Monday

What's That You Say? I Have A Blog?

I guess proof that I'm becoming uni-dimensional and incapable of discussing any topic that does not in some way involve motorcycles...  I have abandoned this blog basically since 2010 race season wrapped up.  Hilarious.  Let's catch up...

Spent the racing off-season, well... still scrambling around doing racing related things!  No exciting exotic holiday adventure travels this year, I stuck around Seattle visiting family.  Which was great!  I have trips planned this year already to Ireland, South Korea and Hong Kong though... so I'm still aiming darts at the map and trying to get to new places.

Working in computer security has maybe made me paranoid, or I'm just getting older and trying to build more figurative parachutes and seat belts into everything I'm doing staving off disaster scenarios.  Or I have zero impulse control and was simply tempted by a screaming bargain.  Whatever the cause, I ended up purchasing a second race bike in December.  It's exactly the same bike as my other race bike, now when I drive up to 15 hours away to a track in another state, a simple mechanical failure won't keep me from being able to race for that weekend.  I'll be bringing both bikes to the track with me for most races this year.  Disaster Recovery/ Business Continuity Planning at it's finest... my security friends would be so proud.

Financially, a race bike might something like this:

Bike.............  $8300 (new model bike is more, this is a 2008)
Shock..........  $900
Forks...........  $1100
Exhaust......    $2000
Body work...  $1000 (fiberglass and paint)
Electronics ... $500
Other stuff*... $2000

* clipons, rearsets, brake lines, brakes, tires, sliders, number plates, tuning, etc.

So I spent much of December evenings and weekend in my garage putting this bike together, and got it out racing early January already.  Health permitting, this year I will be doing all AFM races and all WERA West races.  Basically double the races I did last year, and expanding to some tracks in Las Vegas, Utah, Southern California, and all the local Northern California tracks.  I'm getting professional coaching, and will basically put in as much practice time as humanly possible for a person with a serious day job.



I feel like I'm living vibrantly racing bikes.  I get clues from the outside world about this...  When my truck is loaded up and heading to the track, I get all kinds of looks and stares.  Especially from meat heads, little boys and old men.  When old guys are looking on I like to imagine they're thinking, "go get 'em... and give 'em hell" Realistically they're probably thinking, "what the f*ck is that clown doing...?  he's not going to live to be my age...."  Ha, ha.  Either way, I'll take it.