Grublist Blog - Motorcycles

The Great CanyonChasers Fire of '05

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Thu, 06 Oct 2005 16:32:00 -0500

A while ago i embarked on a most epic and amazing adventure with some of my closest friends. Over 11 days we covered more than 3,500 miles on our motorcycles. We saw 6 states and 2 countries. We rode amazing roads, had experiences that ran the entire gamit of emotion from pure bliss to frustration and fear. It was a trip that can never be duplicated, including in writing. What you'll find here are simply some small bits i can put into words. If i really had to tell you the whole story it would take a month... and we were only gone 11 days!
Continue reading "The Great CanyonChasers Fire of '05"

Sydney Wrap Up

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 05:10:35 -0500

So here's the recap of my rides in Sydney (with pics here)
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Hiring a bike in Sydney

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:14:00 -0500

I just got into my hotel in Penrith, Australia after an interesting evening. Here's how my day broke down:
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canyonchasers hit Sydney

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 04:38:32 -0500

Man, how i love selecting the "motorcycles" category with the "travel" category for posts. whenever you put those 2 together you have the opprotunity for greatness. Hopefully this trip is no exception. I have just booked myself a F650GS from ozmoto (they didn't have any more VFR 800's) for the weekend. I'm gonna jump on a train tomorrow after class and get rockin on my weekend. It's gonna be expensive on my shoestring budget, but man it should be epic. No matter what, i'm gonna have a story that can start with "...so yeah, when i was motorcycling thru the blue mountains in australia...", and not a lot of kids from ohio can say that.

Suddenly, Sydney is more exciting The blue mountains wait. so does whatever adventure i manage to get myself into. thank god it's an adventure bike, eh?

productivity for a change

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Wed, 18 May 2005 07:35:39 -0500

Things in slc this week were nice. I got a TON of stuff done, but there's more to do before i can head out for southern utah for a weekend riding with my favorite people in the world.

The done list:
-built the rack
-moved the rear lights/signals/reflectors to accomodate the rack
-cleaned the garage
-started painting my toolboxes (thanks dave for the home of all my tools)
-started painting the pixie hat / front cowl for the speed triple
-finished custom-bending my handlebars
-reattached my mirrors
-blew up my camera trying to get it to auto-fire the shutter while riding
-bought a cordless "cold-heat" soldering iron. it RULES!
-broke the switch for my heated grips trying to trim it down so it wasn't so tall
-went for a ride with Terry, convinced him to sell his VTX1800 and get a speed triple

i know you're asking yourself, "mike, how on earth did you get all that done this weekend?!" crystal and jill went to vegas for the weekend before jill leaves for portland, so i had no distractions.

Things that still need done:
-prime/paint the rack
-paint the pixie hat
-get my Fuel Injection remapped
-test pack to make sure everything fits and crystal will be comfy
-replace the switch for the grips
-buy a camera?

there's a ton of other, little things that need done, but those are the only major ones... and then i'll have 3 days of pure bliss, 1 corner at a time. after the schedule i've been working i need it.

welder!!!

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Mon, 09 May 2005 07:39:53 -0500

Yet another fun packed weekend in SLC. I decided all of my hardware hacking had hit a glass ceiling... so i ran out and bought a welder. Now i can cut, grind, polish AND weld. with my new toy, i started building a rack for the daytona so we can fit all the gear for the sport touring trips we have coming up. So far, it's coming together great, but my 1.0 design is going to need some tweaking so that it will actually carry a load. Mainly i just need some down-tube support, which should tie into the passenger footpegs and exhaust mount bracket just about right. And while it may not be the prettiest piece of luggage you've ever seen, it sure is gonna be tough and comfortable to ride with.

Bonnie and Lissa threw a party @ crystal's on sat nite to celebrate graduation and bonnie's birthday. it was a good time. Crystal managed to run over my Canon a40 digicam on the way home tho, but the thing still works! granted the screen is half shredded, but it'll be perfect for the upcomming camera mod for the motorcycle. Now i don't need to worry so much bout breaking it.

Went on a good lil ride with matt this morning. Bounced up to Mirror Lake Highway till the road ended at bridge construction. I rode the CBR back and matt rode the triumph. I REALLY LOVED that CBR, i hope i can find myself one sometime soon. Maybe with my next bonus for all this hard work i've been doing.

