Overcoming Negative Momentum

 While talking with my uncle a week ago I mentioned the bad luck that had befallen me lately. Pandemic cancels stuff, lose job, bike breaks down, oven breaks and needs to be replaced because its a fire hazard... He put forth the idea that like a losing streak while gambling, other things tend to have a certain "inertia" to them, be it some cosmic thing or fate or just a mental losing streak. To overcome that momentum you have to hit the reset button and go in a new direction.

Even with the new bike I couldn't make up my mind where to go to get back on track with my "sabbatical". I agonized and looked at maps, and agonized. I think what it came down to was that I had gotten into a mental rut so that even once I had the tool to do what I intended, I was too stuck where I was to actually do it. Even once I made up my mind to go up the Olympic peninsula, I was second guessing that decision until I had actually crossed the bridge into Washington.

I second guessed everything from the route to what level of clothing to take (its hot in the valley and cool on the north coast, and my bike doesn't have lots of luggage). Add to the second guessing that I was stuck in traffic on my supposed scenic route up to the Astoria bridge. Its amazing the amount of misery you can put yourself through just in your own head.

After crossing into Washington traffic was not that bad on highway 101. There's even a few sections of curves here and there, but otherwise its pretty much boring once you're inland and cruising through the hills. Not a lot of curves, and with the forest on either side, not much to see other than trees. It took the better part of thirty minutes to get through Aberdeen because the highway goes through the center of town, stoplight to stoplight. The SuperSport does many things well, but stop and go riding isn't one of them. While looking around Aberdeen I started to understand some of Nirvana better, and thought if I lived there I'd probably want to kill myself too.

Eventually I got past that and to more enjoyable riding, and on in to Forks Washington. 387 miles for the day. Forks? yes, I said Forks. The Twilight place. I checked into one of the non-Twilight themed hotels, had dinner, and walked around the town. A lot of the businesses still have Twi-crap up in their windows from the hey-day of the craze, and if the hashtag on Instagram is any indication, there is still some lingering Twi-demic bringing Twilighters to Forks. Otherwise its mostly just a stop on the highway and place for outdoorsman to fish.

Pictured: the door of an out of business cafe and shows the remnants of the craze.

Day 2. I departed Forks and cruised up the highway to where it turns off to Neah Bay/Cape Flattery. There was an electronic sign advising that the indian reservation was closed to outsiders. No worries, I had no intention of interacting with anyone much less going door to door in the reservation coughing on people. The road out here is beautiful and curvy but in crap shape. Finding a rhythm is hard, enjoying it is hard, and if you spend too long looking at the scenery you'll hit a pot hole and crash.

Regardless I did stop for some views like this:

Unfortunately to get to the North Westernmost part of the US takes you through the indian reservation, which is closed. They closed the whole damn road rather than simply ask dumb tourists to not go door to door coughing on people. This was either ironic or hypocritical seeing as an hour to the west the Indian casinos were open. Was this negative momentum or just poor planning? 

Pictured, a checkpoint manned by a bored tribal "police" officer with a small man complex.

Onward. There's no turning back since I'm way the heck up in Washington! I got back on the road to Port Angeles. Just like before the curves were great but the road was in bad shape. I got into Port Angeles and followed the signs to Hurricane Ridge.

Well so did every other tourist on the Olympic. I had to pay $25 at the checkpoint to go up the road and be stuck in traffic the whole way up and down. At the top there were license plates from all over the US and tons of people. So much for everyone staying home this summer. The road down was just as busy.

Enjoy this picture of the Olympic glacier because I paid $25 to take it.

Out of Port Townsend I was stuck in heavy traffic for an hour and a half until all the heavy traffic turned off to go to the ferry to Seattle at Port Townsend. Go figure, it was Seattle traffic. The highway opened up and was fairly nice for a while, I stopped in a nowhere town for a Gatorade and Oreo break and to observe the small town. it was kind of a dump. lot of transients. lot of abandoned rotting buildings.

At this point I was getting tired. Riding in traffic, hiking to a viewpoint, and dealing with disappointment was getting to me. It seemed like I'd brought my negative momentum with me. I examined my map and tried to decide what to do next. It was too early in the day to stop but looking at my butler map, nothing interesting lay ahead.

