Turning of the Season

 

Over Labor day weekend Western Oregon got hit with a hot dry wind storm. The resulting fires destroyed several small towns and polluted the air horribly. Last night a once in fifteen year thunderstorm moved through dumping rain, lighting up the sky for hours, and knocking over trees. Because of the storm debris and leftover moisture coming down I had to move an end-of-summer ride a day later.

I've had a couple good interviews with two different companies. With the weather signaling the end of summer and my "sabbatical" coming to a close, I suppose its time to look to the future.

In college anthropology we talked about the concept of a transition ceremony or rite of passage. Growing up there's the rites of passage that mark manhood, womanhood, adulthood. After college there's the passage that is supposed to cement your place in society from student into producer. I suppose I expected that in taking some kind of trip during my sabbatical I would feel like I had passed a new rite into another season of my life. Its not that I haven't gotten in any trips this year, its just that I never got in one that I could say was transformational. I've been too stuck in my rut sitting at home looking at job websites for jobs that aren't there. 

Most autumns I think about doing some kind of weekender on the bike. Most autumns I'm also employed. So far in my time off I haven't gotten in the grand tour that I planned, and due to circumstances maybe I never will. I keep saying to myself if I have a job offer and a definite start date I'll just hop on my bike and be gone until a day before that. This week I replaced the tires and the brake pads, so the bike is ready to go at a moment's notice.

I'm good at not having a plan, I'm bad at getting started out the door.

Eastern Oregon Run September 2020

Planning for the NorCal run with The Dalles SMC crew started last winter. Through the spring and the Pandemic the dates got shifted and moved several times until the Comedy of Errors that is 2020 simply made the original run impossible. One of the gentlemen in the group out of sheer stubbornness said, and I paraphrase, "Lets just run out Eastern Oregon, nothing ever bad happens there".

Just like in a Greek play The Fates saw fit to try to punish us for our Hubris. The pandemic and government closing motels and restaurants, job loss, and bikes breaking down weren't enough to stop us so they released Fire Gremlins from the depths of Hades to burn down all of Western Oregon. After bouncing off the walls in my HEPA filtered house for a few days I stubbornly made the call that I was going to go on the run. My town wasn't in the evac zone, and the last highway out to Central Oregon was still open.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not insensitive to the suffering that's happened this year, especially in my own state. Its simply a matter of I recognize that sitting at home stressing about the fires and other things out of my control do nobody any good.

On the day to head out I had a phone interview and then packed up. My fellow adventurous soul Danielle met me in the dense smoke of Lebanon ("they" rated the air quality at "beyond unhealthy") and we left. It was eerie riding out the mountain highway without the usual summer traffic. But lighter traffic is what we sport riders love, so we enjoyed it despite the burning in our noses and pain in our lungs. Air quality started getting better as we cleared the cascade range. One of the oddest things about the dense smoke is just how much it cooled things off, like a nuclear winter effect.

Along one lonely highway in Central Oregon there's a tree with hundreds of bras hanging in it. Nobody seems to remember what started the Bra Tree, or why, its just there as a monument to women. Naturally we had to stop and take cliche pictures for social media.

Now that we were in the "fast" part of Central Oregon we made fantastic time to Summer Lake and checked into the Lodge. We had dinner with the other riders that had braved the events of 2020 to be there, swapped stories, discussed how we had gotten our road names, had drinks, and retired.

In attendance:

The Jackal - R1

Flamin Beans - Africa Twin

The Senator - R6

Double D - Street Triple

Don Quixote - GSXF 1000

Three Finger Jim - Flying Brick BMW boxer

JoLo - Drove his freakin Subaru instead of riding

LazyEye - Ducati SuperSport

Night Shot of the pond next to our cabin. You can see the haze coming east over the mountains.

By morning the smoke from the cascades and south-central fires had caught up with us. Several of the riders had to head home for other obligations (Jackal, Senator, JoLo) so only five of us proceeded on route east.

Just outside of Summer Lake the temperature dropped ten degrees and the smoke from the Paisley fire blotted out the sun. Once again I was questioning my choice to wear mesh gear. The forecast had called for sunny/hot conditions and here I was in chilly darkness. We were lucky to get past Paisley before they started evacuating it. By Lakeview we were in the sun again and had a few minutes to kill sitting in construction traffic.

