft and the 33 cutoff, then to the 58W.
God I love that sign...70 miles with now services also means 70 miles with no cops,sweet!
After opening with a few basic runs SR58 starts climbing over the mountain in earnest.
These kind of Road Cuts always amaze me! How do they do that?
It is possible to turn on Seven Mile Road but but only if I want to ride six and a half miles on gravel. Somedays maybe, not on this particular day. That means carrying on on SR58 further down into the valley until reaching Soda Lake Road. Soda Lake Road runs south to the little town of California Valley which I almost felt sorry for them but they seem happy enough hanging out at the fire station.
Down the narrow road with the ranching fences on either side. Past California City the road angles back toward the east. The vast dirty white expanse of Soda Lake begins to stretch out to the left.
After riding around seeing what I could see from the back of the bike I finally rode out to the east of Soda Lake and parked where the road turned to gravel.
I mushed across the desert grass to the edge of the salt flat where I saw this very impressive footprint. Knowing that a photograph like this would be meaningless without some context I decided to use my foot as a size reference.
I had no idea how mushy the rain had made things and my foot sunk into the muck past my ankle. Instinctively my other foot goes down to compensate and gets equally sucked into the goo. Then, of course, my hand went down into the cold wet mud just like my feet had.
I eventually managed to extricate a foot, but left my boot in the mud. Same thing with the other foot.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Micro-Adventuring
Yesterday was one of those perfect days for motorcycling, cool, but not too cool with the promise of warming up later. Unfortunately, I had "THINGS TO DO." It had been a long time since the right combination of available time, a running bike and my health had conspired to even make such a day possible. But I had, "THINGS TO DO."
I spent the morning and most of the afternoon in an agony of indecision..."should I stay or should I go?"
You know that eventually I had to go, even though it was getting late.
Just to the east of Bakersfield on SR58 there is a railroad service road known as Bena Road. It is isolated, fairly well-maintained, and has long straight sections, in other words the perfect motorcycle road however so short it may be.
Traveling east on SR58 I pull in the cluth and slow down to exit on Tower Line Road. A short hop over to Bena and then reign in the beast past the landfill. Just past the landfill Bena takes a turn to the north and drops off steeply into a shallow valley. Rounding the corner throttle up letting gravity and internal combustion do their work. Hit the bottom corner at close to triple digits then roll on the throttle the rest of the way. Having recently just been in the engine, can see in my minds eye the throttle bodies opening full and in concert with the fuel injection computer pump as much air and fuel into the cylinders as possible.
Being the technical marvel that that is it still just adds up to one thing. adrenaline.
Ride to redline and hold. Still no windshield on the FrankenBeemer - 125 MPH in the naked wind. Helmet straining at my neck wanting to take flight on its own. NOTHING and I mean NOTHING will focus ones attention like being responsible for half a ton of bike and rider on a road like this. The tiniest lapse of attention and a rock, pothole or unseen patch of sand could put you down. Attention does not lapse.
In the twisties now, throttle rolls back, downshift into the tall end of fourth, countersteer into the first long right. This is classic peg-scraper, can I go for it? NO! No Balls. Right leg seems to have a memories of its own and I hear it telling me to play it safe.
Next up a classic sweeper to the right, looks clear, press the bike into the turn. Right leg exposed to the pavement now, toes twitch for the rear brake as Frankbeemer edges out of the line I set. Press harder into the turn now overiding the cellular feedback from my ankle.
At last the sound of tortured metal and sparks in my rear view mirror. Better.
FrankenBeemer begins to sense I am coming back and responds, the old confidence starts to flow back. Ascending hairpins coming up. Remembering the advice of master race coach Keith Code I feather the front brake only, slowing just enough to bring the lean angle of the bike up enough to stay in my lane. Yes this is good, we do the third gear dance.
Then anger...
There are blind corners on this road where if one blows the turn one will be launched into space. They are all marked by signs, but some freakin' morons have tagged up the sign. It's a NAVIGATION sign you idiots not gang territory...then gratitude I don't have to teach anymore.
Near the top of the hill I pull in the brakes hard and decide to turn off onto Caliente-Bodfish road.
Because this is a railroad service road it more or less follow the track of the Tehachapi Railroad as it ascends into the Tehachapi Mountains. (Geez that is brilliant)
As you can see one of the many very interesting looking tunnels that populate this route is located here as well.
As you can see here though the little buggers were ahead of me again!
I spent the morning and most of the afternoon in an agony of indecision..."should I stay or should I go?"
You know that eventually I had to go, even though it was getting late.
Just to the east of Bakersfield on SR58 there is a railroad service road known as Bena Road. It is isolated, fairly well-maintained, and has long straight sections, in other words the perfect motorcycle road however so short it may be.
Traveling east on SR58 I pull in the cluth and slow down to exit on Tower Line Road. A short hop over to Bena and then reign in the beast past the landfill. Just past the landfill Bena takes a turn to the north and drops off steeply into a shallow valley. Rounding the corner throttle up letting gravity and internal combustion do their work. Hit the bottom corner at close to triple digits then roll on the throttle the rest of the way. Having recently just been in the engine, can see in my minds eye the throttle bodies opening full and in concert with the fuel injection computer pump as much air and fuel into the cylinders as possible.
Being the technical marvel that that is it still just adds up to one thing. adrenaline.
Ride to redline and hold. Still no windshield on the FrankenBeemer - 125 MPH in the naked wind. Helmet straining at my neck wanting to take flight on its own. NOTHING and I mean NOTHING will focus ones attention like being responsible for half a ton of bike and rider on a road like this. The tiniest lapse of attention and a rock, pothole or unseen patch of sand could put you down. Attention does not lapse.
In the twisties now, throttle rolls back, downshift into the tall end of fourth, countersteer into the first long right. This is classic peg-scraper, can I go for it? NO! No Balls. Right leg seems to have a memories of its own and I hear it telling me to play it safe.
Next up a classic sweeper to the right, looks clear, press the bike into the turn. Right leg exposed to the pavement now, toes twitch for the rear brake as Frankbeemer edges out of the line I set. Press harder into the turn now overiding the cellular feedback from my ankle.
At last the sound of tortured metal and sparks in my rear view mirror. Better.
FrankenBeemer begins to sense I am coming back and responds, the old confidence starts to flow back. Ascending hairpins coming up. Remembering the advice of master race coach Keith Code I feather the front brake only, slowing just enough to bring the lean angle of the bike up enough to stay in my lane. Yes this is good, we do the third gear dance.
Then anger...
There are blind corners on this road where if one blows the turn one will be launched into space. They are all marked by signs, but some freakin' morons have tagged up the sign. It's a NAVIGATION sign you idiots not gang territory...then gratitude I don't have to teach anymore.
Near the top of the hill I pull in the brakes hard and decide to turn off onto Caliente-Bodfish road.
Because this is a railroad service road it more or less follow the track of the Tehachapi Railroad as it ascends into the Tehachapi Mountains. (Geez that is brilliant)
As you can see one of the many very interesting looking tunnels that populate this route is located here as well.
As you can see here though the little buggers were ahead of me again!
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