Bike show 2006

After seven years of attending the annual bike show, they start to get a little repetitive. This year, I decided to liven things up a little by coming down with a really bad cold, leaving me to wander around the Expo Center utterly hopped up on Drixoral and cough drops. Whee!

Peter and I started out the day with a nice breakfast with ST.N folks at the San Carlos airport’s Sky Kitchen cafe. Good food and good scenery — lots of little prop planes taking off.

Once at the show, we bumped into Diana pretty quickly, so the three of us wandered around together for the rest of the morning.

We made our first stop at the earplug booth to get our annual custom earplugs made. I got a backup pair of “normal” plugs; Peter decided to go with a pair of transducers to plug into his iPod.

Diana and I headed to the Gerbing’s booth next, where I splurged on a jacket liner. I’d been having some trouble with my heated vest — the seam around the arm hole kept digging into my bad shoulder and aggravating the pinched nerve. Trying on larger-sized vests didn’t help, so I ultimately decided on a jacket liner with sleeves, which doesn’t have the offending seam and will thus hopefully not result in excrutiating pain after just a couple of hours of riding.

While Diana and I were trying on liners at Gerbing’s, Peter was standing in line at the Toyota truck booth. They were running a funny simulator where you sat in the truck on one of those suspension platforms that makes the truck bounce around while you watch a first-person video of being on a motocross track.

Enough with cars, let’s get back to bikes.

Diana and I decided to ride off into the sunset on a Moto Guzzi Norge:

I really like the color for the Interceptor this year. Nothing wrong with deep red in my book.

When I rule the world, everyone will have an XT225!

Again with the deep reds! Curse you, FJR! I now proclaim that manufacturers must immediately cease and desist slapping gorgeous colors onto bikes I cannot fit on.

The new BMW G650X Moto looks like it fits me pretty well, until you realize it’s about 50 feet up in the air. Gahh!

The KLR seemed to fit Peter pretty well, and he enjoyed sitting on it. Perhaps one will eventually work its way into our garage? Stay tuned…

Ever notice how all helmets make me look about 10 years old? I have. Sadly, even the XS Arai XD was too large for me. The Arai rep promised he’d “ask Japan” for the next smallest shell for next year. Heck, buddy, you order it; I’ll buy it. I cannot be the only peanut head rider on earth.

I also picked up some Rescue Tape at the show — the same stuff that Andrew used to attach the antenna back to my GPS when it flew off at the STN West Coast Regional Meet back in May. It’s great tape — no residue, sticks to itself, and can be used to seal fuel or brake lines, too. They had a deal at the show, so I bought 3 rolls.

And that was the bike show. I came home and went to bed at 8:30pm. Hopefully I’ll be up for my Val’s Spiny Dogfish game this afternoon….

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