Thoughts on a stormy post-bike night

I dislike running, it hurts my knees these days. Swimming isn't really my thing and there aren't many pools accessible to me. Using the cardio machines at the gym gets really really boring even with an iPad and a subscription to Amazon Video. Bicycling, I actually kind of like. Yeah its painful and difficult and requires just as much motivation to get out the door as anything else but it is low impact and not that bad once you get into a rhythm.

In a perfect universe we wouldn't have to do any kind of exercise , our bodies would just look and perform perfectly all the time for whatever we wanted. In the real world though we have to counteract the effects of office jobs, work off stress, drop winter weight, and maintain muscle groups for whatever activities we enjoy. I find that bicycling does a pretty good job of keeping my body in shape for riding a sport bike.

Just like with motorcycling I ride a sport oriented bicycle. It works all the muscles in my legs, my lower back, and core from being hunched over the bars. It also keeps me in touch with the very real fact that everyone else on the road is out to kill me.

This week has been very tough for me. There are a lot of stressors at work and in life. I have great things to look forward to this year but my mind is the disquiet type that will agonize over the bad things constantly until I pull it out of the ditch manually. At work I can't physically check out when I start getting into a chase-my-tail mental downturn.

Tonight was Albany bike night. ABN is basically an excuse to get together with friends at a greasy spoon and be inappropriate, talk bikes, and anything else we can't do in our everyday lives. Getting there was hellish on a sport bike. The first five miles getting out of Corvallis was stop and go in the traffic pattern of people leaving Corvallis who work there but can't afford to live there, and the dearth of good routes to get from there to Albany. Then it was faster moving but congested traffic the rest of the way. I know its better than the Bay Area for instance, but it still sucks.

Realization of why I ride number nine hundred and sixty came on the way home when I did something as simple as accelerate hard from a stop and around a corner, riding first all the way to redline before shifting. In that handful of seconds where my 782cc of growling V4 symphony turns from a sedate street machine into a sixteen valve monster my entire neurotic being was quiet and all that remained was the next three seconds. The forgetting of self for a few seconds of hard acceleration, all of the worries about rent increases, angry coworkers, election year media stress, and even worrying about speeding tickets goes away.

Someone needs to bottle that feeling and sell it.

OMRRA 2016 Round 1 Day 1

Would you believe that a fan of MotoGP like myself has been amiss in actually ever going to local club level racing? I know, horrible. You can stop reading if its that bad to you. This year I fortunately had the time to make it to the premiere of the OMRRA series at Portland International Raceway. After struggling through the congested I-5 traffic I arrived at the home of my people, camera in hand.

OMRRA runs a pretty standard club structure where almost any bike that meets safety requirements can race in some class. Like other clubs they also run multiple classes in a given race, based on expected lap times and such. You might see a vintage two stroke bike racing in the same grid as a Ninja 250.
Like this:

The first race, a Novice race, ended in a red flag unfortunately but the rider was able to mostly walk away. The following races were a smattering of different classes while I wandered from grandstand to grandstand practicing my racetrack photography.

I snapped and snapped and snapped and managed to get some good pictures of overtakes and very fast bikes.

The Formula Ultra race was exciting but also reminded me of MotoGP. The Formula Ultra bikes are the fastest, most expensive, and loudest of the bikes on the OMRRA grid. It reminded me of MotoGP because one particular rider took the lead and blew everyone else away.

^This guy mopped the floor.

The Formula 4 grid was possibly the most uneven grid due to its wide variety of bikes. Formula 4 encompasses Cripple Triples (4 cyl 600CC bikes with one cylinder disabled so that its a 450cc), 650 Twins, and the odd air cooled open class super mono.

Following Formula 4 came a 600CC SuperSport race that included some of the bikes I'd seen in earlier grids. OMRRA allows you to race bikes in disadvantaged classes.

Speaking of disadvantaged I must give a respectful shout out to this warrior on an old FZR600 racing in a class of modern 600cc bikes.

Next came a "new" class. Since the manufacturers have started releasing 300ish CC sport bikes the clubs have gotten to add new classes to allow these bikes to compete. The Ultralightweight SuperSport class includes Ninja 300s, RC390s, and R3s. Having test rode an R3, Ninja 300, and an RC390 I really expected the little KTM to do better in racing but they were firmly mid pack with a bunch of little Ninjas. As with other races there were some 250s racing in this grid as well.

