Two wheels and an engine

Kaput!!

2010-04-03T09:11:00.000-07:00

Main Entry: ka·put
Variant(s): also ka·putt
Function: adjective
Etymology: German kaputt, from French capot not having made a trick at piquet
Date: 1895
1 : utterly finished, defeated, or destroyed
2 : unable to function
3 : hopelessly outmoded

That pretty much sums up last weekend!

Saturday was a beautiful day for a ride; Sunny and warm, light breeze.

I decided that I should go for a ride on Sunday………The weather went Kaput on Sunday! High winds out of the southwest, cold and rain. Charlie went with me, we decided to ride north.

About sixty miles into our ride up in the mountains of Northeastern Washington, in the pouring rain and cold, Charlie pulled in his clutch as he was approaching a stop sign, in the middle of nowhere mind you, and his bike went Kaput! Charlie made a phone call (at least he had phone service up there) and was able to get in touch with a good friend who had a trailer to give Charlie and his bike a ride home.

Once the bike was loaded on the trailer, I jumped on my bike and rode south into a miserable headwind, fighting the rain and cold. At least I had my heated gear to keep me comfortable. That is until my heated vest……………went Kaput! The variable heat controller gave up the ghost about 90 miles from home.

I arrived home sometime later that evening, gave the dog a hug and then slumped down onto the couch; I was utterly finished, unable to function, yep! I was Kaput!

I contacted the maker of my vest on Monday and they are replacing the malfunctioning part of my vest, no questions asked. Good deal.

Charlie’s bike is in little pieces right now on the floor of his garage; it has been decided that a rebuild is in order. We don’t know exactly what happened to the engine just yet but the rebuild kit is on the way; his KLR650 is going to come back to him as a KLR685.

Charlie was planning on doing this sometime in the future, just not exactly under these circumstances.

As I sit here typing this, I am trying to think of an appropriate antonym for the word Kaput. Once I figure that out, I am going to concentrate really hard on making that word a reality.

Happy Easter and Ride Well

E.T.

I am still alive and well........Just busy!

2010-03-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

I am still here.

I was out lurking on some other blog-sites and I noticed that my last post on "Two Wheels" was 5 months ago.

5 months? Really? Time has flown by.

There have been a number of reasons why I haven't had a chance to post anything. The biggest reason has been workload.

In 2009, the construction based company that I work for, has suffered, along with everybody else and as a result has had to cut its workforce. Fortunately, my job was spared. Unfortunately, others weren't. With the cuts in staff, the few remaining individuals have had to pick up the workload that was left over when our staff was let go. Those of us who remained were also hit with almost a month of mandatory furloughs that each of us had to take. It's been challenging.............but at least I am still employed, for that, I am thankful though exhausted.

2010 appears to be turning around for my company. We are beginning to re-hire our staff and my boss has assured me that the furloughs have proven to be a disaster for the company and there are no plans to have anymore! Already I am feeling a reduction in my workload and an increase in my personal time. Hopefully this will free me up to do the things that I used to do to decompress, one of which is spending time with my blogging friends; I have missed spending time with you all here.

Then there was The Virus!

Just as I was beginning to get ready to start blogging about a month or so ago, my computer picked up a mother of a virus. With it, all of my photo's and journal entries are tied up in there. Charlie and I think that we can recover them, it'll just take a little time.

Unfortunately, all of the photo's that I took during our summer trip last year, the trip that I was just beginning to share with all of you in "Journey of a thousand miles" are locked up in my hard drive. Bummer. I plan to continue to share our ride into the Montana back-country although, for the time being, without pictures.

Charlie, in the meantime, took pity on me and has lent me his laptop so that I can at least stay online.

I am still here in one piece, and I will be back. I am working on my next post of "Journey of a thousand miles" and will publish it as soon as it is finished.

Until then..........

Ride Well

E.T.

The first leg (Journey of a thousand miles)

2009-09-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

This old road is graceful and familiar.
I travel it often.
During this time of the week and at this hour of the morning, the traffic is light. There are seldom any distractions.

I ride north on the old Route 195 and pass intersecting dirt roads named after the farmers who tamed the land; Babb road, East Whitman, South Hardesty, then Whittier, Davis and Bradshaw.

The green expanse of the Palouse in June stretches out from horizon to horizon, tumbling across the landscape like waves on the ocean; unencumbered by the harsh constructs of man.

There are no grid-like street patterns, no buildings or sky-scrapers tearing up the rhythm of the hills like a dissonant chord.

The hand of man has been here though, laid down by his plow. A soft concerto, easy on the soul, things are tended here, not developed; Pianissimo.

As I ride, I take in the scent of turned earth and wildflowers in bloom.
The wind is cool and soft.
My anxieties relax.

This is the beginning of my Vacation.

Ride Well

E.T.

Symbol of an Era

2009-09-07T12:31:00.000-07:00

If you know me, then you know that I do this sort of stuff all of the time.

A few months ago, while working on my blogsite, I had inadvertently deleted an entry that I had posted last winter titled “Symbol of an era”.

When I discovered my error, I tried to find a copy of it that I had stored in Word perfect. Usually I file it as the title, this time I didn’t. To make a long story short, I couldn’t find it and gave up my search to repost the entry back onto my blog.

This morning while working on a new entry, I found the old post. As it turns out, I forgot to file it as a Title so word perfect just named it as the opening sentence of the entry. Like I said, I do this sort of thing all of the time.

A lot of you have already read this, but some of you haven’t yet, so here it is. This post was kind of special to me, I'm glad that I was able to find it so that I could share it with you again.

F.Y.I.- The blue helmet that is mentioned in this post still resides up on the shelf with all of the other helmets that I have worn through the years. So here it is again, the lost posting................

Symbol of an era

I wasn’t really in the mood to get started on it, but I had no choice. I had family flying in from New York in another week and my guest room was in no condition for accommodating guests. I don’t receive overnight visitors all that often and as a result the bedroom that I reserve for that purpose always ends up as a storage room for all sorts of stuff. I tried to reserve this chore of straightening out the room for a rainy day, but the weather turned out to be perfect for the past couple of weeks and the rainy days never seemed to present themselves; I woke up Saturday morning to another perfect day for a ride only to start putting the things that were in the guest room back where they belong.

The room wasn’t necessarily that bad, but it did have stuff in there that didn’t belong; one of my workbenches that I use for doing trimwork (base/crown moldings and the like), a couple of different carpenters bags with special tools in each bag for specific tasks, a chop saw, clamps and an assortment of hammers. Most of this stuff belonged in the back of my truck but it has been in the body shop getting a new paint job for what has seemed an eternity.

Then there was the other stuff that I brought out of storage about six months ago; an assortment of boxes collected over the years, which I had intended to sort through and decide what I did and did not want to keep.

I began the ritual of re-organizing my various tools and then transporting them from the house out to the shed, making several trips back and forth. After that, came the stack of boxes that I had pulled out of storage, old corrugated produce containers of all varieties, Potato, Tomato, Apple and Orange, some in better shape than others; many of them followed me to the Northwest when I moved out here from New York almost twenty years ago. I had some space still available in the shed, a corner where they wouldn’t get in the way of more important tools should I not be able to cull through them anytime soon.

I began stacking them in fours and fives so that I could use my hand truck to carry them to the shed quickly, it was during this process that I picked up an old and rather musty smelling Navel Orange box when one of the contents inside let out a clunk and rattle. It was a familiar sound, one that I hadn’t heard in a number of years, but one that I recognized instantly. I stopped what I was doing and sat down on the bed, placing the box beside me, I pulled off the telescopic lid. There wasn’t much inside, three old pictures from High School of girls that I lusted over back then, an old checkbook register and one of my old motorcycle helmets. The familiar sound was that of the tinted face shield rattling where the buttons connected to the helmet. This was the helmet that I wore back in the early 80’s, back when my family lived in Montana, I was somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14.

It was a dark metallic blue with an orange and white stripe wrapping around the back and that ridiculous looking dark tinted bubble-face shield that I thought was so cool, there weren’t two square inches anywhere on the helmet or face shield that didn’t wear a scar from any number of mishaps I may have encountered while wearing the thing, back in those days, disposable helmets didn’t exist, helmets were considered an accessory and Dad only replaced the helmets that I outgrew in the same fashion that my sneakers were replaced. At some point I got a hold of a label maker and tattooed the back and face shield with the things that were most important to a 12 year old boy; the kind of bike that I rode (Honda) the name of my horse (Babe) and the name of my dog (Pancho).

The bike during those years was a Honda XL125 that Dad bought right off of the showroom floor for me for my 12th birthday; My first brand new motorcycle.

Earl circa 1983

Babe was the Chestnut colored Arabian mare that adopted me, a disinterested young man who loved only dogs and motorcycles and eventually through the years, made me absolutely crazy about her.

Technically, Babe was my sister’s horse. Though we were all raised “horse people”, my little sister Andrea was the serious equestrian in the family, she still is, and even though all of the horses were considered Andrea’s, I was Babes “person”.

Andrea

Anyone who has been raised around horses or has spent any quality time with them might agree with me when I explain that it is not uncommon for these animals to pick a person, and I was Babes. I was the one who fed her, brushed her down and tended to her hooves. Babe preferred that I was the one who cared for her, and over time, I was the one who preferred to do it.

Pancho was a large pure bred Collie that my father brought home one day when I was around 9 or 10 years old, from the moment Dad brought him home, we were inseparable.

Pancho

In 1983, we moved from our home, up in the foothills of the Highland mountains of Southwestern Montana, to a new place out in the Jefferson Valley at the base of the Tobacco Root range. The Tobacco roots are an immense mountain system located on the eastern slope of the Jefferson valley separating the Madison and the Jefferson Rivers, at least 30 miles wide and 50-60 miles long, the range holds more that 40 peaks that rise to elevations greater than 10,000 feet. The Highland Mountains are a smaller system out on the western slope of the valley; though they covered only a fraction of the land mass of the Tobacco roots, the Highlands also soared well above 10,000 feet.

Despite the fact that I missed living up in the mountains, I appreciated our new place down in the valley because of the reasonable distance that I lived from my two best friends, Ben Sholey and Chris Anderson.

Ben lived 5 miles south from my house and Chris was 8 miles to west. Both were an easy ride by motorcycle along the graded county roads. A couple of things to note about growing up in Montana;

1. As long as we stayed on the county roads that were not paved, an unlicensed youth rarely received a second look from any Sheriff’s deputy patrolling the roads, mainly because of reason number 2.

2. Montana is a huge state with a low population density, in other words, folks were spread out. A lot of the kids on motorcycles were actually working the large family owned ranches and bikes were the only reasonable way of getting around. To see kids riding or even driving (farm vehicles) was quite common and as long as you didn’t take off down the paved highway or through town, nobody complained.

Moving out to the valley also presented the opportunities of new found freedoms and responsibilities.

Almost every night after school, the bus would stop to drop me off at the end of my driveway and I would sprint, duffel bag full of books clutched in my hands, towards the garage to jump on the Honda and beat the school bus to Ben’s house. Ben and I would do our homework together at the dining room table and then run out to the old dairy barn that we converted into an indoor basketball court to play our own version of basketball that we named “Basket brawl”; 3 point shots were counted if you were able to shoot the ball over the guy wires that held the outside walls together and “body checking” the opponent into the wall was well within the rules and was actually quite an effective tactic at getting rebounds under the net if your timing was right, come to think of it, I can’t recall what we had to do to draw a foul.

Sometime after dark, I would ride the 5 miles back home, the only rule that I had to obey was to be home before dinner. Even at 13 years of age, I understood the privilege of riding my bike alone at night and the responsibilities that went along with that privilege, I rarely abused it.

During the summer months, when school was out, Chris was allowed to stay with me for extended periods and we would ride two-up on my Honda every morning over to Ben’s house.

Those Montana summer days were usually filled with fishing in any number of the rivers and streams around the Jefferson valley, intense games of basket brawl, playing catch, or swimming out at the old railroad trestle that spanned the Jefferson river. Some days found the three of us just lying out on the roof of the old dairy barn idling away the hours in the warm sun like three flies on a window sill, gazing into the clouds and dreaming about our futures.

All three of us had similar dreams to be pilots. Ben was going to fly helicopters and Chris wanted to be a fighter pilot, and as for me, I just wanted to fly, the specifics weren’t important. None of us had ever actually flown, that didn’t matter, as our imaginations took us up into the sky often enough just lying on the roof of that barn. In reality, years later, Ben became a miner at a large Gold mine down in Nevada, Chris became an Electrical engineer in Alabama and by some strange fate I became a pilot here in Washington State.

By summers end, Chris would return home, and Ben and I would resume our after school activities through the autumn months on into winter and then spring, my motorcycle, a constant vehicle of my freedom, both in reality and metaphor. One of those rides does stand out a little more than many of the other rides that I had made between my house and Ben’s.

I had tied down my duffel bag on the rear of the seat and removed the tinted visor from my still new metallic blue helmet with the white and orange stripe and tucked it under my jacket (this was the normal routine when I rode home in the dark). During the ride home, there was a pair of railroad tracks that I had to cross; the tracks had an access trail alongside of them that led to our swimming hole at the old trestle on the Jefferson River. From the trestle, another trail turned north and followed the banks of the river, through a forest of Aspens and Cottonwoods, up to a series of irrigation ditches that intersected the main county road that led to my driveway. I had taken this route a number of times during the day, but never at night, until now.

It was a different experience, riding beneath the canopy of Aspens alongside the Jefferson at night. My single headlight illuminating a forest of ashen trunks and branches, casting shadows off of one tree and onto another. The white of their trunks contrasting with the autumn gold in their leaves; to my right was the inky black of the Jefferson wandering gently to the south; looking over and beyond the river, the majestic Tobacco root range soaring almost straight up out of the valley floor, up into and then well beyond the timberline, at their summits, a nearly full moon reflecting in a silver glow off of the snow covering their peaks. It was the first time as a young motorcyclist that I felt Goosebumps form on my arms and the back of my neck simply by the experience of the ride; I rode on, humbled by the experience.

I had not thought of that evening ride through the aspens that lined the Jefferson River for decades until that moment where I was sitting their on the bed in my guest room with the now musty old blue helmet in my hands.

I carried the old helmet out of the guest room and placed it upon my shelf with my current helmets and riding gear, that blue helmet serving as a reminder of my youth, of growing up in Montana, of independence and responsibility; it sits there to this day, a symbol of an era in my childhood.

I went back to the guest room and finished storing the stacks of boxes out in the shed; new linens on the bed, polish on the furniture and a quick vacuuming; once again, I had a suitable guest room.

With my chores accomplished, I still had a few hours left in the day for a ride. All geared up, I loaded my camera on the bike and headed south out into the Palouse, hunting for sunsets.

I wandered the back roads down through the small farming communities of St. John and then Endicott and further south still, through endless harvested wheat fields laying fallow until next spring, where I crossed the Snake River into Garfield County. Following Rte. 12 east towards Lewiston, Idaho, I eventually found myself riding along the banks of the Snake River on my approach into the Lewiston, Clarkston area.

There were no soaring mountain ranges beyond the river nor were there any Aspens, the moon had not yet risen and the road was well paved, not a dirt trail. None of that mattered; all that mattered was that I found myself once again alone with my thoughts riding beside a slow moving body of water on my motorcycle in the crisp autumn evening.

Leaning into the long sweeping curves of the highway sidled up against the canyon walls, my thoughts began to digress to another time; back to a time of shiny new blue helmets and Chestnut Arabians, my childhood dog and of lifelong friendships; three friends daydreaming together on the rooftop of an old dairy barn on a warm Montana afternoon and for that moment, as I made my way east in the waxing hours of darkness on my return home, I dreamt like a 13 year old boy once again, and imagined what it would be like to fly someday.

Ride Well

E.T.

Journey of a thousand miles

2009-08-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

It’s early.

I don’t need to look at my alarm clock to know that. The annoying little device on the bed stand can’t bother me with the time for the rest of the week anyways. It’s unplugged from the wall, rendered incapable of disturbing me during my time off; just one of those little things that I like to do when I am on vacation. No wearing of watches, no alarm clocks and no cell phones (whenever possible).

As I was saying though, it’s early. The room is still dark; everything outside my open bedroom window is silent, save for a garbage truck somewhere on the other side of my neighborhood, plucking rows of full cans from the street. Flicka, my German shepherd, is passed out somewhere in the mass of king size pillows next to me, she loves those pillows; I get one pillow, she gets the rest. Generally, if I wake up before the dog then I know it’s early. I’ve got to get up though; there are places that I have to be.

Rolling lethargically out of bed, I am visualizing a restless Charlie out on his front porch with his riding gear already on, protesting my tardiness, and his KLR in the driveway, loaded up and ready to go, both bike and rider anxious for my arrival. That’s probably not the case, but that mental picture helps stir me from my bed.

It’s the third day of my vacation, and the first day of a long awaited ride that Charlie and I have been planning for a while now.

A friend of Charlie has a cabin up in Northwestern Montana, hidden from view, tucked away in the wilderness of the Cabinet Mountains. He offered to let us use it, free of charge; we couldn’t say no to that. The plan is to use the cabin as a base camp to explore the Montana backcountry for the next four days.

There shouldn’t be any tourists in this neck of the woods, no paved streets or store front windows filled with bumper stickers and shot glass souvenirs to bring home as trivial evidence that we had once been there, that’s all reserved for places like Glacier National park a couple of hours to the east of where we would be staying.

Our souvenirs will be different.

There’ll be a few days of living with stiff joints and sore muscles and if we play our cards right, we can bring home with us, memories of our experience; endless stories that can be embellished as time passes, the personal accounts of two friends who spent a few days on an expedition through the high country with their motorcycles.

Then again, as motorcyclists/bikers, aren’t these anecdotes a part of our Raison d'être, regardless of what we ride? Yeah, I’m sure that we will have stories to tell afterwards.

But we have to get there first.

I begin by picking items out of the dresser that I’ll need for the ride up north this morning. Socks and a pair of jeans, a faded and yellowing Nike T-shirt that I can’t bring myself to part with just yet and a light sweater to wear under my riding gear. The German shepherd, still laying in her mass of pillows, is awake and completely engaged in what I am doing; she knows something is up.

Shuffling past the bed towards the living room, my clothes tucked under my arm, I give a few clicks of my tongue and in an instant, the dog is out of bed and following me close at my heals, so close that her cold wet nose is poking into my exposed calves; the two of us stumble to the back door to let her out.

A quick bit of “business” and then Flicka races off to the corner of her yard where she left her toy, her “toy” is a basketball sized piece of hard plastic called a Jolly-ball. She loves that Jolly-ball more than she loves those king-size pillows.

Running at a full sprint towards the ball as if it were prey, she hits it with the intensity of a blitzing Running back, driving it into the fence and chasing it around the yard. She is in full frolic now, growling and barking, pushing the ball across the yard with the tip of her nose, something like a seal might do with a beach ball in a pool. Standing there in my early morning head fog, I am amazed at how a dog can go from R.E.M. sleep to full throttle in an instant; God I envy dogs!

Once outside, the darkness that consumed my bedroom a few moments ago is beginning to dwindle. As morning takes over, ominous purple clouds to the north draw my attention. There is a good chance that Charlie and I will get wet at some point today. I won’t get wet, but perhaps my gear will.

With the exception of the camera, tripod and rider, my KLR is loaded up and ready to go. All that’s required of me is to gear up and hit the road.

Gearing up is a basic ritual that takes less than a minute, after that, the sound of dog food hitting a large plastic dish is all that is required to draw Flicka’s attention from her Jolly-ball in the backyard and back into the house.

