Road Rager in Russia

I'm not entirely sure what the road rules are in Russia but I don't see either one of these guys being in the right. Also note: his helmet isn't strapped on. That would have better equipped him for a crash and a fight.

Anywho, if you like your fights in a (very) old school silent movies treatment, here you go:

Are those tears in your eyes?

Are those tears in your eyes? Damn right they are.

Last Weekend's Last Minute Ride

Last Saturday I wasn't supposed to ride, I was supposed to meet some photographers for s sunrise shoot up near Rocky Mountain National Park. That didn't happen. even though my alarm clock was set for 4am I didn't rise until 6:30am due to sleeping through the annoying rooster noise I set to wake me up. No matter how fast I rode the bike there was no way I could make it more than 90 miles in 10 minutes or less. It just wasn't happening.

So, at the urging of a friend I met up with some other riders at MoCo for a last minute ride. I didn't know their route and I didn't know but two other riders when I arrived at the staging location. 

Anywho, we met up, we talked shit to each other and then we took off. It wasn't a very exciting ride and one rider really annoyed me to no end. When turning onto Squaw Pass from 74 the light turned yellow and then red before the last four of us could make it through. There was one rider ahead of me and two behind. I never learned the rider in front of me's name, but when he stopped he was in the middle of the intersection. I backed up as much as I could and waved him back. Instead of backing up and getting out of the way of cross- and turning traffic, he stood there in the middle of the intersection until the light turned green again.

And then he took off. I mean, he really took off. He left the last 3 of us in his dust as he tried to catch up to the others. This annoys me. Maybe it's the veteran in me, maybe it's the leader, mentor and coach in me, but whatever it is, it annoys me when people leave the pack like that. Sure, he was trying to catch up to the rest of our group, but since we were fragmented into our own smaller group (due to him not going through the yellow) he should have stayed it us. I was able to watch him for a while as he passed in double yellows, passed inside on hairpin turns and generally rode like a jackass. If he had gone down at any point I wouldn't have felt the slightest bit concern for him. I hate saying that, but it's true. If you ride like an ass-hat I'm not going to waste emotional energy being concerned over you when you wreck.

Having said that there were a few times I lost the people behind me in my rear-view mirror. I had to slow down and at one point pull over to wait for them to catch up. Maybe it was the traffic from all the autumn looky-loos and maybe Squaw Pass is always that busy. I don't know as I don't ride Squaw Pass that often (the road is terrible). We did catch up to the rest of the group at Echo Lake Park near the entrance to Mt. Evans road.

We continued on to I-70 and then Central City (speedway) Parkway to, well, Central City and Blackhawk.

Daniel and I split off and grabbed a bite to eat there. I love casino towns! The two of us ate for less than $5.00: a burger and fries with Salisbury steak and two drinks. Granted the drinks were cappuccino and sodas, both of which were terribly watered down, but it was lass than $5 for the both of us! Both!

After lunch we road peak-to-peak highway to Golden Gate Canyon and then split off: me to go east and south to get home, him to go north then east.

(For some reason my Map won't save properly)

This is the first half of the ride:

View Last Minute ride 2011-09-24 in a larger map

Today was a... well, it was a day

The good news was my new AVG Willow jacket came in. Woot! And it was warm enough to ride over jacketless (which I don't like to do) and pick up the new jacket.

But this story really starts last night. Last night I rode the SV about 10 miles to go help a friend out for a couple of hours. I'd ridden a few times throughout the day without any problems and I didn't have any last night either. Until it was time to leave.

I jumped on the SV, turned the key and hit the START button. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Everything died.

Fantastic.

I was torn: do I call the roommate who I have had a rocky relationship with for the past couple of weeks or do I call some friends who I haven't talked to since June, but they live closer? I just needed a jump and then I could get home.

I decided to try and run-start it myself. Sitting astride the saddle I Fred Flintstone'd the bike forward until I thought I was going fast enough to pop the clutch. Nogo.

I noticed the side street was a slight downward angle and tried again, this time using gravity as my partner I Fred Flintstone'd the bike forward and popped the clutch. Yay! It worked. As soon as I heard the purr of the vtwin it died. WTF?

I hit the START button again and she fired right up. Yay! Without further adieu I took off for home. However, every time I hit a blinker or breaks the bike died from drawing too much power. Luckily, I was moving fast enough to pop the clutch again.

