fun with guns
The rest of the shooting range pictures.

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We started out at Helimot at 9am; I brought donuts and Helimot provided coffee. There were about a dozen gals that met us there, and we all wandered the store and chatted with Helmut and Linda. The coolest part about the Helimot visit was that Helmut and Linda divided us up into two groups and gave us tours of the factory half of the shop, where all of the suits are custom-made. It was really interesting. I'd been back there before, but it was cool to have Helmut explain their stitching process and show us huge rolls of cow and pig hides, etc.

After leaving Helimot, we rode to Road Rider for some gear and accessory shopping. I bought a couple of oil filters there (hey, one can never have too many oil filters...as evidenced by my small pile of them at home), plus a service manual for Kim. It was definitely lunchtime post-Road Rider, and we hopped onto the freeway and rode up to Sunnyvale to Carrows. It's like Denny's -- not the world's best food, but they've got a wide variety, and it's cheap and fast. Perfect for a group of hungry riders. We sat around and told the requisite tall tales and flat out lies about our bikes and rides and etc. A couple people had peeled off at various points, so we ended up with six people at lunch. It was the perfect size; we didn't all know each other really well, and it was a small enough group to actually talk to/be able to hear everyone.

Carrows is right down the street from Hare Racing (the main reason that we went there for lunch), our next and final stop. Linda Keigwin walked us around the shop and talked to us about their service department and their track days. There was a Moto Guzzi on the dyno when we got there, and damn, it sounded awesome. Linda invited us to toss our bikes on the dyno, so Diana and I obliged. The SVS is running a respectable 66hp at the rear wheel, with a gorgeous flat line for the air-fuel mixture chart. It's a tiny bit lean at idle, but The Helpful Friendly Hare Racing Guy Whose Name I Never Got said that another half-turn out on the air-fuel mixture screw should fix that.

We all got a kick out of Diana's bike going on the dyno. I don't think that any of us -- including Diana -- had any idea what to expect out of it, but it ended up with something like 45hp [Note: Diana says it was 47.6 ;) ] on the rear wheel. Not bad! Our favorite moment was when The Helpful Friendly Hare Racing Guy Whose Name I Never Got revved it up and it got all sputtery and died, and he couldn't restart it...he puttered for a second and it kicked back on. After the dyno run, he turned to us all red-faced and said "I didn't notice that the gas was off!" It was really cute.

After the dyno, we sat around on the couch with another guy whose Hayabusa was in line for the dyno, and watched a preview DVD for stunter DVDs. A couple of them looked pretty good. We oohed and ahhed at the good stunts, and laughed at the squids when they crashed. The Hayabusa guy and I agreed that it'd be pretty cool if someone just gave us second bikes to learn stunts on, so that we wouldn't have to trash our primary bikes.

the evil robot rides pillion.
Peter and I went to the shooting range with Mark yesterday, and I decided to ride pillion on the Superhawk. We realized a couple of days ago that I'd never ridden on the back of that bike, so I thought it'd be fun to give it a shot.

The seat itself was far less comfortable than the pillion seat of the VF700, but the overall position was a lot better for me. The Superhawk's pillion seat is higher than the rider seat, so I could almost keep my head straight and see over Peter's shoulder. He's so much taller than me that I usually had to keep my head cranked over to the side on the VF700, which was pretty much just as painful as it sounds.

It's been a while since I rode pillion at all (about a year and a half, if I'm remembering correctly), and I did better this time at not flinching every time Peter didn't brake/shift when I would have, or vice-versa. That part drives me the most nuts about being a passenger. I'm not much of a backseat driver in the car, but I'm terrible when it comes to the bike. I don't think I was too annoying about analyzing his riding style later, either...though Peter may argue otherwise. ;)