Rain

Rain. Is.

It's sort of an existentialist thing here in Seattle. Everybody who's spent more than a year or two here knows that winter runs from September 15 to July 5th here. On any particular day during that nearly 10 month season, you can expect to be doused with some form of liquid precipitation with little more than an hour's notice of impending cloud-doom.

Today though, I got a rare treat. We rarely have thunderstorms here, and they usually happen when it's dark out. Not sure why, it just is. Just like the rain.

Anyhow, while cruising along on a disturbingly empty freeway, I got to enjoy a 5-mile pararoma of the side of a thunderstorm. Such beautiful things with such destructive potential. I was even far enough away from it to be able to see the curtains of precipitation falling from the wall cloud as the formation rolled across the Green River Valley.

And thankfully, no lightning or funnel clouds either (baby tornadoes). Homey don't do tornadoes. That's for damn sure.

There's a reason my family moved my ass out of the Midwest to Upstate New York. And yes, I lived right in the middle of what weather-critters call "Tornado Alley". Talk about being nervous six months out of the year.

Uneven Pad Wear

Note: I've hung the keys up for the day. I'm not going anywhere right now.

I've noticed that my DL650 is having a significant case of uneven brake pad wear. The clutch-side pads are way thinner than the other side, and nearly down to the wear bars and squeaking enough when applied to irritate me somewhat.

I'm going to do this repair myself, but I was wondering if anyone here had suggestions for things I should do during the installation process to prvent this from recurring.

Yes, I shined a flashlight in along the rotor and they're definitely much thinner. It's not coming out of the the end of that very nice bottle of Woodford's Reserve that's making eyes at me.

Oh yeah, and as my friends and overseas readers are fully aware: Just like Beer, Coca-cola bottled outside of the US beats the pants out of the US domestic. The real cane sugar Coke recipe still used overseas tastes SO much better when you add a healthy dose of rum or whiskey.

Woohoo! Washington 123 Reopens!

Most excellent!

As I'm sure most locals recall during last winter's record-setting rainy season, much of this highway fell into a canyon. Washington DOT has apparently rebuilt this road already, and with a bit of luck it will be open to traffic on the 28th of September.

Obviously, that's very late in the year for motorcycling up around the 5000' foot mark, but if we have a mild winter then there we'll be able to do loops around Mt. Rainier once again by late spring.

WSDOT Press Release

Oyster Run 2007

Well, like 30000 other motorcyclists in the Northwest, I got back from the Oyster Run this evening. A nice little rally in downtown Anacortes, Washington with several tens of thousands of our closest friends.One thing I've discovered is that I have a profound distaste for people who are out of practice but own $20,000 motorcycles and several thousand dollars in gear. I think a couple squids and lifestyle riders got object lessons in riding today.

One thing that I practice is The Pace, as set forth by Nick Ienatsch.

It means riding smooth. There's no need to mash the throttle open on the straights. It means keeping one's speed sane in the corners and in between.

One thing it does do is embarrass the living hell out of the clueless. Why? Because if you're running The Pace, you don't use the brakes. You don't slow down unless you're forced to by outside conditions. It definitely means that I leave noobs way behind me as I can confidently carry 20mph more through the corners than the riders trailing behind me because I don't have to grab a handful of front brake before every corner entry.

Frankly, if I had one little request? I'd ask that some of those folks spend even 1% of their annual bike budget on training. When you figure the average Harley starts at $15,000, 1% would easily pay for the basic starter riding course.

Here's a few photos from my explorations:

Don't Do the Puyallup...

Oy. I'm going to be so glad when the Puyallup fair is over. The roads down past my place have been horrendous with all sorts of idiots who don't normally drive through here going down to that damn fairgrounds.

For the readers (99%) who don't live in the Seattle area, the Puyallup Fair is one of the biggest events of its type in the state. Probably bigger than the State Fair really, since there's better entertainment at the Puyallup.

With all that entertainment comes ridiculous amounts of traffic that is all trying to fit onto the same roads that the South King County and Northern Pierce commuters are also trying to get home on. Horrid backups really, took me an extra 45 minutes today for what's normally a 45-60 minute commute.

Just say NO! Don't do the Puyallup. Stay home.

