The more things change...

Went to the Long Beach Motorcycle Show last weekend. It was a good show. Saw the bikes I wanted to see and got some good answers to questions I had.
One good answer was from the Nolan helmet people. They have a newer version of the bluetooth helmet set up that I have. The fact that I have to buy the newer unit is not the good news. The good news is that they are now able to stream stereo through bluetooth. As soon as someone, Garmin are you listening, makes a device that streams stereo through bluetooth then we might have something. I am sure that it will come and probably before next summer.
As for the quest for the perfect motorcycle, it continues. My GS is still for sale so I am not in a big hurry to spend what little money I have left on a new motorcycle. I have come almost full cirlce and am going to test the new K1300GT when it is available.
Rode the 2008 Ultra Classic on a warm fall day. I liked the bike a lot. It rides good. It is comfortable on all types of paved roads. My plan is to test ride the 2009 as soon as they get one in the rental fleet. The huge disappointment was the heat coming off the back cylinder. When we got back near the dealer the temperature was around 80F. We had been on the freeway for about 40 minutes. The bikes needed gas so we pulled off the freeway and headed for the nearest station. Sitting in traffic for just a couple of minutes my right leg was on fire. I had on Levi's and I thought someone was holding a torch to the underside of my leg. This was a complete deal killer for me. When we got back to the dealer I spoke with the rental guy and he showed me an 09 and explained what they had done to eliminate the heat problem. I still love the bike but I will not buy one if they have not fixed the problem.
So my buddy and I go dealer hopping to see some other new bikes. We stopped in at the Kawasaki dealer to see the Concours 14. Very nice looking bike. It was rated tops in its class in a recent comparo. So when I got home I started looking on the net to see what people thought. Review after review can't say enough good things about the bike. So I move on to the blogs. Everyone in a moderate to cool climate loves the bike. Those in warm climate love it as long as they are moving. So now the world has turned 360º and I am back to the, all be it improved, BMW K bike and this.
This is the 2009 FXDC or Dyna Custom. This would be the around town bike. It fulfills my need for owning a Harley and gives me a great around town bike. It does not suffer as much from the heat problem as it does not have all that body work like the Ultra so the heat has someplace to go before it lights your body on fire. Biggest downside is you cannot get it with ABS brakes and I am a big fan of ABS. Simple bike and about 40% of the price of a new Ultra Classic.
The one problem I would have left is the K bike almost fulfills the need for speed but does not have the "Wah" of a Ducati. At age 61 I should have learned by now that no one vehicle does it all.

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CycleTrader sucks

What happens when you want to sell your bike. That's easy, just put it up on CycleTrader.com and presto people start calling you. Oh, you can't get your ad published because their web site is sooooo lame that it won't accept your information. And when you contact them to try and straighten it out they ignore you.
I must admit that I gave them a bit of a piece of my mind. That has not seemed to help as they have stopped contacting me all together at this point. Perhaps I need to launch a new web site that is extremely friendly and charges half of what they charge.

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For Sale

Well, I finally got around to putting my R1200GS into the CycleTrader. After much thought I decided to put it in at a price point that would move it quickly. If it is going to sell it should sell at this price. Here is the bike. It is in very good condition and has many modifications. Full BMW hard luggage with liners. A BMW tank bag. BMW engine guard. Driving lights. Sargent seats as well as the stock seats. Ztechnick windscreen. HyperLights and I had the tail light converted to the later model LED light system.
I am asking $9500. The bike has 48k miles. I have all of the major service records. It has been serviced at North County BMW most of the time. I had it serviced on the road a couple of times.
Call Paul at 760 846-3476 for more details.

