Mental Hygiene, or the bike as therapist

After work I was feeling frustrated and cranky and a wee bit stressed out. There was a big motorcycle event that I had thought about going to, but the idea of happily chatting with masses of people was about as appealing as being hit on the head repeatedly with a brick, so I'd decided to go home.

However, I had a few crucial errands to do, and as I headed towards the last one, Penny started talking to me. She told me that a ride to Squamish would be just the thing to clear my brain, and that yes, we did have time to go. I tried to tell her I had stuff to do, but she reminded me that the forecast for the rest of the week was rain, and that I should get a ride in while I could. That last point won me over, so errands completed, I headed over the Lions Gate Bridge and off, off and away.

Flying out the freeway towards the S2S, I could feel the tension starting to leave my brain, floating with the wind whipping by. It almost returned as I got caught behind cars and a cruiser who couldn't corner well but sped through the straight bits. But, finally, in the face of the gorgeous sunset kissed landscape and the winding curves, the tension dissapated, leaving me free and happy. Had my burrito in Squamish, turned around and headed straight back. The road back was free and empty, and my spirit lifted from the neutral point where it had landed after the ride up and got positively bouyant. Even getting held up by construction for 10 minutes didn't bother me, because I'd moved to the head of the line and knew I'd have free and open road the rest of the way back.

By the time I got home, I was ready to go cheerfully back to work the next day.

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SpeedyBikeGirls do Squamish

Last night, I arranged a group ride to get to know some of the women on the website we hadn't ridden with yet. And, after telling everyone to be there at 5:30, gassed up and ready to go, I got stuck in traffic getting out of Richmond and was late myself. And it was hot. And I was in full gear, and sweat was running down my legs and pooling in my boots by the time I got there. And then we had to wait around some more because Jay's boyfriend had cleaned her bike and gotten WD40 on her brake pads, and she ended up having to go home. And then there was more traffic on the bridge. So we were very late getting to the church where we were meeting the northshore/downtown contingent.

At the church we split up into slow and fast groups and got on our way. Only to get stuck in an endless traffic jam which was the result of a multi-car pileup. It was especially frustrating because the flag idiots were letting through all of the southbound traffic and then alternating with only about 5 cars from the northbound side. And there wasn't really a safe way to get a group of bikes to the front of the line.

Which did mean that once we got through and passed the few campers that came through with us, we had an absolutely perfect ride. The vistas were amazing, with the sun and shadow dappling over the rock faces and forest, and the blasts of cold air from the crags in the mountain jetting out at us as we passed. By the time we got to Squamish all of the frustration of the lateness and the heat and the waiting was gone, replaced by pure exhileration.

We had a lovely dinner, and I found out that Dave and Ace had/worked in a related area to me and that we knew people in common, and then rode back into the twilight. Another great ride back with little traffic, broken only by the roadblock - the cops laughingly asked if we'd been drinking.

Most people headed home after that, but Tackle and I can never get enough, so we headed up Cypress on the way home. It was the second night in a row I'd been up a mountain after dark as the night previous I'd gone up Seymour with BCRider. It's very interesting riding curves in real dark, when you can watch the angle of the beam from your headlight change as you dip in the corners. Riding in a group you see pools of light dipping and weaving with the riders. But it means that it's very hard to corner because you can't look through the corner far enough ahead. I found myself flicking on my high beams in corners when I was following others. On the way down Cypress I learned to watch the headlight of the rider in front of me and look through the corner that way.

We got held up a bit both ways by a horror movie being filmed on the road (with body parts in car trunks apparently), and had our ear talked off by the Suzuki-goldwing-clone owning security dude at the top who hadn't been on his bike in two years. But the night was so warm and pleasant and the more complete darkness on the road made the waiting a pleasant pause rather than an imposition as the earlier waits had been.

(Not) Getting to the Church on time

Photo by Dave

Feelin' hot, hot, hot!


Feelin' bored, bored, bored...


