cheesecake picture for you today.
I took the bike up to San Francisco to go clubbing at Bound last weekend, and Sam and I decided to have some fun and take pictures on the bike. Don't say I never do anything for you. ;)

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• Saddlebags. I fell in love with the Tourmaster Cortech tailbag and saddlebags. I sent a query out to the SV mailing list I'm on, to see if anyone had used them, and got some very nice pictures and comments back from people. Peter and I headed down to Road Rider in San Jose, and they had the saddlebags (not the tailbag), so I borrowed them (with permission) and brought them out to the parking lot to fit on the bike. Just as I'd heard, the bags are a bit too long for the SVS; the way that the turn signal stalks stick out in back cause the front strap of the saddlebags to hang over onto the front seat (as opposed to fitting completely on the pillion seat). Since I'm small and sit smooshed up against the tank anyway, I didn't even notice. So, I went home and ordered the bags from Competition Accessories (they give a 10% discount to AMA members!). I had them sent to work, so I rode home with the whole apparatus attached to the SVS. I was really happy with how it all worked. I ended up taking some crap in the tailbag up to the city last Friday night, and it was perfect. I didn't have to fight with bungee nets, and the bag has a lot of space. I'm really happy I got these bags. And now, my lovely assistants will model them:

  

• Sunglasses. I love my $8 sunglasses from Walgreens. Unfortunately, I decided it would be appropriate to sit on them, lens-side down, on concrete. Oops. The big ass scratch finally got too annoying, and I decided to get "real" sunglasses. I had originally hoped to get some polarized glasses, but it turns out that looking through coated plastic -- like a faceshield -- while wearing polarized sunglasses causes some really trippy color distortion. I brought my helmet and my friend Chris to the local yuppie sunglasses store this afternoon, and I tried on a bunch of glasses alone and then with the helmet. I liked some of the Oakley pairs, but the earpieces were curved, and I couldn't even get them on while wearing the helmet. I ended up getting a pair of Ray-Ban Orbs Titanium Oval glasses. The ride home with them tonight was really nice; amazing what non-scratched up lenses can do for you. ;)

  

• Platypus. The other day, I dragged Chris into the yuppie bicycle shop with me to look at CamelBaks, but I didn't really feel like spending $40 at the yuppie store. So I did a bit of research, and found the Platypus water bottle, which holds up to a liter of water, but is made from non-yuckky-plastic-tasting collapsable plastic. I bought the version with the drinking tube (with a bite-down valve, like the CamelBak), so I can stick it in my tank bag and still drink from it while I'm at stop lights or whatever. This is A Good Thing, since the weather report says it's supposed to be over 100 degrees in Redding next week. Joy! Anyway, the Platypus hasn't arrived in the mail yet, but hopefully will soon.

in other news.
Peter's clutch is still broken. He broke down and called Greg the Mechanic yesterday, but unfortunately, Greg's backed up for about three weeks. Suck. So Peter and I are going to take the clutch apart yet again this weekend and see if we can un-clusterfuck it. *sigh* This is the sort of problem that would be a ton of fun to work on and play with if, for example, fixing Peter's clutch was my full-time job. Or if he had another bike to ride while we messed around with it. But as it stands, he won't ride the Nighthawk for whatever reason, and the weekends are passing us by while his bike is just sitting there. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting around and not riding while waiting for Peter to be able to join me. But it's getting annoying that, aside from going to Road Rider that one time, we haven't ridden together at all in over three months. Feh.

Speaking of riding without Peter, I got an invitation to go up to Skyline again this weekend with Paul and the gang and Paul's wife. They were really fun to ride with, so I'm looking forward to getting together with them again. I figure they're doing a short ride, just up to Four Corners, since his wife hasn't ridden that much up there, so I can fit in the ride in the morning and still come back and work on Peter's clutch in the afternoon. Sounds like a good life to me.