My long weekend plans…

My brief itinerary for this weekend:

Saturday morning: Leave early and ride to Leavenworth
Saturday afternoon: Ride some of the Destination Highways around Leavenworth
Saturday evening: Check into the Haus Rohrbach and spend the evening in the pseudo-Bavarian town that is bound to be awash with tourists
Sunday morning: Leave whenever and ride to Winthrop
Sunday afternoon: Ride some of the Destination Highways around Winthrop/Twisp
Sunday evening: Check into Chewuch Inn and hang out in pseudo-cowboy town of Winthrop
Monday morning: Leave early and head out to Okanogan Highlands and ride as many Destination Highways as possible
Monday evening: Try to get back whenever and spend the second night in Winthrop
Tuesday morning: Leave early and start the last leg of the journey to ride the northern part of the Cascade Loop to Sedro Woolley
Tuesday afternoon: If there’s time and energy, ride north toward Bellingham and explore some of the rides up there (very much doubt I will do this as I want to get home in time to relax before heading back to work the next day)
Tuesday evening: Relax at home!

I’m trying to leave work early today so I can beat the peak hour long weekend traffic and head to Seattle Cycle to pick up my tailbag and chain lock/alarm. Then back to the Eastside to pick up last minute things for the trip like cash/cigarettes/chocolate/money and to plan out my routes in better detail.

I’m excited! This is the first long journey I’ve taken since last November. :) I’m a bit worried about dealing with drunk tourists and crippling heights with my vertigo, but I figure I can’t let that stop me and not do the ride I’ve wanted to do for so long. And unfortunately, I’m “credit-card camping” so it will set me back a good bit, but it’ll be money well spent.

Wishlist…

On my motorcycling wishlist –

– New tires – more like a necessity than a wish unfortunately :(
– A Gorilla alarm (or possibly an alarm+immobiliser)
– A chain + padlock
– A tail bag (still not sure whether I’m getting hard luggage or just a soft bag that bungees on)
– Heated grips
– A Bagster tank cover
– Modulating headlights
– Those blinky high-vis tail-lights
– A center stand

Of course on the other hand, I wonder if there’s any point in investing so much money into a bike that I’m planning to sell next season anyway. It’s really an amazing bike, but I’ve caught myself looking longingly at every passing BMW so often now, that I think I’m just going to have to get one of those next year. If I still have the racing bug after doing a few track days this year, I’ll probably just get a really cheap, sportsbike and fix it up.

A movie about a motorsickle…

I bought The World’s Fastest Indian when it came out on DVD last week, and am halfway through it now. I’m at the part where he is at the little hotel in Bonneville and using boot polish to fill in the cracks on his 25 year old tires. :'(

What a splendid movie! And Anthony Hopkins is so very good. I don’t know what the original Burt Munro was like, and how accurately this movie portrays him, but I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve teared up over the things he says and does, and how very genuine he is. Just a quiet, unassuming, charming man with his quaint expressions and his single-minded devotion to his old, 1920s “motor-sickle”. Do they even make people like him anymore?

Whether you like motorcycles or not, watch this movie. Ignore the idiotic DVD cover, reviews, and the occassional Hollywoodized soaring background music. It is a good story, with good scenes, good dialogue, interesting characters and a truly historic gorgeous machine. And in the youth worshipping culture that we live in, how often do you see a movie that has an 80+ year old man as a central character?

I sold the bike two days after I placed the ad, for about a hundred dollars less than what I had paid for it. A nice, middle-aged couple bought it and they didn’t try bargaining the price down much. Indeed I knew I had sold it when he came to check it out on Sunday evening and I saw the glow and longing on his face – the same I’d had when I first went down to Seattle to buy it one rainy fall evening two years ago. Funny things motorcycles…

(more…)

Experienced Rider Course

My Experienced Rider Course is TOMORROW. TOMORROW!!! So not only was it sprung upon me out of the blue seeing as I’m scatterbrained as all heck these days, but it’s going to be typical Seattle weather with “cloudy skies with a few showers later in the day”. Seeing as Murphy’s law is dead on when it comes to me, guess when the choice few showers will choose to… uhh… shower?!

Now I need to spend the rest of the day mentally preparing for the class. Did I mention my U-turns were crap?

…

Panic now?