I pressed on ahead. The roads near Hoodsport are nice and curvy, but once again I was stuck behind whatever person in an SUV more expensive than my net worth until I could pass them and get stuck behind another. Rinse and repeat.

Also why the hell does this gas station advertise ethanol free, but its 87 octane? Freaking boat people. Freakin' premium drinking European bike. Haha.

One of my friends from a previous life recognized me while I was filling up and said hi. I realized I had lost all of my ability to speak and probably came across like a weird leather clad Sasquatch (haven't gotten a haircut in months). He was there for the Hood Canal diving, I was just passing through.

My day ended many miles of highway and freeway slab later in Centralia. Its that place on Interstate 5 you pass with the outlet stores. Well it also has a Motel 6 which is still cheap. Mileage, 293. I retired with a large beer and what passes for a dinner salad.

The last day I decided I was going to go to Mt St Helens. I've lived in the PNW for thirty years and never been. Well after a decent breakfast at Cousins Country Kitchen I slabbed out to Randle WA. What I've heard is that the east end of Helens is less visited so the roads have less people. Sounds great! It wasn't ten miles into the NF road that I realized: less people = less maintenance. I averaged about twenty MPH the 40 miles out to the Hurricane Ridge Viewpoint (this entry only cost me $5, which I probably could have not paid because nobody was enforcing it). The road was really quite terrible but the view on either side of the road was epic.

A quarter mile hike up the ridge to the viewpoint gave me a better view of the mountain, Spirit Lake, and the leftover devastation.

I continued on South on the bad road using every inch of suspension my bike has.

Again I was getting hungry and beat up from the roads by the time I was near the crossroads. I stopped at a river, took my boots and jacket off, and sat for a while listening to the water. At the crossroads ahead I could continue on NF roads another 40 miles to Carson, cross the Columbia at Hood River, and go home via Mt Hood/Breitenbush area, another 250+ miles. Or I could go west, hit the slab, and be home in 160 miles at the risk of getting caught in Portland traffic. It was early enough in the afternoon and I was pretty beat up from the NF roads so I went west.

The road past Cougar and into Woodland isn't bad, its just busy. Still managed to maintain decent speed though. Refueled in Woodland and hit the slab. I didn't want to waste time on lunch and make the odds of bad traffic worse. Well I won/lost on that bet. Traffic was fine through most of Portland and then it was a stop and go crawl from Tigard to past Wilsonville. Which is no fun on a hot blooded Ducati.

I stopped in Woodburn to fill the burrito shaped hole in my life. Ironically my Ducati is parked next to a Starbucks, although I didn't give them my patronage.

While scarfing down a life saving burrito I got word that one of my moto-friends had just bought a yellow Ducati 999. Outside I watched a couple of Subi-bros eyeballing my bike. They came into the restaurant and asked me about it. Somehow I remembered enough English to tell them the basic stats and that yes it goes quite fast. Hopped back on the slab and made it home in one piece.

Mileage: 300.

The next day I embarked on another adventure: changing the oil on a Ducati! I had clicked over 3100 and change during the trip which means I'd put on just over two thousand miles since I bought it in two weeks. Since the oil was at least a year old, it was time to come out.

Did I break my losing streak? Am I moving in a positive direction now? Who knows? An object at rest will stay at rest yada yada yada. I got out of the valley, and that's important. Me and the bike came home in the same condition we left. I got no traffic tickets.

Amante

 I took my VFR in to the shop in early July for the mysterious bogging down issue it had. I figured it was something in the fuel system but they found that the front CCT was going bad. OK fine, fix it. Between the summer backlog and the pandemic effing up the shipping of parts, I didn't get it back until early August.

Well 2020 is doing me good and hard. When I got it home and rode it I found that the problem was still there. So I dragged it back to the shop and dropped it off. Unfortunately the tech who does Hondas was out for a MotoAmerica race weekend and I still haven't heard anything. On the way back from dropping it off I came to a rough decision: I was going to buy another sport bike.

