Monday – July 21, 2008

Kevin and I embarked on the ride of nearly all rides.  The goal was to complete our first Iron Butt ride.  1000 miles in 24 hours.  The route planned would takes us from Bakersfield CA to Springer New Mexico.  We would pass through Barstow, Needles, Flagstaff, Albuquerque and then on to Springer.  1022 miles in total.  There are three reasons for this plan; We want to get to the rockies, We want to do it quickly, and we’re totally insane.  The later one came into realization as the alarm went off at 5 AM.  We figured we could get on the road by 6 AM Pacific and be done by 10 PM Mountain.  Seemed like a pretty sound plan.  It wouldn’t be an interesting ride other than the fact we covered a massive amout of distance in a short time on a motorcycle.

For those of you who don’t know about the Iron Butt I’ll give a quick brief.  Specifically we are doing the Bun Burner (I’m guess cause your rear end is on fire!)  That is 1000 miles in 24 hours.  Its pretty doable in 16-18 hours.  When you start the ride you have to have a witness sign off that you’ve left as well as get a reciept from a gas station with a date and time stamp.  The key part of the witness is they need to be reachable to verify they did indeed see your crazy ass leave that particular place.  Then along the way you need to gather receipts at any stop possible as well as log these stops.  This is especially important when you are making a prominent turn in the route.  Then when you finally arrive at the destination you need a gas receipt with a date and time stamp as well as another credible witness.  Not much, but enough to make it interesting.

Time for the Iron Butt

The alarm went off at 5 AM, we were loaded and ready to go by 5:30.  We had to backtrack about 20 miles to get to our official starting point.  It didn’t take long so we got our receipt and hit the road.  Something of note, Kevin’s bike has nearly twice the fuel capacity as mine.  I can go about 200 miles before I need gas where as he can do over 350 miles.  We had our first gas stop in Barstow CA and took a quick break.  Then back on the freeway we went.  I’m so glad I bought the XM Radio receiver to run through my Zumo.  As the freeway is incredibly boring on a motorcycle.  As we approached the Arizona border and the Colorado river it started to get hot and muggy.  Uhg.  The kicker of taking this route via the 40 is you think you’re going to cross into Arizona an moment but instead you end up following the river south for a while.  In the hot mugginess.

At about 160 miles we planned to start looking for gas.  Unfortunately the nearest gas was 40 miles away.  That puts me pretty close to running out of gas.  In middle of the desert there aren’t many places to fuel up.  Kingman AZ was our nearest location.  My bike started flashing at me around 170 miles saying “Dude, get gas.”  At 204 miles we rolled into a gas station in Kingman.  My fuel guage said I had 0 miles to go until I ran out.  Fueling up, I put in 5.5 gallons into my 5.2 gallon gas tank.  Close!  We finished fueling and rolled over to CJ’s Steak house (Carl’s Jr. for you common folk).

Leaking Final Drive

After lunch we get ready to load up and what’s this?!  There is oil coming out of the rear seal on his final drive.  Let me tell you.  This is the one thing that Kevin always says he’s worried about.  And here its happened.  We were 350 miles into the Iron Butt and failed.  I wasn’t too worried about it, these things happen.  Something of note the particular BMW both of us ride (Not at the same time, we have our own bikes) has a shaft drive rather than a chain.  Unfortunately sometimes the seals have failures.  And, if you don’t catch it soon enough it can be really bad.  Pondering what to do I grab my iPhone and start looking up BMW dealerships.  The two closest are Las Vegas and Phoenix.  Las Vegas is about a 100 miles and Phoenix is just over 200.  Since Kevin’s bike said “Go to hell!” we figured Vegas was the closest we could find.  (Phoenix is a close second with the heat!)  So, knowing our Iron Butt run is over we head towards Phoenix hoping to get to the dealer on Tuesday morning and repair the bike.  For some reason, BMW dealers are closed Sunday and Monday.  Go figure.