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Out of the saddle fun

Just got back from a week and a half in beautiful Utah and Arizona. Started out by learning to repel. That was fun enough all by itself. That is me repelling down the side of a rock.
Then we put our new found skills to work in some slot canyons in and around Zion National Park. First we just did a couple of simple repels down into a canyon and walked out. Then we went for the real deal. A 10 hour hike down into a slot canyon that has something called the "Subway". We carried all of our gear which included dry suits as we would be repelling down into pools of water in the slot canyon. It was not particularly difficult but it was very interesting. We had never done anything like this before. The scenery was pretty spectacular. The Subway is an area that has been carved out by water and rock leaving beautiful pools and geologic formations of all kinds.
Here I am repelling down into the lower part of the Subway. The yellow and black bumblebee suits are our dry suits. They came in very handy going in and out of the 50+ degree water. Don't know if I would ever do it again, the Subway that is, but at least I have seen it up close and personal. As for repelling, I would do that any time. Repelling is a lot of fun. The problem is what goes down must walk back up most of the time. If I could just find a spot where I could repel off cliffs all day and then take the elevator back up.
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What just happened???

Two weeks ago I am sitting around thinking about my next bike, my next ride and how much fun it is to be able to live like this and next thing I know I'm watching a bunch of bureaucrats spend my life savings bailing out people who should not have borrowed or lent money. Thank God I didn't sell the GS yet.
OK, I got that off my chest. At least I can still go riding. Now back to the task at hand. I am so inexplicably drawn to the Ducati superbike series. The 848 is all the bike I could ever want or need but the 1098R is just too cool to not be considered.

Since I haven't sold the GS I can wait until it sells and then see what Ducati has in mind for 2009. I am hoping for traction control on the 848. That would make the Ducati decision a little easier.
As for the touring bike I think that the 2009 Harley Ultra Classic has the hands down nod. That new frame is suppose to make this bike a real pleasure to ride. Several other improvements have been made and I think that they have the ABS system worked out now. A couple of chrome options and pipes of course and it will be ready for prime time. One of these two bikes has to wait for one of my hair brained investments to pay off though.
Since my next big planned ride is not until Sept09 I have a little time to get things in order.
Maybe I can talk Washington out of some bail out money. They won't miss $40 or $50k out of the $700B they are wringing their hands over.
Time to end this post as it keeps coming back to those idiots in Washington.

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Returning to Mecca

Not that Mecca, the annual motorcycle show in Long Beach. I missed Laguna Seca twice this year so going to the motorcycle show is a must. I am starting the plans now for the Dec 5 - 7 show this year.
http://www.motorcycleshows.com/motorcycleshows/static/staticHtml.jsp?id=358892
Maybe the trip will help me make my decision as to what bike is next. Usually I just get more confused but this year could be the one. Perhaps the perfect bike will be on display and I can go home knowing exactly which bike I will be riding for the next couple of years.
Oh the excitement !


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4 Wheel Interuption

My brother Pete and I took the opportunity to go out and play with our 4 wheel toys. We have participated in driving schools together several times. Neither one of us has ever grown out of the "teenage hot-rod" phase. A company called Driving Concepts ( www.drivingconcepts.com )is one of our favorite driving schools. They put on events at several tracks around California. This one just happened to be at Willow Springs in Rosamond, CA. One of our favorite events that they put on is the New Years Eve Day event at Laguna Seca Raceway near Monterey, CA.
We both had a good day at Willow Springs. Me in my 997 GT3 and he in his CTS-V on steriods. This was my first time at a big track in the Porsche. I had a lot of fun and quickly found that the Porsche was more car than I was driver. This will change, oh yes this will change. The change will come somewhat in part to my increased confidence but mostly due to the excellant instruction from the DrivingConcepts people. Shameless plug but true.
I hope to be shopping for a new bike soon. Not much action on my 2005 R1200GS. Since I am not in a big hurry and I really do like researching new bikes I can't say that I am disappointed as yet. Even if I sell it soon I will probably wait until the motorcycle show in December to make my final decision. I do love looking at the new bikes each year. Maybe I will write a "wayback" post soon to tell you just how much I enjoy shopping for wheeled vehicles.

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What next?

Before I continue with how I got to where I am I need help with where I should go next. Not so much with where but on what.
Here is my dilemma. I like speed and handling. Preferably in the same bike. I am kind of funny that way. So as I said earlier I am selling my R1200GS but I don't know what to replace it with as yet. I was at the BMW store today and they of course would like me to trade it in on a new BMW.
I like the K1200GT but not enough to take that leap. It has most of the attributes that I am looking for but it just doesn't knock my socks off. So then what? I have read most of the articles, looked at the pictures and here is where I am.