I haven't gotten the grand trip I was planning on, at least I should get some sport riding in. I haven't heard back from anyone I've applied with, but that doesn't mean I won't at some point, so I need to start doing something with my "sabbatical".

I'll cut to the chase I bought a 2017 Ducati SuperSport. I found a quite low mileage (1100 or so miles) garage queen in Tacoma, contacted the owner, and went up the next day. It was a case of a middle aged gentleman who had bought it and realized that he wasn't able to ride a sport bike anymore. We talked about the bike for near an hour before loading it up. It was almost like the previous owner wanted to make sure it was going to a good responsible rider as much as selling it.

Anyways because its Ducati it has a few "character" flaws that I need(ed) to address.

-the battery was flat from sitting in a dealership and then in a garage (replaced)

-the chain was garbage (replaced)

-the fork seals were weeping (used a seal mate and lubricated the seals with grease)

-the transmission is difficult in 1-N-2, but that can be adjusted by the dealer. I'm just not going to have two bikes in the shop at the same time...

-the rear cylinder cooks your legs. Its HOT.

-the mirrors are kind of useless at speed because they buzz

Well anyways now that I have another bike I'm getting out and about again. Given that its hot in Eastern Oregon and California is off limits, I'm thinking maybe Olympic Peninsula as a first "trip" (I've already put 700 miles on it locally).

People have asked me: "what's the plan when you get the VFR back?" to which I say "I don't know, I don't have a plan". The VFR has hard bags (hard bags for the SS are like $2k), and doesn't run as hot, but even when they fix the bogging issue who knows what might fail next on a 43k mile bike? Not like a used VFR fetches much though these days. I'll agonize about that when I get it back. At least now I'm not in a *mental* hurry to get it back.

Remember my blog post about superstition and how my bikes determine what happens in pro racing? Well go read it then read the next section.

OK so just after my VFR started having bad problems what happens? Marc Marquez crashes and bangs himself up badly, and is out.

Totally a coincidence right? Fabio Q on a Yamaha does well the next two races.

Then I buy a Ducati. The next two races Ducati suddenly starts doing well again (JZ5 put a year old Ducati on the podium at Brno and AD4 won at Austria race 1).

More total coincidence... or is it?

Escape the Heat

It finally got hot here in the Willamette valley. I love the summer. I have a love/hate relationship with the heat. On one hand its the best riding weather, on the other it can be *too* hot to be fun to ride anymore. Then there's times when you simply can't escape the heat or its muggy, none of that is fun.

While riding the other day I had the thought: what we do to escape the heat is what we remember as the best parts of summer. Riding a motorcycle into the mountain wearing mesh gear, going swimming, eating ice cream, drinking beer. Sure its nice to sit in the AC in your house and veg out, but will you remember that fondly when its cold again outside?

Thanks to pandemic I spent almost all day every day from March to Late June working from home. Needless to say now that I'm on sabbatical and its summer I get antsy as heck sitting at home doing nothing, although the AC is sure nice to come home to. The other night I rode my mom's bike (still waiting on mine back from the shop) one town over the get ice cream. Sure I could have bought a container and taken it home to eat while watching the myriad of streaming services I pay for, but where's the fun in that?

Would you know it? by dark on the ride home it was nice and cool.

Best Laid Plans

A few months ago in the pre-pandemic era a local brewery/pizza restaurant had a Robert Burns night. The premise was to drink Scottish ale, read poetry from Scotland's Robert Burns, and of course wear kilts. While wearing my awesome kilt I read the somewhat famous poem "To A Mouse". The gist of it was bemoaning that the mice's portion of the grain and corn he steals is insignificant but we try to kill him anyways, and how human's careless action will destroy a mouse's home and stored food. Hence the expression that the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.

Two months ago I had a plan. Continue working my tail off in a profession that pays well but is an emotional grindhouse. Keep pushing rope and work for the weekend. Race a few rounds, ride the track, maybe get away for a few long weekends. Never really unplug. Keep holding on until I get to 10 years with the company and get 20 days off a year. The mentality of "just hold on long enough to be able to unwind later".

