my neighbors think i'm strange.
I have not figured out how to talk to non-bike people about my bike. For
example, my neighbors. We have a nice, "say hello when we see each other"
relationship, though I couldn't tell you their names. They know I have a bike,
aside from the obvious reason that there's one parked in my parking spot,
because they helped me get the Nighthawk out of the flower bed that one time. So anyway, on Saturday,
I was out washing the SVS, and the male neighbor came out to his car and said
hi. "That a new bike?" he asked. He told me that a buddy of his has "one
just like it, but silver," which is probably a Bandit
1200S. While he was telling me this, his wife came out and walked over
to us. She, too, asked if it was a new bike, I replied that it was, and then
we all just stood there looking at each other and the SVS. "It's a nice bike,"
I said. They nodded. "It's red." They nodded again. Finally, they went
away. I felt like the biggest doofus ever. I mean, what was I supposed to
say? "Yeah, it's really nice, I like the V-twin engine a lot. I mean, sure,
it gets some vibration on the high end, but the torque off the line is
really nice, and it really flicks in the twisties!"? I'm sure I could have
come up with something better than "it's red!" though. They probably
noticed that.
insurance companies make no sense.
So, I called Progressive the other day, to add comprehensive/collision coverage
to the SVS (*not* an invitation to come steal my bike), and to reduce the
coverage on the Nighthawk to state minimum, since I'm not riding it. The
Progressive guy parsed the collision/comprehensive part just fine, but then
informed me that if I lowered the Nighthawk coverage to state minimum, then
the SVS's coverage would be lowered as well. This confused me on two levels:
first, I don't see why I can't have two different bikes with different
coverage, and second, I had originally asked for the SVS to have state
minimum, so I'm not sure what it had that could then be lowered. I guess that
when I asked for state minimum on the SVS, they'd given me the minimum that
would still equal the coverage on the Nighthawk. Now, to me and my
admittedly simple reasoning, this is bizarre. But I said OK, and now have
comprehensive/collision on the SVS, cheaper overall rates, and the AMA
discount. Since this is all lower than my previous rates, I'll be getting
a check from Progressive in the mail. This is always a good thing.
i suppose it was bound to happen eventually.
I was a dumb idiot tonight and dropped the SVS in a parking lot. Basically,
the lot in question formed an L-shape in front of and next to a restaurant
that I was going to, and I thought the part on the side of the building was
wide enough to turn around in. When I realized it wasn't, I should have
killed the engine, and hopped my short ass off the bike to push it around.
Instead, I stayed on and tried to half-walk, half-drive the bike around this
too-tight U-turn. This was fine until I stepped over a dip in the asphault,
lost my footing, and watched in slow-motion horror as I lost my balance and
the SVS tipped over onto its left-hand side. It laid there gurgling for a
minute until I hit the kill switch and picked it back up (thank god for
light bikes). The worst damage is a bent clutch lever (which isn't really
even that bent) and some scratches on the end of the left handlebar and
turn signal. I'm sure they're small enough as to be unnoticeable unless
you're looking. I have to call the Suzuki dealer by my house for a new
oil filter this week anyway; I'll just order a new clutch lever while
I'm at it. I think that Peter and I single-handedly keep the clutch lever
people in business. ;)
I'm trying to be pretty Zen about dropping the bike, and for the most part, I'm succeeding, but it's still a bummer. I don't think I'm a horrible rider or a bad person now or anything, but I really should have gotten off the bike to push it. 20/20 hindsight and all. Ah well, I suppose everyone goes down sometime, and I'd rather it be while I was tiptoeing it at about 2mph in a parking lot than at 85mph on the freeway. *shrug* I think the SVS had its feelings hurt, though, because it magically produced a weird scratch-looking mark on the gas tank tonight (i.e. it wasn't there when I looked over the bike in the lot, but I noticed it later when I left Apple). Upon more careful contemplation when I got home, I think it's just some sort of scuff mark (from what, though??) and will rub off, which I'll try in the daylight tomorrow, but it's just weird. I wonder what scuffed the tank?
bike trip pictures!
Peter and I did a nice ride this weekend. We started at my house, and rode to
a nearby Round Table for lunch, where we met a guy named Flynn who stopped
to chat with us after seeing our bikes (we were eating at an outside table).
