Naked Bike

Man this 848 is beautiful to look at even without the plastics. I found a guy making fiberglass track plastics, and another guy who paints them. So I tore off all the stock fenders and mounted the replacement unfinished fiberglass ones. This required some drilling but mostly not too big a deal. Then dismounted all the replacement plastics and drove them out to the painter's shop this afternoon. I hadn't taken the fuel tank off myself before - it's both comforting and unnerving to have the bike this apart. It's confidence bolstering to get to know your bike and how the parts are attached and how hoses are routed and electrical system wiring is harnessed - it's also a little unsettling to know I'm now responsible to attach things as they need to be for race readiness. Parts flying off at high speed is a scary endeavor. True mostly this is cosmetic, but the importance of proper fastening is the same. Anyway I'm turning this 848 black - hope to have pics up by end of week with the new black look. The frame will still be red but all the fairings will be professionally primed, painted, buffed and clear coated.

I hope the neighbors don't kill me for the mess I make in the garage! Man, I gotta get one of them house things with the dedicated garage I can turn into a bike workshop...

American River Rafting Trip

Great rafting trip last weekend on the American River. Two day event, drove out to Lotus California on Friday - camped out overnight and hit the river 8a Saturday morning. So hot at times it felt like we were drifting downriver into a hair dryer. Still though, the water was icy cold and shocking when it splashed into the raft or (electively... usually) we jumped into the river. At one point we did manage to tip the raft and dump all 7 members of our raft into the water - but I'm pretty sure that was entirely by design on the part of our rafting guide.

This is the second trip a group of friends has made out to raft the American River. We did the South and more aggressive Middle forks, perhaps next year we'll get a bigger group like 20 or 30 people out there - or possibly get a smaller group of more serious rafters out for a more intense run.

Sadly the California forest fires of late prohibited any bonfire at night, but we did have fun anyway around a camp lantern Saturday night. A couple friends played guitar and a couple brought iPod's and speakers to play.

Just near the town of Lotus where we camped there is a tiny tiny town (literally one gas station and like three stores) called "Cool" California. SO great the general store there sells trucker hats that have "Cool, California" emblazoned across the front. Definitely have to get one of those hats next time I'm in "Cool" (which ironically is often 90 or more degrees in the summertime).

Sweet Hog

I'm not sure yet is this is an investment project, a practical transportation agenda, or simply yet another chapter of exploration in my seemingly unquenchable thirst for toys... but I bought another scooter the other day. When I sold my Chineese scooter a few months ago I knew it would be a temporary step away from scooters and my next one would be an Italian scooter... I just wasn't planning on getting another so soon but this was too good a deal to pass on.

I went with a friend to check out a scooter she was considering buying, and the seller also had this Piaggio for sale. I tried to talk my friend into getting this one instead for another $300 but she wouldn't hear it. It's got a salvage title and needed some minor fixing. A little TLC, some new breaks, a few hours at the DMV (not to mimimize this - the DMV is quite an ordeal) and I think this thing is ready to tear up the streets of San Francisco for the next while. I'm going to try to keep both wheels on the ground and treat it well, but I do promise some pics of me in full riding gear trying to drag knee at the Monster Park parking lot.

MotoGP 2008

Great trip to MotoGP this year. I was highly over ticketed for this event. First I purchased my own ticket for Sunday only. Then I entered a photo into a Yamaha photo contest and LOST, however by error of Yamaha I ended up getting two 3day passes to the event. Then I joined a friend of a friend's AMA pit crew and by doing also recieved a team pass to the event. Too funny. Anyway it was very cool to standby and watch Brad's friend Matt race in the AMA 600 superbike on the track with Ben Spies at the same time. Basically being in his pit crew consisted of trying to be helpful changing tires and pulling off tire warmers. It's an AMA rule we had to have matching shirts trackside, so Brad got team uniforms made up which was pretty funny. Then we slept overnight in Matt's trailer literally on the paddock (staging area for bike prep and race crew pit area near the track) and watched the MotoGP race on Sunday with Rossi and Stoner in an epic battle for the Laguna Seca title. What a great race. Highlights of the weekend were talking with Matt all weekend about his race aspirations and better understanding the economics of the sponsorship and privateer race crew realities, and learning some things about working on bikes.

Another great things about the weekend was seeing the RedBull Rookies cup kids load their bikes up and get out on the track in matching bikes and leathers. These are all kids 12 to 16 years old who sign a racing contract for six years. They are all on the same bikes, and they all have the (lack of) believe barriers that a kid has - it's great racing to watch.