I headed home, hoping every second that I wouldn't have to stop at any traffic lights. I did, but luckily the SV didn't die on me.

Fast forward to this morning.

When I take Rufus (my dog) out for a walk I grab the keys and head for the bike -- she fires right up. Really? Nothing residual happening? WTF? Was it just something loose? But no, over the past six weeks I've had to trickle-charge the battery a couple of times.

But the SV fired right up!

Fast forward a few more hours. I jump on the SV to head down to Grand Prix Motorsports to pick up my new jacket. I ride all the way there, a cool 27 miles, and park the bike. I go inside, pick up my hold, and meander for a while. Motorcycle shops are like bookstores for me, I can browse for hours with nothing to do.

After about a half hour of doing nothing I decide it's time to take off. Plus, I wanted to swing by a friend's house who lives nearby. I go out to the SV, put the key in, jump on and hit the START button.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

Are you kidding me!

So, I went back in and bought a new battery. A YUASA battery and an extra $20 for a lifetime warranty. Why the warranty? If the battery dies, or rather, when the battery dies, I get a free replacement: for life. That's right, for life. Essentially, I paid $20 for my next battery by buying it years in advance.

But, oh, that's not the end. The battery needs the electrolytes added and then it needs to charge for a few hours before being installed. [sarcasm] Fantastic! [/sarcasm] I don't have hours, though. I call my friend who lives nearby hoping he can come get me. No answer. Chris, in the parts department, says they can give me a jump if I can charge the battery at home. I can, but that means I still need to get the battery home. I have no backpack, no tank-bag, no tailbags, no nothing. [sarcasm] Great! [/sarcasm]


In the end, I ended up balancing it between me and the tank making me glad I'm not fatter since I had a hard time reaching the handles much less the break and clutch lever.

I got home with no problems, added the electrolytes and put it on the charger.

Fast forward a few hours.

I just installed the battery.

End of story. :D

Ordered this badboy yesterday to replace the Joe Rocket Blaster 2.0 I've been wearing for 4 years.



I like the simple non-racer design to this. I, of course, got it at a much better price than they're saying on this video. 

Hooliganz

The Situation
I had a friend in town over the Labor Day weekend. I met her about two years ago at a party for the the local sportbike group here in Colorado and last year she decided to move to Hawai'i for whatever reason (I think to follow a guy she met while on vacation there) and this was her first trip back to Colorado since she left.

Before she even came back to the continent she sent out a Facebook event notification stating she wanted to go on a ride while she was in town. When she moved to Hawai'i she sold her GSXR-600 as well as nearly every other item she owned and therefore didn't have anything to ride while she was in the island state. Luckily, another friend had bought a R1 and had a GSXR-750 sitting in the garage for her to use. Fair enough.

The Event
So, we met on Sunday morning in the nearly 50 degree-f weather at a local meeting point for our ride. If history was any indication I didn't need to worry so hard about arriving on time and history was right: about half the people showed up to the staging place nearly a half hour late. That was an unfortunate bit of serendipity as it allowed the weather to get a little warmer, however it did place the day's schedule perilously close to going past it's 9a-noon time frame. Not that we ride on a schedule, mind you, but the ride was set to be over at noon and a lot of us had other plans for the rest of the day including barbecues, the Taste of Colorado and other cultural events.

Anywho, we finally started our ride. Again, the same as the last couple of weeks, I found myself riding with people I wasn't accustomed to riding with. Sure, there were the usual suspects, but then there were another 5 or 6 people I've never seen on a motorcycle.

The Players
A couple of the guys, Matty and Isaac, were people I'd met just earlier that weekend. Both joked that I'd never be able to keep up with them, that they were great riders. Matty rides a ZX6R (636) and Isaac (to my amazement) rode a blue 2004 SV1000s. It was nearly stock and from what I understood Isaac had only acquired it a month or two earlier.

We took off. My friend Jim was the lead person riding an Aprillia and Randall rode as the sweeper on his Blackbird. I was somewhere in the middle. Both of the other guys are good riders, Jim a racer and Randall just very experienced: responsible for themselves and the group and I didn't have to think twice about them. Some of the other riders weren't so strong or I haven't ridden with them enough to know their skill level and had to make my assumptions based on who I know who have ridden with them in the past.

