To: nedod@linus.mitre.org
Subject: a weekend of ... riding
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 00:48:56 -0500
From: gayathri <gayathri>


So, I was supposed to (obPecker thread) finally go take a pistol class
at a local range to learn to actually shoot one. But.. the week had
been bad. Really bad. I decided that possibly being around weapons was
a bad idea, and anyway, my Friend and Riding Buddy Russ said:

"Ride is tomorrow morning...meeting in Hemet at 9:30AM at the corner of hwy
74 and State St. Hwy 74 is the main drag down the middle of town."

(Then he emailed me saying he was making Round Pancakes and organic
coffee for breakfast if I could be at his house at 7:30 am...)

One of the local riders said:
"don't wait up for me...:-) need to catch up on my sleep before I unleash 
the incredible Hooligan that I am this weekend (zzzZZZzzz)."

SLEEP? sleep is for the weak... after getting home completely tanked
from HarryO's at 2 am -- one of the LaBikers, Sammy plays in a band,
Echo Love Chamber and a bunch of us went to see him play -- ok, I was
merely buzzed and and completely enthralled with a certain Birthday
Boy's dance moves, the alarm clock woke me up at a quarter to 6 and I
fell into the shower. You know, I dont even get up this early on
WEEKDAYS...

	No way the squidboy was getting out of bed, so I left him all
tucked in with the kitties to keep him company and dressed warmly and
headed out to the lure of  Round Pancakes and organic coffee.

Didnt dress warmly enough. And the fog was killer -- couldnt see past
30 feet in front of me. Made it interesting to try and see the
EXITs...  It was a whopping 50 degrees.

Anywhoo, I'm not really sure where the heck I was (sleepies were
getting to me) but I think we made it to Julian and had lunch
somewhere it was warm and sunny. By the end of the day, the clouds
were rolling in, and the last 110 miles were as the sun was setting,
and involved getting stuck on the 60 freeway in the dark in
traffic. (yuck. good thing it didnt start raining 'til later. )

Fog over Ortega Highway was innereesting too, really narrowed the
focus of the ride, and made it quiet -- its easier to be in my head. I
was thinking about reading some of the reports from the 24 hour at
Willow Springs, how the guys got faster and smoother at night when
they had less distracting them (like being able to see beyond their
braking and apex markers).

Russ had made an error in remembering where a certain Gas station was,
so we met Mark U and Denise, Mark Drake and some guy named Bob (rob?)
in a parking lot. No Lorraine or Steve Alderot, so we start to head
off the wherever I was going that day, except we see Lorraine and
Steve A coming towards us. Turn into a gas station (which happens to
be the one that Russ had meant...) and 'begin' the ride -- I believe
at this point I had done over 150 miles..

	I didnt care what roads we were on, just that they were twisty
and some had sweepers, and some had tight stuff. Most of these roads
were surprisingly clean -- including Engineers, which I was told was
the cleanest anyone has ever seen it. Engineers is a tight, nasty
windy little road about a lane and a half wide, high center crown, off
camber... roads like this used to make me cry. Now I just wish my
wrists woundt hurt so much at the end of 'em.  

A bunch of roads would open up into vistas of wide open valleys and
I'd wonder what it must have looked like to settlers come across some
of these hills at their whopping 10 miles per day... best part was
realizing that I wasnt the fastest there, but I wasnt the slowest
either. This is coming along more and more often, realizing I could go
faster, but that the speed i'm at is fine for now. 

Things I still need to work on: reading the road -- figuring out
camber and off camber, as well as elevation changes and which way the
road is gonna go. Some roads have a pattern, and the terrain also
gives clues. I'm onot very FAST about reading the road, so often that
causes me to slow down more then I'd like..

I really needed a day like this. Tho it stayed chilly, and I really
wish I had gotten the electric vest tail installed on the Triumph, I
never really got too cold. The conversation and company certainly made
for a great day. 

470 miles all told, I think. (270is was highway, but broken up into
segments of no more then 100 miles of highway at any time. )

Then came sunday... 