Onward i go to Houston. Teaching a CMS class this week. Should be nice not to have somebody babysitting me on the whole thing. When i get back i gotta finish up on the rack and order some new tires. maybe even some saddle bags if i'm really feeling adventurous, tho i think the new rack will allow me to put the wheelie bag up there as well as the tent, sleeping bags, etc. Psh, may even have some room for some of the stuff i mock dave/kris/eric/dawn about, like an air matress.

Motorbike season started

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Sun, 17 Apr 2005 12:29:23 -0500

So i managed to start the riding off season off right. BMW/Triumph of Salt Lake had their open house yesterday, so the canyonchasers crew (Eric/Dawn, Dave, Matt, Scott/Makenzie and myself) bounced up there to check it out. Scott won a jacket and gloves for his daughter, Makenzie. Dave won a magnetic tank bag for the mighty hawk.

After the drawing, we all jumped on the bikes and headed into Morgan to check out the section of east canyon that was open. Matt impressed everyone with his riding and again kicked my butt and made it look effortless.

We managed to get about 200 miles of riding in and stopped at a coffee shop in Kimball Junction. I ran into CJ, who was my ultimate boss @ PF Chang's. We caught up and then he left us to hang out and sip our coffees.

Matt had a damn great time, but he had to head home. the rest of us followed shortly thereafter and grabbed a bite at Smoky Mountain Pizza in South Salt Lake. Had a great time. I love my friends. I can't wait to head to Torrey.

All in all, it's a great start to the season. And the changes to my bike make me very excited for the sport touring season to start

grips and block done!

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 19:06:13 -0500

so the grips are installed, and the distribution block is done. just buttoned the fairings back up and washed it. waiting for dave to get here so we can work on the Utah Rider Ed site; finish tweaking the gallery headers and footers, and make a blog template for it. should be cool. Pics to come for the grips and distribution block on CC.

A little spring sprucing

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 01:38:57 -0500

so i've been tossing together some changes on the bike for spring this week:

Heated Grips
Installed the 3 way switch in the turn signal housing, chopped all the wires down, installed the power leads inside the existing cable housing. looks pretty swank, pics to come on canyonchasers.

Pixie Hat
Built a set of brackets. Need to refabricate the left one to hit both screw holes instead of just one, then punch a mounting hole and paint the beast. never painted anything before. should be interesting

Distribution Block
Also whipped up a little 6 slot + / 6 slot - distribution block to power all my farkles. it lives in front of my gas tank and is powered by a 30A relay and a fuse. This thing will prove to be invaluable later for the vest, grips, gps, phone and coffee maker

random short update

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 20:24:24 -0600

so it's been quite a while, here's some of the stuff happenin in the world

-WTC went off smashingly
-loafing a lot
-Matt bought a 91 cbr 600
-finished the s3 conversion on the bike. it rides awesome
-massive root canal

there's a bunch more, but i don't really have the time or attention span to jot it all down

hardboots n sportbikes in 1 day

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:35:09 -0600

So i went got some turns in with Dave T at park city. Ran into Mark Gable and rode with him for a bit. Then i blasted home, got crystal and went down to Provo to meet up with Dave P for lunch. We went to this chinese buffet thing in provo. 6 bux for all you can eat chinese with sushi and some mongolian. It was way fun.

Went to Altiris to pick up my first paycheck. 1 day's pay. it's more than i made at PF Chang's for 2 weeks (not counting tips). Took me forever to get upstairs to find Claudette since i needed a visitor's pass.

Fri nite i went and picked up new handlebars for the triumph, and grip warmers. Went down to dave P's and started putting the new DS3 (daytona speed triple) together, but ran into a snag with the brake lines. Luckily dave had replaced the front brake lines on his s3 and had his originals lying around so he hooked me up. He traded me a brake lever bracket as well so i could mount my remote resivour for my front brake. He whipped me up a custom bracket for the resivour as well

It came out pretty damn amazing. it still needs a pixie hat and some other little tweaks, but it really is a blast to ride. i'm thinkin im going to either lower the forks in the yolks or replace the springs with the stock ones to get a better feeling.

Went for the "superbowl" ride on saturday... with a small detour. Eric, Scott and Scott's buddy Danny showed up at dave's. Scott had some bad gas from Maverick. He took his tank apart to drain it and broke a fuel fitting. Eric being the total stud that he is, he went to Auto Zone and found a compressor fitting and made a fuel fitting out of it with some cutting, some o rings and a lot of tallent.

The ride was nice, but cold. Eric got pulled over for excessive swerving, but no ticket i wish i had those grip warmers installed and maybe an electric vest, but that will be done soon enough. Just as soon as i get back from Detroit.