I give her a German Shepherd sized hug, put her food dish down in front of her and assure her that Nana will be here this afternoon to entertain her for the next few days. One more quick peck on the dog’s forehead and then I head outside to the bike, grabbing my helmet, the camera and tripod from the dining room table on the way out.

With the few remaining items mounted on the bike, I swing my right leg high over the tail-bag, slide the helmet down over my head, thumb the starter and then pull my dragon skin gauntlets over the cuffs of my riding jacket.

Sitting here, waiting for the engine to warm up, I take a moment to think about the ride today. Where I am now, idling in my driveway and where I will end up by days end.

Palouse steps

Charlie and I will be in a very different place from where we began; the dark northern spring wheat blanketing my Palouse country will be replaced with Douglas fir and Tamarack pines and mountains that disappear into the clouds. The air will be heavy with the scent of backcountry pine and the crackle of our campfire will echo beneath the canopy and carry through the forest. Over by the cabin will be our two bikes, resting on their stands, waiting for tomorrow’s ride......... and there will be dirt on their tires.

With the needle on the temperature gauge beginning to rise from its resting pin, I pull in the clutch and toe the transmission into first gear, my KLR is ready to go and so am I.

There is a popular quote by the Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu which states, “The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.”

With my front tire pointed north towards Montana and a smooth release of the clutch, this is where my journey begins.

Ride Well

E.T.

Help! I need some advice from my two wheeled friends.

2009-07-22T20:09:00.000-07:00

So lately my wife has been working alot of evening shifts, and for the past couple months has been carpooling with a male co-worker. At first I didn't mind, I would rather have someone with her in case she has car trouble or something like that, but it seems that they have become a little bit more than friends. You know the scenario, the phone calls that hangup, she starts wearing nice clothes to work, talking about him all the time, etc. I don't know what to think. If I'm out in the garage when she gets home (usually after midnight) he just drops her off and leaves, but if the lights are off in the garage and I'm in the house (they think I'm sleeping) they sit out in the car for like twenty minutes. I asked her once what they were doing, she said "just talking"....whatever. So last night I decide that I'm going to see what really goes on out there. I leave the garage door open, but turn out all the lights. About the time she usually gets home, I go out and hide in the garage and wait. In a few minutes, his car pulls into my driveway, and I'm hiding behind my bike. When his headlights shine through the garage and onto my bike, I see some thing that I just can't believe. The rear sprocket is already worn and hooked but the chain looks OK. Do you think I should change just the sprocket or the chain and sprocket?

This is not my post, I took it from one of the members of a riders forum that I belong to. Some of you may have already read this one, I think that he got it from someone else.

Ride Well and remember to always maintain your chain and sprocket.......if you have one.

E.T.

No rest

2009-07-19T21:18:00.000-07:00

I can’t seem to stop grinning. All the way home this evening, from Shannon’s house to mine, I couldn’t stop it. Why? Well.........

Montana stream

We’ve been pretty busy lately, Charlie and I. I noticed that he has been as delinquent in his posting as I have. But rest assured, we are both still around and kicking, and riding the wheels off of the bikes. In time, as things slow down, he and I will both have the time to get back to the blogs and the ride reports; I can’t believe that the summer is already half over. It always flies by.

Back to the grinning.

I’ve received more than a few comments and emails in the past few weeks from folks regarding my lack of posts and ride reports and I wanted to be sure to let everyone know that I am currently working on the ride into the wilderness that Charlie and I took about a month ago.

My goal this evening when I got home was to give a quick report on our ride; 600+ miles of Idaho and Montana’s finest wilderness over a four day trip. As I reflected on the trip and how I would report the events, I couldn’t stop grinning. We had a blast.

Our wilderness accomodations

I have a lot to share and in time, I will. I’m just waiting for things to quiet down before I get back to my normal routines.

There will be reports of remote Mountain Vistas, and the wildlife. The back country locals both human and insect and even a report about ear wax (Trying to figure out how to fit that one in tastefully).

One of the locals

There were the frequent challenges of navigating through snow and mud, a flat tire and the subsequent theft of a bicycle pump by yours truly to get back to camp.

I am grinning as I type this.

Charlie navigating yet another flooded road

Hang in there, Charlie and I will both be back as soon as our schedules permit, until then.......

Ride Well

E.T.

Into the Wilderness!

2009-06-15T06:41:00.000-07:00

Montana High Country

Charlie and I are off! As I type this the KLR is loaded up with gear and we will be in the High Country soon. We'll be exploring the backcountry wilderness of Northwestern Montana near the Canadian border. Reports to follow.

I can't stay and keep posting, it's time to roll!

Ride Well

E.T.

Tech day

2009-05-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

Tech Day

A unique opportunity presented itself for me and the bike this weekend.

I recently joined a KLR650 forum (there seems to be a forum for just about everything nowadays) and one of the local members hosted an Eastern Washington Tech day in my neck of the woods. I decided that this would be a great opportunity to drop in to meet some of my fellow "KLRistas".

99% of my rides in the past have been mostly solitary; I don't expect many folks to log the non-stop saddle time that I have an addiction for, therefore, most of my rides end up as lonely affairs, just me and the bike and 500 or so miles together before the day is over.

My bike socializing with some of her own breed

I arrived a little late to the tech part of the day, because of this, I missed out on most of the "fun" of watching the various valve and chain adjustments and a couple of doohickey replacements (doohickey:KLR slangterm for the cam chain tensioner or something like that, I'm sure that I will be corrected by somebody on this).

At the end of the day, we took a quick ride south up to the summit of Steptoe butte (big friggin hill in the area).

We did okay for a spell, me and my bike that is, until we got about 15 miles into the ride. I don't know if it's the thousands of miles of solitary time that I am so comfortable with that coaxed me into breaking from the pack of Kawasaki's or the challenge of taking a shortcut to get far enough ahead of the group to buy enough time to dismount, pull out the camera and get a shot of everybody riding together. In the interest of not appearing to be a total social introvert, I will go with the group photo excuse. Whatever the reason, that's what I did and yes I did get stopped and the camera out just in time to get the shot.

The group riding south to Steptoe butte

More of the group

My bike is obviously not quite used to social situations like these just yet, I think that must be why she was sitting a little bit away from the pack.

More pictures of the event can be found on this link

http://www.klr650.net/forums/showthread.php?t=64175&page=7

All in all, I had a great time getting together with this group of folks, I would like to thank Joe for hosting the event, it was a fantastic experience to be able to spend the afternoon with a group of riders who all share a common interest. As a lifelong solo rider, I look forward to more days socializing like this and if any of these guys are as stubborn as I am and have developed that special callous (where the sun don't shine) that's neccesary to be able to drain that legendary "ship of the desert" tank two or more times in a single day, you are more than welcome to join me and my bike.

Ride well

E.T.

Third gear

2009-05-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

I’ve left the city some time ago; I have abandoned the combative motorists and tailgaters, cell phone users and all of the seemingly ubiquitous texting that goes on behind the wheel nowadays.

That’s all a memory but still fresh in my mind, those frustrations are behind me, and I can relax on my country road, riding my bike in a peaceful third gear canter. In only twenty miles, life has slowed down a thousand times; the muscles in my neck are relaxing, the aching conflicts have withdrawn. It’s just me, my bike and the Palouse.

It’s all about to happen. The annual flood of wheatgrass, blanketing countless rolling hills and valleys in a mantle of green; by the end of June, these fields will be waist high with ripening wheat.

Dismounting the bike on the side of a hill, I follow a game trail that leads to a cliff, facing west; looking out, far across the valley, I spot the barn that I took a photo of on Christmas Eve.

There is a sympathetic and cool breeze on my face, climbing up from the valley floor below, carrying with it, the clean scent of fresh soil recently turned over by a farmers plow.

I have returned to my bike to write down these thoughts and decide to stay awhile and decompress a bit more on the side of this hill.

This has been therapeutic; living life in third gear for a spell, the greening fields, and the scent of turned earth carried on the wind.

I believe that I will ride the rest of the way home in third gear as well.

Ride well,
Whatever gear you choose to ride in.

E.T.

What can brown do for you?

2009-04-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

The U.P.S. guy walks up to my desk a couple of days ago, I think his name is Chris. He knows that I am a pretty active rider and he just bought a Honda CRF450 and likes to share his experiences and ask me questions............I try, the best that I can, to answer intelligently.

At any rate Chris walks up to my desk with a smirk on his face and said, “You looked pissed!”
Confused, I reply, “What are you talking about?”
“I found your blog, and the picture of you on your profile, dude you look pissed off!”

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to place a picture in my profile, I don’t know why, to be friendly I guess. It never occurred to me that I appeared brooding or sullen. Truth is I took that picture last summer at the tail end of a 14 hour ride that took me into the Idaho wilderness in 95 degree weather. Go ahead, you spend 14 straight hours in the saddle of a KLR and step off grinning. I always thought that the picture was a look of contentment, what do I know.

It had been about a week since the U.P.S. driver made that observation about my picture and every time I came over to my little blog here, I thought of what he said. “What can brown do for you?” Well it can give you a little bit of a complex, if you let it. I decided that I should do something about it, lest you folks think any less of my brooding mug shot. I loaded the camera on the bike this weekend and took off into the Palouse to get a picture of myself that was a little more apropos to my personality. I’m really not a bad guy.

So here you have it Chris, a self portrait, Mr. Thomas in the flesh himself. I hope this mug doesn’t scare you off. I think I’ll beat U.P.S. to the punch and say that I look Sanguine not Sullen. I’m not exactly a pretty face so this is the best that your gonna get, and yes that is my girl in the background waiting for me.

Mr. Thomas

Ride Well

E.T.

The Long way home in the soft April rain

2009-04-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

With the clouds in the sky not looking nearly as threatening as the weatherman had warned on the morning news, I decided that I would ride the bike to the Gym on Sunday.

I had been without my girl for a couple of weeks while Kawasaki resolved a few of her recall issues (Wiring Harness and Muffler bolts and such) and had felt a strong desire to make up for the lost time with her, whether it meant riding in the cold driving rain or not.

The ride to the Gym on Sunday afternoon was a non-eventful highway ride under cloudy skies. When I arrived, a girl who was walking to her car queried as to whether or not it was a little too cold to be riding today...........I assured her that it was not.

With the workout done and suited back up, I decided to take the long way back home, the clouds had just begun to spit a little, but it wasn't the toadstrangler that the forecasters had warned me about earlier in the day.

"The long way" consists of mainly 20 or so miles of country dirt roads wandering through the more remote areas of the Palouse country; an occasional farm every few miles and that is about it, very little traffic.

There was a building that I had ridden by on this route once before, I didn't have my camera at the time and had promised myself to visit the building at sometime in the future so that I could take a few pictures. Today was a good day for that.

Originally, I had mistaken the building as a church, upon my return, I believe now that it was once a schoolhouse.

Built at the crossroads of two dirt roads deep in the Palouse, I was left to wonder what this area was like when it was originally built. Considering how remote it's location is, the building is huge.

Schoolhouse maybe?

Notice the radius walls, there were no home centers back when this structure was built, I imagine that there were no power tools at the time either. As a carpenter, I was impressed with the attention to detail and the apparent pride that these folks displayed in their craftsmanship.

The Belfry at the top of the structure. This building, whatever it was, once had a voice.

After shooting a number of pictures, I stayed awhile and kept the building company and imagined what this place must have been like, back when the structure was in it's prime.

We parted ways a few moments later and I rode the rest of the way home navigating the quiet backroads of the Palouse in the soft April rain.

Ride Well

E.T.

2009-04-09T20:16:00.000-07:00

Backroads near Canada/Northeastern Washington State

Mr. Leonard's Big Round Barn

2009-03-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

The view outside my front window this morning

I wish I had a ride that I took this weekend to share with you, but I don’t. You see, outside my window, it’s snowing.....................again. The endless winter it seems. It’s all just as well I suppose; if the weather was perfect, I would be lamenting the fact that I don’t have a bike to ride this weekend anyways.

The Kawasaki is in the shop getting some recall work done.

The 2008 KLR was discovered to have a flaw in the layout of its wiring harness causing it to wear against parts of the frame and over time, internally hemorrhage its electrons. I experienced this event on Friday. Reflecting back on the moment, I must confess that it’s rather unsettling, the sound that can come from the depths of one’s stomach, when they first smell and then observe an acrid black smoke belching from behind the gauge bezel of their love.

A frenzied removal of the windscreen revealed the source of the fault. The wiring harness leading to the Temperature gauge and Tachometer rubbed against a part of the hardware that supports the headlight/fairing assembly, cutting first through the loom and then insulation eventually exposing the copper conductor.

So there she sits this weekend, in the service bay of the local Kawasaki dealership, stripped down to her frame and gutted. The entrails of her wiring harness resting in the bottom of a recycling bin in the corner of the shop. Ughhh, I’d rather not think about it. So let’s talk about something else.

Last week, Webster’s world commented on the photo of the round barn that I currently have on the side bar of this site. While I don’t have a complete history of the barn, I do know a little about its past, and I suppose that while this brief post about the barn is not necessarily related to motorcycles, I did take that picture while I was on a ride to the seven devils area of Idaho.

What I know.

I first learned of the existence of the barn when PBS ran a small piece about it in “A Northwest Minute”.

The barn stands just east of the town of Pullman, home of Washington State University and the WSU Cougars, all of you Oregon Ducks fans out there know of the place. It was built by T.A. Leonard, a local farmer sometime between the years of 1914 and 1917.

What I thought was most interesting about its design was explained in the PBS interview with the now elderly daughter of T.A. Leonard. She explained that even though she was just a little girl at the time, she could remember her father insisted that his barn should stand out from all of the others in the area, that is also why the barn was painted green instead of the ubiquitous red; all in the interest of originality, I think I would have liked this old T.A. Leonard fellow.

Mr. Leonards Big Round Barn

I am not sure of the height but it is a twelve sided structure with a 60’ diameter.

The Daughter went on to explain in the interview that the barn has been somewhat of a celebrity in the Palouse ever since. For as long as she can remember, folks have been stopping in front of her father’s farm and taking pictures of the structure, “That’s been going on ever since it was built.” I thought of that quote while I was standing in the center of that country lane last July taking my picture of the barn.

I shot the picture at about 6:30 in the morning, I remember a dog protesting my company from somewhere on the property. I decided that out of respect, I would keep my distance and appreciate the building from the roadside. I didn’t stay long, the dog’s continued disapproval was sure to bother somebody eventually, this must happen to these folks all of the time.

The barn was restored about 10 years ago by the current owners who felt that it would be a tragedy if the aging barn were to succumb on their watch, they are good stewards, the barn is in beautiful condition.

If I remember correctly from the PBS interview, the farm was originally a dairy farm back when T.A. Leonard owned it; the current owners raise Llamas.

The average "T.A. Leonard era" farm on the Palouse

As I rode away that morning heading south for the mountains of Idaho, I thought of Mr. Leonard and his desire for his dairy barn to be different, a singular green structure that would stand out from his neighbors. I also thought of the current owners and the responsibility they felt to preserve Mr. Leonard’s building and the new peculiar looking livestock that was being raised there.

Palouse Country July, 2008

Riding south into the Palouse, observing the slant of the morning sun raking off of the rolling buttes and spilling into the valleys and the strength of its ray’s already penetrating my riding gear at this early hour, I knew that it was going to be a hot one that day.

“Llama’s on a dairy farm.” I thought of this oddity for a spell in between my early morning hunger pangs and thoughts of breakfast in Lewiston. I don’t know if T.A. Leonard had ever seen a Llama back in those days, let alone entertain that thought of raising such a peculiar breed on his farm. But in the interest of peculiarity, I believe Mr. Leonard would have approved.

Ride Well

E.T.

Charlie finally got a motorcycle!

2009-03-24T19:48:00.000-07:00

Finally!! After all of these years and who knows how many Ford Mustangs (I’ve lost count), Charlie has finally come to his senses and bought a road (and trail) worthy motorcycle! If you get the chance, hop on over to his site here and say “Hey!”

In addition to his posts about his work, I can expect more riding reports and observations from his blog in the future from now on. Personally, I think that he should name his blog with a motorcycle slant; I don’t know maybe “Two wheeled Charlie” or “Charlie Two wheels?”.................nah those are both a little upsetting. If you visit his site, maybe you can come up with something a little more creative than that and leave a comment. Trust me, he has a sense of humor, even though he packs a gun and taser for a living, I doubt that he would use it on any one of us......................well, maybe the taser, I'm not sure.

KLR anyone?

That's Charlies bike on the left (reminiscent of Gary Charpentier's frogwing I believe) and of course that's mine on the right looking like baby huey with it's tall windscreen and aluminum bags (post coming up in the future on the new saddlebags). We took the two bikes out last Saturday for a quick ride to the valley so that I could buy a Montana backroads atlas for some upcoming rides into the high backcountry this summer.

Be sure to stop by and finally welcome him to the wonderful world of motorcycling...............finally!

Ride Well

E.T.

Beware!! The Vampire Duck!!!

2009-03-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

I always kind of wondered if anyone ever noticed the URL to this blog, at least one person did. A couple of weeks ago, Fasthair had wondered in a post, how I came up with the name “the vampire duck” for my blog site. I wish that I had an interesting story to tell here, but I don’t. Anyways, here’s the story.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine was thumbing through a box full of my old notebooks that dated back to when he and I were in High School. They were filled with random entries and thoughts that I had written down over the years, basically my own version of journaling, if you want to call it that.

Some of the entries were just one line sentences while others were fairly long essays, some were a little poetic, and some were total nonsense, and then there were a few others that I kind of found myself a little impressed that such thoughts ever tripped out of my head and fell onto a piece of paper.

At some point he suggested that I should try blogging.
I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about so naturally, I googled it. That’s how I came across “blogger.com.”

It was during the registration process while I was creating my blog that I had to come up with an original domain name for my site. What I thought were original names, all turned out to be taken by someone more original than me. A little annoyed with this, I thought, “what interests me that most people wouldn’t have a clue about.” Vampire ducks of course! “Blogger.com” seemed to agree with my request and the domain name was accepted. So what in the world is a vampire duck? In a nutshell “Duckula”. Okay, so what in the world is a Duckula?

Duckula
photo taken from Wikipedia

Duckula was a wonderful (to me at least) adult humor British cartoon that aired back in the late 80’s. I never got too offended when some folks confessed to not understanding the humor, for me, I thought that it was brilliant and to this day it ranks right up there with “The Big Lebowski” for its ability to make me giggle like stoner from beginning to end (You don’t have to be a stoner to giggle like one, you'll just have to trust me on this).

I have to admit that I have tendency to play out in right field a little too deep; most folks don’t always quite “get me”........ I’m okay with that.

When I originally created this blog, I didn’t know really what I wanted to do with it, so I spent about a year looking at other blogsites and found that I really enjoyed visiting the motorcycle blogs, all of them, from the scooter sites to the ones that focused on the big American Iron. That’s when I decided to focus this site, “thevampireduck” on motorcycles and my own personal experiences and changed the name to “Two Wheels and an Engine”.

Since then, I have created another site, kind of a ghost site at the moment. Currently it is used as an experimental place where I can try different things, a learning tool of sorts that if I totally screw things up, I can always start over and try something else. Kind of like a parts car that I brainstorm with. Not surprisingly, I named that site “Duckspotting”; can you see a trend here?

I’ve been considering opening that site up and using it as a conduit to some of my other interests, things like my recent curiosity in photography and for some of my non-motorcycle related posts (I journal about all sorts of things, that tends to happen when you play deep right field). Well see, I’ll keep you posted.