At least we had a view...


Rest of photos by Dave:

Meeting (thankfully not eating) at McDonalds



Outside the pub


The helmet table


On the top of Cypress


Tackle tries out my passenger seat and pronounces it comfortable

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To Diablo and back

Tackle and I had been looking forward to the May Long Weekend for months. We'd planned a 3 day trip to the Olympic Peninsula and Oregon Coast, and had 3 or 4 other people interested in coming along. But, as it grew nearer, it became apparent that the weather was going to be wet. Very wet. So, at the last minute, and faced with desertion by every other interested person, we decided to cancel and just go for a long ride on Saturday, the only day that looked to be good. Late on Friday night, we decided to go south, and head for Winthrop, to see how far we'd get.

We headed for the border, to find at least a 50 minute wait, so we scooted along farmland along the border and cut in the line at Sumas. After finding gas for Tackle, we headed on the road. We found that staying on Hwy 9 from Huntington is definitely inferior to the other route along 547 and 542 - more crowded and less twisty. Shortly after the two routes merged and we passed all the traffic, we noticed two other bikers behind us. They stayed nicely back, passing when we did, but not attempting to come up past us. When I pulled over in Sedro Wooley to talk to Tackle, she told me that they were BCRider and Allison, two of those who had planned on coming on our weekend trip. They were heading off on a three day trip to try and evade the rain in Eastern WA. We hurried to catch up to them, and decided to ride together for a bit.

I found us the South Slocan Highway, a route that avoided the towns along the north side of the river. I enjoyed the route, which swept nicely along the river through farmland and forest, but Tackle, with her lowered suspension, hated it because the pavement was bad - Penny is not bothered as much by this as a pure sportbike.

We then headed up into the Cascades, letting BCRider take the lead - I quickly found myself being pushed a wee bit beyond my limits as we twisted our way up into the mountains, but slowed down when I needed to and caught up later. Tackle and I turned back at the Diablo Dam overlook.

We ate lunch at the Buffalo Bar, or some such, in Marblemount. Not recommended - the food was edible, but that's about it. We then decided to take the road unknown and head south along 530 for a bit before looping north and returning home. That was nice - deserted and mostly sweeping curves through the forest and farms.

The rain hit right about at the southernmost point, just spitting at us a bit. We took the scenic route back up along Route 9. That route is worth doing, but we were getting tired and there was traffic that was hard to pass. Despite that, and despite the increasing rain, we decided to head up on 11 (Chuckanut Drive) rather than the I5. The stretch of 11 before Chuckanut is straight and boring, but the Chuckanut was nice, as always, even if I was too tired to really appreciate it.

Finally got on the I5 at Bellingham and headed home in the rain. By the time I got home, I was fairly wet from the waist down as water came in at the fly and the bottom of my pants don't fasten. Also, my boots leak. But the moisture was definitely worth a great ride, 598 km in all. Tackle and I ride well together, with similar speeds, views on stopping and eating and all the important things, and hopefully we'll get to do a bunch more long rides this summer.

Trip Map


Unexpected but welcome companions


Me and tackle


Me and tackle from the other side


Where Swedes go after death...

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Penny's back and raring to go

Well, after 3 days of riding the R1150R, I've decided that Penny doesn't have to worry just yet. She's just so much lighter and nimbler and since a lot of my riding is in traffic, it's nice to have that littleness. And BMW just does not set up their grips for people with small hands - even with the adjustable clutch my hands were sore after dealing with rush hour traffic (though I did come to like the turn signal arrangement, with left on the left side and right and cancel on the right).

Penny did feel really small when I first got back on her, and I had gotten used to the increased accelerative power of the 1150, but I was exhilerated as I sped home to be on something that felt more like a part of me than something I was riding.

Besides, I'd kinda missed her purring, thumping rumble. I know the boxers are supposed to be a little loud, but I found it quiet, and I didn't like all the mechanical whining as servos powered up and down.

