California Superbike School

Here it is at last. My write up about Superbike School, long awaited by some of you (you know who you are). :P

THE STORY SO FAR

Some of you might recall that I was signed up to do the two day camp of California Superbike School last June, but I did the idiot thing and signed up for a NESBA trackday weekend at Pacific Raceways in early June, just so that I would have a bit of track experience that year before I went out to learn from the pros. As it turns out, I crashed in the last five minutes of the first day partly because a control rider cut me off and mostly because I target fixated, did the squidly thing, panicked, gave in to my survival reaction, used up my $10 of survival time, whatever you want to call it. I went down with the bike on me, still holding on to the handlebars because I’d never learned how to crash, and ended up with a broken finger, two torn ligaments, a busted right knee and a badly bruised shin. Two surgeries fixed the finger and the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), staying off of the leg helped heal the lateral collateral ligament (LCL), months of physiotherapy helped heal some of the scars, but I still have the busted knee and what they say is permanent nerve damage to my shin. Needless to say, I couldn’t do the school last year and had to cancel my spot, because the surgeons looked at me like I was mad when I asked them what dates I could sign up for that year. “You’re going to get back on that death machine again?”

And as a corollary, a couple of months after my surgeries, while I still had splints on both hands, I crashed my car when I failed to yield at a green light and turned left in front of an oncoming car – that old classic that kills thousands of my kind every year, now I had upon my head.

Last year is long gone, it’ll be almost a year since the day I first crashed, but while time has cured some of the physical injuries, my mental trauma refused to go away no matter what I tried. I’ve never talked or written about it much, because bikers aren’t supposed to be afraid, or if they are, nobody talks about it. If you’re scared, just park the fucking bike and walk, right? And for a while there, I even wondered to myself… why not? Park it, and you’ll be free of it. Maybe then all the nightmare scenarios that go on in your head every time you ride will finally go away. There’s other things you could do to find meaning in your life, like collect newts or something. People do it all the time.

For most of this year, all the riding plans I’d made have been less than half-hearted. I made them because they were things I was meant to do last year, but never got to do. Everything that I planned was more because I wanted to make up for the year I had lost rather than it being driven by any real desire or motivation. Even Superbike School I signed up for partly because I was meant to do it last year.

(more…)

Back from CSS School…

I got back from California around noon in time to start my workweek. :( Except I CANNOT WORK. I cannot stop thinking of Superbikes. I cannot stop thinking about flying through the laps at the Streets of Willows Springs at the end of Level II. I cannot ignore the two Twist of The Wrist books that are sitting next to me, the first of which I covered with notes and markup in the plane because it ALL MAKES SENSE NOW, crazy Scientology talk or not. I can’t bear to not look into my copy of The Milepost which arrived in the mail while I was gone.

I am also super tired from waking up at 4:30AM, driving 60 miles to the airport and flying for two hours to Seattle. And I have to head out pretty soon to go watch the AMA Supercross races at Qwest Field this evening.

I have faffed around with checking all work email and responding to some, but I haven’t done any real work yet.

What on EARTH possessed me to volunteer to work on the weekend? Oh right, so I didn’t have to report time off for being out during the week. *sigh*

Bike report…

Checked out the BMW this evening and it looked and sounded good. It has a *lot* of really good aftermarket accessories as mentioned in the ad. The height was impossible for me, seeing as I could barely even tippy-toe it, so there’s no way I’m riding it without first lowering it via lowering links and shaving the seat. I’m still a bit ehhh about the color and wish it were any color but that, but I suppose I need to suck it up and let that go. Who knows – after taking it out on the trail a couple of times, there might not be very much paint left on it after I’m done with it.

To summarize the stuff that will need to get done:
1. New chain and sprockets
2. New rear brake pads
3. Different set of tires – he had knobbies on, which have about 2500 miles left on them, and I don’t think I want to be riding those on the street. Maybe replace them with Metzlers that are good on street and okay on dirt
4. Lowering links
5. Have Rich shave the custom seat down a bit to fit me

We’re talking at least $500 worth of expense outside of the cost of bike+taxes. He’s asking for $5750 OBO and I’m hoping to start the bidding at $5200 and settle on $5500.

Of course this means living on bread and water for the rest of the year, but should be well worth it.

Edit: KBB quotes $5180 for the bike without any accessories on it.

Another day behind you can only be a good thing…

I got my leathers back and while they still seem a bit loose, they’ll have to do. Oh, and was today the worst possible day of the year to ride? It was pouring down rain on the way back, the roads were slick, and I lost grip at least once when I was being an idiot and trying to change lanes from a slow moving one, and almost rear-ended the car in front of me while doing a head check. Not to mention the blank moment I had while starting off in the morning and realized that I was trying to kick it into gear with my *right foot* and wondering why it wasn’t moving. WTF? *sigh* Some days I’m n00b enough that I should just park the bike and take the bus.

I’m meeting the owner of a 2002 BMW F650GS with farkles galore. If it checks out okay, I’m going to snap it up because I doubt a better deal will come along this summer and I don’t think I could find a better ride for Alaska. I loathe the color and wish it were red/black/silver but that’s what rattlecans are for, right?

Ugh…

Craptastic thing #381271828 that could only happen to me:

This morning I sprayed my tires down with water to check for any possible leaks (had a nail in one of them couple of days ago that came out without air leaking). No leaks that I could spot, but apparently what I thought was water, was a mix of ammonia and water in a spray bottle.

Now my bike smells like someone pissed on it.