Guns and naked bikes

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 15:31:39 -0500

So i got up this morning and found the dryer repair guy at the house. we have a working dryer once again. woot

but the repair guy was in the driveway, behind brooke, who was behind my car. so i jumped on the bike (all naked, no plastic no mirrors) with the pistols n ammo and blasted down to Jared Bern's to hit up the gun club.

We went up to Holliday gun club and popped off some rounds with his HK 9mm USP, which was badass... then went back to his condo for a beer and to clean his 9mm.

After that it was a quick ride up BCC as a detour home. I love the way the bike rides without the plastics on it! then some work on the site for Dave T. I went and got Crystal and had dinner @ Terry's, and we all chilled and had some beers.

Went back to crystal's and had a chill evening watching movies (son in law and Signs) and then passed out.

I need to get all the plastics back on the bike so i can get it registered... and i need to decide if i'm really gonna s3 my bike so i can sell all the plastics.

tickets, snowboards and randomness

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 00:06:54 -0500

so i went yesterday and talked to the proscecutor about my ticket. Plea in Abaeyance is the bomb. i pay my ticket slowly, stay out of trouble, and my insurance company will never know i was busted. yay.

so i went to REI to poke around after mediation and found a Burton Clash 153 for $160. I called Crystal and she came to check it out. She says it doesn't match her gear, and she wants a K2. I promise to dump her if she buys a K2.

Then we went to Salty Peaks (she almost bought a 04 shawn white), Milo's, and Garts. Garts had the K2 she liked, so we checked it out. I thought it was a bit stiff and goofy lookin, but had the same specs as the Clash... and the clashes they had there were like $250. So back we go to REI.

She bought the Clash @ REI, then got a Burton jacket at a screamin deal. A quick jaunt home to make sure her ride bindings would fit on that board and then i was off for home.

When i got home, i realized i was missin a serious chunk of cash. I called Garts Sports and believe it or not, they actually FOUND my cash and HELD it for me! Score one for honest mormons or something.

So i went to Garts today and grabbed my $$$$ between shifts at the chang and dropped off some chicken lettuce wraps as a thank you. Then to Terry's to grab his .45 ACP and his .32 so we could go to the range tomorrow, and then back to work for my first expo shift.

Expo was fun. Weird and short, but fun I look forward to doing it on Fri nites for like 6 hrs. Dave trained his first nite on takeout tonite, i think he did pretty well.

Went out with the canyonchasers after work after a stop at home to pull the nose cap off my bike and see it's true naked beauty. Was supposed to meet crystal but her bro has some sort of infection and needed a hospital run. As of this moment she's still there dealin with it, so i hope all is well.

Now to sort mp3's and go to bed

not horrid

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:00:08 -0500

so i got up late and nothing horrible happened today! first time in a while. Washed the bike, took all the plastic off to see what it'd look like as a speed triple, but couldn't get the nose fairing off. went into work early because they fired some new runner, then 2 hostesses called in sick or quit. So i went in 5 to close, and got a kickass compliment from this girl Jessie who had been in once before. I gave em a beef n broccili and they told Chad they absolutely loved me. They made Dave Mc a trainer tonite too. that is gonna be badass. we're gonna run the show

Came home, got an email about some 1099 work from someone who knows Jason. I'm dealing with the fact that i have no mp3's, so i've been restarting my collection. it's gonna be slow going for a while.

now time to get changed and bounce over to crystal's. Double tomorrow and sun cuz they canned the new runner... but hopefully money for me

Fucktons of updates

nospam@example.com (Mike) — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 01:43:43 -0500

ok so i haven't updated this thing in quite a while. the serendipity software updater broke, and as such i haven't even had a working blog. here's the updates i can remember.

-got my first speeding ticket. 91 in a 65. cop wrote it up for that. eric n dawn live near him.
-promotion at pf chang's. i'm now expo/take-out/trainer
-somebody stole around 300 bux from my bedroom
-i have a girlfriend (gasp). her name is Crystal. she's rad.
-blew up my 120 gig ibm deathstar disk with all my music, files, etc on it
-grandma zone is in the hospital for an infection
-brad says he's moving out the 1st of November
-i've had many visitors (joe, mary, katy with joe again, my dad, kevan and evan)

now that i've got the new linux box running and this blog operational again, i'm gonna try to be better about writing in it... cuz reading some of these posts just in the year it's been going, i've already seen a lot of memories i'd like to look back on in 10 years.