Oh, and Penny's problem? Turned out that the wiring harness needed to be replaced, which is somewhat of a weird thing to have happen to a relatively new bike. Thankfully it was still under warranty.

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Riding in the Storm

Riding in the storm
Raindrops bounce, rivers on road
Pants not waterproof

So, I stopped in at Hot Rod's to chat with her and tackle as they changed tackle's oil, and also to show off my loaner. Of course, the time I chose to leave coincided directly with a thunderstorm moving from my place to hers. The rain was coming down in sheets, visibility was extremely limited and I would hope that any cultures of miniture people resident in these parts had built arks, otherwise their civilizations went the way of Atlantis. The smart thing to do would probably have been to wait for a few minutes more at Hot Rod's, but we had no idea how long it would last, nor how bad it would be. Thankfully I'd taken the R1150R rather than the Ducati!

Oh, and my pants have some sort of design flaw that allows pools of water to come in at, hmm, a sensitive region. Rather cooling. Baileys and hot chocolate were definitely called for when I got home.

But Hot Rod took these pictures of me on the beast:

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Boxer may spell trouble for Penny

Oh-oh, I think Penny's in trouble! It seems I parked too close to Hot Rod's Gizmo, and the gremlins that inhabit that bike sent out a colonizing party. Penny's having some very interesting electrical and mechanical issues. The best is the neutral light - it works in reverse (it's on when the bike is in gear), but only if the side stand is down - if it's up, it doesn't come on at all.

But that's not why she's in trouble. No, she's in the shop, where hopefully the nice BMW boys can exorcise the gremlins (which may actually be iatrogenic in nature). The reason she's in trouble is that John Valk lent me an R1150R to ride while they perform their rites and services. And, well, lets just say it took me about 60 km to come home from Kits to the Drive, and I'm only home because I'm tired and have a lot to do. What a sweet bike to ride - it feels like floating and takes curves without even trying. I barely made it into 3rd gear. I'm OK with them taking a day or two to finish fixing Penny up and wish I didn't have to work tomorrow. Wooo-hooo!

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Monday Drivers

This is the first morning I've really questioned my wisdom in riding all the time. I almost got shmucked this morning by a lane changer - thankfully he was a slow lane changer. When I caught up to him at the light and yelled at him, he rolled down the light and was like "I did look - you were in my blind spot - I used to ride - bla bla bla". Leaving aside his obvious fault in not carefully checking his blind spot, I should have paid more attention to him - I do try to ride without ever staying in someone's blind spot, but it's not possible to never be in one - I was trying to get past him quite honestly, and had dismissed him and gone on to the next thing when he shocked me by trying to share my lane - this was bad defensive riding on my part.

But the fact that I could do that scared the sh*t out of me and made me feel like maybe I ought not to ride all the time.

I think I'm over that now, but I did have to vent/share.

I guess I should reaffirm that it's nice to be alive. Though, as it is Monday, maybe not.

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Vancouver as a small town

Coming out of London Drugs on Broadway with my purchases. I wasn't too surprised to see a cruiser rider pull a uey to come and park by me - after all, there was a free spot. I wasn't expecting to have any other connection with him.

However, as it turned out, he'd mostly come to check out my bike, as guys do (come on, she's nice, but look at me too!), asking questions about the belt drive, single-sided swing arm, single cylinder engine, gas tank and all. Luckily, by this point I've figured out the right comments to make so as to sound like I know what I'm talking about (really, I don't care about any of that stuff - I just like riding her).

As this comment dance progressed I heard down the street - "Hey, that looks like CopperLioness*' bike - hey, that is CopperLioness' bike - hey CopperLioness!" Turned out to be one of my bike-riding rugby teammates. Fair enough - she works at the nearby hospital.

But when Vancouver really started to seem small was when one of the two colleagues she was with said hi to his friend, the cruiser rider! Who knew I was but two degrees of separation away from a random cruiser rider?

*Of course, she said my name, but I don't share my name online.

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