So you see, in a nutshell, “the vampire duck” has nothing to do with motorcycles and more to do with a glimpse of one the peculiar interests of a motorcyclist who likes to play the outfield a little deeper than most might be used to.

Ride Well

E.T.

Wild Geese that fly with the moon on their wings

2009-03-01T09:22:00.000-08:00

In the April 2009 issue of Rider magazine, nine staffers revealed their favorite goodies that they just couldn’t do without when they rode. I thought that it was interesting their differences of preference. This morning, for some reason or another, I woke up thinking about my favorite things. Here’s a list of them.

Heated gear- When I moved out here from the East Coast to the Inland Northwest almost twenty years ago, I thought that heated clothing was for the older and somewhat retired set of riders who just couldn’t handle a little bit of a chill from time to time.

It was on a midnight ride in the middle of June while riding from Spokane Washington to Bozeman Montana that I had an epiphany. It can get really cold out here in this neck of the woods even in the middle of summer. The temperature on the truck stop sign confirmed this, 36˚ in the middle of June!

Out here on the Palouse, it is not uncommon for the temperatures to linger somewhere in the 40’s all summer long during my early morning commute. Heated gear makes all the difference. My electric vest only takes up a fraction of the space in my bags compared to the clothing that I would need to otherwise stow when I wasn’t trying to stay warm.

My personal choice is the Tourmaster Synergy vest with the heated collar. I prefer this over my old Eclipse because I have a choice of temperature settings. When the temperature is in the 40’s, I keep it on the lowest setting, but if the ride is long or drops lower than that, I can always turn up the heat.

Turtle Fur- This is nothing more than a tube of fleece about six or seven inches in width that protects the exposed portion of my neck between my jacket and helmet, it cost less than $10 at Cycle Gear and has been well worth the investment. I always make sure that this simple little piece of fabric is in my bags before I go anywhere. If you don’t have one of these things, I recommend trying one out. For only $10, trust me, you’ll get your money’s worth. You’d be surprised the difference a warm neck makes.

Storage- My bike is one of my main sources of transportation (if I lived in a warmer climate, I wouldn’t be too surprised if it were my only source). Because of this, I need storage and quite a bit of it.

Recently, I discarded my old KLR soft saddle bags and Charlie and I installed a new pair of Aluminum touring boxes from www.klr650.com. Now I have a secure place to stow my belongings without having to worry about any dismal creature that possesses the ability to manipulate a zipper to rifle through my stuff whenever I am away from the bike.

Storage makes all the difference on a daily rider.

G.P.S/Delorme charts- My riding takes me to some pretty remote places and 9/10’s of the time I don’t know exactly where I’m at, and I prefer that. When I need to find my way out, even the most basic G.P.S. when used with one of my Delorme charts will tell me exactly where I am. I’ve given a lot of thought about buying something with an on screen map, but for my type of riding in the wilderness, the limited information that I would receive wouldn’t be sufficient.

All I really need are Coordinates and a chart, with my background in aviation, I am very comfortable with Pilotage and Dead Reckoning, I don’t need arrows telling me to turn left or right and in the wilderness I don’t think they would work well anyways.

I’ve been lost in a lot of big cities before; in that case a product like a Garmin Zumo would be a perfect tool. But most of the places I ride, I am not limited to paved roads and right angles and to quote Martha, “that’s a good thing.”

Tire Repair Kit- I never go into the wilderness without one of these; it’s a long walk out, enough said. It should be noted that one should know how to use one of these as well.

So there you have it, my list of Favorite things. I’m curious now, what are some of your favorite things.

Ride Well

E.T.

Call me Ishmael

2009-02-07T12:08:00.000-08:00

I’m still here.

January has been an exercise in trying to remain occupied with various tasks around the house. Tasks that take my mind off of the inevitable fact that it is still winter, as a result, this is one of the first times that I’ve approached my computer since my last post.

There have been changes that Charlie and I have made to my KLR, changes that I’ll post in the future. Most of my time for the past month, my two wheeled activities have involved planning things that I would like to do this year on the bike.

Here are some of the things that I have been scheming.

1. Never been to Moab, I’d like to say that I have.........we’ll see.
2.More camping this year, considering that I didn’t do any last year.
I live at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains, it shouldn’t be that hard. Anywhere from Priest lake to the Seven devils will do just fine.
3.After writing my previous post, I think that a trip back to the Jefferson valley and a very special time in my childhood is in order. I feel that I will fail to describe in words what is like there, pictures are in order.
4.Aftermarket pipe, possibly. Nothing too loud though.

I’ve been stealing away on the occasional weekend ride here and there. The weather has been too dramatic to brave commuting to work just yet. Weekend rides help, but honestly, they are not enough. I’m getting moody.

The other night, I was reading some Herman Melville before bed, I read this passage that I felt accurately reflected my mood, I’d like to share it here; perhaps it’ll strike a chord with you as well.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago-never mind how long precisely-having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul, whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knocking people’s hats off, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

Lines from Moby Dick.

I think that pretty much sums it up for me............hold onto your hats when you see me approaching; you’ve been warned.

The other evening, on my commute home, I noticed a lone bare spot in a wheat field that was predominately covered with snow, in that spot, was a patch of green. The first evidence of the approach of spring! The next morning on my return to work, I searched for this small patch of early wheat, but found it covered with a dusting of snow that had fallen over night. That’s alright, I can’t see it, but I know it's there.

Riding season 2009 is getting near. I can almost taste it!

For those of you who have been able to cast off from the depressing “Shores of winter” and return to the sea, Ride Well, I envy you.

As for me, my ship is just about ready to raise her sails once again!

E.T.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-24T21:02:00.000-08:00

We took a walk, my dog and I, early in the morning Christmas Eve. The last few weeks, we have been overwhelmed with record snowfall and today looked as though it was going to be the only day with weather calm enough to let my German shepherd stretch her legs with a brief walk. Flicka’s leash in one hand, my camera in the other, we set a casual pace down a narrow lane in the first blue light of the morning; searching for a subject suitable for a holiday theme that I could post here.

This was the calm between two storms, the next arriving this afternoon, and hitting us hard on Christmas day. We will most certainly have a white Christmas this year.

There was no wind yet, not even a whisper of a breeze up in the snow covered pines that stood alongside the narrow path. I say path, it is actually a road out in the country, plowed wide enough to allow only a single vehicle at a time, a farmers access to something, most likely. The only sound, other than the crunching of the snow beneath my feet was a chittering squirrel up in the trees. An obese looking little creature with his winter fur and round belly, his athleticism was still respectable as he soared from limb to limb, dislodging the snow from the boughs with every landing. Too far away to photo, but his aerobatics were entertaining nonetheless.

As we walked, searching for a subject with a Christmas oriented theme, I thought back on the past year; of beginning this online journal with a focus towards motorcycles. I knew very little of blogging or of what to expect, therefore, I expected nothing; the only difference in respect to what I have always done with my journaling is that now I post some of my stuff here. What I discovered was a diverse community of people with similar interests from everywhere, sharing their experiences where ever they ride. What a concept.

I have enjoyed reading about new riders like Cecilie Hoffman early on when she first began her blog years ago and continued reading as she progressed in her skills and travels. I have found myself beholden to the instruction and counsel that Irondad has offered in his posts through the years, I’m always learning something there. Steve Williams and Alessandro Melillo for their writing and photography; I could go on, and I did in my thoughts as Flicka and I navigated the narrow country lane, down the side of a hill onto the valley floor below.

By now the sun had risen and as we rounded a curve in the road, we came upon a lone barn nestled up along the forest’s edge at the south end of the valley. It was here that the plowed road ended, a few hundred feet from the barn. For whatever reason, whoever plowed the way here to this valley floor had stopped, we did too. We stood there for a few minutes and watched the sunrise in this snow covered valley, at some point, a breeze developed and began to gently push on the back of my hooded jacket, I took this picture.

Lone Barn on the valley floor

We stayed a little while longer and then we turned our faces into the crisp breathe of winter and followed our tracks home.

Merry Christmas from the Palouse country to all of the new friends that I have made here in the past year, from the Turkish Coast to Canada and all points in between, God to you all.

E.T.

Meán Gheimhridh

2008-12-21T12:49:00.000-08:00

This time of the year has been celebrated worldwide for thousands of years, so I know that it’s not just me.

The Celts recognized it as Meán Geimhridh, the Scots called it Hogmanay, a festival that was “imported” by the raiding and occupying Norse and embraced by the Scots, a variation of this festival is still referred to as “the Yules” on the Scottish Shetland Islands; 7th century Japan recognized it as Amaterasu, in Peru, Inti Raymi.

Whatever the culture and however it has been known, it has been recognized all around the world throughout the centuries. Most English speaking cultures recognize it currently by the Latin form of the words Sol- meaning “the sun” and Sistere- “to stand still”. The Solstice, which, in the winter represents the ebbing of the Suns lowest point on the horizon and marks the beginning of its ascent back into the sky and to longer and warmer days!

Noonday solstice sun on the Palouse

For those of us up here in the more northern parts of the world, the suns low position and shorter days are rather apparent, and every year that I grow older, seems to affect my mood a little more.

As of now, I can watch the weather forecast on the evening news every night with a little more enthusiasm and observe the daylight hours grow longer minute by minute and day by day, all the while, restlessly squirming in my lazy boy like a little kid in the pews during Sunday service making revving noises under my breath, shifting gears as I steal away down a quiet country road, warm wind on my neck and the scent of forest pine in my helmet.

Palouse sunset during the Winter Solstice

Every culture has a different name, and a different celebration for this specific time of the year. I don’t know what the motorcycle culture would call this time of the year but I do know how we’ll celebrate once the snow melts off of the roads.

Ride Well (At least in spirit)

E.T.

A small change

2008-12-07T09:54:00.000-08:00

With the skies around here changing from countless days of sunshine all summer long, to the grey looming ceiling that is now present and probably won't disappear in it's entirety for the next few months, I needed something to remind me of what will be coming back. That is, warm and gentle summer evenings, therefore, I thought that I would change my blog title photo to remind me that those days will return.

The day that I took this photo, the weather was more than just a little warm, the temperatures were up in 100's. I took a ride during the evening when the temperature was starting to cool off a little and stopped here at the top of a small butte out in the Palouse.

Even though the daytime heat was stifling, the ride that I took that evening and on into the night was a memorable one. With the shorter cloud covered days dominating the weather here now, I just needed something to remind me that those warm summer evenings will return.

Ride well

E.T.

Journal entry Sep 8th, 2008

2008-11-24T20:30:00.000-08:00

Here's one for you that I'd thought I'd share.

I was cleaning out my saddle bags this evening and found this entry in my journal from a ride that I took back in September, far to the eastern edge of the Idaho border. This is very thick forest, very thick! Many times while riding the trails, I couldn't see much of anything, occasionally the forest would open up for a moment and reveal to me what I was riding through. I will return, I promise.

Journal entry

Sep. 8th, 2008 Eastern Idaho

Traveling east, every passing mile takes me farther; farther away from the complexities of the city, the din of traffic and bellicose drivers.
With every rotation of the wheels, the cars traveling in the opposite direction seem to grow a little older, the houses a little more simple; materialism begins to wane.
The highway narrows down to a two lane country road and then becomes a forest service road, and then a nameless trail.

We find our way to where we are now, deep in the forest, resting by the trail, enjoying a light lunch.
The forest doesn’t make a sound, not a whisper.
The sun is high in the sky but any direct light fails to reach through the canopy of trees.

Lying here on the forest floor, my jacket propped beneath my head, eyelids closed, wide awake, I listen.
I listen for anything and there is nothing.
Tomorrow when I am at work, back in the endless rush of the city, I will think of this moment here with my bike in the half-light of the forest....................and miss this.

Ride Well

E.T.

Two roads to Riggins

2008-11-15T15:34:00.000-08:00

This is the final post detailing the ride that I took back in July to Central Idaho. The first two posts "A positive experience" and "If I was Calvin and Hobbes was a tall green bike" told of my experiences with the gentleman on the Harley from Mountain Home, Idaho and the confused fly-fisherman as he watched me exiting the wilderness like I was Sasquatch or some other strange critter. This post is a little more lengthy than I would like but, I really wanted to get it finished before next July.

I sat there on my bike smiling, idling in the middle of the road, my left hand holding in the clutch lever and my right index and middle finger gently pulling the opposite lever for the brake. After what must’ve been at least a good hour or so of riding a quiet, meandering two lane highway through the woods of Central Idaho, I arrived at an intersection in the middle of nowhere. I was smiling because of the two signs that divided the Tee in the road; the upper sign, pointing to the left and showing the way along a continuation of the same paved road that I had been navigating read, “Riggins-62 miles”, the lower sign pointing to the right and showing a more primitive route along a well groomed forest service road read, “Riggins-28 miles”. I have seen a lot of different things in my travels, but this is the first time that I can recall seeing something like this. Maybe it’s more common than I realize maybe it’s common in those places such as this, where towns are far and few between and the roads all lead to the same destination? Two obviously different means to an end, and I had to make a decision.

The sun had passed the halfway point in the sky and had begun its descent to the west, my G.P.S. displayed that the time was 1344 hours, more importantly, the distance from where I stood there idling on that quiet forest highway to my driveway was 203 miles away. I had the G.P.S. set up to measure straight line distances, “As the crow flies” if you will, but crows seldom fly in straight lines and neither did my bike and I, simply put, I was long way from home and I had to be back to work tomorrow. I didn’t know exactly where I was but I did know where Riggins was, it was either 62 miles away or 28 miles away depending on how you read the signs. I knew how long it would take me to get home from Riggins once I got there, but I had to get there first. If I turned around and went back the same way that I came, all adventure was lost, If I turned to the left, staying on the paved road, I knew that I could be in Riggins in roughly an hour or so, if I turned right, there were a lot more variables. Missing forest service signs allowing me to lose my route, rough terrain, or closed roads, any number of things could prolong my “28 mile” route. Turning around was already discovered territory, turning left was a pretty sure bet at an accurate ETA, however, turning right was one of the reasons I bought my KLR. Without hesitation, I turned right.

The Forest service road had a fresh layer of pea sized gravel on it, which in most cases would have made for a pretty comfortable ride; the loose gravel however, made things a little squirrelly for me initially. Perhaps this was magnified only because of the pampering that I received by the previous 70 miles of perfect asphalt. For the first ten miles or so, I had my attention solely on how the bike and I were reacting and adjusting to the gravel, after that, I settled down a bit and began to enjoy the ride.

Traveling in a Southwesterly direction, it was becoming more and more evident that I was leaving the thick forests that I had been riding through for most of the morning and steadily approaching Hells Canyon, the scent of pine was giving way to the pungent aroma of sagebrush and within a half an hour I was rolling out of the forest and across the high prairie on the northeastern slope of Hells Canyon.

Hells Canyon is roughly a ten mile wide canyon that is located on the Eastern Oregon, Western Idaho border. It is the deepest river gorge in North America at almost 8000 feet in its deepest areas. I was not exactly on the eastern slope of the main canyon, the most widely accepted part of what is known as “Hells Canyon” lies farther south-southwest, I was descending down the spine of a hogs back shaped slope at the southwest corner of the Camas prairie into one of the side canyons that most locals may or may not recognize as the beginning of the canyon, depending on who you talk to; things definitely start to go downhill from here though and regardless of what it was named, it was indeed a canyon.

It can be difficult to remember, sitting here at my computer in the middle of November, what may have occupied my thoughts at that specific time as I made my descent into the broad mouth of the canyon. My journal offers my best recollection as to what I was observing while I rested for a moment in the shade of a small stand of fir trees.

“Water break: temperatures I would guess to be right around 85 degrees, a little too warm for my favorite jacket, just about right for my ventilated mesh gear. There is a slight breeze out of the south, really feels quite pleasant. The base of the canyon looks extremely hot, I can see the heat radiating below me, rising up from the depths, refracting the view of the steep prairie slopes on the opposite side. I can see the thin black silhouette of Oregon to the south and Washington State to the Northwest. The sky at this elevation is a brilliant blue and nearly cloudless save for the thunderheads building up to the north near Grangeville. Don’t really look forward to going down into that canyon, it looks really hot down there, but it’s the quickest way out. I can see White bird grade from here, my way out, looks to be a good five miles away straight across on the other side.”

As I stowed my journal and water bottle back in the saddlebag, I pulled out my point and shoot camera and took a quick picture from the saddle of my bike. With the naked eye, I could follow the road that I was on, from where I was perched, nearly to the base of the canyon; it was all down hill from here to the bottom. With the camera secured in the tail bag, I nudged the transmission into neutral and gave the bike a gentle push and we were moving again, coasting quietly into the canyon, powered only by the gravitational pull of the eastern slope; the only sounds were the wind across my helmet the crunching of the gravel beneath my wheels and the buzz of my chain against the sprockets. Occasionally my tires would pick up a few pebbles and throw them into the fenders or out ahead of me and my bike. About halfway down, the heat began to lick up under my helmet, reminding me why I escaped into the high country earlier in the day, by the time we reached the bottom, the heat was stifling, I turned on the ignition, shifted the bike into third gear, let out the clutch and we were off, cruising along on engine power once again and desperately looking for the nearest ramp to get up onto Route 195. It was obvious to me at this point that I must have made a few wrong turns, one of the indicators was my odometer had indicated an additional 10 miles to the projected 28 that the sign pointing the way to Riggins had shown. The other was that I had not made it to Riggins, instead, I found myself arriving in the small community of Lucille, a few miles north of my intended destination. Basically this meant that it had taken me ten miles farther to travel to the closer town, go figure.

There isn’t much to the town of Lucille; nestled at the foot of the White bird grade, I would guess the population of this community to be maybe 50 to 100 inhabitants max. Tucked in firmly where the east and west slopes diverge, there is little room for expansion in this town, corralled by the canyon walls, the only direction to look any notable distance is up. A few tightly grouped homes, a small post office with whitewashed cedar lap and a brick saloon made up the whole of Lucille.

Nothing stirred at this hour and in this heat; a few late model pick-up trucks parked in the driveways were the only evidence that maybe I wasn’t alone in this community. The heat was absurd; every breath reminded me of the rush of hot air that follows when you open the door to a woodstove, exposing the coals, instinctively forcing you to withdrawal from the flame, the air was very hot and dry. Finding the on-ramp to 195 at the far end of town was my ticket out of this furnace, it was time to head north for home.

Shifting through the gears, we accelerated onto the highway merging into the left-hand lane and staying there, passing the long and slow caravan of Motor homes and Semi-trucks clawing their way up the grade over in the right-hand lane. Carrying me confidently on her back, my bike climbed out of the radiating depths of Hell’s canyon like a Homesick Angel. Every foot in elevation that my G.P.S. added, I could feel the subsequent drop in temperature and I actually began to feel the chill of my sweat under my helmet and riding gear as we made our ascent up the grade, it was wonderful! Something else that comforted me was that the temperature gauge on the bike in this triple digit heat while climbing a 6% grade never exceeded the half-way mark.

The closer I came to the rim, the darker the skies had become. Those thunderheads that I had noticed during my break on the eastern slope were now a large thunderstorm, no doubt, I was going to get wet.
As if almost on cue, the moment I exited the rim of the canyon and leveled out back up onto the Camas prairie, the first drops of water began streaking across my face shield.

Thinking back, I don’t know what left its broadest imprint on that moment of the ride; whether it was the cooling effect of the road spray on my exposed neck, the scent of the lavender fields that I found myself riding through at that same moment on the western slope or the metallic taste in the air created by the sudden summer rainfall against the hot asphalt of the highway; maybe it was the combination of all of those things.