All in I had a great time. I'll try to make an appearance at the next round, maybe with a press pass so I can get closer to the track for some better pictures. Its kinda funny, I ended up talking to quite a few people at the track and everyone was really nice, like old friends who I hadn't seen in a while. You meet the nicest people on a Honda.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt

How do you measure experience in a sport? How do you measure proficiency? How do others see and judge you? How do you decide when you've been there and done that?

In scuba diving, the first equipment intense sport I experienced, there's guys with ultra new equipment and decked out camera gear that take up half of the dive deck and spends more time playing with his technology than experiencing the dive. Then there's the guy that’s really been there done that with perfect buoyancy control and twenty year old equipment. His experience level and confidence flow from him the way that the tech-gearhead's money flows from his wallet.

In riding there’s different levels of been there done that. Just like in diving one can't judge another's experience by the gear or the bike. The most obvious stereotypes are discussed ad-nausea on forums, messages boards, bars, coffee shops, and bike nights. Each different riding style has its own stereotypes of the newbie, the expensive gearmonger, the old timer, and the person who has really been there and done that.

All riding types have the short timers; people that join the sport and are active for a few years before they retire to due tickets, injuries, loss of interest, or spousal obligations. You see this just as much with the middle aged white guy that buys a brand new Harley Davidson as you do with the twenty something who buys a supersport and rides wheelies down main street. In my travels I hear the same story over and over again from people that "used to" ride, but had to stop for the above reasons.

Possibly the stereotype that gets the most fun poked at them are the coffee shop riders. You know the type, they own expensive bikes, be it Ducati riders with Dainese gear or BMW with pristine branded textiles, and only ride them once a month to the local bikes and coffee meetup. Maybe they've been there done that already and they don't need to do it anymore? Who knows.

Since I'm a sport rider, as the name of my blog would imply, I feel a special obligation to mention the iconic Crotch Rocketeer. Being that its April the type is starting to come out of their winter hibernation and start screaming down your roads wearing tank tops and shorts, with an amazing mohawk on their helmet and a disregard for their wellbeing in their head. Unfortunately few make it long enough to grow out of that phase, learn control, buy some gear, and not kill, injure, or ticket themselves out of existence. I hate to make generalizations, but these guys don't last long enough to have been there, done that.

Each riding type has a different level of being "there". In my opinion its marked by a consummate professionalism about riding. These are the riders that try to be the very best they can be all the while mitigating the risk of injuries and legal problems. Riders of this caliber aren't the ones bragging at bike night, but you can see their accomplishments by lack of chicken strips, a collection of track day inspection stickers, location stickers, high numbers of their odometers, and sun bleached gear.

At the track you might see it as the guy on the old ninja 250 or well used supersport passing the guy on the brand new Ducati Panigale 1299 in a tight corner.

On the highway you might see the lone adventure bike rider with a plethora of location stickers on his panniers, riding in the rain in the winter by himself.

On your favorite roads you might see the guy on the superbike with saddlebags who is touring across states to see various destination roads, someone who has such good body positioning and core strength that they can ride such a bike all day.

During my November 2015 trip I realized I was almost “there” when I got the biker wave from a guy on a BMW 1200gs in an orange Aerostitch suit during a rainstorm on an otherwise empty coastal highway.

Have Bags Will Travel

When I got the new bike I decided to splurge and order the factory saddlebags. You only live once. So after weeks of waiting I pulled into the service center of the dealership for the first service. Imagine my surprise when they told me it would take an additional two hours and two hundreds dollars for them to key the bags and mount them.

Eff that. I told them to ship the boxes to me and I would do it. So after a week more of waiting I came home to a pile of boxes at my doorstep. At last!

With a little help from Youtube I had the first lock keyed in an hour, and the second in about twenty minutes.

Imagine my dismay when I discovered that one of the hardbags doesn't close correctly. Its either defective or damaged in shipment. Either my faith in Honda's premiere fit and finish is about to be shaken, or  whoever builds these for Honda does a sub par job. Overall the units look good, but the hinges are a little cheesy looking.

I guess a call to the parts department is in order to find out what the heck we can do about this. I can sit on the bag and make it close mostly right, but that's not an option on the road...

Baby got back.

Update: got it sorted out by gently and firmly closing it then leaving it in a hot car all day.