Aprilia Shiver
Love the looks. Understand the handling is quite good. The biggest knock on the bike is top end power. This is important but from all indications the low and mid range is good so top end is not critical.









Aprilia Tuono
This bike has pretty much everything. Gobs of power. Handles like it is on rails. Particularly in the Factory version. It wins the head to head competitions almost every time. My only problem with it is I hate the headlight setup. I much preferred the previous version. This bike is definitely on the "A" list.










Ducati 848
Beauty, power, grace. It has it all. If I didn't have to worry about killing myself on it or not being able to stand up right after riding it it would be in the garage right now. I love this bike. It is appropriate that it is red. Every time I think about buying this bike all I can think of is the picture of the angel and devil sitting on my shoulders, one of the saying "buy it buy it" and the other one saying "do you like the look and smell of hospital rooms?". I can't help it I must have some Italian blood somewhere in my heritage or past lives.










This next one requires some patients on the readers part.
Harley-Davidson Ultra-Classic
No it is not fast, and no it does not handle anything like the others listed above but it does have an enormous amount of "wah". I can't help it if I love Harleys. As soon as you tell people you ride the ask if you ride a Harley.
The other big advantage to buying a Harley is I still would need a fun fast bike so the other bikes listed above might just have to wait a few months before one of them got a spot in the garage. That's it. Buy the Harley and then mope around the house until Jill says OK go get a fun bike to go with the cruiser.
I'm glad I had this talk with you. You are a wise and perceptive listener.

More to follow...
unless of course Jill veto's the above plan...........

The Ride

When I think about the one ride that got me hooked on riding in other places it was north Africa. Yes I said north Africa. 63 Harley-Davidson's riding through the desert.
We had met a German couple in New Zealand and had become good friends. They were Harley riders and traveled with their local chapter. A few years after we met they mentioned that they were going to take a ride with their HOG group and asked if we were interested in joining the group. The ride was set for May 2001 so the 9/11 attack on America had not happened yet. But it was still in a part of the world that was questionable. We decided that it was just too cool to pass up so we signed up to go.

The trip was completely planned out by the leader of the German HOG group. They had done the trip 6 times already and had it down. We stayed in nice places except for one and it was the "best" place in town. Rats in the sink in one room, a turd in the shower in our room and roaches dropped from the ceiling just as we were walking into the dining area. Yea it was that bad. The good news was we saw some of the best preserved Roman ruins that I have ever seen. They have a Colosseum exactly like the one in Rome except it is much better preserved. We were able to walk down under the exhibition floor where the participants and animals were once kept. Parts of the old elevator system were on display showing how they brought the contestants up into the arena.
In one area that we visited they were still allowing people to walk around on the 2000 year old mosaic floors. We were very uncomfortable in this area knowing that someday they would realize the error of the their ways.
Sitting in one of our better hotels we could see a Bedouin camp across the valley. Tents, goats, sheep, horses and of course a Mercedes sedan.
We took camel rides, got caught in a real sand storm and were treated to an evening dinner complete with horse and rider show. Then we spent the last few days cruising back along the Mediterranean sea. Great resort hotels and nice people. At the time it was the low cost Mediterranean holiday spot.
The only bad part was the return ride from Italy to Germany. In late May you never know what the weather will be like in the Alps. We hit two days of rain and 40 degree weather. Quite a change from north Africa.