The remainder of the ride from the southern tip of the Camas prairie back home to my Palouse country was the familiar routine that I always descend comfortably into at the beginning of any long leg of a trip. Settling the bike into a smooth canter; my right and left index fingers eventually find themselves resting atop the clutch and brake levers, my lower back arched, coaxing my chest gently into the wind and my feet perched comfortably up on the pegs with the heel of my right boot always seeming to find itself resting against the bracket of the rear brake reservoir, and my imagination wandering off to countless places during the course of the ride and following no particular order.

14 hours from the time that I began my ride that morning, I pulled back into my driveway and dismounted the bike. My body was shattered from the prolonged heat and I was looking forward to spending the rest of the evening in the air conditioned comfort of my house with my dog, a Rib-eye steak and a baseball game. I took a step back to look at my bike one last time before going inside. She ran pretty much non-stop for the past 14 hours and was covered with 450 miles of road grime and tar and over 100 miles of Central Idaho’s finest dirt, through it all, she didn’t miss a beat. I was done for the day, but the bike sat there poised on her side stand like she was ready to go for another 14 hours. I love that bike.

As I made my way to the front door of the house, jacket unzipped and helmet off, I reflected on the various moments of the ride. With every step towards the house I thought of a different experience; every step reflected back to the man on the Pearlescent white Road King, and of thick forest canopies, and bewildered fly-fisherman. With every foot fall, my memory returned to the descent down the eastern slope of the canyon, the stifling heat at its base and the escape out the other side, out onto the western slope of the Camas prairie, of lavender fields and the blessing of a summer’s rain. Walking up my front steps to my door I thought to myself just as I turned the handle and pushed the door open to be greeted by my German shepherd, “Today was a good day.”

Ride well

E.T.

It's been awhile

2008-11-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

Shhhh! Don’t let anybody know that I’m here, doing this, you know typing on my computer.......at home.

The past two months have been a blur of activities; a long list of chores that need to be completed before the snow and cold weather settle in for the season, somewhere in the middle of the frenzy, I had family visit me from New York, leaving very little spare time to do things that are a part of my normal routine. It wasn’t until I leaned over to fire up my computer that I realized how long that I have been away. It has been a while.

I still have quite a bit to do on my punch list, today is all about firewood and an oil change or two, we’ll see about that. I figure that if I can manage to keep a low profile, nobody will know that I am home therefore freeing up the morning to do something that I haven’t had the opportunity to do in a while, sitting idle.

We have been blessed with a perfect autumn around these parts though, I can’t believe that today is the first day of November and the temperature is expected to be around 60 degrees. I have been riding a lot, another blessing, and I have a lot to share. Looking at some of my previous posts, I still have to complete my post about the ride that I took in Idaho back in July, since then I have experienced a lot of other things of the two wheeled nature as well. There is plenty to post about, as things slow down in the coming weeks; I look forward to catching up.

A brief encounter with Captain Obvious

One quick story before I end this post, about an encounter that I had at a gas station in the middle of the night in downtown Spokane (a lot of encounters seem to occur while we refuel, don’t they?).

Friday night, two weeks ago, the company that I work for had our annual inventory. This is always a marathon day. This particular day started at 6:00 Friday morning and ended at 12:30 Saturday morning. My brain was pretty much shattered from the long day and I was in a miserable mood, frowning under my helmet as I left work, longing for my bed. I was about two blocks from the freeway on-ramp when I had to turn the fuel petcock, over to reserve. Crap! All I wanted to do was go straight home and go to bed, now I had to stop for gas.

I usually keep my helmet on when I refuel the bike, but I removed it this time so that I could take a couple of aspirin that I had stowed in my saddle bags, I needed to take something to ease the pounding in my head.

Filling the tank, I noticed a gentleman wearing a Green Bay Packers jacket and Seattle Seahawks hat (must’ve been a Mike Holmgren fan) staggering his way in my general direction. I tried my best to give him my “go away” look but he stopped anyway, staring at the bike from the other side of the fuel pump. Inevitably, he started talking to me in a slurred, drunken speech, great I just want to go home and now I have to deal with a chatterbox drunk!
“What is that an Enduro?” (Enduro? I haven’t heard that description in years)
“Uhhh, yeah you could call it that.”
I continued to give him my “I don’t want to talk to you look”, it wasn’t working, he kept talking.
He announced, “You know, I had a bike once.”
I don’t know why I continued the conversation by asking the question, maybe it’s just because somewhere deep down I have a need to talk about bikes, even if it was with an inebriated Packers-Seahawks fan at a gas station in the middle of the night.
“Oh yeah” I replied trying really hard by now to look stoic and disinterested. I had finished filling the tank and had turned the petcock back to the “on” position and was preparing to put my helmet on.
“Yeah........it was a Harley” he replied.
By this time I didn’t care, I didn’t want to talk to him in the first place, but feeding the conversation along like the glutton I was, I had to ask, “What kind?”
There was a brief pause as he thought hard about the kind of Harley he used to ride.
Then he proclaimed, “Davidson!”
I cracked up, laughing as I finished strapping the helmet and thumbing the starter I said, “Those are the best kind.”

I smiled the rest of the way home, thanks Captain Obvious!

Ride well

E.T.

Blechh!

2008-09-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

I dismounted the bike last Saturday evening, and I felt that something was not quite right. I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was a feeling that something was askew.

I awoke Sunday morning to my answer. A sore throat and a nose that was running like a champ! Crud. I was sick.

I don't know if this has been a really bad cold or a mild flu but it has gotten the best of me this week. I haven't ridden to work for the past week, the vertigo won't allow it. When I arrive home, it's straight from the car to the bed (my German Shepherd doesn't really appreciate that either).

The only thing on my to do list today is to pull the wires out from beneath my seat for my electric gear. The vertigo appears to be gone, and the Kleenex box has gone untouched since yesterday morning.

I am not 100% yet but it appears that I am on the down hill side of this thing now, hopefully I will be able to return to my normal routine tomorrow, the dog will appreciate that at least.

Ride Well

E.T.

Living in the now

2008-09-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

For the past month or so, I’ve been reading a lot of posts about the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. Some have noted the brevity of summer and have been fretting the number of rides that are left in the season before the temperatures plummet and the snow begins to fall. I admit that those same thoughts have been rattling around in my mind as well.

I have never really put my bike to bed in the winter months; usually the weather during that time of the year is mild enough for me to steal a ride at least a couple of times a month; Last year wasn’t really one of those “mild winters”. Perhaps that is why summer seems to have come and gone so quickly for me. Usually, as the season’s age, I find myself looking forward to the change, that hasn’t been the case this year, not with summer at least.

The long winter of last year found me a number of times stuck on either the “at home” or the “at work” end of my commute with a closed road blocking the way to my destination. That’s never happened in all of the years that I have spent out here on the Palouse. By the time spring finally arrived, I was worn out, almost everyone around here was. Our spring didn’t help that much either; cold and rainy and generally miserable, there was even a dusting of snow and frost in June (another first for me around here)! I wasn’t ready for summer to end, not yet, and that’s a shame, because autumn is my favorite time of year.

Round barn on the Palouse

I awoke this morning to the usual ritual of what has become my alarm clock on the weekends, which is a 90 lb. German shepherd bouncing on my bed like “Tigger” taking playful random bites at whatever part of my body resists. There is no “snooze” button on this alarm clock other than getting up and getting a start on the morning. The interesting part of this alarm clock is that usually once I have finished my shower and have begun my normal morning routine, Flicka (that’s the name of said alarm clock) usually lies down and takes a nap, go figure.

With the chores of my morning routine complete, I geared up for a ride. As I started dressing for the ride, somewhere in the back of my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking of how many of these perfect mornings remained and all of the things that I had left to complete on my “to do” list, decking, fencing, yard work, painting, how soon would my truck get out of the paint shop to begin doing some of this heavy stuff, things like that.......... All of this needs to be done before the snow flies, the brisk morning air serving as a reminder that my days are limited.

Throwing my leg over the bike and giving the transmission a gentle stab into first gear, all of those concerns wander off.

We settle into a mild canter, my bike and I, weaving our way through the quiet roads of the Palouse. All around me are shades of brown, yellow and green; some of the shades are of fields of recently harvested wheat while others are fields still waiting to be reaped; some will lay fallow for a season, giving them a chance to rest, and a few are freshly sewn in tight rows. Throughout the ride, my bike, as always, doesn’t complain; she thumps a steady cadence down the highway.

In her own special way, without words, without any language at all except for providing me with the experience of the cool September air rushing by and the sun riding a little lower in the sky, casting longer shadows on the buttes and valleys and the occasional scent of soil recently turned over by the farmers plow, she conveys the importance of living in the present.

Paraglider sailing the Autumn wind

beneath me.

In her eloquence, she reminds me that it is the ride we are on, this one now; no thoughts of yesterday’s commutes or concerns of tomorrow’s imminent storms, it is about the two of us in the present and enjoying the birth of yet another Autumn.

My bike and the way she keeps me in the present moment, she is special that way, perhaps all bikes are.

Realize deeply that the present moment

is all you ever have.

Eckhart Tolle

Ride well.

E.T.

If I was Calvin and Hobbes was a tall green bike

2008-09-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

The expression on the Fly-fisherman’s face was priceless. Descending out of the forest, I noticed him from a distance. I had been navigating the deep woods for about an hour and a half and this gentleman was the first sign of evidence that civilization was near.

As I idled down the game trail that followed the banks of the river, approaching the fisherman, I noticed that his attention was fixed squarely on me and my bike. He stood there knee deep in the river, in the classic pose of a fly-fisherman; wearing waders and a fishing cap with various feathered tackle orbiting around his head, stabbed into the brow of what must’ve been his lucky hat and sporting a pair of wide rimmed polarized glasses, the kind with the blinders on the ear stems to discourage any raw light from distracting his vision.

The closer I approached, the more focused his stare became. I must have been a rather peculiar sight in my own right, heavily dressed in my riding gear. To the average Joe, it probably appeared like I was dressed more for snowmobiling than I was for trail riding in the middle of July.

Idaho is one of the few states left that doesn’t have a helmet law and a large majority of the motorcycling public appears to still ride without them, so the sight of me wearing a helmet is good enough to merit a second glance in this neck of the woods. Add to that my black riding jacket, armored pants, boots and gloves; I can’t imagine what thoughts were running through this fellow’s head. Nevertheless, he was the best source of information that I had to steer me back towards something familiar.

I don’t know if Fly-fisherman spook that easily, so I tried to make my body language appear calm and friendly as I dismounted the bike and took off my helmet and gloves. Unzipping my jacket as I approached him, I attempted a sincere smile and asked if he was having any luck.
“Nah, not anymore, it’s getting too hot; I’m about ready to call it quits.”
When I asked what fish he was after.
“Anything that’ll strike” was his reply.
Then as smoothly as I could possibly ask the question, I inquired “Where am I and where can I find the nearest town?” There was a brief pause before he answered, “Your on the Central Fork of the Snake, Grangeville’s that way about uh, twenty miles or so.” Pointing his right hand due west, down the trail in the same direction that my bike was aiming.
“Stay on that trail and you’ll find your way up to the highway in a few hundred yards.”
I thanked him and then walked back to the bike and pulled out my point and shoot digital camera and took a few shots of the river and my bike trying my best to look the part of Clark Griswold and not like Charles Manson. The fisherman never took his eyes off of me.

I stowed the camera, took a quick swallow of water from one of the bottles in my saddle bag and put my helmet and gloves back on. Starting the bike, I very deliberately let the clutch out nice and slow so as not to disrupt the rocks on the trail and gave the fisherman one last wave. He returned the gesture and for the first time since my arrival, turned his eyes away from me and back to his river.

The highway was exactly where he said it would be and in no time I was heading west on a very twisty stretch of narrow two lane asphalt. The suspension compressing and rebounding in the turns, I smooth clutched the gears as I approached the apex and rolled on the throttle as my big single thumped her way out. This was a complete change from the style of riding that I was practicing not more than 15 minutes ago. The serenity of the shade in the forest canopy and the conservative nature of caressing the bike on the game trail for the past hour or so were now interrupted by maintaining proper lines through tight first and second gear curves and concentrating on staying ahead of the bike to avoid any unpleasant surprises on this unfamiliar stretch of road; A sudden shot of caffeine in an otherwise mellow herbal tea.

The plan was to ride back to civilization, regroup, and then find some equally interesting places to ride. That was the plan until I came to the fork in the road.

Where the road veered to the right was a wide stretch of friendly looking two-lane highway, complete with centerline stripes and comfortable broad painted shoulders on both sides, the sign in the center of the fork with the arrow pointing to the right suggested that this was the way to Grangeville. The road to the left was a menacing and narrow piece of asphalt that shot straight up and disappeared almost immediately around the base of the canyon wall, an ominous yellow sign warned motorists, “10% grade ahead.” The arrow for this road pointed at a 45 degree angle up and to the left and read simply enough, “Mt. Idaho”.

I don’t know what the expression on my face looked like, but I imagine that it was something similar to the contorted evil look that Calvin wore as he snuck up behind Suzy with a slush ball. I was suddenly up to no good and I think that my bike knew it; playing along like a veritable Hobbes, ready to pounce like Tigers often do! Before I knew it I was pushing on the left side of the handlebars and tapping down a gear or two with my left toe to accelerate up the abrupt grade. The suspension compressed a couple of inches as we attacked the base of the mountain and we were off. I won’t bore you with too many of the details of the next twenty miles, all that I can say is that my helmet was filled with superlatives and primal grunts and childlike squealing. I could sense the frustration from my G.P.S. as it tried to keep up with me and the bike, it almost appeared to be begging me to slow down, counting off the altitude in hundreds of feet not in the usual five’s and ten’s that it usually does; I honestly think that it was out of breath by the time that we reached the top of the grade, gasping for air, or 1’s and 0’s in this case (binary humor).

For almost two hours beyond where I met the fisherman, I rode along an endlessly twisting road and during those two hours, I met only one vehicle. The farther I rode, the more cautious I became of my riding; the gift of my solitude could quickly become a bitter curse of a lone rider should I wander off course and into the woods. I didn’t know where this road led; it was a beautiful ride though. An assortment of Conifers and Deciduous trees crowded the side of the narrow road creating a variety of texture and color in the forest; occasionally a marsh would appear, letting my eyes stretch a bit, eager to find some big game out among the tree line. I saw nothing. Not today. Not in this heat.
The time to make a decision was getting close, I knew where I had come from and how to get home by taking that route, but the adventure would be missing if I turned around and followed that course; I had plenty of fuel to press on, but how much further? Another twenty miles down the road and a countless number of turns later, I was given a choice.

I came to a T in the road with an interesting sign. The sign that pointed to the left read, “Riggins 62 miles”, the road was a continuation of the same road that I had been traveling; a beautiful smooth stretch of lonely asphalt. The sign that pointed to the Right read, oddly enough, “Riggins 28 miles”, it was not paved, instead it looked to be a well maintained forest service road. I had more than enough fuel to turn left and stay on the asphalt that would probably ensure that I would arrive there comfortably within an hour or so; then again I was riding my KLR, one of the main reasons for purchasing this bike was to take me down these forest roads and into the unknown. With the sun cresting its highest point in the sky and a long way from home, I had to make a decision........

A while after completing this ride, it occurred to me that I never did find Mt. Idaho. Somewhere in my wandering, I had strayed off course and missed any further road signs leading the way. I googled it this evening to learn more about this place, Mt. Idaho is a place that I will return to as a destination.

Ride Well

E.T.

Evening Ride

2008-08-23T07:16:00.000-07:00

I took an evening ride last Sunday after the strongest portion of the summer’s heat had faded. An hour or so of sunlight remained as I headed east from my house, aiming my bike for the nearest dirt road. The first portion of the ride would be brief as I made my way to the top of one of the smaller bluffs that overlooked the Palouse.

Preferring the view from the top of the hill, I decided to stop and wait awhile to see what display the sun might provide that evening. There was a haze on the horizon, a blend of smoke from distant fires to the west and wheat dust stirred up by an army of farmers harvesting their crop.

From an intense yellow into a deep crimson, the sun spilled its colors into the sky and over the rolling countryside. Rows of grain swirling in a slant of light, a serpentine maze around the rolling buttes; the scent of ripening wheat carried on the warm summer breeze.

To the east, a full moon rose out of the silhouetted mountains of the Idaho panhandle, contrasting in the fading twilight with the rolling hills of Washington State in the foreground.

Resting there on the tender slope of a recently harvested hillside, staring at the side of the world, I fixed my eyes west; over countless knolls and valleys and imagined the places that I have been; out there just beyond the horizon. The Cascades, the Olympic peninsula Mts. Hood, Baker, St. Helens and Rainier; veritable giants, all of them out of sight, but clearly visible in my minds eye. From my view on this diminutive butte, my imagination needed little help to visualize those distant places, places that I wish to visit again and definitely with my bike.

There is little moisture in the air out here and with no cloud cover to trap the hot air; the triple digit temperatures from earlier in the day began to drop. Time to ride. I stayed on the dirt road that I was on to where it ended at an unknown highway. This happens a lot out here in regards to losing ones sense of place. There are only a few landmarks to navigate by and when they are out of sight it can be anybodies guess as to where I might wind up. I have become familiar with some of the roads out here, but I am still a stranger to many. When that happens, I ride until I find something recognizable, a grain elevator, a farm, or perhaps an occasional road sign that will point me towards something that I might know. I love discovery, getting lost is something that gives me very little discomfort; I remained lost that evening for about another thirty minutes or so until my mystery highway intersected with one that I knew well.
I followed that road home.

The heat was stifling last weekend, too hot to enjoy riding in the middle of the day; that evening ride provided the balance that I needed to begin my work week on Monday. The drastic temperature change and rain showers that followed through the middle of the week provided the rest of that balance. Entering this weekend, things look perfect.

What to do.

Ride Well.

E.T.

A positive experience

2008-08-15T19:48:00.000-07:00

I've been working on posting about a ride that I took into the wilderness of Northern Idaho a few weeks ago for a while now and have been struggling with keeping the post brief enough, and yet, trying to share all of the things that happened on the ride. I'm finding it rather difficult to write in about 1000 words or so of my 14 hour ride that covered over 100 miles of wilderness, and another 450 miles of some of the "blue roads" of Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington.

Instead, I have decided to break it down into a number of smaller posts like the one here about my experience with a man and his gorgeous Harley. Thinking back on this encounter from a month ago, I feel the world needs more people like this fellow.

He and I were directly across from one another at the gas pump, topping off our tanks; the white haired gentleman fueling his Harley, and me, with my Kawasaki. He rode a custom painted Road King with the hard saddle bags; a beautiful Pearlescent white covered everything, including the bags. Only a few select parts were trimmed out in chrome, well balanced, very well done! He was a large man, standing every inch as tall as myself only he had a solid 40 or 50 lbs on me. Frost white hair and goatee accentuated by a tan so dark he was almost a deep red; it was obvious that this guy had spent some serious saddle time on his bike.

