Superstitions, the motorcycle Gods, and those that have passed

There is one God, countersteer, and his prophet is Keith Code.

If you're offended by sarcasm and relating religion to motorcycles you might want to avoid reading this blog post.

Ancient humans made up gods of everything in nature. Sun god, moon goddess, god of the harvest, goddess of fertility, and god of death. It's only natural for us to associate phenomena with the supernatural. My joke about the god of countersteer and Keith Code however is just me making fun at roughly a third of the world's religion and branding myself a disciple of Keith's teachings.

When the rain breaks just in time for the weekend, its an obvious sign that the motorcycle Gods want you to go riding. When you exit a posted 35mph corner hot and discover a slow Mustang in your lane, and a clear passing lane, its an obvious sign from the motorcycle Gods that they want you to pass the Mustang at triple digits. When someone tells you about a bike night two towns over and you've had a tiring day at the office, its a sign the motorcycle Gods want you to go riding.

Pictured above, Salem Cycle Gear bike night.

At Salem bike night I had the pleasure of talking with a younger rider that I had sent a bunch of training material to and tried to nicely tell him he needed to improve a few things. To my surprise he told me he'd started with the training materials, recognized the critiques I had given him, and was signed up for new racer school. That made my day. It might be the first time that someone I have tried to give advice to has taken the advice and told me so. You know the fat guy in the Twist of the Wrist 2 video that gives the two younger guys the copy of Twist and tells them to learn? That's me, except I'm not fat yet and my bike is red. Maybe I need to start carrying my copy of Twist on group rides.

Besides not really being the most outgoing person,  I want to help people on a basic level. Since I'm obsessed with riding, I suppose it's natural that I want to help younger sport riders to become proficient and responsible instead of crash out and become an "I used to ride". Maybe the motorcycle Gods are giving me a hint.

Whether you believe in the motorcycle Gods or not, you probably participate in some kind of ritual when you ride.Your favorite riding shirt, your pre-ride routine, your bumper sticker that tells of your fallen comrades, and your road gremlin bell. Aren't those the silliest little pieces of flair?

Road bells are supposed to protect you from the gremlins but I have news for you seeker, they don't work if you buy them for yourself! If you buy it for yourself its like Simony, paying for works from a higher power and you'll be punished for your insolence. Any magic totem that's worth its salt has to be imbued with that power by someone else. Someone has to GIVE you that road bell for it to work. Just like an indulgence from the church lacks the power of a relic owned by a saint. If you taunt the motorcycle Gods with your false totems, or by not taking an opportunity when they give you one, they'll punish you with rain, a ticket, and maybe even a crash.

I know what you're thinking, I'm so full of bull that I'm smelling steak. What would you say if I told you that I can control the outcome of MotoGP? In 2013 I bought a Honda CBR600RR, just before the premiere race of GP for the year. As we all know 2013 and 2014 Marc Marquez swept the grid on his factory Honda. In 2015 I bought a Star/Yamaha Bolt, then crashed my CBR at the track. I was off the CBR for most of the year until I rebuilt it. In 2015 Jorge freaking Lorenzo won the championship (ok, Dorna kinda gave it to him by penalizing Rossi after Marquez dropped back to mess with him) on a factory Yamaha. I hate Marc Marquez, that smug little bastard, but he's pretty good and Honda makes great bikes. Well guess what I did in 2016, I bought a Honda VFR800 Interceptor. In 2016 Marc Marquez won another championship. Who's full of it now, huh?

Along with applying names and personas to a pantheon of motorcycle Gods, we riders also have our own heaven to go to. How many times have you heard that someone is now riding the highway or racetrack in the sky? Unfortunately if you're in the community long enough you'll have an acquaintance or friend who goes to the racetrack in the sky. In the dark and lonely parts of the night sometimes I stop to think about it and I realize that most of my motorcycle brothers that have gone to the highway in the sky have gone there because of suicide, not because of a motorcycle crash. It chokes me up to think that just in the last year Nate the Watchman, Rip van Winkle, and Rich I don't know his road name have all chosen to end their mortal run early.