We found the Devil's Hangout

Once we located the dealer in Vegas we had to determine where were gonna stay.  I pulled out the iPhone again and checked out some places.  Cheapest place I could find was the Tropicana for $50 a night.  Not to shabby but definitely no five star resort.  Nice thing it was on the strip so we could walk to go do things.  With our incredible desire for Vegas night life we went to the movie theater! Haha!  It was hot, and neither of us really wanted to be there so we saw Batman.  Great movie btw!  Afterwards we wandered over to NY NY for some pizza, beer, and people watching.  You see some funny stuff in Vegas!  Eventually we made it back to the room and crashed out for the night.

Tuesday – July 22, 2008

Tuesday morning we got over to the BMW dealer around 8:30 so we could be some of the first inline for their service department.  It was a good thing too.  Shortly after we arrived a number of other people did including a tour group with about 10 riders.  They were pretty accomodating and got Kevin’s bike in right away.  We went accross the street for breakfast with our new aquantence Chuck.  Chuck is down from Alberta on his way to San Diego via the BMW rally in Gillete Wyoming.  Great guy.  I’m hoping to catch him while he’s in San Diego.  By the time we got back from breakfast the bike was done and we were set to go!  Or so we thought…

About 25 miles outside of Vegas we stopped to get gas.  And his bike was leaking again.  Crap!  So, back to the dealer again.  This time they did some more diligence and took it for a longer test ride.  This seemed to fix the problem and we beat feet to get out of the heat.  Our Iron Butt was blown but we still wanted to see the Rockies so we got headed in that direction.  We figured we would stay somewhere near Flagstaff since it would be much cooler.  We had dinner at Rod’s World Famous Steakhouse in Williams AZ.  We had never heard about it but gave it a shot.  It was ok.  I think the touresty route 66 trap has taken its toll on it.  It was about then we remembered they don’t do Daylight Savings in Arizona and asked the waitress what time it got dark.  She said “About 8 or so.”  It was 6:45 now.  we had little time to find and setup a campsite before dark.

Camping in the mountains

We found a campsite near Lake Ashurst just south of Flagstaff.  It was nice and cool and a great spot.  Kevin noticed they had these giant ants.  I never saw one but I’ve heard about them getting that big.  I made sure I used extra stakes to hold the tent down.  Sometime around 1 AM I woke up with one of those “Oh shit, something is outside” feelings.  Sure enough, there were coyotes out sniffing around the tents and bikes.  Kind of a weird feeling but what can you do.  I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.  Waking up the next morning was awesome.  The weather was great.  I made some spegetti and meatsauce for breakfast.  Then walked around and took some pictures.

Next installment: Four States at a time and Durango

Friday at The Races – MotoGP 2008

Friday was the start of the races. I opted out of watching some of the qualifiers and ran some errands for things I had forgotten. Dropped by REI, Target & Best Buy. I failed to pack any T-shirts, toothpaste, or a headset to talk on Skype with (I had intended to get a little work done on the down time). I also figured out that if you buy a Starbucks gift card you can get 2 hours of free internet a day. Not too shabby (Again, thought I would get some work done).

Kevin and Karen

I grabbed some lunch and thought “Hmm, Santa Cruz BMW is close” So I hopped on the bike to head up there. It was about 14 miles away up in Watsonville. On the way up Kevin called so I pulled over on an onramp to talk to him for a few minutes. In the three minutes we talked about nine CHP on motorcycles went by. As I discovered five minutes up the road they were staging for a speed trap. There were between six and ten CHP sitting on the backside of the ramp with one on top of the bridge radaring people. DOH!

Rolled up to Santa Cruz BMW and took a look around. My only complaint about my GS is I get a lot of turbulance off the stock windscreen. And, non of the San Diego dealers have aftermarket ones laying around the shop. But! SCBMW did! So, I looked at a couple, picked one out. They graciously offered to ship my stock one back to house after I took it off my bike. There was the trick. I left my tools back at camp. Their service department wouldn’t let me borrow any. And all their tools on the sales floor were off at the BMW rally in Gillete Wyoming. Fortunately I begged tools off a fellow rider who was fixing his bike in the parking lot.