As we fueled up, I could sense that he was staring me down from behind his biker shades. I tried to remain indifferent, but eventually gave in and looked away from the pump and over at him, from beneath his mustache I could see that he was smiling. Not the condescending type of smirk that seems so ubiquitous these days, but a warm one; one that looked like he was projecting himself onto my bike and riding away satisfied, yes satisfied! As he hung the handle back up on his side of the pump, he leaned a little closer in my direction and uttered three words that I have never heard come from the mouth of someone who owned a Harley-Davidson.
“I envy you.”
A blank stare was coming from my side of the fuel island, my eyes just blinked in disbelief.
“Come again?”
I had heard what he said, I just couldn’t quite understand why he was saying that to me, there was a part of me that was bracing for the punch line.
This time a little louder, he said, “I envy you.”
More blank stares.
“I love my Harley, but you can go almost anywhere you want with your bike.” I could feel the envy in his tone of voice, it was honest, genuine. As I hung up my pump, we rolled our bikes out of the way of the busy fuel station to talk for a while. He was from the south end of the state, Mountain Home, Idaho (Ironically, Mountain Home is not home to many mountains), and was up in the panhandle with the same intentions that I had, to ride over Lolo pass, he was coming from, I was heading towards.
He told me how he, like so many of us, grew up riding dirt bikes, moved on to a number of Japanese street bikes through the 80’s, and then made the step to Harley’s about 15 years ago, the Road King was his third.

We must’ve seemed like an odd pair standing there together at that gas station in the mountains of Kooskia, Idaho, the large white haired man in his black leather vest and white t-shirt and me, laden in all of my protective gear. We talked for about twenty minutes or so, exchanging various stories about the motorcycles of our childhood; at one point I decided to stow my cold weather jacket in exchange for my lighter, warm weather one that I had in my tail bag, he just kept smiling, too polite to mock me. Eventually we mounted our bikes and nodded our goodbyes to one another, we pulled out of the gas station simultaneously, he turned west and I went east; two similar individuals traveling in opposite directions.

Riding out of Kooskia towards Lolo, my thoughts turned to my youth and to the man on the Harley and his youth, to our beginnings. Recalling his childhood experiences, I imagine that we were probably both very much alike back then. Somewhere in our young adulthood I gravitated towards sport bikes and he went towards the Japanese cruisers and eventually the big American Iron. As I inch closer and closer to his age, I imagine myself riding on a German boxer, something that I have coveted since childhood..........Time will tell.

A few more miles out of Kooskia, I found myself growing impatient with the seemingly endless caravan of Motor Homes lumbering up and down the two-lane roads, gracelessly running in both directions belching diesel fumes, slowly listing back and forth on the narrow highway and casting enormous square shadows on the canyon walls, disgusting.

I made a right turn onto a dirt road and began to climb up into the mountains, going “Anywhere I wanted” as the man on the Harley explained before. Climbing higher, the road narrowed to a single track, up and up I ascended until I crested the mountain range and began my descent into an unknown canyon, hints of a river occasionally peaked through the forest.

Riding through the wilderness alone, I found myself thinking once again of my youth and then back to the present to where I was at that exact moment in the mountains on my big simple bike and grinning devilishly inside my helmet, grinning........ exactly like the man who rode a beautiful pearlescent white Road King.

Ride Well

E.T.

A little updating is in order

2008-08-03T20:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the day's ride is over, the Kawasaki and I have tucked the sun in for the night; time to come back home and do a little updating on the site.

I wanted to give the new blog roll feature a test drive by using four of my links to see how well it worked, and if it was something that I would like to use. Turns out, I like it a lot. Now I can see who has new posts and who doesn't.

With that decision made, next in line was to update my links list and add them to my blog roll.

This summer, the number of sites that I frequent on a regular basis has grown quite a bit and I've been meaning to do this for awhile now.

I gave the scooter links their own separate list because I can foresee this list growing rather quickly in the future. Scooterists (or is it Scootertista, Scootertisti? I'm still learning the lingo.) seem to have something to say, and I want to be there to read about it.

Ride Well

E.T.

Entry from my journal July 21, 2008

2008-07-29T19:24:00.000-07:00

A week ago, I took a Monday off to go for a ride over Lolo pass. I hadn't been there in a while and thought that it would be a nice ride. I was wrong. The ride from Lewiston, Idaho to Kooskia was swarming with Motorhomes lumbering down the highway at about 35 miles per hour; they seemed to be strategically spaced at about 1/4 mile intervals as well. A couple of miles out of Kooskia, I had enough of the rolling monoliths and decided to make a right turn onto a forest service road in an attempt to get away from all of the people. It worked. Before I knew it, I was so deep in the forest that I continuously lost my G.P.S. signal because of the tree cover. Although I knew where I had come from, after about an hour of riding through the forest, I wasn't really sure where I was. I rested for a spell in the shade and re-hydrated myself with some water while I wrote a brief entry in my journal. I plan on doing a larger post about the trip when time permits.

Sometimes getting totally lost, as long as you keep your wits, is extremely therapeutic. Also I never strayed from the trail and I knew that this trail had to eventually lead somewhere. With 300 miles worth of fuel in my tank, I wasn't worried. God bless my KLR and her ship of the desert tank.

I’m not exactly where I thought I would be right now. Honestly, I’m not exactly sure where I am right now. Before I lost the signal on my G.P.S., I was 210 miles, as the crow flies, from home. I’m resting against a rock, under a thick canopy of pine trees, so thick that my G.P.S. signal keeps failing. I can hear running water somewhere in the canyon below, I think that’s where I’m headed; although, that’s all I know. I left the highway about 20 miles back and the forest service road became a narrow piece of single track about 5 miles ago. I can tell that it is used by A.T.V.’s by the tracks; I suppose it could be a snowmobile trail during the winter.

I don’t know where I am, only that I’m somewhere in the mountains of Central Idaho. I do know where I came from so if I get really lost, I can always turn around; I’d rather keep moving forward to see where this ends. I’m riding alone, I’m okay with that; nobody knows that I’m here, I’m okay with that too. It’s supposed to get hot today and already, mid-morning, there is strong evidence that it will do just that. I need to be careful with my tires, no repair kit; this is a reminder to get one. I really shouldn't be in here without one; it’s a long walk out.

I’ve seen a number of Elk, a few deer (a couple of small Buck’s), and a Coyote, not much else so far. I don’t expect much to be out moving around in the afternoon.

I topped off the KLR back in Kooskia, so I’m not worried about fuel, or water, I packed plenty of that too. I’m thinking of climbing to a higher elevation to cool off later, but not until I get my bearings and I know exactly where I am.

It’s time to go find that running water, all water leads somewhere.
I am lost in the woods, and I could care less, this is why I got this bike, to take me to these places; it’s doing a wonderful job!

I wonder where I am.

The running water that I eventually found, turned out to be the Central fork of the Clearwater river. That's where I stopped along the trail to take the picture in this post, about thirty minutes after I had written this journal entry.

Passing thoughts

2008-07-21T19:02:00.000-07:00

A simple white church out in the country, 30 or 40 miles from the nearest populated area; the first thing that I observe as I approach from the north, rising from the fields is the unassuming steeple; gradually the body of the structure comes into view.

Nestled in among a farmers meadow, the nearest homes, at least ten miles from one another; Grazing horses, a hawk circling in the distance over a canola field, a few trees here and there, but not a single person, except for me of course as I pass through on my bike.

I’ve been down this road a number of times, a quiet two lane highway, unknown by a good majority of motorists, that’s why I take it.
I know this building, a familiar waypoint on my travels between two distant cities.

Whitewashed cedar lap, gothic windows, a few corbels and a cross on the steeple; humble but well cared for. Passing by, I begin to wonder, who tends to this place? Who trims the shrubbery and keeps it so well maintained? The parishioners? But where do they come from? They certainly have to travel from distant places to care so much for this small church; to worship beneath its roof.

A modest little parish, standing proud over the years, descending back into the fields as it slowly wanes in my mirrors; another turn and it’s gone from my view, until the next time I pass through here.

This meek structure,
treasured by those who care for it,
those from far away places.
A simple white church;
tangible evidence that faith still exists.

Ride Well

E.T.

Things sound different this year

2008-07-19T10:53:00.000-07:00

This is the fourth year that my town has held a Motorcycle rally, and already I’m hearing different sounds. The first three years, this has been mostly a Harley/chopper affair with a concert series of extremely loud heavy metal music that lasted until 2 a.m. every morning all weekend long, and every year I would just bite my lip and tell myself, “This is good for the town” it would all be over by Sunday.

Beginning sometime in the middle of the week leading up to the event, the sounds of large V-twins with loud pipes would resonate in the small valley that my town is nestled in until the early morning hours. This would also carry on until Sunday evening. I personally think that Harley Davidson’s sound really cool, but at 3 a.m. when people are doing things that generally require a little bit of peace and quiet; I’ve heard the argument that “Loud Pipes save lives”............at that time of the night, they do other things as well, also, let’s not forget the bizarre experience of being ostracized in my own community all week long just because I ride a “Jap” bike.

I will give them credit though, these guys do know how to party, even if it is at the discomfort of the somewhat conservative residents who live here, and for what it’s worth, they didn’t cause any trouble. Yes, there was countless law enforcement, but any time you get 15,000 folks together who seem to pride themselves on their machismo and ability to drink vast amounts of alcohol and not get into trouble, well let’s just say I’ve been know to get a little surly all on my own with capful of Nyquil (and that’s the children’s dosage) yep, I’m a pretty cheap date!

Apparently last year was the snapping point for the townsfolk, because over the winter, they fired the event promoter and decided to take the rally in another direction. Lower entrance fees, more palatable music with hopefully a lower volume, and a more family oriented atmosphere; Something that I found interesting about this, is that my next door neighbor, who is on the town council, said that a lot of these suggestions for change came from the vendors and a number of builders.

So far, there is definitely a different sound in my town. Yes, there is still the occasional “Potato-Potato” sound of a big Harley chuffing down Main Street, but there is also the sound of a number of inline fours, and I could’ve sworn I just heard a very “British” sounding triple. All morning long, up and down the street outside my home, I’ve seen countless “Metric Cruisers” rolling into town. Trust me, this is a first, very cool! I've been waving to these folks this morning while watering the lawn, like a very disturbing version of a beauty queen on a parade float; dressed in my flannel robe and gym shorts, try visualizing Cousin Eddy from National Lampoons only without the hat and earflaps (where can I find me one of those?).

No music yet, but I don’t think they start that until sometime in the afternoon. So far, I like the sound of the way this rally is turning out, I certainly hope that my small conservative town can pull this off and entertain this group so that they keep coming back, time will tell.

I’ll have to grab my camera and take a walk downtown to check things out, heck; I may even have to ride my “Jap” bike, even though it is only a couple of blocks away. I’ll keep the children’s Nyquil locked away in the cupboard this year though, I wouldn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of all those people, if you know what I mean!

Inspirations of the Ride

2008-07-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago, when a friend suggested that perhaps I should start a blog as an addition to my personal journaling, I didn’t really know what direction the blog should take. I spent some time online and observed a number of other sites, deciding that a motorcycle related blog would be a suitable direction. As I have commented on in previous posts, the motorcycle community is a diverse one, and I’ve had a wonderful time reading about the personal experiences that others have had on two wheels.

With the decision of basing my first attempt at a blog on motorcycling, I made a statement in an April 6th post that I would “try to introduce to the reader the diversity of both the region that I live in and to the Inland Northwest the best that I can via motorcycle.” After reviewing my posts, I noticed that isn’t exactly the direction that this site has taken.

When I journal, there is no specific direction that my entries take, my journal entries have never had any sort of disciplined approach to what subject I should write about. Attempting to post on one particular subject has become a frustrating challenge and one that I don’t care for. As I thumbed through old entries in my journals, I noticed that a lot of them had subject matter that related to when I was riding and in particular what I was thinking about on the ride. That’s when it struck me; an epiphany of sorts that a tremendous amount of inspiration and insight about all sorts of things occur while I ride, Thoughts that rarely occur at other times.

Twenty years ago, while still living in Upstate New York, I went on a coast to coast road trip with a buddy from high school. The plan was to trailer my motorcycle (a Yamaha FZR600 at the time) behind my car, and whenever an interesting road presented itself, I would unload the bike and ride until things got “less than interesting.” Tom (the high school buddy), who had never been on a trip of any significant length, was unaware of my tendencies to basically stop only when I was finished and not when the day ended. This tendency of mine used to go on for days; I say ‘used to’ because as I have gotten older, I’m okay with taking a break from time to time.

We had made it to somewhere just north of Chicago when Tom finally chimed in, “When are we going to stop?” Honestly, that thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I assumed that Tom was well rested because he had been sleeping the whole trip, only waking up to drive when I felt like riding the bike. I told him that I had no real plans on that, figuring that when I started to see things that I knew weren’t really there, that I should probably take a nap. I assured him that I was still seeing things just fine and maybe tomorrow I would have had enough, this didn’t satisfy him. He ummm..... kind of exploded at that moment, “I don’t know how the hell you do it; you just sit there and drive, and then ride, then drive again until you feel like riding and then get on the bike and ride some more!” Tom wasn’t feeling so well. “How the hell do you stay awake, we haven’t stopped for 24 hours!” My only answer was, “I don’t know, I just think about stuff.”
“Like what!” Tom was kind of screaming at this point.
“I don’t know, just stuff.” I replied.
I took pity on Tom and got a motel room, besides I needed to take a shower to scrub off the funk of traveling for the past 24 hours straight, and yes, when my head did finally hit the pillow, I slept like the dead. Tom did pretty well for the first half of the trip, he didn’t throw another tantrum until we were heading east on the Bay bridge out of San Francisco and into Oakland. The conversation was a lot like the one in Chicago so I’ll spare the details.

Twenty years ago on the California Coast

The son of a Truck driver, I grew up on the road; traveling for days on end is not an unusual practice for me. When Tom asked how I was able to stay awake for such long periods, my answer of just thinking about stuff was about the best way that I could describe it.

The experience of riding motorcycles only enhances those thoughts, very close to the point of perpetual inspiration. I tend to believe that perhaps that is why “Motoblogging” has become so popular. I don’t think that I am alone when I say that riding on two wheels is an endless inspiration, whether it’s a good ride or a hellish one, a blogsite makes for an excellent conduit to others.

I read recently on someone else’s blogsite a statement to the effect that “A car only transports a person’s body, while a motorcycle carries the soul.” I wish that I could discover where I read that, but can’t seem to find it now, I like it though; I personally feel the motorcycle to be the most suitable deferent of the soul.

In summary, I would have to say that although this site will not always be about the direct subject of the ride that I am on, every single one of these posts have been and will continue to be about the thoughts that have occurred to me while on the ride. Some may be about the immediate experience of sights and sounds and the people that I meet, other perhaps a little more abstract with a tendency to digress at times, it’s just the way my brain works folks. All of them will be about the inspirations that I have felt while riding on anything with two wheels and an engine; those inspirations have never stopped coming to me no matter how conceptual or “flowery” the prose, or how matter of fact the post about the ride might be. I think that I can live with that direction for this blogsite.

Ride Well

E.T.

Palouse Country

2008-07-06T20:22:00.000-07:00

The Palouse area of Washington lies on the eastern edge of the state bordering Idaho; depending on who you talk to, it begins just south of Spokane and ends somewhere around the Walla Walla area. Although there are many parts of the United States and Canada that produce wheat, I can’t think of any that share the interesting topography of hills and buttes that cover this area, it is unique. If you’ve ever seen the film “Toys” starring Robin Williams, you will know exactly what I am talking about. The movie was filmed about halfway between where I live and the city of Spokane. Imagine that movie set covering an area roughly 100 miles from north to south, and 40 miles east to west. This is the Palouse.

This is wheat country, 4,000 square miles of it, and at this time of the year, the landscape is carpeted in various shades of greens, yellows, and blues. I recall a while back, reading a local photographers statement in the newspaper commenting on the Palouse. He likened it to “a giant abstract painting, a photographer’s playground.” I suppose that I can see his point of view; I believe that a lot of amateur and professional photographers view it that way too. It is not that uncommon to see a vehicle pulled off to the side of the road with a camera mounted on a tri-pod, a sunset or a butte or some other subject posing for the camera in the distance, all the while accompanied by various hues of amber and jade.

Riding the gently sweeping “Blue roads” in the Palouse country is much like riding through a painting, though it doesn’t always have to be abstract. A tree still looks like a tree, and a barn is of course a barn, and as I ride, I observe casually as the gentle breath of summer coaxes the waist high grass to dance over rolling fields and the leaves in the trees to tremble, shimmering in the sun. Anyone with an unquenchable passion for light will eventually find themselves intoxicated by the raking sunlight against the hills and various fields of depth in the shadows. As for the roads, this is not a technical ride out here, just a soothing one as the scenery of the ride passes through me; I can understand why photographers are so drawn to this place. As summer ages, the colors change from a dominant green to shades of gold. I believe Katharine Lee Bates said it best when she coined the term, “Amber waves of grain” in her poem “America the beautiful.” As with many forms of art, usually when viewing a painting or photograph, abstract or otherwise, it requires the viewer to pay attention, and when I think of “paying attention” my first thought would be of sitting still, clearing my mind of distractions and focusing on the art that is to be had. As a Motorcyclist however, those rules don’t apply; I revel in the experience of a passing landscape, the constant evolution of sights, sounds, and smells. This is not revolutionary thinking though; 135 years ago there was an artist who used to paint from perhaps a similar point of view that continues to inspire Motorcyclists everyday.

Studio Boat

Imagine for a moment, that you’re standing on the banks of the Seine, in a town just down-river from Paris called Argenteuil; the year is 1874. At that moment, a small boat slowly drifts past; in the boat a bearded man sits with a short three-legged easel holding a paint brush, painting the scenery as he drifts by. The man is Claude Monet who would later become known as the Father of Impressionism. Monet was doing something revolutionary, not only was he painting “En plein air” (painting outdoors) but he was also painting the scenery as it was passing by, capturing the effects of light, ‘from one twilight to the next’ as his close friend Eduard Manet once described it. Monet was on to something, gliding with the light rather than trying to conquer it.

As Motorcyclists, Bikers, and Scooterists, perhaps our machines are our own floating studios and though our scenery passes more quickly than Monet’s, our inspirations could possibly be quite similar.

Ever since man put an engine between two wheels, we have tried to express to the uninitiated, the experience, the passion, the raw inspiration that we feel while riding our machines. I’ve read many articles and posts on the subject; I imagine that I will read many more. This post is one of my own efforts at doing that same thing and I imagine that this blog will be filled with many additional attempts in the future.

So if you’ll excuse me, with what remains of the day, I plan to jump on my bike and take a ride through the work of art that is my Palouse Country. Over countless hills and through fertile green valleys, I’ll let the landscape inspire me as I visualize myself, in my minds eye, on the prow of a small boat; and if I clear my mind of life’s little distractions for just a moment, perhaps I will look over my shoulder and visualize a bearded man with his easel and brush, and together we can capture the light in our own unique ways, from one twilight to the next.

Ride well

E.T.

This whole blogging thing

2008-06-29T19:48:00.000-07:00

At times I find myself a little surprised at how few people actually keep a personal journal for themselves. To a certain degree, I have always kept journals. Nothing too rigid or disciplined mind you; my entries are usually ramblings that I have experienced throughout my life. Some of them a simple sentence, others go on for thousands of words. The most rewarding aspect that I have learned about writing down my thoughts is going back and reading my journal entries from decades ago. A simple sentence can rekindle an experience in detail that I had twenty years ago; something that I would have long ago forgotten had I not written it down.

Blogging has brought forth a new aspect of journaling for me. While I still keep my various paper notebooks lying around for my own private posts, I’ve discovered that the experience of journaling online has introduced me to a group of people that I would have never had the privilege to communicate with otherwise. I keep my blog centered on motorcycles primarily because my life-long “Lone wolf” mentality towards riding naturally prevents me from sharing an experience that is so central to my being with other like minded individuals. This blogging experiment has been a positive experience and an enlightening one as well. I am grateful that I have this tool to meet with others who share similar passions, as diverse a group that we might otherwise be.