If there is a heaven outside of what we make up to soothe our own worries, I hope my friends have found the peace there that they didn't have on earth.

On a happier note, here's a picture of my Interceptor I took the other day after washing her. She's been such a good girl I bought her the solo rear cowl. The new windscreen is on the way, and once I sell some more junk on eBay I'll be able to get the Akrapovic slip on (which is street legal in the EU, and thus has a decibel limit that's legal here!).

5 Random Observations

1. Ever notice how many for sale ads you see where the bike has tons of aftermarket "performance" accessories but in the picture you can clearly see that the rear tire is squared off and the 10+ year old original? Like, Dude, your bike would handle better if you learned to ride it and put good rubber on it. All those carbon fiber bits and questionable engine/electronics work is lowering the value I'm willing to pay.

2. Funny how easy it is to get a friend with a truck when you're buying a bike from out of state, but once you're moving or something everyone is miraculously busy.

3. You know the guy in the leather vest who tells you that you should get a real bike? Then when you get a Sportster or Dyna or Star 1300 he tells you that you need to trade that in for a real bike. Notice how he has a lone "wolf patch" or "independent" patch and doesn't ride with anyone that has a real bike like he does? Yeah, that dude is a jerk.

4. The look on some dude/dudette's face when they walk into a restaurant and make eye contact with you and you both realize that you/your group blew by their minivan just a few minutes ago and grabbed the last big table, and now dude/dudette's gaggle of brats has to wait to be seated.

5. People are all ears when you're talking about what performance parts to put on their bike but the moment you start talking about tire psi/suspension settings/corner entry brake pressure their eyes glaze over.

Thoughts on Rain

Living in the Northwest your riding season is rather limited unless you're willing to ride in some degree of moisture. I know plenty of riders that won't even chance a ride to the coast if there is a possibility of some leftover dew on shady corners. Around here is only full on Dry from mid-June to October, so at some point you're going to get wet. February in the mid Willamette valley starts getting warm (mid 40s, sometimes as high as 60) and will tease you with just enough of a break in the rain to convince you to break out the 3-season gear and mount up.

Let me break down what I don't like about riding in the rain.

First off the cold/wetness of the ride itself. Now half of that is just that I don't have particularly great boots for it, they aren't waterproof, I wear a textile 3-season suit which isn't perfectly waterproof and isn't gortex, my helmet isn't warm or watertight and its too tight to wear a balaclava under comfortably. Lastly I just don't like having to spend fifteen minutes gearing up and feel like the Michelin Man when I'm on the bike. I have electric gear but that feels like I'm tethered and isn't entirely comfortable. So I suppose the adage is somewhat true: there's no such thing as bad riding weather, just inappropriate gear.

Bad visibility when there's other cars kicking up spray, mud, and pooled water make for complaints that can't be attributed to cheaping out on my gear. On a very basic level we cornering enthusiasts don't like rain because it means less grip.

Less grip means less available lean angle, less quick-flick ability, less available braking ability, and less acceleration ability right? So let me recap. Riding in the wet is uncomfortable and we have less of every kind of performance from our high performance machines.

How do we improve the riding performance in the wet? As with most things there's a lot of old wives tales (sorry, old biker tales), friendly but worthless advice, and solid facts. Instead of re-iterate someone else's advice I'll just point you to them. This is an excellent start: https://soundcloud.com/ken-hill-534763963/podcast-41-riding-in-the-rain-what-you-need-to-know

Let me go in a different direction now. What do I like about riding in the wet? The country roads are more empty. Fewer people are out driving for recreation, more road for me, and of course that its riding. I suppose I could enjoy the bragging rights of doing a trackday in the rain, but both times I've done that (as a newer sport rider) I went off roading or crashed. In March I was scheduled for a trackday and watching the weather habitually as the forecast went from rain to clear to rain and back to clear. At the back of my mind I was hoping for a tiny bit of rain so I could really learn the rain limits of my bike. The weather gods gave me absolutely perfect weather so I didn't get to find out.