Mark and Denise wanted to meet and do a run up GMR on their way home
to Bakersfield. Mark Ueeck rides a BMW R1100RT with his dog Shadow, a
Yorkshire Terrier who's got more miles riding a motorcycle then I
do...

Denise rides a vfr800, but she's looking to trade it in on a cbr600f4.

Because of the rain, Shadow got left at Steve Carr's place -- steve
supposedly rides a bmw k1200rs, tho we'd never seen it. Steve is also
a local Glendora police officer.  Squidboy and I rode out, and met
our friend Cecil on his TL1000s, and another LaBiker, Marc Siry on his
new SV650. (check out labiker.com for our mug shots). 

Cecil wanted to apply for the job as the AMA privateer mechanic but
said his wife Liz nixed the idea. :) now I'm trying to convince him to
come out and be our pit crew. 

Our leisurely breakfast was followed by a quick trek to Steve Carr's
place to say hi to Shadow and bye to Mark and Denise who decided that
caution was the better part of valour and headed back to
Bakersfield. (I hope the weather was still non-rainy for them!)

The neat thing was tho it was a bit chilly, the _rain_ never really
materialized. We gassed up and headed up 39 -- mucho traffic on this
section of road. there was a helicopter either watching the ORV's in
the mud/river or in the middle of some rescue, and LOTs of people
watching from the hills. For some reason i saw a number of police
who'd pulled cages over. Noticed Cecil shortshifting as we passed a
couple of the cop cars... but except for that I got to listen to his
awesome pipes all the way to GMR.

Nice thing about it being a small group, we didnt end up stopping too
often and waiting too long (well, they had to wait for me :) Weird
feeling being the slowest in the pack too... Both Cecil and squidboy
have race experience, and MarcSiry has a bunch of track classes under
his belt... 

Last section of GMR, i come around a corner to see three penguins
walking abreast in the on coming lane. No, I'm serious. 3 nuns in full
nun outfits. The boyz think they were walking to a parked minivan... 

GMR was reasonably clean -- only one turn with sand, and you could see
it far in advance. The road gods were smiling at me this weekend!

 Cecil also is in escrow for a house local to this, my favorite road,
and I've warned him that he and Liz will become favorite people as we
come off the moutain.

Gayathri (really, off to bed now...)
>--------------------------------------------------------------
 gayathri@world.std.com          Calamari Club #002, WSMC #158
 '88 FZR400 ('gurlzbike')        '98 T595 Daytona, "huckleberry"

  	"It is much easier to be critical than to be correct."  
			- Benjamin Disraeli

------- End of Blind-Carbon-Copy

Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 01:45:03 -0500
From: Russ Madsen <chairman_1@compuserve.com>
Subject: Re: LABiker: Re: Moto Nomad Looking For Trouble

>> 470 miles all told, I think. <<

Sounds about right. I arrived at the office at just about exactly 400.

Spherical pancakes, Danish. Ebelskivers. They're cooked in a funny looking
pan with pancake batter. When they're half finished the get turned over and
the other half fills in. Danish Soul Food!

The way we do them is dip first in butter, then sugar and munch away. In
Solvang they serve 'em with strawberry jam, blech. I like cooking berries
in the middle but NOT strawberries. Boysenberries, blackberries,
blueberries are all good. Yum...

After eating we headed out in what seemed good time to reach the meeting
intersection OK and opted for Ortega Hwy. Hmmph. In retrospect, it was
gonna make us late. The fog on Ortega slowed things down too.

Eventually we got over to Hemet, conoitered the fact that there was NO gas
station at the appointed intersection and set out with apologies to
Lorraine and Steve and Bob for having to wait so long.

By now we were nine bikes strong. Mark R11RT, Denise VFR800, Rob on Shadow,
Mark VFR750, Lorraine CBR600F3, Steve VFR800, and moi peddling along in the
back on the S-hawk. At one point a guy on GSXR came roaring up on my tail
so I waved him by. Turned out he was either a newbie to riding or the bike.
It was a trip down memory lane to see some of my many faux pas's from the
past enacted just ahead for a few miles 'til we parted ways.

