today's weird thing lugged home on the bike:
An espresso machine! Though, there were benefits: from the back, you couldn't
tell that it was bungee-netted to the bike, and people tended to tailgate me
a lot less. Hrm.
back | next
back to archives |
bluepoof.com
email me
May 29, 2001
I'll wait to give a full report until all the pictures are ready (I want to get the OK from everyone involved to put them up on the web), but suffice it to say that I had an amazingly good time. I felt like I was at an appropriate skill level to be making the trip -- the riding was long and varied enough that I feel really proud of what I've accomplished, but I think that had it been any longer or more challenging, I would have felt a little intimidated. As it was, I had a great time, met some wonderful people, and feel pretty proud. And now when I'm riding somewhere, and think, "wow, I could do this all day," it'll be really nice to know that yes, yes I could. :)
That all said, I need more practice in the twisties. I still did pretty well, but I caught myself braking into turns far more often than I was comfortable with (well, OK, braking into a turn at all is too often). I think it was mostly because I'd never ridden on those roads before; I'll have to take more varied routes in my weekend jaunts around here to get a wider range of experience on different roads.
the pedro update.
So, Peter's bike is almost all back together. Almost. Sort of. Well, ok,
we're waiting on a gasket for the alternator cover, and the radiator and
gas tank are still off, but we bolted the crankcase cover and the cylinder
head covers back on! So we're closer. Won't be long now. Really.
sara's bike adventures.
My coworker Sara has an older Yamaha Maxim 750 (don't know exactly what
year). A couple of weeks ago, she'd ridden to a restaurant to have dinner,
and when she came out, her helmet had been stolen. She was annoyed, but
realized it was her own fault for not locking it to the bike or bringing it
inside, so she bummed a ride home with a friend, bought a new helmet the next
day, and went back to retrieve the bike.
A few days later, she left the bike at a CalTrain station while she went to work, and when she got back, the bike was gone. She was pretty bummed out about this too (but admits she hadn't put the disc lock on that day). By last Friday, she'd resigned herself to never getting the Maxim back, and had removed the keys from her keychain, and had stopped phoning the SFPD for any new information.
Yesterday, she gets a phone call. From the SFPD. The bike had been found, and was....here, the police officer paused for a moment...."driveable." She quickly got herself to the impounding lot, where she found her bike. Sort of. Apparently, the theives were planning on keeping her bike around for a while -- since they didn't have the keys for the ignition, they'd removed the battery and bungee-corded it to the side of the bike. They'd hooked up some sort of switch (she was sort of vague here) that essentially enabled them to "hot-wire" the ignition by flipping it on and off. They'd removed the luggage rack, and in the process, broken off a turn signal and the license plate frame -- so they carefully duct-taped them all back together. The gas cap had been jimmied off (assumedly because they needed to fill up, but didn't have the key for the tank), and the entire bike, once black, has been painted. Blue. And white. And...and this is truly the best part....and they attached those long metal wire-things to the axles, so it makes sparks when you go around a corner. No shit. Sara's thrilled. :)
It's a strange world we live in, people.