At the Track

Perfect weather and fast bikes. Can't beat it.

We Did It

1090 miles from Dallas to Kingman. We left around 6:00am Dallas time and got here at about 11:00pm local time. Now we just have get the paperwork together and hope the Iron Butt guys can figure it out.

Time for sleep!

Over the Halfway Point

Time for a late lunch stop in Albuquerque then another 500 miles. I don't know how those guy do this for 10 days in a row.

Almost Ready to Ride!

One of the fun parts of doing a long ride (at least to me) is getting the last minute preparations done. Until now the ride is always something that's "out there" in the future so there isn't that "it's vacation time!" feeling. Now we're down to crunch time though. I took the bike into the shop for it's 12k mile service even though it's only at 10,500 miles right now. I figure the bike will be somewhere around 15k when I get back and given the choice between doing a service early or doing it late I'll choose early every time. My riding buddy John took his bike in last week but he commutes on his so he is probably a bit closer to the actual 12k mark than I am.

One thing I made sure they did during the service was to apply the latest firmware updates. I knew from reading the K1600 forum that this update changed the Neutral "N" indicator on the control panel from white to green. Other than that no one seems to know what it does. Sure enough I went to pick up the bike and the "N" was still white so I had to wait around while they did the update. I'm not sure if it was the software change or some other adjustment they did but the bike is noticeably smoother at very small throttle openings. This bike is ultra touchy and it can make even a seasoned rider look/sound pretty amateurish when poking through a parking lot. The bike right now seems to be a lot easier to ride smooth when going slow and since I'm pretty sure my right hand didn't get smoother I'm assuming the it's an improvement to the bike.

I spent a couple of hours this weekend cleaning the bike and getting a fresh coat of wax on everything as that last tiny measure of protection against the elements and I attached my latest farkles:

First is a phone case/mount that is weatherproof but still allows me to use the phone while it's mounted. I installed a nifty little speedometer app that also handles all the phone functions and a whole slew of other things related to riding.

Second was a little Touratech handlebar bag to hold my bike-to-bike radio, Sena SR10 and good old Spot Communicator. The whole setup looks like this...

The phone is mounted on the left handlebar near the grip (it's hard to miss) and the bag is that saggy looking black thing just below the control panel. I'm not keen on those handlebar mounted bags because they just don't look 'tidy' to me but in this case it's exactly the right tool for the job.

The radios are the "Motorola MT350R FRS Weatherproof Two-Way - 35 Mile Radio". 

I went with these because they are cheap, should hold up to any weather and can be charged with a normal USB charger.

The Sena SR10 is a Bluetooth hub designed especially for this kind of application. It lets me attach the radio via a wire and my phone via Bluetooth and manages the connection to my helmet. A push-to-talk button is strapped on my left grip that lets me chat with John while riding when needed. When nothing is coming in on the Sena the helmet listens to the bike system so I can jam to tunes if I want (and I usually do). It looks pretty much like this when set up...

We did a short test ride today to make sure everything is going to work and I think I'm ready to go. A few quirks about the way the phone works in that case revealed themselves but nothing that makes me want to leave it at home so the only thing left now is to pack and wait.

Oh, I also treated myself to a new jacket for the ride. The now discontinued BMW Motorsport 2 Jacket. I just like the looks and fit of this jacket and I've always wanted a BMW jacket  so by golly now I have one! Unfortunately none of my back protectors fit in this jacket so I'm on the hunt for an 'official' BMW back protector or I'll be doing some temporary tweaks to adapt it to one I already have.

Another Year, Another Road Trip

It's that time again, time to prepare for my ride to see the WSBK races. But this year is different - the races aren't in Salt Lake City and they aren't on Memorial Day. The 2013 event is at Mazda Raceway in Laguna Seca on the Monterey peninsula in California and it's happening at the end of September. That means a few things are different for me.

First of all the ride is a bit longer, something on the order of 4,100 miles instead of 3,500 miles. It also means I'll get so see some new territory that I haven't explored on a bike - some places I've never been to at all. The way the ride is split up the extra miles really happen on the way out to the race since I tend to wander around on the return trip anyway. In order to make it all the way to the coast in two days I'll be doing a marathon 1000+ mile day to get things started. I figure if I'm going to do that many miles I might as well go for an Iron Butt certification. 

Another difference is that I won't be riding alone on this trip. John, a friend that I met through my wife is joining me for this one. He rides a BMW K1600 GT which is the sportier version of my bike. I've ridden with John before and I think we have similar enough styles that it's going to be an easy change for me. Plus he knows what he's doing with that bike so I'm not at all worried about having to 'manage' his riding - if anything it will be the other way around!

We are still tweaking the route a bit but so far it's a combination of a non-stop blast straight west through New Mexico and most of Arizona on day 1 then another full day to Carmel California. The ride back hits San Francisco, Yosemite, and Vegas the first couple of days. After that we get into some of my old favorites and visit Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, Escalante, Moab, The Million Dollar Highway, and finally Santa Fe New Mexico.

A map view of the plan as it stands today. The purple line is the outbound route and teal is the return trip...

Hotel Reservations are made and today the last variable was taken care of when the tickets for the event showed up...

I'm already getting psyched up for this ride.