This was on Sage Rd, which runs south out of Hemet as State St. Wilson
Valley Rd is a parallel I've been on before, it was cool to run Sage for
the first time, and C-L-E-A-N. What a surprise. Both these roads are paved
over terrain of decomposing granite (DG in the sand & gravel biz). Any
precip and the sand washes out on the road from all sorts of angles. Bob
noted even the most consistently sandy corner was clean. Makes me think
about the P-ville ride pin from last year, Lorraine.

>From here we moseyed on Hwy 79 over to S2 then S22 into Anza Borrego 'cuz
Mark was curious to see the area. S22 going down into Borrego is a very fun
road. More old memories. Uphill on this road riding the Misty Bike (dark
blue '81 CB750C), I was once caught and passed by a beat up old Toyota
pickup. Gak. The road seemed so much straighter now, I was younger than
that then (?). Anyway, a fun set of snaking switchbacks to lunch.

I was reminded of an article in Out West where the author stopped in
Winnemucca for breakfast. Wise to the cholesterol count he ordered egg
substitutes, scrambled. They came drenched with butter.

I didn't think to ask if the fish in the fish tacos was fried, it was. And
they were great. Good 'ol vitamin "g" (as in grease) (g). There was a very
cool coleslaw salsa on them too.

We learned a buddy of Mark's had the bet of the year going...money on the
Rams to win the S-bowl put down before the season opener at 200 to 1
odds!!! Yeeps! I can imagine all sorts of buying spree notions over that
call.

Our route was south out of Borrego and brought more memories. There was a
Long Beach Bar Assn convention there about 10 years ago and we had arranged
to share a time-share "unit" with another family. Only she went into labor
and they had to turn back. The place turned out to have about 6 bedrooms,
three full living area rooms, a big pool with lion's heads spitting water,
bird fountains, two patios (front and back). Just an all around extra cool
digs. Fun weekend and it was a turn off from S-3. 

Down the road we hooked up with Hwy 78 west and up Banner Grade. This is a
fun section and sets the stage for Engineers. This road is usually fraught
with all sorts of cheesy terrain modifications like leaves, mud, sand, pine
cones, ruts, roots, oncoming Chevies on your side of the road. There's no
center stripe, it's too narrow.

It too was clean as a whistle (comparatively speaking) and we got over it
in a goodly quick pace without encountering any traffic to speak of at all.

Then it was a run down Hwy 79 to Santa Ysabel. This is a great road that is
NEVER any fun because it's the second most popular artery into Julian.
There's ALWAYS traffic. Not this time. Steve and Lorraine live less than 20
miles down the street and he said it was the only time he's ever done that
road at any speed all the way without one tourista. Yeehaw!

By now it was about 3PM and everyone had concerns about getting home.
Pppoooorrrr Steve. He couldn't talk even one person into doing Palomar, the
premier road of south California and we all passed! Made another apology to
Lorraine and Steve for being late in the AM and we all headed out.

Gayathri and I did Mesa Grande by ourselves as the others cut out about 15
travel minutes by staying on the main roads. I really enjoyed this section
a lot. Combo of uphill tight stuff followed by wide open pastures then
another batch of twisties.

Then we put up with falling shadows and mucho traffic the rest of the way
on Hwy 76 to I-15 and took our separate ways back.

I reached the office and started the project I had abandoned to do the
ride, got most of it done by 2AM, went back this morning at 8 or so and had
the final stuff on Jane's desk in time to save my ass from a week of
sitting in the hot seat.

Now to lay low as it's month end closing and opal newsletter time again.

A great 400 mile day with SUNNY skies after escaping the fog from the
coast, temps were certainly on the cool side until I PLUGGED IN MY VEST
(Gayathri)! Hook up yer dongle, you! (GGG)

- -Russ