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Focus Paul-san, Focus

The CB750 sale was also a result of impending relationship followed by marriage. Although Jill liked motorcycles the self imposed pressure of getting married aided to my setting aside what I would later realize was a real passion.
Let's be clear here, the motorcycle will always loose out to the girl in my case. Now that we have that clear we can move on.
For a short time after getting married I rode a 150 Honda back and forth to work but it did not satisfy my need to ride. Then came children, starting a business and just stuff. Fast forward 15 to 20 years and the kids were going off to college so I thought it was time to fire up the old motorcycle passion again.
Like all real men I waited until my wife was taking a little vacation with her friends in Mexico to run down to the local BMW store and buy a new R1100GS. A friend of mine had been raving about the bike so it was immediately on the short list. Impulse buying can be a bad thing but not in this case. Jill arrives home, sees the motorcycle in the garage and realized that there was no hope.
Still working at the time I did not get to ride much at first. Fortunately I had purchased the full hard bags, top box and tank bag so I had to try them out which meant a road trip of some kind. Once I had taken that first road trip on the GS I was hooked. Two, three and more day rides started to become the norm even if they did not happen as often as I would have liked.

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A little faster please

I owned this Yamaha DT1 and loved it. The bike was light, handled well and I would ride it anywhere. The photo at left is from a ride a friend and I were on from Burbank to Newport Beach to visit some friends. Three days on the road and that is all I had with me. No helmet of course.
One day during a heavy rain in Southern California I went out for a ride on the DT1. We lived in Burbank at the time and a street called Country Club Dr was running like a river. Water pouring down the street, through houses with rocks the size of cantaloupe rolling down the street just below the surface of the water. This looked like a perfect place to take the Yamaha for a ride. I turned up the street and rode to the top, about a half mile or so. It was like riding up a small river but paved. Got to the top, turned around and rode back out. Ah the young and immortal days. Never once did I think I would fall down, get hurt, drowned or worse hurt the bike.
The days of the DT1 gave way to the need for performance. Enter the CB 750

This was Honda's new 4 cylinder hot rod. I rode this bike as much as I could possibly ride and stay employed. The only thing that stopped me was a softball injury that laid me up for a couple of months. Just before the injury I had had a problem with the local dealer. They had tuned the bike and stripped one of the spark plug holes. I was going to pull the head and helicoil the spark plug holes. Figured I would do them all at once to save me time later. Since I was laid up I called a friend / neighbor and ask him if he would help. I got a ride out to see him at his shop and we talked. He said that as long as I was going to basically have the motor out of the bike why didn't we take a look at some other modifications. Did I mention the fact that his name was Dusty Rhodes? You may remember him as a pretty well know dragster owner and top engine builder. Anyway I said what do you think we can do. He said that we could bore it out a little, balance it, CC the head and then see what we got. What we got was an 850cc rocket ship. He installed forge true pistons out of a 450 Honda, CC'd the head, balanced the crank and rods and did some of the trick racing stuff he was famous for at that time. OK, OK it was fast back in the day.
My brother was "breaking it in" for me since I was not able to ride yet. He had a couple of buddies that had the same bike and he kept telling them that the bike was pretty fast. They were skeptical of course. So a challenge ensued. They took three CB 750's up on the freeway. Ran them up to 60 and on the count of 3 all pegged the throttle. My 750 ran away from the other bikes. They ended up doing it three times as the other riders could not believe that the bike was that much faster.
Once I got my leg back, that means they took the cast off. I had a great deal of fun with that bike. One guy that I rode with had a Norton Manx.
We had a couple of good sessions on Mulholland. He was quicker in the curves but I would pass him within 20 yards coming out of the turn. The Honda was just too much for the Manx in a straight line. Another friend had the Triumph 3 cylinder Rocket. That bike was strictly straight line fast but it was no match for my Honda. In fact the only bike I stayed away from was the Kawasaki triple. Stupid fast, uncontrollable and noooooo brakes.



You never wanted to race one of these Kawasaki's. They would beat you in a straight line no matter what you were riding, driving or flying. If there was a corner or stop sign in sight you did not race them because you never knew where they would end up.

