SpringTime

Spring in Oregon is like a bipolar Ex. One minute its 80 degrees and sunny, then next its a thunderstorm. People start poking their heads out in the sun and after a few cycles of getting rained on wearing shorts they just say "screw it" and start doing their spring/summer activities rain or shine.

Motorcycles riders are no different. Although some stay indoors until a forecast of 100% clear some of us are out there getting in some great tourist free road miles in the foul weather.

As it turns out the Q3s on my Ninja are worse in the rain than the Pilot Road 4s on my VFR. I didn't go down but I felt the rear twitch a lot on this ride.

Yesterday I lucked out and had a traffic free run to the coast (in the rain) on board my VFR. At the coast it was sunny. The ocean was incredibly blue, a rare sight in Oregon where its normally green or brown looking. Of course getting to and from this beautiful sight was torrential rain, but proper gear and tires handle that pretty well. Easy does it on the control inputs and remember the fundamentals, the engineers at Michelin and Honda will take care of the rest.

I've said before that the motorcycle Gods look kindly on acts of charity. This week I had the opportunity to lend my garage and (limited) technical skills to a friend so she could remove her forks to be re-sprung, change her oil, and change her coolant. It was an interesting learning experience. Six year old original Suzuki coolant looks like some kind of blue syrupy sports drink.

The weather only gets better from here. Until the end of May and then it gets worse briefly, but then it gets better.