The beginning of the ride wasn't too bad --  we hit the canyons outside of the metro area, heading southwest. Unfortunately, because we did start so late we also ran into a lot more cager traffic than we normally would have had out kickstands up time been met. A couple of the riders, Matty and Isaac, weren't content to ride in a group at the speeds we were travelling and they spent an inordinate amount of time looking over their shoulders as though they were trying to keep an eye on someone in the rear of the group although we had a sweeper who fulfills that duty. Between speeding up on the lead and zig-zagging in and out of our group they were trying to keep an eye on one of the riders in the rear of the line, presumably Amber, another rider. In short, they weren't really being safe or responsible riders.

We turned onto a much loved and very dangerous road that takes the lives of riders every year, most recently a fellow sportbike rider in June that resulted in our Memorial Ride a couple of weeks ago. As soon as we left the more traveled portion of this road the two riders, Matty and Isaac, started again with their zig-zagging, illegal passing in double-yellow zones and riding to the front of the group then slowing down and speeding up again. You have to understand, this is a two-lane road with cliffs on one side and drops on the other with an average posted speed-limit of 35mph. As a group we were going considerably faster than the posted 35mph and these guys were going much faster than the rest of us while riding (in my opinion) irresponsibly.

As we hit a series of blind turns Isaac and Matty decided to pass the lead rider, Jim. Normally when we ride this is a big no-no that will not get you invited on more group rides. The lead is the lead and serves a function; some of those functions are to set the pace and to scout out the road ahead marking items that might pose a danger to the group. After Matty and Isaac passed Jim everything gets hazy.

The Crisis
By this time I am the third person in the group: Jim, (another) Matty (on a Ducati) and myself, then Christie (on a ZX10r), Wayne (on a SV650s), Kristina (on a borrowed GSXR750), Amber (on a blue R6, I think, (some other guy (on a custom chopper believe it or not), Becky (on a R1) and finally our sweeper, Randall. Jim, (the other) Matty and I come around this blind turn to see a white Chevy pickup parked in a left turn pullout and a motorcycle on the ground lodged up under a guard rail. We pull over as soon as we can and run back to the truck. Isaac's bike was down, Isaac himself was walking around while Matty was trying to pull the bike out from under the guard rail. By this time the rest of the group had caught up and parked their bikes.

What did I mean by hazy? Well, the stories get different. Isaac and Matty were riding like ass-hats trying to show off or something. They were going faster than the group, zig-zagging, weaving, and passing illegally. Jim, the lead rider thought he saw Isaac try to pass a car on the left, over a double-yellow in a blind turn resulting in him laying the bike down after he presumably lost control. Isaac didn't really say much, but Matty blamed the truck for being parked in a lane Isaac shouldn't have been in in the first place. From what Matty said: Isaac took the inside line, crossing the double-yellow and came out wide and thus laid out the bike trying to avoid the truck that was suddenly in front of him.

But would Isaac have been in that situation if he had been riding with the rest of us instead of like a hooligan?

At this point, Isaac decided to ride the totaled SV1000s home with Amber, the guy on the chopper and Christie as his chaperons since the bike did not have a front headlight nor front brakes. Randall and (Ducati) Matty decided to call it a day and Wayne decided to leave since , as we were headed, he wasn't going to get home as early as he'd hoped. This left Becky, Kristina, Matty and myself.

Even though his friend had just gone down Matty still rode like an ass-hat leaving the rest of us beyond the rearview mirror, Becky was a lot slower and she admitted she was a bit shaken up and even though there were four of us, we still had a hard time keeping the group together. This annoyed me. If you're going to ride with a group you need to maintain the integrity of the group. It's that simple. It's something Harley riders are good at doing (but, we have to admit, they can't go fast enough to lose each other) and it's something the people I usually ride with strive to maintain as well.

I should note: Matty did keep an eye on his rearview, slowing down and stopping when Becky or Amber fell too far behind; however, he still sped up and left anyone who couldn't keep up, long behind him.

The Lesson
When I ride with hot-doggers like Matty and Isaac, or the people I rode to Telluride with (who left a new-to-riding female about 20 miles behind them riding by herself) I start to re-evaluate and reconsider some of the people I have been riding with recently. At times like these reconsidering seems like a good policy. However,  I am in a conundrum. As a military veteran I was always taught to lead by example. It is hard to lead by and set a good example when you aren't in the same place as those needing the guidance. That's something I'm going to have to consider while I re-evaluate who I will ride with in the future.

Addendum: for some reason this doesn't read well to me, but I can't seem to think of a another way to write it. What do you think?

Why do I ride? Why don't you?