Unfortunately as I've often said finding the limits of your bike usually involves crashing it and we don't want that. The day I bought the Interceptor it was raining horribly. The day I brought it home from the 12,000 mile service it was raining and windy. Many of the days I've gone out riding in the spring its been less than dry. Funny thing is that in all the wet I've ridden it I've hardly ever engaged the traction control. Either my tire choice is excellent, my riding is good, or else the traction control takes a lot of slip to engage. Same thing about the ABS, I have to try to engage it. I've only engaged ABS in traffic once due to oil/water mix at a stop light.

One of my first real rain rides was on my old R6 with Dunlop Qualifiers as a newly minted sport rider. I was on a country highway when the skies opened up. Rather than go home I did what any Keith Code disciple would have done. I concentrated on throttle control rule 1, I kept the bike upright by using more body off position, and I adjusted my lines to keep the bike more upright. Surprisingly to me the bike was stable and I didn't find the limit.

Lets talk about equipment. Modern tires are incredibly good. Every manufacturer says that their street/sport/sport touring/touring tires have excellent wet traction due to siping pattern and silicon content. Like most riders I used to dismiss claims like that as marketing, until I started riding more in the damp or wet. Repeat after me: modern tires are good. Trust your rubber. As with any other piece of equipment the tires need to be maintained and used correctly though. Getting sport tires warm in the rain without warmers can be a challenge, but its doable. Make sure your pressure is right and don't trust worn out or old rubber. The best rubber won't save you though if you ride badly.

Are electronics worth it? It depends. The last decade has seen many bikes from 250cc beginner bikes to 1000cc supercharged track bikes getting some form of ABS and or Traction Control. To an extent you can divide the ABS offerings into two categories: basic ABS installed on bikes to meet legal requirements (see Euro requirements) and good ABS (see lean sensitive, KIBS, anything tied to an IMU).

Traction Control in a very basic sense is the ability of the bike to reduce power to the rear wheel when it detects it spinning (losing grip). Lets think about what that means. It means that you have to have lost grip already before the system can step in to reduce power to let the rear regain grip. Another way to put it is this: you have to be on the throttle for your expensive TC system to do anything for you. So you can either fight your TC system by chopping throttle once it engages or you can work with it and keep consistent throttle (which you should be doing anyway) and let the results of years of engineering work for you. On four wheels I've seen plenty of AWD/TC enabled Subarus in the ditch in a snow storm; the drivers were trying to steer out of a slide and jamming the brakes instead of hitting the gas and driving out of the slide.

In closing I'd just like to say that I dislike the rain, but it really isn't that bad. Some day I'll have a bike with supersport tires for the summer and track, and another with amazing wet sport touring tires just for the rain with a matching waterproof hi-viz outfit.

Perils and Positives of Group Riding

The pendulum of the motorcycling experience tends to swing from an intensely social experience to times of extreme solitude. On one hand you could go to a World SuperBike or MotoGP Race and be around 80,000 of your closest friends in a frenzied carnival of fast motorbikes, merchandise, and overpriced beer and on the other hand you may find yourself hundreds of miles from the nearest person on a highway in the middle of Alaska with nobody to impress with your stories but the bears. I've spoken before about how nice it is to be away from it all riding by myself on a rainy highway so its only fair to elucidate upon nearly the exact opposite: the group ride.

My first group ride was back in 2010 when I was a new rider on a Baby Ninja. I had read about all the awesome sport bike group rides on the forums and I was eager to be a part of one. The group of superbike riders kinda put up with me (bless their hearts) and waited for me at various intervals. Out on hwy 96 in California I proved my worth though when the fast guy on the Ducati 1098 ran out of gas (tuned bike, he refused to put regular into it at Happy Camp). We were miles from the nearest gas station with premium and guess who had a Camelbak with a hose they could use to siphon gas out of a GSXR, into a discarded Budweiser can, and into the Duc.