At Lakeview Danielle had to make a minor repair to her bike (bolts come loose) at the local hardware store. While there one of the store workers came out and talked bikes, and showed us his 2020 Hayabusa. Small world when you're a bike guy.

After Lakeview I set the pace through the mountains. This was getting into the fast section. Danielle and I stopped for lunch in Adel while everyone else got a little ahead. The Adel general store had many examples of top notch taxidermy on display.

Past Adel is the emptiness of Nevada and South Eastern Oregon. It was also the last chance to see blue sky before the smoke caught up to us that night.

Out there in the empty quarter I made several personal land speed record attempts to see what the Ducati Supersport can do. I'm pleased to say it will go all the way to redline in sixth gear although doing so with a tank bag means I can't tuck behind the tiny windscreen and I get a lot of helmet shake.

We caught up to the group in Fields, Oregon. Our group stayed in the multi-bedroom ranch house. I like Fields, its quiet. The Fields Station closes at 6 so if you arrive running on empty and expect gas, you're out of luck. Don Quixote shared the schadenfreude feeling of watching out of town people panicking realizing that there isn't a gas station that's open in either direction for 80+ miles and that the motel rooms are all booked. Over night the smoke caught up with us and we awoke to haze and gloom.

Fields Station serves a very nice breakfast which is more than I can eat. If I was a proper working person like a ranch worker or some such it would be the cornerstone of a long day of work, but alas I'm just a scrawny motorcycle rider.

Just over the hill from Fields the temperature started dropping and we made a very quick and chilly run into Burns for fuel and regroup. We stopped again at Seneca to discuss routes. ODOT had done a lot of shoddy work in this area and the chip seal was still shedding chips and slick feeling. This is the kind of thing where you get hit with rock chips from the riders/vehicles in front of you, the whole while feeling like you're losing grip.

Three Finger Jim stayed on the main roads while we went east on a Forest Service road. The FS road was more interesting than main highway although the pavement was bumpy and gravelly at times. I had a few butt puckering moments but overall NF16/62 was a nice alternative to main highway.

We went as far east as Unity to get fuel then doubled back to Hereford/Hwy 245/Dooley Mountain. I should note that a few places out in true-rural areas have gas pumps that are "on your honor". Fill up, then go into the general store to pay.

We stopped for a break before heading up the mountain. While stopped we saw a Triumph rider that we later found out was from a rally that was staying in Baker. Dooley mountain is a fun twisty road that's "ruined" by too much gravel in the corners. Oh well. Still had fun and didn't crash.

The classic cars and idiots with loud exhausts were cruising main street in Baker as we had dinner. Beans, Double D, and myself went to a fancy restaurant for desert afterwards and to bring some class to the joint. "no I don't have a reservation, yes I'm wearing athletic clothes and my hair is uncombed.".

In the morning it was COLD. Between the smoke and the normal Eastern Oregon overnight low, we decided to hang out for a bit before leaving. In the interim I talked to one of our motel neighbors who had evacuated from the Holiday Farm fire. Although her family's house still stood, everything else was gone and she didn't expect to be able to go back. With that reminder of what lay ahead we set off.

Most of the group had gone different directions from Baker. Double D and I backtracked to Highway 26, and then up into the Fossil area. The farther west we got the worse the smoke got.

At Prairie City my bike rolled over 5000 miles. Considering I bought it a month ago with 1100 on it that's a milestone. I texted my dad about it and he said to stop riding it because it was depreciating.

Near Fossil we saw the Triumph rally again as they headed North. We headed west on 218.

They chip sealed 218 this year and the pavement is not good. Still the Fossil run is fun.

Once on 97 the fun kind of ends for a while although with the dense smoke there was lighter traffic which was nice. In the mountains heading home the temperature again dropped badly.

Once we broke free of the last of the traffic our run down the hill and into Sweet Home was fast and uneventful. I was shivering by the time I got home. My gear and bike are covered in ash, dust, road grime, and bugs.

Total mileage for the trip: 1109

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?