Sounds like a horrible plan right?  Chris Nolan's Joker character made the observation that "You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan"." The plan was horrifying, exchange little bits of my soul for money to spend on recreation to try to rebuild what I'm losing every day. Its that perverse extension of "making up for lost time" that I've talked about and nobody including myself panicked about that horrible plan.

As you know that plan was ripped away as fast as a businessman can say "line item on the budget". So I replaced it with a new plan, go see the world on my motorcycle. One of life's little ironies is that the reason I lost my job is the reason that travel is now impossible (internationally) or inadvisable (domestically). Even further, my main bike (the VFR) went down with a bad cam chain tensioner (probably). When I lost my job I panic sold the ZX6R, so no race season and no backup bike.

So the new plan is to ride my mom's bike around until my VFR is back. On the upside its reliable although not sporty.

I test rode a used Ninja 400 and loved it, almost bought it, but my practicality stopped me. "Hey Tim, you might need that money if you can't get reemployed in X months".

Since I wasn't racing I volunteered at OMRRA as a corner worker. My corner didn't see much action so I took some pictures and talked bikes with the other corner workers. It was a refreshing change of pace I suppose.

"You were a schemer, you had plans, and, uh, look where that got you." - also the Joker.

Making Lemonade

So long story short I got laid off. But on the bright side I am probably in a decent financial shape to do nothing for a while because nobody is hiring for my title at the moment. Really though I was completely burned out at work having really not taken a vacation in years, not enough to really unplug and recharge anyways.

So with that in mind I've decided to do "nothing" for a while, which with me means I'm going to ride. Not sure exactly where, but I don't have much tying me down, so I'm going to be gone for a few stretches at a time.

Pretty  straight forward eh?

Baker City Run

So every year it seems like I've tried to put together a group to do a weekend run out to Central or Eastern Oregon. Most years it falls apart and I solo it, with the exception of 2018 which was great.

This year of course it fell apart. Bad weather, economic problems, bike breakdowns, and last minute scheduling conflicts meant that I started the trip with one companion and by four hours into it was solo.

We set out in the wet of the Willamette valley. Up and over the hill and it turned dry. This was about as far as the "plan" survived.

Mt Something viewpoint. Honestly I couldn't care, it was clouded in.

By Prineville though my companion's bike started acting up.

Just after lunch in Mitchell we tried to go visit the painted hills where her bike really started having problems  She decided to head for home and a friend from the valley picked her up before the big hill.

The last couple miles to the official painted hills overlook (if you want to hate humanity go on Instagram and search #paintedhills to see what I mean) were gravel and with my partner's bike down I said the hell with it and turned back. I could see them from here.

Solo I pressed onwards zigging and zagging Central Oregon into Eastern Oregon. Part of my planned route turned out to be gravel so I rerouted. I was behind "schedule" anyways and needed to make up time. I wanted to get to Baker before the thunderstorms...

Speaking of thunderstorms I spent about twenty minutes riding towards one over the plains, watching lightning strike and seeing curtains of rain thinking about my nearly bald tires and that the only rain gear I'd brought was an overjacket... But I lucked out because my route turned 90 degrees just before the storm!

At this point I thought I'd lucked out and everything was going to be just fine. Past John Day I drove through some damp roads and weather where a storm had just moved through.

Note the snow up in the John Day mountains. I continued East until I found what some people call the Little Tail of the Dragon, Highway 245 past Hereford. By the way, the boat house at Hereford is brown. Anyways 245 was excellent (a little dirty) and I arrived at my motel in Baker nice and dry. The weather was great and I got dinner and walked around.

My read of the forecast was "overnight precipitation". In reality that meant overnight it dropped into the 40s and was raining hard. Well there's only one way to go. I put on the gear I had and headed out. Just past Sumpter into the hills the temperature dropped into the 30s and the rain started turning into snow. Discretion is the better part of valor, I don't have the gear or tires for this, so I turned around and rerouted back through Austin. I stopped at the Austin junction for some life saving pie and coffee and a chance to dry off next to their fireplace.

I worked my way back towards John Day mentally flipping the coin over whether to call it a win in mother nature's camp and just go home or whether to press on with the rest of my planned route. Well I'm pretty stubborn and kept on route, and had some good fun through the lower lying and sheltered canyons.