The group type? We're all in this together. Fortunately/unfortunately I've been in groups like this plenty. Fortunately because there are people, more or less total strangers, who are willing to help each other out if they get in a bind. Unfortunately because bikes break down and sometimes people crash. Groups are fun too. Its comforting to see that someone ahead of you made it through a sketchy corner, it means you can too. A little friendly competition is also fun, but beware the presumptive fine where a TC will issue the same ticket to everyone in the group even though he only caught one doing it. He knows we won't take time off from work to return to Nowheresville to fight it and its free money. Unfortunate for my wallet I've been there and done that.

Of course every rose has its thorn. One wouldn't think that a larger group of sportbikes would make lower average times on a route but it happens. Generally the groups make good time while riding, but all the downtime adds up and compounds the more people are in the group. You see once a group stops, people start smoking, start talking, start checking their phones, and without a designated leader (that commands obedience) to say "suit up lets go" the group will be stuck there for thirty minutes or two cigarettes. Add in other difficulties like large groups hitting gas stations at once or trying to get served at restaurants and you see how much time you lose.

There's all sorts of other things that tend to go wrong when you announce on a public forum the ride. Squids show up without any gear and or with bikes that barely run. People of all skill levels show up. On more than one ride I've been the one waiting for the slow newbie. If we set the way-back machine to 2010 there was a group ride that never even left the meetup spot because a handful of JackCo Sheriffs showed up and started writing fix-it tickets on people's bikes. The consensus is that they had either learned which website we were organizing on or else the group had become too predictable. The newbie on the stock Baby Ninja didn't get a fix-it ticket that day, but that group disbanded faster than you can say Chicken Strips and only a few ever ride together anymore, organized offline.

It wouldn't be fair to pick on just sport riders. During my short tenure as a cruiser rider I tried to take part in several cruiser events including but not limited to a Poker Run. The Poker Run is ubiquitous among the cruiser culture almost as much as salad bowl helmets and leather vests with bumper stickers (excuse me, patches). My beef with Poker Runs is that for the most part each stop is at a bar. As a participant you can't just stop in, get your card, and leave, because the next stop won't have people at it yet and there's no incentive to get there early. At each stop everyone stops, drinks, smokes, then ambles on to the next. Do you want to know what I think? Of course you do, you're reading my blog. I think that its darned irresponsible to be bar hopping on a 200hp 900lbs motorcycle with nothing between you and the ground but a "helmets suck" salad bowl and some flimsy leather. Naturally I can't just pick on alcohol. In Oregon Marijuana has become commonplace almost overnight since decriminalization. On more than one ride I've seen people toking then riding. Whatever I guess, its their skin if they crash. Excuse me if I think consuming central nervous system depressants then going faster than nature can possibly have evolved us to travel on our own seems like it might be a bad idea. Hold my beer and watch this.

Here in the middle Willamette valley I've been fortunate enough to have mostly really good group rides with the only detractors being how slow it is to get people going once they stop.

On a recent ride I found myself playing tech marshal on people's bikes. A number of new people were there and I saw everything from bald tires to rusted parts, to an axle missing the end nut and halfway out of the fork. On the other side of the grid there were meticulously maintained newish bikes that get ridden as fast as the bikes look. I guess it takes all kinds.

First real ride of the season

So there we were, eleven riders meeting up at a gas station discussing where to go.

Four from the central valley, two from Salem, and five from Portland area. Quite a diverse crowd. I don't know who "organized" this ride, even afterwards. There was no clear vision of where we were going and nobody stepping up to be a leader. That's just how group rides are sometimes.