A friend of mine, after observing my little experiment with “moto-blogging”, expressed an interest in trying out blogging as well; mostly as an outlet for the day to day frustrations that he deals with in his career as a Law enforcement officer. I’ve listened to a number of his experiences and I believe that a lot of them would be an interesting read, especially for those of us who normally don’t have to deal with the type of critters that he works with around the clock.

In addition to writing about his job, I suggested that perhaps he should write about a number of his past experiences. Even though he wouldn’t necessarily admit it himself, he has led a pretty interesting life for a guy of only 34 years of age. From working on a Crab boat in the Bering Sea, to his experiences as the Crew Chief of an A-10 Warthog in the Air Force, one of those experiences involved crash landing in a C-130 in the Kuwaiti desert, literally bouncing off of the desert floor and then back into the air! I remember the night that he called to tell me that he was alright, while I watched the footage of it on CNN.

Also, he has taken an interest in Motorcycles; I suggested that perhaps he post his experiences about that as well . F.Y.I. he is the one who took the picture of me for my blog title.

He told me that he isn’t too concerned with whether or not folks read his posts, this is more of a journal for himself that others are welcomed to read, but I encourage you to check it out here, you might find some of this interesting, even if it isn’t always about motorcycles.

Ride Well
E.T.

People watching

2008-06-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, while looking at my Drivers License, I observed an error. This was the year that I had to renew my license, which I did, but when I received the new one in the mail, I noticed that while the issue date was accurate, the expiration date was still July 2008. Back to the D.O.L. for another Saturday morning of taking numbers and waiting on uncomfortable plastic chairs with scads of teenagers and their parents; restless to get their drivers licenses and hit the road and hopefully nothing else. I’ll spare the jabs at the kids only because I was one once, and I could understand their excitement.

The last time that I was at the Department of Licensing, the ordeal took a couple of hours, I wasn’t looking forward to doing it again. This time before going in, I grabbed my little notebook from the KLR’s saddlebag to take notes of the various characters I saw while I waited; making the best of a dismal situation. This is what I observed.

Parents, lots of them, all of them as excited to be there as I was; except for one.

Obviously a Mother/Daughter team, Mom was as giggly and animated as the daughter. The daughter looked as if she must’ve spent most of her extracurricular time on the Cheerleading squad; she and Mom had an excessive amount of positive energy just sitting their waiting and whispering back and forth to each other with the verbal speed and efficiency of two auctioneers on NoDoz. They wore matching outfits, I’m not kidding.

Behind them sat two younger Asian men and an older gentleman. The two men, in their mid-20’s, had their faces buried in the study guides while the older fellow sat patiently. Occasionally one would whisper something to the other in a foreign language and then the two would bury their noses in the pages again.

There was a number of biker looking couples in the room, though I don’t know if they actually rode bikes or not, my Kawasaki was the only thing on two wheels out front at the time. A couple of leather vests, a lot of braided hair, one doo-rag, and five or six black t-shirts, one with the Hells Angels logo on the front, the wings behind the skull were colored yellow with a red outline. I couldn’t read the faded lettering on the top but I’m pretty sure that it didn’t have anything to do with the Hell’s Angels. My understanding is that the H.A. kind of “frown” on the unauthorized use of their logo’s; I wasn’t going to go ask the fellow wearing the t-shirt if he was aware of that. All of them seemed to have a problem with their wallets wandering off because they all appeared to be leashed to their belts.

The Marlboro Man even made a cameo. Big black Stetson, black leather vest over a denim shirt, a pair of Wranglers one size too small and pointed toe Cowboy boots that clopped against the tile floor wherever he walked; Mustache well groomed, he looked ready to have his picture taken. I wonder if he knows that he has to take the Stetson off for the photo.

My number was called and I approached the counter. I explained my situation to the lady behind the counter. She asked for $5.00, apparently the licensing fee increased June 1st. “But the mistake was made in May, and it was the Department of Licensing’s mistake.” I said.
She replied, “Yes, but now it’s June, $5.00.”
I inquired about the smaller number of people waiting this Saturday as opposed to the last time that I was here. She looked up and scanned the room and replied in a dry tone, “They aren’t done watching their Cartoons.” She gave me a piece of paper and told me to take a seat at the end of the counter until my name was called. On the wall behind her and just over her left shoulder a sign read, “Threatening a Government employee is a punishable offense.” Hmmm.

As I sat down, a Mother with her son was arguing with the balding man behind counter. From what information that I gathered, the son was 18 years old and wanted to take the written test so that he could get his permit. Trouble was that he hadn’t taken driver’s education, nor has he even read the Instruction Manual to prepare for the test. Careful Mom, read the sign.

Seated two chairs to my right was a teenage boy waiting with who I assume was his father. Dad looked like a Dad. Clean cut, shaven, nice clothes. The son, however, was a different story. He was your “average” Goth kid. Dressed head to toe in black; his limbs were gaunt and his skin ashen. It was rather apparent that this kid did not spend much time outside and definitely didn’t do anything too physical, I’m guessing 90-95 lbs. max. His crowning feature though was his hair; yes it was dyed jet black, but it’s length fell to his elbows and covered every part of his head, face included. The only noticeable feature on the front of his head was his nose peaking out. I don’t know how Dad felt about it, but to me, his son looked like physical proof that about sixteen years ago, “Cousin It” must've gotten laid at least once. That thought got stuck in my head, I couldn’t stop snickering.

Apparently the cheerleader had passed her written as she bounced from the testing area over to the counter giving a thumbs up to her teammate seated in the crowd, Mom clapped as she got up from her chair and made her way to her daughter’s side. Mom had the same bounce in her step.

While I waited, the room gradually began filling up with people. Some of them worth noting, while most just looked average. It was the few Odd ones in the group that seemed to give this otherwise dry government waiting room some color.

Growing up, Mom used to warn me that there was always one weirdo on the bus and to keep an eye out for him, I always kept a vigilant search, but never saw him............

My photo taken, I put my temporary license in my wallet, grabbed my helmet and walked out the door. While I left the place, riding to the motorcycle dealership to shop for a new helmet, I thought to myself, “I wonder, if the crowd at the D.O.L. noticed at all, the strange guy in the motorcycle jacket and pants at the front of the waiting room glancing back at the crowd, writing things in his notepad and then giggling like a stoner.”

“What a weirdo.”

Ride Well.
E.T.

Resting with friends

2008-06-13T21:20:00.000-07:00

Out on the Southwestern edge of the Palouse Country, where wheat fields border the Channeled Scablands of Central Washington, I traveled down an ordinary two lane road.

Resting alongside this highway for about thirty minutes or so, only two cars passed by, a flat bed Ford pick-up and a grain truck. Both slowed momentarily, checking to make sure that I was okay, my friendly wave confirming that I was.

Scattered Cumulus overhead, temperature in the mid 60's.

A friendless stretch of highway. I sat there on the inclined shoulder, in the knee high grass and observed Quarter horse Mother's and their foals, tails swaying from hind quarter to hind quarter. Inquisitive glances my way, ears perked. Filly's and Colts perfecting their canter.

The wind was soft, easy on my face, making the wheat grass hiss and shimmer; occasionally the sun would appear and warm me ever so slightly and then shy away behind another cloud.

Delicate aromas of Lilac and various wild Spring blossoms carried on the breeze.

As I sat, I realized that this lonesome road isn't so friendless after all.
Quarter horse Mothers
and their Foals.
The play on light against the landscape as the sun ducked between clouds.
Wildflower bouquets,
and the wheat swaying in the gentle wind, and for the moment, me and my bike.

Big Brown Bike

2008-06-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

This recollection occurred to me a couple of days ago while I was toweling off the Yamaha. I had just finished giving my XS11 a bath and was drying her off, when from over my shoulder, the sun came out from behind the clouds for just a moment and from that particular angle, I observed the true color of the bike that most of the time, goes unnoticed. It’s a dark brown with fine metallic flakes that you can only really see when the light hits it just right. That moment made me recall a brief encounter that I had with a vulgar old man as I was standing in line at a convenience store while waiting my turn to buy a pack of gum.

Before I forgot about the experience, I draped the towel over the seat and went into the house to dig through my various notebooks to find a journal entry that I had made about a year ago. I knew that I wrote about the experience, as brief as it was, and when I found the entry, it was nothing more than a few quick lines that I had made regarding the moment and that was it. Apparently I didn’t think enough of it to go into any great detail or that I would even recall it a year later. From those lines and my feeble memory, I’ll try to describe the best that I can, the events that took place on an extremely hot day in the middle of summer last year.

“He was the kind of coarse old man that looked and smelled like he inhaled a pack of non-filtered cigarettes every morning for breakfast.” - Journal entry August 4, 2007

I was third in line behind two teenage boys dressed in Goth, and a female Construction worker wearing an orange high-vis vest, and a still visible ring around her sun bleached hair, evidence that she had obviously been wearing a hard hat all day in this oppressive heat. The last Bank clock that I saw when I pulled into the Gas station was somewhere in the triple digits. It was hot. I was standing there waiting my turn to buy a pack of Wrigley’s when from behind me I heard a gruff voice say, “One of the best G**damn bikes I ever owned.” When I turned around to see who had uttered this profane compliment, there stood an old man of probably about 70 years or so.

He was a somewhat shorter gentleman sporting a frost white crew cut, and what looked to be about 4 or 5 days growth on his face that wasn’t much shorter than the hair on his head. His fingers were deformed with arthritis and when he stroked the stubble on his face with his left hand; his index and middle fingers were stained nicotine yellow. It was obvious; this guy had a hard life. As he looked me up and down, I could tell by the expression on his face that there was something about my own appearance that he disapproved of. I gave him a half hearted grin and nodded politely and then turned back around and continued waiting in line. “XS11 Special” he continued, “Same color brown with the fine metallic flake in the paint, you could barely notice the flake unless the light hit it just right.” Obviously this guy new the bike, I glanced out the window at where the bike was sitting by the fuel pumps, with my back still turned to the old man, all I could think was, “My bike is brown?” Hard to believe, but I never really paid that much attention to it. I guess that it’s always looked black to me. Turning around slightly to acknowledge him, I replied, “I enjoy it.” He just stood there kind of looking more through my shoulder blades me than directly at me. I don’t think that he was necessarily speaking to me, rather he was just sort of reminiscing out loud. Now, as I’ve said in the past, I’m the son of a Truck Driver and I consider myself quite fluent in what my Father always referred to as “Speaking German”, but this guy had a mouth on him that could make a drunken sailor blush! Therefore I won’t go into any great detail about the vulgarity of his comments, lest I offend someone.

As the two Goth boys exited the store, I moved up one more spot in line, my helmet in one hand and the pack of gum in the other, all the while wondering if the gum was really worth the crude monologue that I was enduring. This guy was so extremely coarse and offensive, every other word was either a swear word or an insult, but what could I do, in his own Tourette-like way, he was complimenting my bike. Over the next 45 unsettling seconds or so that seemed like an hour, I learned that he had worked as a mechanic for a bike shop in Boise, Idaho back in the 70’s and that’s where he got a deal from a terrified owner on a slightly used XS11 Special. From what I could understand, the previous owner couldn’t quite get used to the shaft-jacking tendencies of the bike while accelerating hard out of corners. In my brief encounter, I could tell that the guy was a wealth of information regarding my bike, something that I have had a hard time obtaining, but I couldn’t stand much more of being seen in public having a conversation with the old man.

As the Construction worker made her purchase I learned the differences in tank sizes between the standard XS1100’s and the XS11 Special, why my exhaust pipes were wrong, and that my sissy bar backrest, in his opinion looked, well........Gay. Thanks for that old feller.

Completing my purchase, I found myself quickly making my way to the exit and gesturing my good bye with a polite nod of the head as I pushed the door open with my back. I’m sure that I was blushing. Out of the comfortable Air conditioned store and back into blast furnace like heat of the parking lot, I zipped up my jacket, drew out a fresh piece of gum and threw a leg over the bike. As I was putting my helmet on, I noticed the ill-mannered old bike mechanic slowly drive by in a rusting Dodge Diplomat with all of the windows rolled down and two hyper-active Yellow lab’s in the backseat, tails wagging and constantly changing places, switching back and forth from window to window. As he idled by, with a cigarette in his left hand and held slightly out the window, he gave the bike one last look before making a right turn into traffic, slowly disappearing into the rush hour congestion.

My Yamaha doesn’t exactly look like much by today’s standards and her 30 year old mechanicals are definitely due for a freshening up. Her pipes make more noise than I prefer, she drips a little oil here and there, and smells of raw gas whenever I forget to close the fuel petcocks at the end of a ride. There are those rare times however, every now and again, when I’m sitting at a stoplight in traffic, and I’ll get this odd feeling that we are being watched. I’ll look around and spy an older gentleman in the distance, either standing there on the sidewalk or in a car idling in traffic next to me, paying no particular attention to me, but gazing with a pensive look in his eyes at my old girl. They all look to be drawn back to a younger time; a time when Carter was President, Saturday Night live was hilarious, and Disco was just leaving, somebody get the door will ya.

I am reminded at moments like those of how our machines are all time machines of sorts; to different people and for different reasons. My Yamaha was quite a bike in her day and there are still older guys out there who remember that, even if some of them are boorish, rude and utterly offensive.

Next time that you’re out with your current ride, take a few extra moments to look at your machine a little more closely and just study its details and think about it the way you do pretty much all of the time and hold firmly to those thoughts so that you remember them well. I have a feeling that 30 years from now, we are going to be that man or woman standing on the sidewalk gazing pensively at a kid on an old bike sitting at a stoplight in traffic. After all, that isn’t just any bike that they’re riding, that was once our bike. And for heavens sakes, if you’re going to say anything at all to the poor kid, be polite, eh?

Now if you’ll excuse me, before it gets too awful dark and I lose anymore of that sunlight, I think that I’m going to go suit up and take my Yamaha out for a ride, you know the one that I’m referring to, it’s the brown one with the fine metallic flakes in her paint that you only notice when the sunlight hits it just right.

Ride Well

E.T.

2008-06-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

This post is one that I brought over from "Keep the Rubber Side Down."

Questioned
June 4th, 2008 by rick

Favorite brand of bike? Doesn't really matter although there are quite a few that I could never imagine owning personally.
Favorite color of bike? For most, I have no real preference, but I do prefer my Ducati's to be red if it's not a problem.
Do you always wear a helmet? Religiously, ATGATT.
Most miles ridden in a day? Somewhere around the 1200 mile mark. I've never really logged the exact mileage or time to the hour. Quite a few 24 hour marathon rides though.
Do you belong to a riding club? Nah, I'm one of those lone wolf types.
How many bikes do you personally own? Two, KLR650 and an XS11. There is probably a boxer somewhere in the near future.
Do you wave at passing bikers? I try to, but like Rick says, I hate getting dissed.
How many brand t-shirts do you own? No t-shirts, I'm more of a hat guy myself. Currently, I have a Ducati Corse, a BMW, and a classic logo Triumph lid.
Do people think you are obsessed with motorcycles? Pretty sure of that.
What is your favorite type of riding? Solo, long distance stuff. The more time spent on the bike, the better.
Do you have any riding superstitions? No, but my motorcycle riding form has always been very similar in posture and foot placement on the pegs to riding English on horses. I don't post on a motorcycle like I would on a horse. That would just confirm my insanity.

Rainy Sunday Morning

2008-06-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

I awoke this morning to a steady gentle rain. It must’ve been raining all night because when I let Flicka (my German Shepherd) out this morning, the ground was so soaked, that the water percolated up between her toes. She quickly did her business and had enough of that, trotting back into the house with her head down and ears laid back, carrying an annoyed look on her face.

I had taken Monday off this week so that I could score another three day weekend with the intentions of taking some day trips on the bike, the steady cadence of the rain falling on the skylight in my kitchen suggested that perhaps I should make other plans.

Walking out to the KLR, I pulled Don Quixote out of the saddle bag (The book that is, the saddle bags on the KLR are nowhere near large enough to stow a 17th century Spaniard) and took it back inside to read until the morning rain subsided. While lounging on the Sofa in the living room, the window slightly cracked so that I could take in the therapeutic effects that a softly falling rain has on me, I started thinking about Quixote’s horse, Rocinante.

Jeff Buchanan, in his essay in the April issue of Cycle World, christened his R1200GS “Rocinante” in honor of Quixote’s steed, and that is when the thought struck me, “Why not?” The translation of the book that I am reading is done by Tobias Smollet, and throughout the novel, he does a great job of marking footnotes on various translations and interpretations for simple minded types like myself. One such interpretation comes when Cervantes introduces to the reader, Don Quixote’s horse.

Cervantes describes that the animal was as gaunt as Gonela’s (Gonela was a well-known jester in the court of the Dukes of Ferrara.) and that he was tantum pellis et ossa fuit (A Latin phrase that translates as “Skin and Bones”). Quixote of course, saw him in an entirely different light.

Four days had passed that Quixote consumed in inventing a name for his remarkable steed. Four days of choosing, rejecting, amending and torturing himself with a revolving world of names, in his imagination, he fixed upon “Rocinante.” In Tobias Smollet’s translation, Rocinante combines two words, rocin (work horse) and antes (before), suggesting that Rocinante is past his prime but, as Smollet notes, once “ranked before all other horses.”

Once upon a time, on the opposite coast......

Some twenty years ago or so, where I was living and riding my sport bike all over the Eastern coast of the United States; I read an article in Motorcyclist magazine on a comparison of the various Dual Sports that were out at that time. If my memory serves me, it’s the same article that had a picture of the brand new ST1100 on it. Nick Ienatsch and Lance Holst did a comparison between the new Honda and the Kawasaki Councours, riding 1200 miles in 24 hours from L.A. to the Grand Canyon and back. I still have this issue somewhere in a box, I’ll have to dig it out and see if my memory is correct. Somewhere in the back of that issue was the comparison of the Dual-Sports. Let’s see ummm.... a Yamaha XT650, the Suzuki DR650S and DR350 and the two Kawasaki’s, the KLR650 and the Tengai.

Keeping a long story short, the KLR650 came out on top in that competition, squeaking out a victory over the Suzuki on the merits of it’s electric starter and that “Ship of the Desert” fuel tank. The KLR was my favorite too. For somebody with my inclination for riding ludicrous distances on a bike, that 6 gallon fuel tank was the perfect ticket. The fact that I was only 19 years old and couldn’t possibly afford another bike, I put that KLR on my wish list, promising myself that someday, when the time was right, I would buy one. Who would’ve thought the bike that I was so taken with due to its simplicity and willingness to please on such a basic level, would have such a model run. Almost twenty years later, I kept my promise to myself and bought one. Okay sure, Kawasaki made improvements to the wind protection, electronics, and brakes that KLR owners have been wishing for through the years, but all in all, at it’s heart, it’s still the same basic motorcycle that it was two decades ago. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Needless to say, after twenty years of waiting and promising and now, finally purchasing, I can honestly say that I am very pleased. There is not an ounce of buyer’s remorse with this machine. A promise kept, feels good.

Back to the present

I feel there is something special amongst us Motorcyclists, looking out there at the broad kaleidoscope of bikes; it seems that there is a machine for each of us. We are all different individuals with our own values and personalities. We all ride very different machines suitable to our tastes and lifestyles, and yet, at the core, somewhere deep down, my own personal observation over my lifetime is that whether others choose to agree with me or not, we do share a common thread. A certain quickening of the heart that our bikes provide as we approach them from across the parking lot, anticipating the imminent ride. This is in fact one of a multitude of reasons why I’ve waved to all my fellow bikers (scooters too) through the years, waving even to those bikers that I am quite certain will not return the gesture, we all share that same quickening of the heart. Buried deep down, somewhere at the foundation of our countless diversities, we share something in common. But I’m wandering off here.