Also great to see and really to participate in the Nascar-esque *ahem* honkey trackside camp out and watch the races. This guy in this picture with the tent has a personal dome to watch the races from - he literally can't event talk to the person in the "tent" next to him unless they both unzip their windows. Terribly funny and terribly... um... country.

A Couple Pictures

Just some random pictures taken in Paris.

Fascinated with Two Wheel

The best thing about Paris so far is the public bikes they have everywhere. I'm going to have to check one of these out tomorrow to scoot around for a while. This city has a fascination with the two

wheels. Man do they love their bikes and scooters and bicycles.

There's parking everywhere for scooters. It's great I love it. Business people formally dressed and middle aged people on dates with their spouse and kids ripping around on scooters - everyone is on two wheels. I guess you just check out a bicycle with a credit card and return it anywhere when you're at the end of your ride. This guy is checking his blackberry at a traffic light, just bicycling around. It's really a great traffic limiting solution and of course unlike London which for some strange reason was very light on sportbikes there's no shortage of Ducatis or MV Agustas or Japanese sportbikes here. Vespas and Piaggio's rule the road, there's certain small roads that only permit two-wheel traffic even. If only I spoke French it could be a big incentive to move here!

The Foot Race Disgrace

I found my way into a brief foot race yesterday morning with some of my HEC MBA classmates. Being someone who has run several marathons in the past, I consider myself to be a runner. Unfortunately, it was a sad day for me, the UCLA MBA group I was representing, and all of America. In my defense it's entirely a different thing to run 6km than 40km, apparently I'm much better at holding a slow pace indefinately. I came in seventh in this race which was about bottom of the first quartile, or seventh overall. Which wouldn't be too bad, in fact two of the guys who beat me were French military. Now say what you want about the French and their history of military dominance, these guys were champions in every sense of the word. It was actually an honor to be defeated by them. And really of the other four who out raced me I am okay with that too - they were better prepared and really didn't beat me by that much overall. No, what's really unfortunate about the whole affair was the guy who finished directly in front of me and somehow I could not pass. He was wearing - and I'm not kidding - black dress socks, green shorts circa 1970, and a J&B Whisky shirt. And still beat me. It's emarrassing - a disgrace really. I bow my head in shame and vow to train periodically at short distance. Ha, ha.

Little Brother

It's been widely publicized about the plethora of cameras (tens of thousands of closed circuit cameras blanket London and feed to central government automated and manual monitoring) but I tell you this: it does feel definatively creepy to feel these cameras swiveling around atop their several story perch refocusing like a robot zooming in on motion watching you. In addition to the cameras which cover some 80% of public space in downtown London, there are signs posted everywhere alerting the public to the fact that monitoring is happening, and otherwise alerting the public to watch your neighbor and report suspiscious behaviour. Traffic downtown London is taxed, and the cameras capture all license plates to run through computers and ensure payment for road tax has been paid. I wonder what databases I live in now that I've run around London for two days taking pictures at every available opportunity... It's an interesting read on Wikipedia on closed circuit cameras and monitoring and the history of the UK Data Protection Act (http://snipurl.com/2wyk8).

London

I'm taking the next week to visit briefly London and Paris, taking a class in Paris at a French MBA school HEC and a few days in each city for tourism. Pretty excited, never been to either city before. Hopefully a few blog updates over the week to fill in some details of my adventuring.

Speed Club

So I'm going to the track as much as I can lately with my motorcycle. I met friends Jason and Red-Star at Buttonwillow the other day for fun day of riding, and tomorrow I'll be at Reno-Fernley Raceway outside Reno, NV. It's funny this sub-culture of guys who ride sport bikes, and more broadly people who have a speed addiction. Traveling up the 5 freeway I was passed by a caravan of four Lamborghini's. They all check out my bike as I drive by, and one of the guys paces me for a little to my side to get my attention. When I look over he gives me a thumbs up like a nod-of recognition just saying, "hey man... cool." This is the same comraderie felt when out on a canyon road on the weekend. It's like you're part of a secret club. Probably the best example I've felt of membership in this club was traveling on Hwy 33 outside Ojai, California outside Los Angeles last year. Every person you encounter on this road is driving a sport bike, or a Porsche, Lamborghini, Farrari or similiar. Everyone waves to each other. Even the cars wave to the bikes and vice-versa. Nothing crazy, just saying "hey man... cool." As you're pulling to the start of the ride you see guys coming off their trip through the canyon and they all point at you from 50 yards away nod. Doesn't matter what sport bike you're on, you get a nod of, "Hey man, I get it. Me too." You see sport bikers wave to each other all the time. Sometimes we even do it traveling opposite directions on the freeway. It's really funny when you think about it.