Eventually I ended up back on the high plains where the temperature dropped and the wind kicked up. I was shivering and exhausted by the time I pulled into Condon for lunch. Again I was flipping the coin about just white knuckling it home, but the weather conditions on the hill were pretty bad. Down into Cottonwood Canyon things warmed up and the Gorge was at least warm and super windy. I was a little ahead of schedule so I  ran up to Rowena Crest Viewpoint before heading down to my motel.

Due to the continuing pandemic I had a hard time finding a place for dinner that I could walk in to. Eventually I got some fast food and went back to my motel to rest. In the morning I was able to get a real breakfast though, so that rocked.

Then back on route. I went out Dufur valley to where it becomes a national forest service road and then up into the Mt Hood area. Where once again it got freaking cold and wet. I found the turn off and went back down into the low lying areas and into Tygh. I rode the "Stairway to heaven" , then made the mistake of taking the long way to Maupin because of the wind on the plains. I met up with a group from Portland for another run up the "stairway", had lunch, then headed for home.

The weather over Skyline/NF42/Breitenbush had improved from the days prior and it was pretty dry all the way through. I stopped at Detroit Lake for ice cream and so an old guy could tell me about the bikes he used to have, then I continued on home. There's no such thing as bad riding weather, just improper gear. I jumped the gun on wearing summer gear to tour and on wanting to finish wearing out some tires before I put new ones on. Both of those made rain riding kinda suck. Oh well, no tickets and no crashes, so it was a good mini-tour.

End of April Meanderings

By now I should have a race weekend and a few trackdays under my belt to talk about. Alas everything's getting cancelled and June might be the first track weekend I get, hopefully. During the last OMRRA board meeting the likelihood of the June 12-14 race weekend happening sounded low. Unless the state/city/hospitals/ambulances start going back to normal early enough for the club to prepare for the round, it just won't happen.

Being that I already have that Friday off from work I've started planning a contingency, if the race weekend doesn't happen I'll go to Central/Eastern Oregon with my moto-friends. The problem with that is that my VFR is in bad need of an overhaul and I've put it off to the last minute when shops are busy. It badly needs refreshed suspension, brakes, and some engine bits. I guess that's what happens when you ride it like a sport bike for four years and 38,000 miles.

Pictured: Once in a while I clean off all the bugs and mud

In 2018 I did two trips (Fossil and NorCal) on the Ninja because the VFR was down for fork seals and it was last minute, and none of the shops could get to it. Riding 300-400 mile days on a ZX6R is painful. One day in NorCal after a hundred miles of barely paved single lane suck I was ready to abandon the trip and just blaze home. I digress. I'd rather take my sport touring bike on a sport touring trip.

When you have two street legal bikes you can usually ride one when the other is down. But sometimes they're both down due to bad timing/luck or bad planning. On a ride last weekend my ZX took a rock to the radiator and I had to limp it home. I swapped bikes for the VFR and hauled ass back to intercept the group still on route. Big groups take a long time to get going again after stops, so I was able to pull that intercept off successfully. On that trip it was really apparent of the maintenance items I'd neglected, so even though it goes, it doesn't go well enough to be considered ride able.

Well I fixed the ZX radiator with my friend JB Weld (don't judge me) and I'm waiting for a radiator guard. But I miss having a bike I can cruise around on and not need to go a hundred miles an hour to have fun on. Tomorrow I need to get in touch with the only shop to seem to be willing to do work on a V4 and get my bike into their queue.

Pictured: Test ride to see if the leak is fixed

Instead of agonizing about stuff I can't change or won't make a decision about I suppose I need to think about stuff to look forward to that hasn't been scrubbed due to C19.

-Central/Eastern Oregon trip in June or whenever it ends up

-MotoAmerica at the Ridge in August

-Highway 20/Cascades Highway in Washington (probably before or after the MotoAmerica round)

-OMRRA/Track season whenever it starts

-Maybe a fall ride into NorCal after Labor Day. I've been kicking around the idea of hitting some of the sierras on the east side