We Motorcyclists, as diverse a group as we are, look upon our machines (most of the time at least) as a thing of beauty, even when others can’t possibly see it. There are many bikes out there, but none quite as perfect as the one we personally ride.

Rocinante

“An appellation, in his opinion, lofty, sonorous and expressive, not only of his former, but likewise of his present situation, which entitled him to the preference over all other horses under the sun.”

Miguel De Cervantes

My own Rocinante

There once was a time when my humble KLR was at the head of the pack, a time when she “ranked before all other horses.” She is my Rocinante.

A few hours have passed since I put down the book and began typing this and the rain, it hasn’t stopped. I glance at the screen, look out the window at the falling sheets, and then back at the screen. I think about the weather, and then Jeff Buchanan’s article, Quixote and Rocinante..........

To hell with it, I’m going for a ride.

June 1, 1992 Happy Memorial Day

2008-05-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

I've kept a personal journal for years. This weekend while at my Mothers house taking care of the place while she is in Ireland, I found one of my old notebooks. Faded and weather worn, this thing must have traveled thousands of miles with me in my saddlebags. I found a lot of entries in here that are motorcycle related that I'll have to share in the future, that red notebook must have ridden everywhere with me.

This one was dated June 1, 1992. Right around Memorial day weekend. I was off on one of my endless rides out in Montana in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of the night. I thought I'd share it with you all here. I laughed out loud when I read about my comment in the entry at turning 22 years old. I didn't feel old then, fortunately I don't now either, maybe the bikes have something to do with that.

Ride Well
E.T.

1:28 a.m. That’s what the face on my watch displays as I refill my tank. I’m at a truck stop just east of Billings, Montana. There is a middle aged man on the other side of the gas pump driving a Toyota Corolla with South Dakota plates. I can feel him staring, I try to remain oblivious but I wonder what he is thinking. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice him look at my helmet sitting on the concrete island, and then back at me and my gear. He doesn’t pay any attention to his gas pump. His tank fills up before mine; he cradles the lever and walks inside to pay, leaving me alone underneath the glowing fluorescent lights of the fuel pumps awning. As I top off my tank, I can’t get the last six cents worth of gas in there to make an even $5.00. Damn. I grab my helmet and walk into the building. Halfway there, the South Dakota man and I cross paths again, this time making eye contact. I give him a nod, and he returns a pleasant smirk, good enough. As I get closer to the doors of the truck stop, I see his reflection in the glass doors stop momentarily and take one more look at my GS850 and then back at me. Once again, I pretend that I don’t notice. He gets in his car and drives east.

After paying, I walk back to the bike and start to put my gear back on. I’ve been riding since 3:00 yesterday afternoon and my butt is starting to feel it. It’s time to turn around and start back home. Even though my butt is kind of angry at me right now, the saddle feels inviting, something that I recognize in a foreign place, my own little sanctuary here on my bike. As I get back on the Interstate the wind starts nibbling at my neck again. Montana is cold in the middle of the night this time of the year. I’m guessing 32-35 degrees?

I can’t believe that I am going to be 22 years old next month, I don’t feel old. Alone on the dark Interstate, I’m wondering how many other guys my age choose to ride alone in the middle of nowhere. Most of my friends are probably passed out at some party by now......boring, I'm not bored; I hope they don’t drive home.

The sky is starting to lighten as I descend into Bozeman. I’m cold, can’t feel my hands anymore and I’m hungry. I stop at a Denny’s to warm up and get a bite. There is only one other group of people in the restaurant right now.

Two booths over, a family with a little boy and girl are eating their breakfast. The boy seems fascinated by me. I’m sitting here writing all of this down in my notebook right now as I wait for my eggs. The Mom just told Alex (the boy) to turn around. He does for a second; he looks to be about 5 years old.

I must seem like an oddity, sharing my booth with my cold weather gear sitting on the opposite bench and my helmet on the table. Just as I write this, I notice how filthy the inside of my helmet is, the visor is caked with 600 miles of “Stuff” that has been flying off of the tip of my nose and onto the faceshield. I decide to take the helmet off the table and put it on the bench by my side. My omelet arrives, I put down my pen and pick up the fork, my Suzuki is just outside the window of my booth, out there in the cold, he sits there patiently watching me eat, it looks like he’s begging. Oh yeah, bikes don’t like eggs.

About an hour later, I decide to get back on the road. God it’s hard leaving the warmth of that booth.

495 miles have passed on the Odometer since this morning as I ride through Post Falls, Idaho. The day is almost over. Both of my arms are numb from 24 hours in the saddle. My left boot is resting up on the engine block, and my throttle lock is on, giving my right wrist a break.

A brown Mini-van slowly passes me, in the back seat I can feel somebody watching me, its little Alex from the restaurant! I can’t help but wonder what odyssey his family has been on, while I’ve been off on mine. The parents don’t recognize me, but I’m positive Alex does. I wave with my free throttle hand, and he smiles devilishly, that look tells me he remembers. As they overtake me, I notice that they have Washington plates.

1120 miles down, 30 more to go.

As I proof read the entry on the blog, it struck me that little Alex must be about the same age now that I was then.......Time Flies.

I wonder if Alex rides?

"I once knew a guy"

2008-05-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

Well it happened again, first time this year though I’m certain it won’t be the last, the same one sided discussion that we Motorcyclists have been listening to ever since we took to two wheels. I’m talking about the conversation of the inevitable perils of motorcycling. Ever since I was a discomfited young boy visiting one of my “anti-motorcycling” neighbors on the block, to total strangers at a gas station while filling up, the conversation begins with the individual knowing of someone who was either killed, paralyzed or horribly injured on a motorcycle. I call this a conversation although it is actually more of a single sided opinion or monologue on the part of the individual telling the story. I was taught by my Father a long time ago that it is usually pointless to take part in fruitless debates where neither side can claim any victory, therefore, I remain silent during the lecture and listen to the person respectfully, and then I go on my way.

I can say this honestly, and I do believe that I have been extremely fortunate in this respect, that I have never suffered the loss of a friend while motorcycling. I read about it constantly, and I do know individuals who at the very least had somebody close to them injured in some form of incident. At the very least, I feel lucky if not down right blessed in the matter, and I hope that I never have that experience. Okay sure, I’ve seen the breaks, sprains, bruises and road rash, but as far as dealing with the trauma of a death or paralysis, I have not.

Truth is, I know that Motorcycling is an inherently dangerous lifestyle; I am aware that we are difficult to see in traffic, especially when others aren’t looking out for us, and that we are for the most part, soft targets in a world of very “hard” automobiles, and let’s not forget the natural hazards and large animals (along with the small ones) that can spell our doom as well. I believe that it is because of this awareness, and not despite it, that I have had a relatively successful and trauma free motorcycling experience.

It happened today at work. First thing this morning, one of my fellow employees walked up to me and told me of his friend who, while on vacation, was riding down the Pacific Coast Highway and somehow ended up riding his bike off of a cliff. They seemed a little disturbed when I responded with a relieved sigh that he only ended up with a compound fracture somewhere on his leg. Noticing the look of disdain on my fellow employee’s face at my relief, I stated very sincerely that he very easily could’ve been killed. As he turned and walked away, my fellow worker just shook his head in disgust. I, On the other hand, was dead serious.

Maybe it’s the former Pilot in me, but I was much more interested in knowing how it happened and more importantly, how it could have been prevented. As a Pilot, one of the things that interested me the most was delving through the hundreds if not thousands of pages of NTSB reports regarding countless aviation accidents and mishaps. There was a wealth of information in those reports that I found very educational, learning from others mistakes and how to make proper judgment calls as a result. What it often boils down to in Aviation as well as motorcycling or anything else for that matter is usually poor judgment on the part of the individual who was a major part of the accident. “Pilot error” is a term that I read all too often in the conclusion of a vast majority of those reports.

I’m not going to stop riding because of somebody else’s misfortune, I am far too smitten with motorcycles to walk away, and I want to learn from their mistakes. Instead I try to remain humble about my skills, respectful of the bikes and others for that matter, and above all else practice safe riding that to me means not only vigilance while riding but also wearing the proper gear for the ride. I have found it a little hypocritical that the same people who have chided me over the years for riding have also at times been the first to make jokes about the specific gear that I insist on wearing all of the time........Interesting.

There is so much to talk about here; any one of these paragraphs, I could go on a rant of a few thousand words about, and perhaps in future posts, I will. I just felt the need to get the frustrating topic of this everlasting conversation off of my chest and I felt that my blog was the perfect place for that.

Ride Well,
E.T.

All is well

2008-05-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

Gosh, I can't believe that it has already been two weeks since my last post. I've been tied up a little bit with other things, therefore limiting my opportunities to get on the computer.

On May 5, my Mother went on her dream trip with her granddaughter to Ireland, I just found out about this adventure a little while ago when she asked if I would be willing to take care of her two cats while she was overseas. It was only about a week or so before she left that she bothered to tell me that she would be gone until Memorial day weekend! Obviously going over to her house on my way to work in the mornings to feed the cats and clean the litter, and then going back to her house after work to do more of the same kind of eats up a lot of my day.

By the time I get home, exercise my German Shepherd (trust me they need their daily exercise), eat dinner and do my housework, it's time for bed. With that, my time to work on the computer is rather limited. Also, I donated my camera to Mom's trip as well, so it is currently touring Ireland on a tour bus and not Eastern Washington on my motorcycle. My only hope is that she brings back a memory card full of pictures of the Emerald Isle and not of thumbs and camera straps blocking the lens.

I have had a few thoughts ricocheting around in my head for the past few weeks for the blog though my time is too limited to write anything down just yet.

Just thought that I would report that all is well in the Palouse and that I have been a little pre-occupied entertaining cats for the past few weeks. The bikes are both well and the weather promising. Until next time.

Ride well.
E.T.

New Picture

2008-05-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to do something different for the picture on my blog title for a while now, and I had this idea mulling around in my head for a couple of weeks, however with my solitary riding habits, I was finding it difficult to get the shot that I wanted.
-

I have a close friend who has taken a recent interest in riding, so on the weekends, he has been meeting me out at my place to ride my XS11 while I escort him through the countryside on the quiet roads around my neck of the woods to see if this is something that might interest him. This Monday, while I was just getting off of work, he calls me up and asks if I would mind at all if we went for a ride that evening, I told him sure and to meet me at my place in about 30 or 40 minutes when I got home. He said that wouldn't be a problem considering that he was already there waiting in my driveway for me to get home! I think he likes riding.

I seized this moment as an opportunity for somebody to take the picture that I wanted for the blog, so when I got home, he got suited up and we went out to a certain dirt road that I had wanted to use for the shot. I explained what I was looking for in the picture and to just take pictures as I approached him. After a few attempts and varying my speed to get just enough of a dust trail for effect, I settled on the one above, mostly because as timing would have it, the Wheat farmer in his tractor climbed over the hill and turned into the shot; I thought that it was a nice touch.

The dirt road that I used for the shot is one of the roads that I use at times on my commute to or from work depending on how clean or dirty the bike already is. The photo above is a shot that I took from the cockpit of the KLR on the same road while riding home from a weekend stay in Idaho last weekend. Finally it looks like things are going to green up around here.

We finished the day with about another 30 or 40 mile ride for my friend so that he could continue to get a little more familiar with the riding experience. Upon arriving back at my place, he told me that he is already planning a road trip to Roseburg, Oregon for us; when I asked how far that was from here, he replied, about 550 miles. I thought about that for a moment and then said that I thought it sounds great, but we need to get him a few more miles in the saddle first before heading out that far. By the looks of it though, it appears that the old XS has captured another riders heart.

Riding the XS in to work this morning I thought about the bike, and wondered about her 30 year history and the places that she has been, and all of the other riders hearts that she has won over the years; and then I thought about all of the bikes that I have owned over the years New and Used and thought the same about them. I wonder if they are still around doing the same little magical numbers to their current owners that they did to me. Coming and going, changing hands, all the while touching souls............Kind of a Pete's Dragon thing I suppose.

Ride well everyone.

E.T.

Mountain Interval

2008-04-29T18:25:00.000-07:00

I knew about mid-week, that Saturday was going to be a good day and I wasn't about to miss a minute of it. Walking up to the bike just as the sun was beginning to peak over the horizon, the temperature on the weather station as I walked out the door read 19 degrees, pretty chilly. With the vest plugged into the bike, I toed the transmission into first and began my journey east to the mountains.

There was only one place that I needed to be about mid afternoon and that was in Kellogg, Idaho. No problem seeing as how that is right about smack dab in the center of where I was planning on wandering around today.

Riding into the sunrise on the meandering two lane roads that I had been choosing randomly as I made my way towards the Idaho border, one thing that was rather apparent, was the absence of any other motorcycles or cars for that matter. I felt like a thief stealing a portion of the day for myself, sneaking it away from all of the other people who were taking for granted the beautiful morning, tucked away in the warmth of their beds as I rolled through the frosty air on the vast empty stretches of two lane highway bathed in the golden hues of the late April Sun. With the foothills of the Rocky Mountains slowly rising into view on the horizon, I thought to myself, "This is going to be a good day."

Post Falls, Idaho came and then went; as did Coeur d' Alene thus beginning the climb up the Fourth of July pass into Northern Idaho. For a piece of the I-90 super slab, this is a fun stretch of road with long sweepers that force you to pay attention. At the foot of the pass to the east of the first range of mountains, lies Cataldo Mission up on the crest of a grassy hill. With 110 miles on the odometer since I left the house this morning, I made this my first stop of the day. The only other people around, was a family from British Columbia who had pulled into the parking area at the same time that I did, climbing out of the car and bracing themselves in the cool mountain air, they stared at me like I was from another planet riding around in this temperature. "C'mon now" I thought to myself, as I observed them stealing glances my way as I shed my gear, "You can't tell me that it's too cold to be out wandering around in this, considering where your from." I tried to remain ambivalent to their gawking, only smiling politely when one of them made eye contact with me.

Also known as the Mission of the Sacred heart, Cataldo Mission was built between 1848 and 1853 and is the oldest building in the state of Idaho. I stepped back and quickly took this picture after the family wandered out of the frame. The building of the Mission was a product of the combined effort the Jesuit Missionaries and over 300 Couer d' Alene Indians. More information on the Mission can be found here.

After spending enough time to stretch my legs a bit, I geared back up and headed for the hills that surrounded this area. I knew that I would be riding slower now so I stowed my Gauntlets away and dug through my tail bag for my lighter warm weather gloves. Among other things that I have been carrying in my tail bag were two books, one is a copy of "Mountain Interval" by Robert Frost and the other is "Don Quixote de la Mancha" by Miguel de Cervantes.

In the April issue of Cycle World, Jeff Buchanan did a brief essay on "Retracing the very real route of the fictional Don Quixote." Buchanan wrote that "If ever there was a literary personage that possesses the wanderlust so prevalent in the consciousness of motorcyclists, it is Quixote".......I bought the book the next day.

Whenever I am out riding and I stop for a moment, I like to sit down beside the bike and read a little bit (Mind you, I do ride where people usually aren't abundantly present on my days off, therefore there is usually no one around to witness my alone time with said bike and book). The more I read in the book, the more I realize that Buchanan hit the nail on the head in his modern day interpretation between Quixote and Motorcyclists. The other book, "Mountain Interval," I thought would be appropriate for the part of the world that I was going to be riding in today, so I pulled it off the bookshelf and packed it on the bike.

Finding out of the way places around here was no trouble at all, instead of taking a right turn to merge back onto I-90, I just went straight and in no time found myself turning off onto the first dirt road that came into sight. I followed the well groomed fire roads that followed the Couer d' Alene river, the only other signs of civilized life that I found were the occasional bridge that spanned the river and a Mennonite church tucked away in the mountains. Approaching various forks in the road, my only plan was to take the one less traveled, no maps accompanied me today, I didn't care where I was headed, only that I was headed away from everything for a while.

Mountain meadows along the Couer d' Alene river.

About an hour had passed since I left the Mission, and I decided to rest along side the meadow pictured above and read a little before heading back to Kellogg to hook up with a friend that was moving to the area. I took this quick picture (above) and read a little bit of Cervantes. I sat there for a while in the grass soaking in the sun like a fly on a window pane, appreciating the warmth especially after the relentless winter that we have endured around here, I always forget how "Solar powered" we humans really are until I am without the Sun for a spell.

The morning seemed to be passing too quickly and I thought that I had better start my way back. I didn't bother to check, but I was pretty sure that I didn't have a phone signal up here and I thought that I should start riding back to someplace where there was the possibility of one in case my friend was wondering when I might arrive. The whole time up in the mountains I didn't see or hear another soul, very refreshing.

I eventually did hook up with my old friend and we spent a nice afternoon together getting him somewhat unpacked and settled in before the end of the afternoon. I decided that I should start back home before the sun went down out here in the hills, just in case the temperature dropped below freezing and all of the standing water on the highways (Byproduct of the snow melting on the side of the road) began to freeze.

As I descended out of the mountains and back into my Palouse country, observing the setting sun peaking out from behind the clouds that had formed on the horizon, I realized that the Robert Frost book that I had packed, never got read; it just went along for the ride into the mountains with me. I began to think of some of the passages that I had read in the past (I've read them all at one time or another, more than once, trust me) that were in the book and one crept into my head almost instantly.

Thinking about my strategy today that seemed to work perfectly, that is, taking the road that was a little less traveled whenever I approached a fork in the trail and was left with a choice; I was reminded of the very first passage in "Mountain Interval". For brevity, I will only post the last verse, mainly because the last sentence of that verse reflects exactly how well today went for me. In closing, I was right about what I thought when I began my day while others slept in their beds. Today was in fact a "Good day."

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Ride well my friends.

E.T.

T.G.I.F.

2008-04-25T18:47:00.000-07:00

I am looking forward to this weekend, mostly because the weather is promising to be in the mid-60's both Saturday and Sunday. I'm getting up early Saturday Morning to take the KLR in for it's 600 mile service, and then after that I'm hitting the road. Although the break-in calls for me to keep the rev's under 6000 RPM for a few more miles, at least now I can keep up with the traffic, when I'm confronted with them. Doug C. from "Cruising Ohio" has a little weather window on his blog site that has been terrorizing me lately with those wonderful temperatures, here in the Northwest, winter does not seem to want to give up. I've been riding to work in snow flurries and back home in hail storms. Ugggh.

I may venture over into Idaho to check up on an old Friend who is moving to Wallace this weekend, I'm pretty sure that I'll see my fair share of snow up in the passes, but as long as the temps are in the 60's, I'll fair just fine. Either way, I need to start packing the camera on my rides from now on so that I can share some photo's here on the site. I should definitely have something to write about other than weathering the snow, hail, and wind by the end of the weekend. T.G.I.F.

Motorcycles are just a phase

2008-04-19T13:07:00.000-07:00

Photo taken from the internet of a KM100

Mikes bike was of the same vintage

Thinking back, I'm not really sure why Mike took it upon himself to do it. Laid back and affable, Mike Stotts was the older neighbor kid who lived across the street from me.

