Friday, June 29, 2007

Motorcycle touring freaking rocks.

Ok, now that I've got that off my chest...

It was a 2.5 day whirlwind to Kansas City on a new bike that was being broken-in on the way. I stopped in Flagstaff to get the oil changed at the prescribed 600 miles, and from there on it was hold the fist back below 5000 rpm till I got over 1000 miles. Which meant 50 mph on the freeway and probably curses from the truckers. (66 mpg though...)

Power restriction then eliminated, I was able to cruise above 68 mph and get less than 60 mpg. Joy. The little 650 doesn't launch me around like Suzi does, but it's electric smooth at the higher rpm's and handles unflappably. Solid, planted, all about it...

I wanted to camp on the way out, but time restrictions ruled that out. I pulled eight hours from 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, twelve and a half hours the next day, and then thirteen hours the day after that, arriving at my friend's house in KC at 4 am. Don't do this, by the way. I don't recommend it. I was a pulverized wreck straggling in the door.

I'm camping now, though, on my way back from MN. Tonight in a luxurious KOA campground with WiFi in the lonely badlands of South Dakota. Tomorrow, probably someplace in Utah.

And yeah, I'm enjoying the hell out of this trip. I'm a permanent addict to motorcycle travel. Road trips are good, but motorcycle road trips are awesome.

Friday, June 22, 2007


My new scoot. $6,499 out the door at LA Honda.

I left the dealership Tuesday afternoon with zero miles on the odo; I'm in Kansas City, Kansas right now with 1400 on the ticker.

Runs like a top. 60 mpg at an average cruising speed of 55 mph (5000 rpm break-in limitation)

Very user friendly, seat's a bit hard for long distances though. It likes dirt roads. Lacks power compared to Suzi, but everything lacks power compared to Suzi.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

"Suzi, see the driver in that dirty van up ahead? He's hugging the white line and pissing me off."

Chunk-chunk two gears

and the matrix of Saturday beachgoers are standing still, frozen in time, poised with coffeecups to their mouths or with cellphones to their ears or with cigarettes about to be flicked out the window.

6500 rpm. I am in hyperspace. The only sound in the atmosphere is a frenetic 4-cylinder scream. The only sight is an extended blur, four wide gray stripes converging in the distance.

Chunk back one gear

HA TAKE that gridlock or gridpause or whatever the hell you call this slowly moving porridge of cars. CAGERS! So glad I'm not you. This is my road, alright, and I can get exactly where I need to! I can put it there up ahead! Or over in that hole there up ahead! Anywhere!

chunk back another gear

the world is in motion again, the coffeecups reach the lips, the cellphones lie against the heads, the cigarettes are flicked and the freeway is again a blase mash of people in toyotas all trying to get somewhere else.

"Suzi, you're awesome. I don't think I'll ever be able to sell you even when I get a new motorcycle pretty soon. " My pocket rocket, the one-time superbike, the one thing I own that can launch me beyond all reason...No, I don't see how I could sell it. I can see porting and polishing and redoing the pipes and repainting the tank and...holy crap, can you imagine what kind of a hot rod this bike could be, if it were properly hot-rodded?

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Where the land stops and the ocean begins: where familiarity stops and mystery begins, where the ground under your feet gives place to empty air....The Santa Monicas' open arms embrace the blue abyss, but strangely, it is a comforting abyss. Not black, but blue, healing rather than destroying...it's strength is felt in the wind when you open your window to feel it, felt in your mind when you relax your worries and do your best not to think.
(1) Shiny new guardrail (2) Sagebrush-coated foothill (3) an aqua blue floor fading away to emptiness for a million miles. I pull over onto the shoulder next to the guardrail, cut the motor, and set the bike up against first gear. I swing my legs over the guardrail, and perch on one of its wooden supports.

There is so little to see here, looking out the mouth of a gigantic funnel, yet so much to see. I'm in a box with three sides: a mountain wall to my right and to my left, the highway bottling up between them to my rear. But ahead, openness...these outstretched arms of the Santa Monica range, yearning after infinity. Infinity as a plain of blue, tainted at its landward by seaweed. Blue. The color of loyalty (solidity, unchangeableness). The color of the everlasting sky and sea. The ocean never changes. The arms of the mountains may crumble and fade away but the ocean will always be the same.

Stretches of smooth water snake their way across the face of the Pacific, slithering to nowhere. Blue sky, blue sea, unfathomable depth up and down. The erosion and rubble and whispering of the land fades to the background, retreating under the silence of the double blue infinitude crowding into the canyon's open arms...A black Audi convertible hums past, downhill at high rpm. I watch it idly, as it spins and hums away around the smooth gray curves lowering to the ocean. Sunlight sparkles off its chrome. This is California, I think to myself, a place of sand and sage and rubble that we escape from by climbing into our shiny black Audi and humming our way down to the clean blue infinitude and letting that infinitude blow in through our hair and dissolve the mess and grindings we carry in our world.

Friday, June 08, 2007

HA! I found a V-Strom for under MSRP!

T
here's a dealer in LA that sells them. I sent them an email, they sent me back one, I called them on the phone. They sounded professional and had-it-all-together. Their financing sucks, though, so I'm headed to my bank after lunch.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

But the dealers won't sell their V-Strom 650's for anywhere near MSRP which is $6,700. I was quoted, by Eric at Cal Coast Motorsports, $8200 for one. And he said this with a straight face, as if it were nothing unusual, something done every day, something people accept.

Screw him. Screw CalCoast. I'll keep fixing Suzi, thank you very much, because there is no way in hell that an ugly, low-performance 650cc commuter bike is worth that much in today's dollars. I'll buy a used SV650 with 10,000 miles and slap my windshield on it for 3 grand.

Thieves.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

I have a job!

I will be a member of the TAC staff, for as long as I want to, starting July 1st. Full benefits including health insurance! I need no longer tempt fate!

I will also be making a bit more money. This has put crazy ideas into my head. I have been surfing motorcycle dealership websites, reading reviews, and generally daydreaming...I feel disloyal to Suzi, but maybe I wouldn't have to sell her. Maybe I could have my cake and eat it too.

Maybe...I could have two motorcycles: a reliable one and a fast one.

Oh, I don't know. We'll see. There is a certain romance to depending on an old undependable bike, but that romance is beginning to wear off. I'm losing the Zen in the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Suzi runs so damn good, but she breaks so damn much. She was a superbike back in the day...but her needs are proportionate to her performance and she's 78,000 miles old. And that's old, for any motorcycle. Even for a monstrous roller-bearinged anvil of a motorcycle.

So, yeah. Those V-Strom 650's that dealers are having a hard time keeping in stock and which you can't find in the classifieds because people like them so much they aren't selling them - if I plunk down a grand and finance for 36 months that would be 190 a month. I might be able to handle that.

We'll see.

(it really stinks they only make them in blue and gray. All my gear is red.)

Friday, June 01, 2007

The gasket kit is ordered. This time next week I should be disassembling a cylinder head.

Thank god for mechanic friends. They are indispensable.