Price's foo foo drink

Motored back on down to the racetrack to meet Kevin and Karen when they arrived. Pretty mellow ride back watching for speed traps along the way. Rolled into camp and waited around for about 30 minutes and K2 showed up. Helped them get their camp setup and we set off to grab some food down on Cannery Row. We parked the bikes and did the obligatory walk down and back looking at all the bikes. Amazing some of the stuff people will do. The pumpkin bike stood out the most to me.

Dinner turned into a mass meal event. Everyone we were camping with showed up five minutes after us and sat down with and next to us. We of course had to help Price get his foo-foo drink. And the heckling amongst friends ensued.

Then, we were all off to a good nights sleep. (Except me, I forgot my ear plugs)

Saturday at The Races

Edwards in Turn 3

Saturday we watched some of the preliminary races and checked out the vendor booths. Kevin was quick to point out that I have the same pumpkin tent as Charlie and Ewan have in Long Way Down. Wasn’t planned that way, it was on super sale at REI. Watching some of the races I fell asleep up above turn 1 for a while. Then Kevin and Karen went to go watch the last race of the day from the Grand Stands. I found Bill and gang and was given an extra super paddock pass! Then went up to the turn 4 Grand Stands to watch the last two races of the day. Pretty laid back day over all. For dinner we went to Fisherman’s Wharf and had Italian food.

Race Day – Sunday

Sunday is the day of the big race. We planned to leave right after the GP race so we got up and packed up our campsites. Kevin and Karen had paid for Grand Stand seats so they went off to get their good seats while I wandered around looking for a good spot to watch. On the way up the Corkscrew I ran into Oz and Sully with a few of their friends. They had an extra ticket for the turn 4 Grand Stands so I chilled with them and watched the Red Bull Challenge racers and the final GP race.

The Red Bull Challenge races are pretty cool. Basically they and KTM setup teenagers with a bike a gear and they get to travel and race around the USA. Very nice!  I also got within 10 feet of Valentino Rossi and Colin Edwards!

The GP race was very exciting. I’m not going to bore you with the details. Either you like racing and watched it, or don’t and don’t care. Rossi and Stoner put on a great first half. Very exciting indeed! Afterwards we headed back to the bikes and geared up to hit the road. We were originally going to drop Karen off in Bakersfield then move on to Kernville. That plan didn’t make much sense as we wanted to complete an Iron Butt the next day. So, we got to Bakersfield and all stayed in the hotel to get a good nights rest. I have to admit, I’ve been eating so little fast food the Carl’s Jr we had for dinner killed my gut.

Next installment. Iron Butt Run or Not?

The Photoalbum

Wednesday night I headed north on my way to Monterey and the 2008 MotoGP races.  Kevin and Karen were heading south from Idaho and we planned to meet by Friday.  The first leg took me from San Diego to Valencia where I met Bill, Jenny & Steve.  We all met at the Hyatt in Valencia which was the same place Alison and I stayed at for Darrius and Shannon’s wedding. What was weird is I ended up in the same room we had stayed in.  The evening was pretty fun.  Steve apparently is a great disher out of crap.  Well, so am I when prompted.  We got along great!  We went out for sushi at a pretty good place right across the street then had some ice cream before crashing out for the night.

The next morning we met up at 8 AM to head north.  Bill apparently has pretty good knowledge of the backroads up to Monterey.  Including a pot holed road that takes you up on top of some pretty cool passes.  Bill and I are on dual-purpose bikes but Steve was riding a BMW RT.  He had a to take it a bit slower through the rough stuff.  As for riding partners, we all were about the same pace.  Bill is faster with Steve and I being about the same speed.  A couple of exciting moments of the ride; Suicidal little dog trying to run under our wheels, pot-holed road, and the insidious tar snake.  Of the three the tar snake was the scariest.  Through a tight turn my bars went full right lock and the bike tried to take me off the road.  Made it out but scary non-the-less. Total blast of a ride!  One thing of importance on these long distance rides is properly taking care of yourself.  Stay hydrated, fed, and above all liberally apply Anti-Monkey Bugg powder. I cannot express the importance of this enough.