Eventually Brian on his hot new GSXR stepped up and crowdsourced some destination and route ideas, and we headed out. It took less than a mile before wheelies happened and speed limits were broken. No me of course, I followed all traffic laws all day long. We were having a great old time and missed one of the turns, no biggie we just rerouted through an agriculture highway. This time of year the highways have lots of gravel on them and the farmers are pumping shit water through their mega sprinklers, but on the bright side there's much less traffic and nobody notices when you use both lanes to maximize your corner entry and exit.

Just outside of Independence we lost our first rider to the cold. He went home because a perforated leather jacket, jeans, and summer gloves are apparently not appropriate riding gear on a 38 degree day. When I caught up to the group I saw everyone pulled over just outside town, and one of the bikes smoking/steaming. Well great, here we go again. Usually there's an unspoken rule of "don't bring a beater bike on a group ride".

I doffed my helmet and learned that the smoking bike had gotten a rock strike in the radiator and a new superfluous coolant drain hole. While hanging around waiting for people to get their trailer plan sorted, another rider who had been ripping around while we waited came back... with a rock strike in their radiator, leaking fluid. Don't remove the rock guard in front the radiator boys and girls, its there for a reason.

Eventually who was staying with the stranded bikes and who was going was sorted out. Brian was staying with the other two riders to help them sort out their rides, which left nobody with knowledge of the local roads to continue leading except yours truly.

I found out that the Portland contingent was looking to end their ride in Eugene and wanted to find a back way there. From Independence I lead our merry band out towards Kings Valley. The roads were mostly clear, I only found myself slowing down and signaling for gravel once in a while. This area was also nice and warm, maybe almost fifty, compared to the thirties and cloudy of the Albany/Corvallis/Lebanon area. We continued our jaunt down Kings Valley highway to Pedee to stop at the covered bridge.

I'm not a fan of the dirt and gravel on the roads this time of the year, or the cold, but the lack of traffic is really really nice. Its great for going the speed limit like a law abiding citizen in an orderly and legal fashion.

At the bridge the smokers smoked and we talked bikes and stuff. One rider indicated he needed fuel so we stopped in Philomath on the way south. Just out of Philomath we passed a Sheriff cruiser, while going the speed limit, in a school zone. I am one with the force and the force is with me.

I was having a great time down Bellfountain but I noticed that the other riders were all starting to lag. I should point out that all the Portland riders and one of the Salem riders were all attired incorrectly, in jeans with riding jackets. Just before Junction City I found out that one of them hadn't bothered to fuel up in Philomath and needed to stop, no worries we hit a gas station there. At the gas station I pointed them in the direction of Eugene, then went to Arbys with the two guys from Salem.

On the way back we blasted through the Halsey super S curves. I really like my bike. I like heated gear.

Winter Duldrums

This has been a colder/wetter winter than the last few. So I've been in hibernation a lot. I figured it was time for an update because we just passed the point in the winter when it goes from cold/wet/snowy to less cold/more wet.

Towards the end of 2016 I successfully purchased a house. Well part of a house, half of a duplex. The point being that I'm out of the rental trap. It only has a one car garage but that's enough to fit the Interceptor, baby CBR, Kendon Trailer, bicycles, and tools.

Everything important pictured.

I had a Winter Solstice party in my new house to celebrate the turning of the solar year and the lengthening of the days.

Then it snowed.

Then the snow melted and I took the Interceptor to Salem Cycle Country for a 12k mile checkup and fluid flush.

While I was there I sat on a few bikes for my dad.

Then a week later I picked up my Interceptor and rode it home in the rain.

So that's where we're at. Waiting for the weather to get nice, bike it ready.

2017 will see me returning to the track. I'm eyeing an early season day at Thunderhill, and I've already put money down on California SuperBike School at The Ridge in July. I'm optimistic about this year.