As the saying goes a great time was had by all. In the end I sold the CB750 because I spent way to much time going fast. Remember the earlier part about no helmet law. Even in my "immortal" state that came with the age I knew that I was pressing my luck on that bike. When I sold it the guy that bought it did not believe me that it was fast. He had had Norton's and said that he knew fast. I let him test ride the bike and I even gave him the green light to get on it. After warning him of the acceleration he rode off. When he thought he was out of ear shot, he was not, I heard him hit the throttle. He did not stay in it for very long. A couple of minutes later he came back. He had a huge smile on his face and before he even stopped the bike he said "I'll take it". I warned him once again that this bike WILL get you into trouble. He said yeh yeh and rode off with silly smile still plastered on his face.
A little slower please

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It all started here

Once you tell people that you have been riding for a long time they start asking where and when did you start riding. Well, you asked for it.
I think I was 15 when one of my brothers bought a brand new Triumph T100C. It must have been a 1962 as I was a sophomore in high school. He is 4 years older than I am so he was out of high school and working. He had a car and a new motorcycle.
This is not his bike but it is just like his bike.
It was actually the summer before I started high school. My brother would head off to work in the morning, I would wait a few minutes then go out to the garage and hop on the bike and head out for an adventure.
You guessed it. One day he forgot something and headed back home. I saw him coming and made a quick turn up a side street. I knew he did not see me so I beat him back to the house, got the bike back in his spot and plopped down on the couch. I was good. Well the problem here was his room was right off the garage so when he went into his room he could feel the heat still coming off the bike. Boy that is strange. How could my bike be hot if I had not ridden it since the day before. Busted. We had the typical older brother / younger brother family discussion. No broken bones but we did come to an understanding about when it was OK to ride his new bike. Surprisingly it worked out much better than I had ever thought it would. He said that as long as I asked and he was not planning on using it I could use the bike. My friends thought that that was the coolest thing ever. I had a brand new Triumph to ride around. Didn't even have a temporary license yet. California didn't have motorcycle licenses, or helmet laws, in those days so I was BMOC before I was even OC.
I was hooked on riding and life was very good.

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Getting grief already

It's tough having friends that are young enough to be your kids and are geeks. I was proud of myself when I actually got a blog going and now I'm getting critiqued, which I admit I asked for from these friends. It is not so much the blog that they are ragging on me about it is the fact that I told them that I was changing motorcycles.
So here is my trusty R1200GS on a recent trip in Hyder, Alaska. This bike is the greatest single bike that you can own, and I am selling it. I have had all three of the oil head version GS bikes. The 1100, 1150 and now the 1200. All have been my favorite bike ever. So if it is so good why am I selling it. As much as I love to ride I have never been much of an off road rider. I prefer the asphalt to the dirt. The GS is great on both although it really is more suited to the asphalt. The problem for me is the bike is competent off road which tempts me to take it there. The reason I sold my first GS was because I was tempted to go off road. My wife and I decided we had to see the famous Racetrack in Death Valley. It is 27 miles off the asphalt road. 27 miles of washboard, sand, gravel and ruts. You might also realize by now that it is 27 miles back to the asphalt. Three bolts rattled off my GS and my wifes face shield screws fell out by the time we got back. I swore I would never ride like that again and sold that GS immediately. Bought a K1200RS. A year of so later I got tempted again by the then new R1150GS.

Rode the 1150GS all over the place. Even on some dirt roads in Canada and Alaska a few years ago. Got the bug when the new GS came out and sold the 1150 and bought the 1200.
But now I think I need a break from the "adventure" riding thing again and am going to open a new page in my quest for the perfect ride. More asphalt less dirt.


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Old Rider, New Blogger

I love technology but I have never spent any time trying to learn how this blogging thing works. Several friends have tried to get me started but until now I did not take the plunge. Lately though several friends have asked where I had been riding lately so I thought that I would give the blogging thing a try.















In June I headed north to meet some friends in Washington state to take a ride up into Canada and Alaska. I had ridden with most of these guys before so I knew it was going to be a good ride. In fact the only "bad" ride I have ever had included some broken bones and a fair amount of bike damage. That story is for another day though. These pictures are from Crater Lake, Oregon. They had just opened the north entrance so I figured I would take a ride through the park. This is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I rarely go through Oregon on a motorcycle and not ride the Crater Lake road. Make sure you stop at the old lodge. That is where the lake picture was taken.

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