I have a few other pictures from the ride but I’ll have to upload them sometime this week.  I haven’t had much high speed connectivity along the ride.  I did however figure out that if I buy a Starbucks card I can get two hours of free Wifi per day.  Nice!

Catch you all soon! Monday is the day to follow the Spot Tracker!

Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
Lookin’ for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin’ go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

-Born to be Wild, Steppenwolf

Funny story behind that song but I’ll get to that in a bit.

I thought I’d let you know I’m heading out on another adventure!  Kevin and I are meeting up at Laguna Seca this weekend to watch the MotoGP races then heading out for another seven days of riding and camping.  We’ll be at the races from Friday until Sunday morning.  Then we’ll head out to Kernville to camp by the river and prepare ourselves for an Iron Butt taking us all the way to Springer New Mexico completing a 1000 miles in 24 hours.  I’ll do my best to keep the blog updated for your enjoyment.  But if you want some near real time update click on the Spot Messenger link over on the right.  It will ask for a password, if you don’t have it email me and I’ll send it to you.

As for the song reference.  Last year when we did the Alaska ride I had loaded a bunch of music on to my Zumo GPS.  As I rolled away from my house I hit ‘play’ on the mp3’s and the first song that came up was “Born to be Wild.”  (I think because it was alphabetical).  The song is incredibly appropriate, and now I play it every time I embark on a big trip with the bike.  Kinda neat!

Ciao!

I have been trying a couple of times a year to take motorcycle adventures to neat and interesting places.  This month I’m taking a 10 day trip out on the motorcycle starting with the MotoGP races at Laguna Seca.  Saturday I did the 12k service on the motorcycle and Sunday I did the final gear check and packing.  Its actually amazing how much stuff you can fit onto a motorcycle.  I try to keep my gear under a 100 pounds.  Gregg came home while I was in middle of sorting everything and said “Dude, I don’t know how you get that all on your bike.”  Then a light went off.  I can make an exceptionally boring video demonstrating how much stuff you can fit on a bike.  And, here it is for your viewing pleasure!!!

Here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve got with me on the trip. (In no particular order)

• Clothes for 5 days (I’ll wash them along the way)
• Shoes
• Sandles
• Sleeping Bag
• Down Pillow
• Tent
• Shade Canopy
• Cooking Gear (Stove, fuel, plates, cups, utensils etc…)
• Toolkit
• Cycle Pump
• Tire Repair Kit
• Canon Rebel DSLR + Lenses
• Asus EEE 900
• Camp Shovel
• Camp Mini Hatchet (This thing is probably useless)
• Lantern (It can burn unleaded!)
• Shower Kit
• Camp Towel
• Tie Downs
• 20 feet of climbing rope
• Camping Hammock (Its nice to have)
• Sleeping Pad
• 5 freeze dried meals
• 2 freeze dried ice cream sandwiches (YUMMY!)
• 12 Mojo Clif Bars
• Camelback
• First Aid Kit
• Heated Jacket (Just in case)
• Rain Liners

I think there’s a few things I’m forgetting too.  In addition to prepping the bike I prepped my electronic gear.  I’ve been trying for the last week to get Windows XP to run on my Asus EEE to no avail.  Last night I caved and reinstalled the Xandros Linux system it comes with and relearned how to build and compile tools so I could get my wireless card working.  Fortunately it ended in success!!!  And, I signed up for a new Twitter account.  Its useful for keeping people updated on the road.  My old twitter account got hosed and no one in support over there is helping me.  (They probably got made because I used the support ticket like a Twitter update, haha!)  I can’t use my mobile phone to do updates as my number is locked up in the other bad account.