Grrr.

Close Calls

Yeah, I had one of those on Wednesday. The type of close call where you ass puckers so hard that the seat fabric gives you a wedgie.

I was cruising along on a busy stretch of freeway which is rather surprisingly lightly-populated with cars for 8:30 in the morning. This freeway is I-405 in the suburban Seattle area in a stretch of the highway known as "The S-curves". Fitting name really, as they're fairly sharp curves. Even though the speed limit is 60mph, most drivers can only manage about 50mph through this section, and the jersey barriers along the left side make for limited sight distances as well.

Now, I never take this stretch of road at fill tilt in the morning. Not even close to prudent as my tale of woe illustrates. This section of freeway has 3 lanes of traffic and the commuter lane always passes about a mile of stopped traffic before stopping right before an on-ramp.

Not to belabor this any further, but I nearly got a 1993 Mercury Grand Marquis enema this fine morning. The land yacht came around that uphill left-hander doing about 85mph without much forethought. Obviously.

Only some very timely evasive lane changes into a gap between a pair of SUVs prevented me from becoming a fashionable red Grand Marquis hood ornament. He stopped before smacking into the van that had been 50 feet in front me, but he would have hit me and continued right on up to about where my front axle would have been.

While lanesplitting is not legal in Washington, you better believe I zipped on about 6 cars up before that scary MoFo could make me the starring role in an aluminum sandwich.

Sweet Dreams

Like most normal folks, I dream about the usual things. I rarely have the more pleasant kind due to my rather stressful job at Big Blue.

Last night, I found myself dreaming about the route I'm planning to take during my forthcoming "Oyster Run" ride up in Anacortes, Washington in a couple weekends. No crashing in this dream, although it did involve some riding in the rain and fog. Neither of which of course are unexpected as I do live in the Pacific NorthWet. Hopefully the real weather stays nice though, and I hope to be able to bring you folks some nice pictures of Mount Baker and the surrounding environs.

As far as commuting, I must say that I love my new jacket liner. In this weather where it's still around 50F in the mornings, I have the Heat-Troller just barely turned on and I get plenty of warmth. I'm sure once Thanksgiving and the rest of winter rolls around that I'll be using more of the upper registers though.

I think I mentioned before that The Oyster Run is the real impetus behind this purchase. It seems every year that when I leave at 5:30am to be in time for breakfast that I am always extremely cold. Historically, late September and October seem to be good for heavy fog in the morning with the clouds clearing in the afternoon. I see no reason that our rather chilly early autumn will be any different, especially since yesterday was already quite thick in the morning.

And yes, I know, I'm still behind on posting my photos. Once I get the disposable camera finished up and developed I'll scan them in and post them.

Autumn Warmth

Getting to be that time again. Mornings are chilly (40-45 F) and frequently cloudy. Since I'll probably be spending yet another winter commuting to the office via motorcycle, I'm finally going to spring for a heated jacket liner.

I like the Warm'n'Safe liners quite a bit, as they're stretchy and not overly quilted. The controllers offered by that company are some of the best as well, since it doesn't waste any precious electrons from my Wee's somewhat anemic electrical output.

We'll see what size my fat carcass fits into, eh?

Brother in Spirit, Perhaps

More commuting amusement:

I'm pottering up I-405 like all the other ijits on the road at about 15mph (22k/h?) and I see a splash of red in an odd place. I know red is Honda's color and expect to see their dirtbikes in red, but usually not 8' off the ground.

As I approach, I get a big silly grin. This is a real truck driver.

You see, most truck drivers have a little bicycle or a small and very lightweight 125 or 250 dirtbike for zipping between their truck and the far end of the truck stops (they're HUGE out here). Not for this guy, no. He's got a By-God, hug your mother and then hold on tight XR650L strapped to the forward bulkhead of his flatbed trailer.

Not only is he not gonna have to walk the quarter-mile from the end of the truck stop parking lot to the diner, he'll be able to tear down the line of parked rumbling big-rigs and and do a mean rear-end slide _right_ in front of the door.

Now wouldn't you rather read that than hear me bitch about the morons with their 130db "Loud Pipes Save Lives" Harleys with no exhaust baffles? Yeah, I thought so too.