On the Virtues of Speed

You live more for five minutes going fast on a bike than other people do in all their life. - Marco Simoncelli 1987-2011

Up past 90mph something magical happens. The best way to describe it is that my mind starts operating quicker. Like bullet-time in the movies. To the point that after a few minutes of riding 90+mph going slower feels exaggerated; going 50mph through a curve suddenly feels like going 20mph. Its like a drug too, the amount of focus I get, the widening of my perceptions, and the ability to tune out everything besides the ride. Coming out of a curve that I carved perfectly I will often feel such exhilaration and joy that I yell "woohoo!" or "Yeehaw" in my helmet (think about Han Solo yelling Yee Haw after shooting a TIE fighter in the Death Star equatorial trench and saving Luke Skywalker).

Like a drug too it wears off, and I have to find my next fix. Whatever neurotransmitter I'm burning at an extraordinary rate, I can only keep it going for 20-30 minutes at a time before I have to slow down to recharge. For me, riding at a high pace is an extremely cerebral activity with the riding taking up all the bandwidth in my consciousness.

In 2014 I recognized that I was getting too fast on the street for my own "good". I went out and bought a cruiser to slow me down. If you've been following my life you know how that ended, the cruiser didn't slow me down because I rode it like a bat out of hell, I crashed my CBR at the track, then traded in the cruiser for the Interceptor.

Once again I find myself getting too "fast" on the street for my own "good". I've had the fortune to start getting included in group rides with some of the "fast" guys. You know the type, liter bikes mostly, willing to go triple digits on the street and pass on double yellows. Most of the guys in the group I'd say are in it for the short term, they'll probably get a big speeding ticket, license removed, or have a big crash and then transition into the guy that "used to ride the fastest bike in the valley". Others are the mature adults that still act like Crotch Rocketeers, but have survived long enough to develop some kind of skill and knowing when to fold their hand.

On group rides its interesting to me how the group evolves and organically behaves, with little real leadership or rules. That isn't entirely true I guess, there are a few people with outgoing and infectious personalities; the kind of people who attract others like that naturally. But I digress. Some rules and behaviors have just fallen into place. Most everyone wears full gear on these runs, no squiding it in a tank top and shorts. At the last ride I went on, a kid showed up in a t shirt and the unofficial leader of the group called up a buddy to bring gear for him so he wouldn't be totally exposed.

Another behavior is in passing. On a group ride with fifteen sport bikes you can expect to get stuck behind cars with a dearth of passing zones in the twisties. That's given rise to passing on the double yellow. A fast and dumb "scout" will blast ahead on a liter bike and signal back whether the pass is clear, and other riders will start their passes. The signal changes when the coast is no longer clear and to abort the pass. Recently we spent most of a ride playing this game. It was exhilarating at the same time it was stressful due to the years of programming that passing on double yellow is bad. The most poetic way to describe it is playing a psychotic game of leapfrog at triple digit speeds.

Passing is dangerous. When you have to do it though its best to just get it done as fast as possible. Pull into the oncoming lane and pin it. If you have to do triple digits to get past a line of eight cars piled up behind an RV, then so be it. There isn't much room to pass, get it done quick or don't get it done at all. Its a helluva rush to be in the oncoming lane for what seems like an eternity, the throttle wide open, the engine growling with all sixteen valves opening and closing, cars and RVs rushing by on my right, my chest on the tank, my butt up against the back of the seat in my flatest tuck, the whole time an odd serenity in my mind because the scout up ahead is still giving the "all clear" signal.

When you're riding that fast there's no room left in your conscious mind to think about the shoulda/woulda/coulda, all there is room for is the next five seconds. You don't even look in the mirror, the past and whats behind you is inconsequential to you. For a few minutes at a time career stress, financial decisions, ex-girlfriends, and election year angst don't take the forefront of your mind. A hundred miles an hour gives you the rare ability to truly live in the moment.

Sure when you're going really fast you could meet all sorts of unpleasantness. You could crash, you could get a speeding ticket or license removed, or you could find the mechanical limit of your bike and blow it up. Is it worth it? That's up to you. Motorcycling is my meditation, my way to tune out all the other junk, the way to replace the negativity with something positive, all without filling my mind with bullshit eastern mumbo jumbo and having to smell like patchouli.