One day after school in the early springtime, I was out riding my Tecumseh powered mini-bike around the trails that snaked endlessly behind the homes in the development where we lived back in the mid 70's, when I ran into Mike riding his Kawasaki KM100 (just like the one pictured above, lights and everything) around the playground soccer field of my school. I don't remember how the conversation progressed, but for some reason, Mike decided that it was time for me to learn how to ride a real motorcycle. Volunteering his beautiful blue bike to the cause, I do remember one specific phrase, it was the first time that I had ever heard those particular words grouped together like that, and in the following minutes I had learned exactly what they meant. "One up, Three down" he said simply enough. "Let out the clutch nice and slow, and don't forget to cut the throttle between shifts." That was my first formal riding lesson.

My mini bike sat idle, resting up against the soccer goal post, as Mike watched me patiently riding lap after lap on his bike around the track that surrounded the soccer field. Eventually my neighbor asked for his bike back and I followed his taillight as we made our way home through the darkening woods of what remained of the day. All the way back, with my little Tecumseh chuffing away, trying to keep up with the sweet smell of that two stroke exhaust, my wily little adolescent brain began scheming about how I was going to convince Dad that I needed a real motorcycle. Dad was my best bet, after all, Mom was too against those hideous contraptions after spending the last year or so picking rocks out of my skin and pouring Hydrogen Peroxide over all of my fresh wounds. I wish that I could recall what I said, because in about a month's time, my parents had found me a used Honda XR75.

Another internet photo, my little bike looked
exactly like this one. Red stripe down the
gas tank and all.

One memory that sticks with me like it was just yesterday, was that first ride from my house to my best friend Billy Backer's to show off the new ride. Racing down the single track that ran between the backyards of my neighborhood, my heart pounding with satisfaction for the next couple of blocks as my little grey dirt bike rolled over the rocks and potholes that so often spelled my doom on the mini bike.

When I arrived, Billy and I stared at the beautiful piece of machinery sitting in his driveway, marveling at the technical wizardry of a real working suspension, clutch levers, and kick starters until his Mother would eventually call us into the house for popcorn during our weekly "Dukes of Hazard" night. Some time shortly after all of the excitement of my new bike had settled, I recall overhearing my Dad consoling my Mother, "Don't worry, motorcycles are just a phase, he'll grow out of it." They seemed rather confident that as I got older I would eventually move on to other interests.

Riding home from work tonight, while battling a 20 mile per hour headwind in the middle of a hailstorm, those awkward first laps around the soccer field crept into my thoughts along with my beautiful little Honda, and also my father's reassuring words to my mother about me and my "phases". I eventually grew out of the phases of the Dukes of Hazard, and bell bottoms, and long hair; but as I sat there leaning the bike into the cold angry breath of a Mid-April hailstorm, the ice pellets ricocheting off the face shield of my buffeting helmet, and my electric vest keeping the warmth against my torso, I had an epiphany; the realization that I have been here so many times before that I am no longer uncomfortable in this element, that this in fact just one of the many exciting challenges that we motorcyclists face day by day, week by week and year by year.

Through the decades that have seen the once long brown hair in my helmet now cut short with flecks of grey beginning to peak through, I sat there leaning, reflecting on the years, all those countless rides, some that I can't recall and others, I can never forget. All of those rides that have brought me to this one, in this hailstorm, I found myself thinking out loud inside the roaring din of my helmet, "This is one hell of a phase Dad!"

Singing in the Rain

2008-04-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

The weather has been touch and go lately around here. Saturday and Sunday, we were blessed with perfect riding weather and the opportunity since last November to keep the electric vest turned off (I still wear it underneath my riding jacket though).

When I woke up on Monday, the temperature was 50 degrees, so I was definitely commuting via two wheels. What I didn't really anticipate in my premature glee, was the Toadstrangler that awaited me half way through my commute. I am not a "fair weather rider" by any means and throughout my riding career, I've grown accustomed to the odd looks from my fellow motorists while riding in less than perfect conditions. But it always seems to be the first "questionable" day (for others, not me) of the year when I get the most disturbing looks.

As I walked into the office with the thighs and shins of my pants saturated with water, and a fairly steady stream dripping off of my jacket, I was confronted by a dozen confused faces taking in the view. Some people just don't get it I suppose; in another month or so, they'll be used to this sight and my stubborn attitude to ride will soon fade from the topic of conversation whenever I leave the room.

Truth be told though, it's not really that bad...........However, I don't think they believe me.

This is a test, this is only a test

2008-04-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

This post is more of an experiment than anything. It has been driving me crazy that I have been unable to post multiple pictures in a single entry. When I decided to start my own blogsite, it was important to me to be able to do that. With any luck, perhaps I have figured it out.

The first picture is what I have to look forward to about four weeks from now on my daily commute to work, it was taken in the first or second week of May of last year.

This part of Washington is what is know as Palouse country; I've decided that one of the goals of this blogsite is to try to introduce to the reader the diversity of both this region and the Inland Northwest the best that I can via motorcycle.

The photo's of the same barn above and below are also along my daily commute and I decided to make the barn a seasonal subject to show how the landscape varies throughout the year. I chose it out of convenience during my commute; I'm able to jump off the bike rather quickly here take a few shots and be back on my way. They were were taken a month apart, the one below was June 22, 2007 and the one above July 23, 2007. This barn is also on the side bar of the site with the Spring wildflowers in the foreground.

Hopefully this journal entry publishes onto my site the way that I am hoping, if so, I am really looking forward to moving on with my project. There is so much to see out here in the Inland Northwest, all of it very accessible by motorcycle, I hope that I can convey, in an entertaining way, how I feel about this part of the country that I fell in love with 15 years ago.

I have a lot to learn.....Any advice?

2008-04-06T11:49:00.001-07:00

Part of my 22 mile loop I refer to as "The Block"

Perhaps I jinxed myself by getting the new bike this early. This morning I woke up, lacking energy, an appetite, and any desire to wander too far from my bed. I think that maybe I have managed to catch whatever has been going around at work. The weather outside has managed to shatter any expectations that I may have had of riding today; maybe if I didn’t ache so much I would go out for a quick sprint around “The block”. What I refer to as “The block” is a 22 mile loop through the wheat fields of my Palouse country. Instead, I think that I’ll just sit down here, put on some George Winston, and continue to try to figure out this whole blogging experience. Some things I have yet to figure out.

Inserting pictures in the middle of the text so that they follow the storyline is one mystery that I have yet to solve, I know that it’s possible because everybody else does it, but I have yet to work this out. Currently the only thing that I am able to do is insert the picture at the top of the text. If anyone knows what I am missing.......

Next on my list is to find a simple digital SLR camera.

My knowledge in this area is somewhat limited; I enjoy shooting a lot of landscapes, therefore I don’t think that I need something that can fire off an astounding frame per second rate. Also, I make no pretense about being a serious photographer, if I see something that gets my attention, I shoot it. I think that I will enjoy going digital because of the instant gratification of being able to see the results immediately, if I don’t like what I see, I can simply delete it, setup the camera differently, and try again. For a self experimenting amateur like myself, this appeals to me. Currently I have a little point and shoot digital that I bought a year or so ago just to see if I would enjoy shooting this way, and I do, it just limits me in experimenting with set-up.

My favorite time of year around here is coming up and I have a few summer motorcycle trips planned as well that I would like to keep a photo journal of, any advice for an amateur photographer like me would really be appreciated here.

First ride home

2008-04-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

Here's the new bike after the first ride home. I decided that I should buy the saddlebags and tailbag now, before I procrastinate another couple of years about those. The temperature was a cold 50 degrees with a strong headwind blowing right in my face. Being the optimistic fool that I am, I grabbed my warm weather riding jacket with a light liner (I was wearing a heavy sweater as well) and a pair of my summer gloves. Considering the bitter headwind for the thirty mile ride home, I felt that the new fairing did a good job, and the large hand guards kept my hands warm enough to ride safely. This weekend I have got to try to find a spare cord somewhere around town for my vest, and don't forget to pack the cold weather gloves!

2008-04-02T19:32:00.000-07:00

I signed the papers on the KLR yesterday; I will be bringing it home tomorrow. It looks like the weather is going to cooperate, mid 50’s should be plenty warm although I think that it will be a couple of more weeks before I can commute to work. The morning temperatures are still in the mid to upper 20’s and with a 40 to 45 minute commute, that could get pretty uncomfortable.

The bike spent the day with me at work in my shop. I don’t really know if that’s a blessing or a curse. At least I get to look at it all day, but it really bugs me that I can’t break out and ride it yet. Ughh.

My first time

2008-03-30T11:29:00.000-07:00

I don’t remember the year or my exact age, I only have vague recollections of that time, almost like recalling a dream that occurred many years ago. I do recall my older sister dragging my mother out of the house countless times to go watch some movie called Saturday night fever, the huge eyeglasses that my father wore consuming a quarter of his face, and that our 1970 ¾ ton pickup was pampered by dad like the new truck that it still was.

Every summer, as soon as school let out, our family would pack up the travel trailer and move out to the camping resort on Eloika Lake that a friend of my father owned. I don’t know where it came from, but one summer my dad acquired a red mini-bike frame which he installed a 5 H.P. Tecumseh engine in.

I don’t have any pictures of the thing, but it bore a strong resemblance to the “Hog” that Harry and Lloyd rode out to Aspen on. The only means of stopping the thing was a foot lever that, when nominal pressure was applied, pushed a scrap of an old car tire riveted onto a steel plate against the bikes rear tire. I don’t recall exactly how effective that little piece of engineering was, only that I am still here, so it must have done the job. The details of my first riding lesson on the thing, if I ever really had one, and knowing my father’s sense of humor probably went something like, “You be careful on that thing.” Which to a child of my somewhat abbreviated attention span during my hyper active youth was somewhat akin to saying, “Here you go kid, have a piece of metal with an engine attached to it; don’t die too soon.”

I must have been strong enough to start it, only because I did when nobody else was around. I do remember, quite vividly, that the “Kill switch” was nothing more than a piece of sheet metal bolted to the engines’ head. After a hard schooling in a highly abbreviated lesson in the Theory of Electricity, I learned that a dry stick (It had to be dry, I learned that also) was a much better insulator than my index finger when it came time to push the piece of metal against the head of the spark plug and hold it there long enough to shut the thing off.

The act of going from a vibrating mass of potential energy into one of kinetic energy involved cranking the throttle, which in turn was followed by a thunderous mixed cacophony of engine exhaust and rattling noises coming from the centrifugal clutch. Eventually the chain would begin turning the rear sprocket that was only a fraction of an inch smaller than the wheel that it was mounted to and I was under way. There was no suspension so I felt every dip, rock, rut, and pothole on the trail. At that tender age, I learned what it meant to be sore, and what a real headache was, and the miraculous healing powers that a single aspirin held. I learned the difference between a “Raspberry” that one gets while crashing a bicycle and the “Road rash” experience that my mini bike would provide on a weekly basis; the pain of sodium peroxide foaming over open wounds and the derision from my mother, cackling the dangers of motorcycles. Burn marks on my left sneaker where my foot would get too close to the centrifugal clutch, and watching small rocks fester out from underneath my skin for weeks after one of my crash and burn experiences, actually the festering part was pretty cool. Reeking of spilled raw gas and the stinging sensation of getting bugs in my eyes. Needless to say, I was hooked, I absolutely loved it! I loved every part of it.

Once I was underway, and that massive sprocket was keeping up with the torque of the engine, everything smoothed out (So to speak) and in my wild adolescent imagination all was perfect in my world. I piloted my machine over countless miles of single track, breaking out from the thick forests into open sage fields; my shadow, bounding over the bushes that whipped at my feet, would race me to the next stand of trees. I rode that thing all summer long, sometimes with my friends and their various motor bikes, and sometimes just me and my shadow thumping through the landscape that surrounded the lake.

I don’t remember much from that period of my life, I can’t even remember what year it was, but I do remember the summer that I got the mini-bike. That painfully simple piece of backyard engineering that infected me instantly and marked the beginning of my love affair with two wheels and an engine. Even though I can hardly recall anything else, I will always remember my summer of first times; those of mini-bikes, soreness, ringing ears, peroxide and band-aids, and freedom, oh the freedom!

2008-03-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

At some point this week, I decided that I should take a look at all of the bikes that I have been thinking about before I decided finally on the KLR.

Yesterday I headed out to Beaudry’s in Post Falls to take a look at a 2001 Bandit 1200S that they had on the floor. I really liked the bike and found it a nice fit for my style of riding. I have always been intrigued by the idea of putting a big GSXR engine in a Standard style motorcycle thus easing up on the aggressive riding position of the GSXR and making the power band a little more street user friendly. The bike on the sales floor had a few things going against it for me though. It was seven years old and had 20,000 miles on the clock which really didn’t disqualify it in any respect, but there was a small dent in the tank, and I think that the tank bra that was on it was there in an attempt to hide the dent. The real killer however, was the aftermarket pipe that was on it. I’m going to be logging an awful lot of miles on this bike, and I really don’t want to listen to the annoying sound of a loud pipe droning along behind me all day long, also I don’t want my neighbors to have to listen to it at 5 o’clock every morning while I’m warming it up. Some pipes can sound fine but this one was just plain obnoxious when they fired it up on the sales floor. No thank you, I think I’ll pass on this one. Adjacent to the bandit was a brand new R1200GS and I just had to invent a reason to go perch myself on that beauty. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder, and I realize that to some, the GS might be a little garish, but every year that I grow older, that style just seems to look more and more delicious! Somewhere in the not too distant future my love, promise me you’ll wait. I did manage to walk out of Beaudry’s with a killer Ducati Corse hat, and at $34.00 that is about the most I’ve ever spent on a cap, but it is cool, and I had to have it.

Today, Flicka and I went into town to check out what KDR powersports had on the floor, anyone looking for a nice used bike no matter what it is, at a fair price, I definitely recommend going to KDR, whether it’s Japanese, European, or American all of their bikes are very clean; Somehow Randy knows how to find pristine bikes and then offer them at decent prices. Today, I had four to choose from, five for about ten minutes until a kid came in and almost immediately bought the SV650 that I was considering, I don’t think he even threw a leg over it before writing a check. What were left were a 2005 FZ1, a 05 Triumph 900 Sprint, a 05 Concours, and a 2005 Kawasaki 1200 ZRX. The ZRX was piped so I had to kind of rule it out although it did look really cool, the Triumph’s aftermarket paint job was a little too glittery and er...... Flamey (is that a word?), even the seat had a flame job embossed into it, and the FZ was a little too cramped for any long distance traveling. The Concours that Randy had on the floor was an extremely clean example with 20,000 on the clock. I can certainly appreciate the luggage and that wonderful 7 plus gallon tank, I don’t know why I salivate over big tanks they way I do, I just do. At $5400, it would come in just a little under the KLR after all of the additional costs were added on. It was on the short list.

From there, the plan was to go to Pier 1 to get my Mom a birthday present and then a little grocery shopping and back home again. As I headed towards Pier 1, I remembered that Roundy’s Kawasaki was only a couple of blocks away, I hadn’t been in there for a few months, so I thought that I would check to see if they had a green KLR in stock. I kind of told myself that I would be happy with either Green or Blue, but the more I thought about it, I realized that I was just settling on the Blue one, if there were no Green’s to be had. The more I thought about it, the more I concluded that if I am going to finally buy a bike that I have had my eye on since 1989, I had better get exactly the one that I want.

Roundy’s had all three colors, with the matching KLR bags to boot......Shit. When I asked how many Green ones they had left, they said that this was the last one.......Shit. Brian, the salesman asked if I wanted him to figure out the exact numbers and almost defensively I replied, “Yes.” Maybe it was the bags, or maybe it was the impending remorse that I would have felt if I would have bought something else after finally deciding to buy the KLR after twenty years of procrastinating. I knew it wasn’t just because it was the last Green one that they had. Even if it had sold, they would have been able to find another one for me somewhere. Needless to say I wrote a check out for a deposit on the green one today. I guess now I have to go to the bank and arrange some financing. Man I hope this snow melts soon! Couldn’t wait just a couple of more weeks could I?

Temperature 42 degrees, sunny afternoon, cloudy evening

2008-03-23T17:23:00.000-07:00

I took the XS1100 for a ride Saturday afternoon. First up to Spokane to get tabs for the car and truck, and then a 180 back down to Pullman via 195 to Rosalia and then 27 through Oaksdale, Garfield, and Palouse. I’ve been trying to ride if the temperature threatens to get to at least 45 degrees, the big fairing on the XS coupled with my electric vest helps to make the ride bearable. One good thing about this weather is that I am not too hot and bothered to spend my money on the KLR just now. Once the temperature starts poking around the mid 50’s to lower 60’s, I won’t mind poking my head and chest out in the wind. I imagine that I’ll have about the same percentage of my body exposed to the elements as I used to on the FZR, but I won’t know for sure until I actually ride one. One thing that I can be sure of is that it won’t offer near the wind protection of the XS. I’ve never had a bike with so much fairing and windscreen that the wind hits me in the back.

I don’t know if the temperature ever really hit 45 degrees, but on the ride home from Pullman, the sun went behind the clouds, and that was enough to make me tuck in and turn the vest up another notch. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable ride home, but I’ve had worse. Some of them occurred during the dead of winter on my dirt bikes in Montana; no wind protection and what in the world is electric gear? I did wear a helmet that time of year though. I can recall other rides on the FZR600, riding over Lookout Pass on the Idaho-Montana border in the middle of night. I didn’t have electric gear then either, instead, I used to stuff my pants with toilet paper at the Rest areas and ride in a tuck all the way to Missoula, I like to think of myself as being pretty limber, but I don’t think that I could tuck in behind the windscreen on a sport bike for 90 minutes at a time anymore.

I’m glad I went out yesterday though, the weather went south today and the rain has been coming down sideways for the better part of the afternoon. Man I’m going to be spoiled once the temperatures hit 50. Any day now.

2008-03-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

Not much of a weekend to speak of really. The last few have involved one extra day of work, and then I try to stay home to do all of my chores on Sunday to get ready for the next week. Yesterday after I got off of work, I snuck up to Westside motorsports to "price some gear." What I was really doing there was spying on the KLR again. This time they have a red one on the floor with an aftermarket pipe. I don't want a pipe, and I don't really want a red one, but it did give me a chance to look at the three colors that are available, I've already seen the green and the blue ones. I'd have to say that after a whole winter of procrastination that I am probably going to get one in a few weeks or so. I was kind of on the fence for a little while, but my leg fell asleep and I fell off of it about a month or so ago, and the concussion that followed helped me to make up my mind (One of life’s little blessings, I like to think.........whatever works right?).

It'll be either green or blue, I'm okay with either. I really have to quit sneaking into the dealership after work though, it's really getting pathetic. I kind of told the salesmen that I was going to get one so they don't need to bother with the pitch anymore. When I was ready, I would let them know. They must see me coming through the front door and mumble to each other, "There's that odd middle aged guy again, coming to roost on the Kawasaki for a spell."

Honestly, there really is nothing more to see, I've been doing this all winter long, and I have the details of the bike memorized by now. I do wonder why I keep going back to the dealership and I think it's just because I haven't been this excited about buying a bike, or anything else for that matter, in a good twenty years. The anxiety is fun, I kind of feel like a kid again.

Picking up the next day, one year later

2008-03-15T21:01:00.000-07:00

Well that's interesting, when I started this blogsite last year, I really didn't know what I wanted to do with it. I played with a few drafts here and there, but they tended to get a little wordy. I've spent the past year looking at other blogsites to see what I liked and didn't like, and after reading other folks blogs, I decided to take another crack at this.

When I logged back on and started deleting some of the posts that I had left on the site, I noticed that the last entry was March 14, 2007, Exactly one year and one day later, hmmmmm.