I roll out Wednesday night up to meet up with some others riding up.  Hopefully my toe doesn’t totally fall apart before I leave.  Its not looking too good.  If you’re going to the races in Monterey drop me a line!

If you know me, you know I love gadgets.  I have the gadget gene inherited from my Mom.  Apparently this genetic feature has been passed down through the ages.  My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was one of the first owners of a fork.  His great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was one of the first to jump on the whole wheel concept.

This weekend I was supposed to go out the Colorado River out by Yuma to meet up with Paco for Dalin’s bachelor party.  The plan was for me to take the motorcycle but my lack of desire for riding in 100+ degree heat, thunderstorms, and the fact that I couldn’t even get clear directions to find them deterred me.  So, on a whim I headed down to Fashion Valley to see how big the iPhone line was.  When I arrived, it was about 30 people.  I figured I’d go get a bagel and come right back.  The line tripled!  Ah well, I had my book and a chair with me so I figured I’d chill and see if I could get a phone.  The line was fun and only about an hour and a half.  Now I have a new shiny 16gb black iPhone. Nifty!

Additionally, this last week I bought an Asus EEE microlaptop dealy thing.  I’m taking a trip on the motorcycle for a week and want to be able to get a little bit of work done along the way and this little laptop is perfect.  Its no powerhouse but its small, and has a solid state drive (SSD).  Why is the SSD important?  Because motorcycles vibrate ALOT.  Over time even with self parking hard drives its going to fail.  I’ve got to tweak it a little bit as it seems to be glitchy running XP.  Hopefully I’ll get that done before I leave Thursday.  (That is a quarter sitting on the palm rest, just for size perspective)

I’ll have to make an illustration of how my motorcycle is setup.  Then you all will be like “Gah, what a geek!”

No iPhone, just wasn’t willing to stand around with a 1000 other people outside the Apple store.  And, no river trip as I’m not to keen on riding the motorcycle through thunderstorms.  I guess I’ll just hang around SD for the weekend and get ready for the big moto trip.  Anyone want to camp the ATT store tomorrow morning? I’ll buy breakfast!

That is the question.  I’m a gadget freak.  I love gadgets!  Phones, gps, cameras, basically anything shiny with buttons that does something!  Basically, the new iPhone adds two features.  3g wireless, and the GPS.  I’ve never been particularly unhappy with my Edge wireless on my iPhone 1.0.  I guess its just been far better than any other mobile phone as far as surfing the web.  I can get the OS on the existing iPhone too (Which I’ll be doing as soon as I get home).  But can I justify spending $200-300 on the upgraded new shiny iPhone?  I don’t know.

Chances are, I wont know until tomorrow morning when I wake up like the rest of the mactards and file my butt down to the Apple store to nerd out with the gadget geeks.  I suppose I’ll let you know tomorrow!

(I should have played with Melonie’s Touch phone yesterday, that’s a pretty cool gadget too)

So, just a random discovery.  Last week I was getting notifications from Twitter that people were following me.  I thought “That’s really bizarre, cause I deleted myself.”  So, I go check out what’s going on.  I tried to login and it told me “You’re deleted, want to reactive?”  I figure what the heck, might as well since a few people have sent me emails asking why I nuked myself.  But now, I can’t reactivate because it says someone else has my username.  I filled out their duplicate account ticket process and haven’t heard anything since.  So, unlikely I’ll recover my twitter.  Sorry gang!

Your two happiest days of owning them are the day you buy them, and the day you sell them.

As I mentioned in the Kern River 4th of July trip my generator and refridgerator died.  Well, turns out the brushes went bad on the generator costing $570 in parts and labor.  The refridgerator apparently has a recall which they are going to do.  It may not even fix the problem, but it does fix another problem which sets your trailer on fire.  FUN!