He's a BMW rider, so we all talked for quite a while about BMWs and Hondas
and Suzukis and twins versus fours and various rides we liked. Of course,
he was a software nerd too, so we also talked for a while about computers and
our jobs and stuff. He was a pretty cool, and we all exchanged contact info,
so maybe we'll see him again sometime.
After lunch, we filled up our tanks and tires (my tire pressure was running a bit low), and headed for the freeway. We took Hwy 85 south to 280 north, the latter being a simply gorgeous stretch of gentle curving freeway along the foothills (and the San Andreas fault!). Nothing like riding 85mph (I mean 65mph, the safe and legal freeway speed) along a slightly winding road under a clear blue sky. So good. Anyway, we got off on Page Mill Road, and headed south into Los Altos Hills.
As anyone who's anyone in the south bay knows, Page Mill is *the* road for motorcycling. As you go south towards Skyline Boulevard, Page Mill goes from being curvy out in the open air, to being genuinely *twistie* amongst the trees as you go up the foothills, to opening out again and being mostly straight along the summit. My favorite is the beginning part, since it's curvy enough to be challenging, but not teeth-clenching like the twisties still are for me. :) I still have a hard time going up the twisties; it's hard for me not to freak out and brake before a curve, even when that curve is going uphill (and I really should be accelerating!). Peter has the opposite problem to a lesser extreme: he doesn't like braking before the curves as you have to do when descending. I'm totally fine with that part. ;)
Anyway, we stopped along Page Mill to rest and chat and take pictures a couple of times. Unfortunately, since we were ascending, we didn't have the glorious views of the entire bay at our disposal, but we still got some nice shots, and it was a beautiful afternoon. :) It was really warm out too, so it was nice to stop and take our jackets and gloves off, even if just for a couple of minutes.
Once we got to the summit of Page Mill, where it meets up with Skyline, we parked at the Russian Ridge nature preserve and took off our jackets and helmets and gloves. We left all our gear on the bikes and walked a short amount of a nearby trail; basically, enough to see a little pond and some trees and lots of tall grasses, and to goof around a bit before heading back to the bikes. We were the only motorcyclists in the parking lot while we were there (though there was a group of cruisers leaving as we arrived), but we could see/hear a lot of sportsbikes racing along Skyline next to/above us. I remember one guy in particular, we could hear from a mile away, and we both turned and sort of laughed as he passed; I don't know if he was never rolling off the throttle to shift or what, but his bike sounded like "rrrrrrRRRRRRRR!R!R!R!R!R!R!R!RR!R *pause* rrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRR!R!R!R!R!R!RR!R!" I suppose he was just trying to go as fast as possible and play around, but he really sounded like he had no idea how to shift. Ah well, god, it's not like I do any better in those roads. ;)
The way down was fairly interesting; while we were at the summit, I had apologized to Peter for riding so slowly up the twisties. Someone must have thought that too good an opportunity to pass up, since we'd gotten no more than a mile or so before a pickup truck carrying a huge trailor of Something Heavy appeared before us. This truck passed turnouts, driveways, etc, just moseying on down the hill at around 12mph, apparantly oblivious to the two motorcycles immediately behind it and the growing number of cars queueing up behind us. It was really impressive; every time it went around a left-hand hairpin (of which there are more than a couple), huge sparks would dance out from under the trailer, and any cars who happened to be coming *up* the hill at that point would get a wide-eyed expression like they were staring down god. The truck finally pulled over to let us pass, about 5 miles later, and we really were pretty happy to be rid of it.
We turned onto Moody Road east from Page Mill, which is the same road we took on our New Year's Day ride. We passed the same big orange house. :) Moody Road is a nice little secluded partially-residential area with lots of huge trees shading the 2-lane road, and lots of farms and open land on the side of the road. We both saw a deer on our last trip on Moody, and Peter saw one again this time. No curves or twisties, but it's definitely a pleasant and relaxing ride. Moody ends up intersecting with Hwy 280 again right next to Foothill College (where I play viola in the orchestra). We hopped back on 280 North, and took the Page Mill exit again, but this time headed north up to Fry's to look for headsets for our Talkabouts.
Pictures:
Sorry the pictures aren't as good as usual; we chose not to go back for Peter's digital camera, so we had to make do with my film camera and scanned-in pictures. Someday I'll get me a digital camera. :D
OK, that's more than enough for tonight. :)